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Are We Living In A Simulation?

Where We Begin Podcast Team Derek Caldwell Alycia Wood Lou Phillips Xandra Carroll

In this episode, the group discusses whether or not we are living in a simulation and the impact that idea has on our Christian faith, as well as what science has discovered about our DNA, physiology, and consciousness. 

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References:

  • Richard Dawkins, author
  • Andrew Newberg – “Why God Won’t Go Away”
  • Sharon Dirckx – “Am I Just My Brain?”

Transcript to are we living in a simulation?

00:00:00:10 – 00:00:20:12

Derek

“Are we living in a simulation?” Today on Where We Begin.

00:00:20:12 – 00:00:36:15

Derek

Hey, guys, welcome back to Where We Begin, a podcast where we discuss some of the toughest objections to the Christian faith. I’m your host, Derek Caldwell, joined again by – that’s not funny. People can pronounce things differently and doesn’t have to be –

00:00:36:15 – 00:00:37:02

Lou

I liked it.

00:00:37:02 – 00:00:50:17

Derek

You don’t make fun of everyone. I’m joined again by Alycia Wood, Lou Phillips, and Xandra Carroll. I would like to say I always go in that order because I go with who’s closest to me. But that, by no means, is not my order of favorite.

00:00:50:17 – 00:00:51:04

Alycia

Yes it is.

00:00:51:19 – 00:00:53:20

Lou

So what would be your order?

00:00:54:07 – 00:01:04:06

Derek

So the question that we have today is, are we living in a simulation? Is this like The Matrix?

00:01:04:07 – 00:01:08:16

Lou

Oh, wow. Finishing each other’s sentences. Man, we are like best friends.

00:01:08:17 – 00:01:11:21

Derek

Wow. We are. Did we just become best friends?

00:01:12:04 – 00:01:12:15

Lou

Yup.

00:01:13:06 – 00:01:14:03

Alycia

I’m your favorite. You named me first, remember?

00:01:14:15 – 00:01:16:09

Derek

Okay. Sure. Yeah.

00:01:16:09 – 00:01:16:17

Lou

Sure.

00:01:19:00 – 00:01:32:00

Derek

But yeah, so it is. Yeah, it’s an interesting question. When you first started thinking about it, it almost seems like it’s like a non-falsifiable question, because anything you say, you’re like, well, they just want you to think that.

00:01:32:00 – 00:01:32:15

Lou

Exactly. Yeah.

00:01:33:04 – 00:01:52:12

Derek

But it actually has some support. There are philosophers who specifically appeal to the simulation hypothesis. There are others who do something kind of similar that we’ll get to in a little bit. And most famously, Elon Musk is –

00:01:52:12 – 00:01:53:04

Alycia

No way.

00:01:53:04 – 00:01:55:17

Derek

Is convinced that we are living in a simulation.

00:01:55:17 – 00:01:56:22

Alycia

I didn’t know that.

00:01:56:22 – 00:01:57:23

Derek

Yeah. Yeah.

00:01:58:06 – 00:02:00:12

Xandra

He works pretty hard for a guy in a simulation. I’m just saying.

00:02:00:15 – 00:02:03:08

Derek

Yeah, well, it’s going well for him, I guess.

00:02:04:17 – 00:02:06:16

Lou

I’d like to be in his simulation, you know?

00:02:07:01 – 00:02:08:00

Derek

Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice.

00:02:08:11 – 00:02:09:02

Lou

I’ll take that.

00:02:09:13 – 00:02:39:15

Derek

But it is like, so it’s one of those things that – I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to imagine, like, not existing anymore. And it gets, like, if you think about it too long, like, it really starts to freak you out. I think this is one that really freaks people out. So let’s jump in. Alycia, what do you think is sort of the underlying – what is the fear here essentially of – what is so frightening to people about living in a simulation?

