Read God Game, by Andrew M Greely.

Yes, we are virtual. The problem is that our operating systems are prone to glitches and error messages.

The problem is that our operating systems are prone to glitches and error messages.

Those are features.

"I got an awesome graphics card in my brain....everything looks so real!"

Dork.

I'm wondering at the fact that we, as a species, seem to be moving in the direction of becoming gods.

That, or we will destroy ourselves by doing something like trying to weigh the Higg Bosun particle.

how big of a stretch is it to imagine that somewhere someone is marvelling at the realism with which their character is typing this blog?

When I was a kid one of my favorite daydreams was to imagine that I was being watched/controlled by some unkown sentience. Then, at times, I would leave my body and become the thing observing me. With an angled top-down view just like in Ultima Onlie.

Where do I sign up to be a human battery (ref. The Matrix)?

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Did you ever get around to reading "The Things They Carried"? If so, what did you think?

poop

Yeah, I'm playing the lowly "dependent" version of that game...my ID card to gain access to the base doesn't even have a microchip in it.

If i'm virtual, which is to say that i'm a character in a game (see: the matrix), then my question is, am i in charge of what programs my character runs in?

right now my character is running multiple programs, to include:
Cowboy 8.0
Air Force Maint. Coordinator E-6, which is an upgrade from Airborne Infantryman E-5. (a lot of people didn't think that upgrade would work... pfft... they didn't think the software was compatible... what do they know?)
Michael 30 interfaces with Michelle 26 on a regular basis, and this seems to keep my character happy.

one other question though... you play MMORPGs, AND you have friends in real life? that just doesn't add up. your character must be really evolved or something.

Steve,

Are we in Italy? Do they not have internet there? No activity on Ock's World...por quoi?

Dave

'are WE virtual?'

Yes, we’re most definitely virtual.

how big of a stretch is it to imagine that somewhere someone is marvelling at the realism with which their character is typing this blog?

You're right. All is not what it seems down here. Ever heard of the Elohim? They're the 'someone' you're talking about.

"Let us make man in our image and likeness" - Genesis 1.26.

Who is this "us", to which the Bible refers? It's the Elohim, who resided in the Garden of Eden, (Heaven-Paradise - the spiritual and True dimension). Adam and Eve are the Elohim's descendants, who were in turn created in the image and likeness of God, the Father.

It's true that whilst living down here on earth, it’s like living in the Matrix. Even though most of us assume that this is the "real world", and that our earthly life is the be all and end all of our existence, there is a Real World beyond our earthly awareness. (Heaven awaits us beyond the veil of death.)

JC is supreme head of all Creation - the Heavens and the Earth - and the Angels and the Elohim are next in the hierarchy. We are Adam and Eve's descendants, who were driven from Paradise when they chose to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It wasn't possible for Adam and Eve to taste the fruits of evil in Paradise, because pain doesn't exist there. Therefore they had to "fall” from Eden to Earth in order to eat the fruits of good and evil – and thus garner the full scope of wisdom. (That's what it means to "become like God, knowing good and evil".)

somewhere someone is marvelling at the realism with which their character is typing this blog

Ockham, someone is indeed marvelling at the realism with which this character, (me), (and you), are typing these blogs. There's a bigger picture, and life goes far deeper than most of us assume.

Andy

Kind of goes along the same lines of we are merely the dream of some other entity.

Kind of goes along the same lines of we are merely the dream of some other entity.

That's also true, from a certain point of view.

"In the beginning, God" (Gen. 1.1) ... "God is Spirit" (John 4.24)

God is the fundamental reality. Everything else is merely God's Idea, including the Heavens and the Earth, and including all of life. We're all figmants of God's Imagination. God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, and as God's Spirit transcends and encompasses everything, then our so-called "reality" is merely part of God's Dream (i.e. in His Consciousness).

God must have dreamt it all up for an all-wise and beneficent purpose, otherwise He wouldn't have bothered, I'm sure.