What you wish the afterlife would be like

[JohnClay]

In the future there might be conscious beings that inhabit computers - perhaps inside neutron stars. They might have a lot of leisure time and like going inside computer simulations - "sandbox" games like GTA V which include some story missions but also the freedom to just have random fun. They would eventually get bored then want to use cheats - they could possess other beings inside the game and live their lives out. They could play the "Groundhog Day" game. But in the end, assuming the game lets them, they'd know that they can make the games be exactly how they wish. Then they'd want challenges again. These challenges could last for decades at a time as they live the lives of ordinary people from birth to adulthood. After a while they'd stop being surprised though. They would have already been in a similar situation many times. So then they could hide some memories from themselves - so they'd forget about their true identity and only remember the character they are currently playing in the game. Then at death or in a near death experience they could learn more about the true nature that they're hiding from themselves. Instead of realizing that they are omnipotent they might just learn they have some extra powers such as the power to repeat an experience, to switch bodies, to fly, to be invisible, to freeze time, etc.

So when I'd die I'd like my life to continue in some way - though I might not be initially aware of how omnipotent I am though over the course of many lifetimes I'd learn about it but then to make me be surprised again I might hide that knowledge from myself again.

BTW the people in the simulations would often just be simulations - of people from the past or invented people. Also the simulation could be run faster than real time so many lifetimes could be experienced in a short amount of time. It could use "level of detail" so fundamental particles aren't explicitly simulated unless they really need to be.

Also, what do people think this says about my morality, etc? (That I'm quite self-centered?)

[Works]

I prefer for there to be nothing.

[JohnClay]

Being actually a god would involve playing hide and seek with yourself. It would be like doing a jig-saw puzzle and watching things fall into place. Many people enjoy jig-saw puzzles.
BTW in video games these days you often have to finish the game to enable the "cheats". Though I'd rather they were unlocked already to make the game easier to play in the first place.

About neutron stars:
books.google.com.au/books?isbn=0312700903
Do a search for "clockspeed".

BTW my idea explains exactly why my life might be why it is now - it is because maybe I am already experiencing the afterlife - I have some thoughts about what the afterlife is like but I don't have my powers. Things fall into place every now and then though. BTW I said to some people that I'd believe in God if I got the house that I currently live in. Then I changed my mind and my wife said I was just making excuses.

In GTA XXXV NPC's would begin with memories of their earlier lives (that didn't really happen) - or maybe their memories would be "real". The simulation could begin from the big bang and then there would be guided evolution to ensure that humans evolved and guided history to ensure the right historical events happened - events that are a bit of a parody of the "actual" events (which may also be a simulation). Some weird supernatural events could be thrown in so that people aren't sure whether there is a supernatural realm.

[JohnClay]

I prefer for there to be nothing.

That's one of my favorites too.

[Polemarch]

*early candidate for thread of the year 2014*

The "I forgot I'm an immortal God-like being" premise you've written about is actually a somewhat common trope in spiritual circles (and fiction*). It is, for example, the basic premise of Scientology, among other things.

I've actually given considerable thought to that possibility, and the reason it's interesting is because it's unfalsifiable. It also explains away the existence of a God in terms that, at least to me, seem more believable. The way you've introduced the idea also makes sense - what would an immortal God-like being do when it got bored of its immortal existence? What if our ability to enjoy existence is defined by struggle, and the greatest challenge for an omnipotent being is to make the sandbox interesting? Isn't this just an extension of the typical flavor of existential anxiety, taken to its logical extreme? In the absence of anything being difficult, what's left to distract one's self from the meaninglessness of existence?

Finding meaning is sometimes about selective blindness. An immortal God-like being needs to take drastic measures to create that.

* Examples in fiction include things like Inception, eXistenZ, Vanilla Sky/Abre Los Ojos etc.

This is all a thread-jack of course; to answer your question, I hope the afterlife is a place where I can find peace, and learn to accept and appreciate the nature of existence.