00:02:41:06 – 00:03:02:17

Alycia

Well, it’s probably a couple of things. I think probably – by the way, I would just say I haven’t gotten this question in a long time. I used to get it fairly regularly, probably seven, eight years ago, seven years ago, six years or something like that. And then it came up again maybe like two years ago. And I don’t know, maybe now that, you know, The Matrix ones coming out again, maybe it’ll come up more often.

00:03:02:17 – 00:03:07:12

Derek

Well, I think Elon Musk may have said something about it like a couple of years ago, so I think it started back around again. Yeah.

00:03:08:21 – 00:04:34:21

Alycia

So this idea of what if we’re in the Matrix kind of thing. But I would say there’s a couple of things. I think, number one, there is a sense in which people are scared because it means there’s a loss of control. Right. So I don’t control anything. I’m actually being fully controlled. What I think is reality, what I think is real, what I think is touch, what I think is smell actually may be all something that’s programed. Like I can’t trust any of my reality. I can’t trust any of my senses. I can’t, you know, I’m maybe manipulated. I mean, in The Matrix, they’re literally hooked up to machines, right, in a completely different place. But yet they’re like – they feel like they’re existing and walking around and doing all these things down here. So it’s like none of it’s real. It’s almost like it’s all a dream, all the feelings, and it’s all kind of framed in my imagination. And so I think that’s what freaks people out. It’s like, well, what if it’s more than a movie? What if it’s more than a thought experiment or a philosophical idea? What if I’m really living in a state in which I’m essentially trapped? I can’t get out. There’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t control me or anything. I can’t help me. I can’t alter what’s being determined or what I’m being controlled to do. And that’s kind of a yeah, I mean, that’s actually kind of a very uneasy place to live in. I mean, it would drastically change the way you view everything from yourself to how you handle the problems around you. Is that even worth dealing with? Because it’s all controlled by some big computer or whatever somewhere?

00:04:35:08 – 00:05:15:03

Xandra

Yeah. It seems like the question is less about understanding reality than it is about control. Right? I mean, we don’t perceive things as they really are. I mean, even just think about the human eye, like everything that has to happen for the brain to see. Like what I’m seeing, like I’m looking at you, Derek, and Alycia, and Lou, but I’m not actually seeing you in the way that you truly are because, first of all, your image is upside down as I’m taking you in because of the shape of my eye. Then I guess it has to be turned around. And then there’s a huge blind spot where my optical nerve is that my brain is just sort of filling in to the best of its ability. And you can like, if you don’t believe me, you can –

00:05:15:03 – 00:05:15:11

Alycia

That’s crazy.

00:05:15:19 – 00:05:18:05

Lou

I just love that we have Xandra on this podcast.

00:05:18:20 – 00:05:20:07

Alycia

I know, right. Biology stuff.

00:05:20:07 – 00:05:22:07

Derek

That’s what I was going to say. Yeah, that’s interesting.

00:05:24:05 – 00:05:33:22

Xandra

No, it’s really fun. You can, like, go online and do these things where you get your phone and you cover one of your eyes, and then you move the phone away from you and it – bless you. Here, do you want some water?

00:05:33:22 – 00:05:34:17

Lou

Yeah.

00:05:34:17 – 00:06:45:11

Xandra

And it shows you where the blind spot is. Like, there will be a certain point where the phone is away from you, and you just can’t see because it hits your blind spot. So anyway, all that to say, like, it’s, you know, we can operate in a reality that we’re not fully aware of. So I’ll show you guys later after we’re done recording. It’s a really cool. And maybe we can put a little link at the bottom of this podcast. Dance, monkey dance. No. But you see this in a lot of biological writing actually, now that I’m thinking about it. It’s this question of apparent versus real. Richard Dawkins always writes about apparent design and how it looks a certain way. Like there are things that we see that, in nature that, we say, Wow, this clearly shows a creator. But he would say it’s not really that. That’s not reality. It just looks that way. You cannot trust your senses. You shouldn’t trust your senses. So there’s one sense in which we can’t fully trust our senses, but another sense in which – I’m using sense a lot in the sentence – if we completely throw away all of our senses, we have no way of even functioning in what semblance of reality we can understand. So I don’t know. I mean, I guess I’m just talking around the question without fully answering it. All that to say, it’s a fantastic question.