[JohnClay]

About "The Simpsons Game":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7w2L...utu.be&t=2m11s

[JohnClay]

Maybe NPC's from games such as GTA XXXV could become companions in other experiences where their personalities are exported and imported into other "games". They could even be given the chance to become a standalone character that can choose their own destiny. Also systems of magic, etc, could be available in "reality" (the current game).

[JohnClay]

BTW this type of theology doesn't necessarily need a truly infinite god.... it just needs sufficiently advanced technology like in eXistenZ and Vanilla Sky. I like that if you prove your worthiness (e.g. being sufficiently "good" within a lifetime [or during a day (Groundhog Day]) you are rewarded with whatever rewards your higher self thinks you currently deserve. And that could be any kind of power that you could imagine.

[JohnClay]

Cheating in the Game of Life - A True Story written in 2008.

Back in the December of 2005 I wondered if life was real. Were we perfect gods who were playing hide and seek with ourselves through the game of life?
Back in the year 2000 I also questioned reality. I read books by Ken Keyes about how to be content with life all of the time. I came to believe that I was a perfect viewer watching the drama of life unfold. By having loving preferences rather than demands, only positive and neutral emotions remained. His books said to just play out your normal role but I thought I could help the world more by changing into whatever personality I felt like at the time. I think that we secretly crave threats to things we care about otherwise life can seem boring and meaningless. I think that’s why I put myself into riskier and riskier situations. I ended up trying to help criminals in Fortitude Valley become happy but after visiting the police too many times, I was taken to the hospital.
In the December of 2005 I had been off of my mood stabilizer for about 5 months. I wrote on three different internet messageboards – the Internet Infidels – which was mainly populated by those who don’t believe in any gods, the No More Mr Nice Guy boards – which is made up of men who want to be courageous men rather than miserable doormats. The third messageboard was on seduction.gr which was a website where people shared expensive videos and files related to picking up women. At that time I became more interested in seduction.gr’s ebooks about David Deida’s ideas about masculine and feminine archetypes and the King-Warrior-Magician-Lover system. I also learnt about the Myers-Briggs personality system which has 16 types. For at least five years I had been interested in kabalarians.com and thought it was very accurate. It is based on a type of numerology where letters in people’s names are converted into numbers and then in a personality profile. I started making my own personality systems using diagrams based on 4 parts and was encouraged when I learnt about mandala’s which are pictures supposedly based on our underlying reality which had 4 main parts. This got me into thinking that reality was ultimately based on symbols – like a computer game’s code. And computer games often include cheat codes and if they don’t the game can be hacked.
I had also read about hypnotism and set about writing hypnotic messages on the messageboards to try to pull the readers into a fantasy world where normal physical limitations didn’t apply. I heard that about 10% of people are able to be hypnotised so that anything can be made to disappear before their eyes. Those 10% were who I was particularly interested in.
Is Life Real?
I typed in for the title. I then typed a long message where I tried to guess the readers’ thoughts in the hope of gaining their trust.
Here is a philosophical story that you might enjoy reading... you might learn something about fixing depression. Or maybe you're not depressed so it doesn't matter. Just go back to your real life and have fun!!!! Yay!!!! Isn’t real life so fun!!! That was only a fake smile!!! Maybe you had half a smile then... or maybe you're still depressed. Well I guess you can see a psychiatrist and go to a mental hospital or read this crazy story. You might somehow learn something from this story... maybe... but I don't want to impose on you... only read it if you've got time and you're bored or something. It's just a worthless story I've been thinking about... it could be made into a more realistic "Matrix" kind of movie... the story is about a character who has a depressed life and they see a story on some messageboard or something, and maybe in an email... well I guess you don't want to read it. The End
You really don't want to read it. If you do, things won't seem real and people will think you're crazy. DON'T READ THIS!!!! THIS IS HARMFUL TO YOUR MENTAL HEALTH!!!! STOP NOW AND KEEP YOUR SANITY!!! DO YOU WANT TO BE SOME INSANE HIPPY THAT THINKS EVERYTHING IS EVERYTHING AND NOTHING!!! THAT'S ILLOGICAL THEREFORE FALSE!!! THE RULES OF LOGIC DEFINE REALITY!!! YOU'RE CRAZY!!! GET HELP NOW!!! WHAT'S YOUR NAME!!! WHERE DO YOU LIVE!!!! I CAN HELP!!!! TELL ME NOW!!! YOU NEED HELP!!! NOW!!! YOU'RE INSANE!!!! YOU'RE CRAZY!!!! JUST FORGET ABOUT THIS NONSENCE AND GET BACK TO REALITY!!! DO YOU WANT TO BE LOCKED UP??? YOU SHOULD BE LOCKED UP AND THEY SHOULD THROW AWAY THE KEY!!! YOUR WAY OF THINKING IS BAD FOR CIVILIZATION!!!!! JUST ACCEPT THAT THINGS ARE REAL AND FACE YOUR CHALLENGES AND FIND SOME HAPPINESS IN LIFE!!! JUST ACCEPT IT!!! AND YOUR PROBLEM IS THAT YOU JUST DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD!!! YOU ARE LOST!!! ACCEPT JESUS INTO YOUR LIFE AND THEN YOU'LL BE HAPPY!!!!! HEAVEN IS WONDERFUL!!! I KNOW SOME PEOPLE SAY THAT THERE IS A HELL BUT THEY'RE JUST CRAZY!!! GOD IS LOVE!!! EVERYTHING IS OK!!! YOU'RE IN REALITY!!!! THIS ISN'T A DREAM!!! JUST ACCEPT REALITY AND BELIEVE THAT GOD IS LOVE OR SOMETHING. YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE THAT OR YOU WON'T BE HAPPY

TO BE CONTINUED
I posted the message on all three messageboards, using capital letters to try and hammer in my words.
WELL YOU JUST READ THE FIRST PART, NOW ONTO THE NEXT PART OF THE STORY... IT SEEMS LIKE THIS STORY IS TRUE DOESN'T IT? WELL I'M JUST USING SOME HYPNOTIC TECHNIQUES... IT'S PRETTY COOL ISN'T IT!!! I CAN READ YOUR THOUGHTS!!! WELL I DIDN'T READ THEM CORRECTLY THAT TIME, BUT I'M GETTING BETTER... AND MY KNOWLEDGE OF YOU WILL JUST GET BETTER AND BETTER AND YOU WILL THINK YOU'RE IN A FANTASTIC DREAM. ARE YOU HYPNOTIZED YET...

TO BE CONTINUED
I posted the next message expecting that my messages would allow people to realise first-hand that life was like a computer game and that it would either make the world’s news or be suppressed as soon as possible. I wanted extra help in the game of life in the form of a genie. Perhaps I would get a phone call soon where the game is surrendering and offering to grant wishes. I had a headache and was sweating a lot and put that down to the game trying to protect itself from cheaters who might spoil the experience for others. I would just drench my head in water to stop overheating – I don’t remember drinking water.
USING THE LATEST NLP AND HYPNOSIS TECHNIQUES, I'M GOING TO TRY AND TAKE OVER YOUR MIND.
I typed on, while not considering that I could be one of those hypnotized readers.
IF YOU READ ON, YOU WILL BE LOCKED UP IN A MENTAL INSTITUTION BECAUSE YOU ARE INSANE. YOU DON'T WANT TO BE INSANE DO YOU?
I was worried that people from the hospital would be taking me away soon so I had to hurry and get this finished.
SO KEEP ON TYPING THIS STORY...
I complied with my own command since there didn’t seem to be any people from the hospital around at that moment.
YES, LOOK AT THAT PICTURE OF SCOOBY DOO ABOVE YOU...
I looked on the wall above my computer to check to see if the picture was still there.
WHAT? YOU DON'T SEE IT? WELL YOU WILL IF YOU KEEP TYPING THIS STORY...
I assumed some readers out there didn’t see what I’m seeing yet – I thought they should keep on typing like I was.
YES, PRESS THOSE BUTTONS AND MAGICAL THINGS WILL HAPPEN. JUST WAIT AND SEE...
I made that message appear on the messageboard and then typed some more sentences about what was happening or will happen such as the phone ringing or the sound of thunder.


I decided that I’d pressed enough buttons. I kept on describing more things that I could see. Then I tried to change what was happening around me just by thinking. I wished that a girl called Tobey would appear behind my bedroom door. She was about 3 years younger than me, with straight, long, brown hair and deep brown eyes. When I was at university in the year 2000, she lived in an eight-bedroom flat with me. She didn’t appear.
I decided to wander around the house. I wished life was better. I wandered past the kitchen. The sky outside seemed brighter. I walked to the back door. Then I turned around and saw a girl who looked a bit like Tobey sitting at my Dad’s laptop. I later realized that she was a family friend from Germany.
The appearance and behaviour of the girl who appeared sitting at that computer wasn’t what I wanted. After going towards her I retreated. She started to smile and say “what?”. I liked that so I moved towards her again. She then seemed uneasy and withdrew a little so I did too and the process repeated a few times until I was moving so close that her face was filling up my view – I was almost kissing her.
I gave up on the girl by the laptop and wished that a genie would appear to grant me wishes – or at least that there was help for dissatisfied customers. My wishes didn’t seem to be happening so I thought I’d give up temporarily by lying on the ground and closing my eyes. I rose to find things about the same so I lay down again. I did this a few times then went into my lounge room. I continued to stand up and lie down until I met a bearded man (who I later realized was my father) who was offering what I saw a cup of life-giving fluid. I went towards him a little to encourage helpfulness in the game but then retreated because I didn’t feel like a drink at the time. He also offered food but I refused it too.
I lay on the floor again and instead of getting up and lying down I’d just move my arm back and forth which represented me seeking or avoiding aspects of my present experience. I later would shake my head left and right and then just think in dualistic systems such as yes-no, left-right, one-zero, and black-white.
Lying on the ground I overheard a conversation – two men were talking about my history of bipolar disorder – they were actually my Dad and an ambulance officer. Things seemed to just get worse and worse so I thought I’d just try and die by lying down and keeping my eyes closed. Later on my Dad said that he couldn’t lift me because I was too heavy.
Then I appeared in the ambulance – I later found out that I had been lifted off of the floor and onto the stretcher. I moved and thought to myself in those two-word systems (one-zero, on-off, etc) in time to the two-tone siren and heart-rate monitor. I wanted to have everything I wanted with just a tiny hand gesture. With my eyes closed I thought that I’d soon be bored of that and perhaps indulge in cruelty. I thought of the implications of being selfish and cruel – it meant that I had an evil heart. In my deepest thoughts I was Satan. A year later I even went around in public saying I was Satan and offering to grant people wishes if they’d do me favours. But that’s another story.
Back in the ambulance, on my left, was a lady that I again thought was a non-perfect recreation of Tobey. According to the files I obtained under the Freedom Of Information Act, I wanted to hold her hand. Perhaps I reached out to her to communicate that.
I blacked out again and went back to going back and forth between two opposites. I wondered what structure reality had. I thought about the yin-yang symbol. Was reality a battle between two opposites? I then thought about a very complicated flower image that looked like it was made up of three main loops. I can’t remember what those three loops meant exactly. Maybe one was the “right-hand path” of being a humble servant, the next was the “left-hand path” of being self-centered, and then was the “middle path” which I think involves respect and equality.
Then I was wheeled on a hospital bed through a pair of swinging doors. I thought this meant that I was being reborn. I found the sounds from the hospital interesting. There was a man talking with a very strong Scottish accent. I decided to get up and I saw that I was wearing my white and blue camouflage board shorts and I remembered who I was. I sat up and looked around. I was told to not get up so I kept on lying down.
At the hospital I was put back on mood stabilizers. This made it hard for me to be motivated to do things and I wanted to stay in bed a lot. Several weeks later I was home alone and decided that it was game over for me. I connected some tubing up to my car’s exhaust pipe and sat in the driver’s seat. Feeling restless I tried breathing in from the tube directly. I decided to put the radio on. Playing on the radio was Ben Lee’s “Gamble Everything For Love”. After that was the New Radical’s song “You Get What You Give”.
…….But when the night is falling
And you cannot find the light (light)
If you feel your dream is dying
Hold tight
You've got the music in you
You've got the music in you
One dance left
This world is gonna pull through
Don't give up
You've got a reason to live
Can't forget you only get what you give
I was starting to feel disorientated and didn’t feel very well and I decided to give life another chance. I staggered out of the car. A couple of days later I casually mentioned to my psychiatrist what I had done and was admitted into the mental ward of a hospital for the third time.


The fourth time I was admitted into hospital was in early 2007. Like other times I wasn’t having much medication – maybe just some anti-depressants. I was overcoming my fear of parties although I was still very reserved. I started to come up with theories about personalities that even included types of cars (e.g. macho, elegant, homely, etc). I started writing a book called “The Game of Life Rulebook”. Some extracts:
PLAY BY THESE RULES... OR LIFE WILL F*** YOU UP! EITHER THE COPS, THE TAXMAN, THE MENTAL INSTITUTIONS, OR BAD PEOPLE, ETC, WILL GET YOU!
DON'T TRY AND USE TRICKY TECHNIQUES TO CHEAT TOO MUCH AT THE GAME OF LIFE EITHER... THE GAME WILL GET REVENGE!
• don't preach the easy way (cheats) - only if you're called for help
• it's good to be in reality
• don't manipulate people - they need to choose freely
Superstition, messages from TV/music, magic, etc, is real and works IF you are in the right state of mind but if you try and use it to manipulate others or to prove it, it will seem just like it was a hallucination, coincidence or it won't work. Others would think you've got schizophrenia. Conspiracy theories and others talking in code is often true - if you are in the right state of mind but they involve synchronicity so it seems to others like it is just coincidences and you're reading too much into unrelated events and that you're crazy.
signs you're on the right track:
synchronocity
good ideas
miracles
signs you're on the wrong track:
misfortunes
near misses
advice messages
warning messages
I didn’t follow my own advice – I preached about what I thought was the easy way to get through life. With my theories I was detached from reality rather than being down to earth.
At the moment I just believe life has no supernatural realm behind it. That means that my wildest dreams such as meeting Tobey or ruling the world probably won’t come true. Now I have smaller dreams, such as finishing a computer game I’m sometimes working on. That project is good at keeping me down to earth because it is a regular source of frustration because of my mediocre programming skills. If I fail at creating the game how I imagine it could be I don’t feel like a failure as a person. On the other hand I do feel like a failure if I think about my real life so I don’t think about my life very often or deeply. But that’s ok with me.

==================
Follow-up.... a couple of months later I met my wife.

[Aven]

My background is not in Spirituality, because I honestly was mostly an agnostic for, pretty much most of my life, but by that same thought, we are all in contact with it since we are born whether we like it or not.
I dislike "formal Philosphy" the way it was taught to me [it is important to note that I do not dislike philosophy itself] because I always felt it lacked substance, it lacked the human touch for me, I preferred to sit down with someone or a group of someones and just talk, about life and everything, 42, whatever.

Now, I do think philosophy is something that needs to be bounced around that way, mostly because I have a really bad attention span in text, and in person, well, it's just better.

To answer your question: I have pondered this many many times. My conclusion is akin to being able to live again in the future or in another universe, part of me suspects maybe we're in something like the Matrix and partly like Inception; my Physics studies suggest to me that there is a probability of that, but I suspect reality is completely different, something so different we need to die to understand it.