00:06:45:11 – 00:06:47:11

Lou

You answered it for me. I’m convinced.

00:06:47:13 – 00:06:48:17

Derek

Well, of what?

00:06:48:17 – 00:06:50:13

Xandra

I don’t even know what I convinced you of.

00:06:50:13 – 00:06:53:07

Lou

I’m convinced that she knows what she’s talking about.

00:06:54:08 – 00:07:12:15

Alycia

Well, and I would say, as you know, Xandra brought up Richard Dawkins, but just, you know, just from a naturalistic, atheistic kind of world where all we have is the natural world, there is no supernatural. Then essentially there is an aspect of being in the Matrix, right? There is a sense in which everything is pre-controlled, it’s predetermined by your DNA.

00:07:12:22 – 00:07:13:14

Xandra

Dancing to your DNA.

00:07:13:17 – 00:08:10:06

Alycia

Dancing into your DNA. And so, now while there’s an aspect of reality that happens in that kind of a situation that maybe wouldn’t happen in the Matrix, there still is a sense where you’re questioning, do I really love this person or is this is what my chemicals have wired me to because it’s best me to love this person for the sake of my survival? Or is it best or do I really hate this person or is my biology telling me to hate this person because it’s actually trying and help me survive, right? So are any of these things that I’m feeling and seeing actual, it’s where you get part of the evidential argument against naturalism kind of thing from. But this idea of like, is any of this stuff actually real or is this all just my DNA and my biology makeup making me have these things because what’s best for me to survive? So I think there’s an aspect of that loss – there is a full loss of control because everything you do is predetermined by your biology within a naturalistic framework.

00:08:10:14 – 00:08:11:18

Lou

That word, predestined.

00:08:12:17 – 00:08:14:11

Alycia

I avoided that word intentionally.

00:08:15:07 – 00:08:38:05

Lou

I like to say that while, one, I thought The Matrix, I’m going direct to the movie. I’m not really going here. But there’s some similarities in the Christian story and The Matrix, that I think are fairly compelling. But I also don’t know why this is. I’m still struggling to know why this is that big of a problem.

00:08:38:23 – 00:08:41:01

Xandra

It’s a huge problem. It’s the nature of reality.

00:08:41:01 – 00:08:45:01

Lou

Well no, no. But like, give me a second.

00:08:45:02 – 00:08:46:07

Derek

Give me one other thing.

00:08:46:09 – 00:09:17:03

Lou

This is similar. Like there’s some traces of this that actually line up with the Christian worldview. As in like this isn’t your primary home. That it’s not that it’s a false reality, but that you have to be reborn to understand. So I don’t think it’s that far. Like I think there’s some difference, like some key differences. I agree with you. Yes. Because if this is all fake and this is a waste of my time then, yeah. But there’s something there, and I’m like, it’s not that different than Christianity.

00:09:17:03 – 00:09:19:10

Xandra

Like, C.S. Lewis. We’re living in the shadowlands.

00:09:19:10 – 00:09:39:12

Lou

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And maybe I’m not honoring the simulation part enough. I don’t know. I just see it as like, okay, so say God did run it the way – because it seems like when there are – say this is a simulation. Who set up the simulation? Like we’re still at God. It almost seems like –

00:09:39:12 – 00:09:39:14

Xandra

Aliens, Lou.

00:09:39:19 – 00:10:08:23

Lou

Seems like it’s trying to avoid it seems like an explanation to try to avoid the answer that God is behind things. That’s why I – and so it’s like you still run into the problem of, okay, so who designed? If everything that happens to me is actually ordained so that I would see that – it’s not really happening. It’s so that whatever the computer wants me to see so that I can only do this because that’s what I was designed for. Still, who’s running that computer and who designed that computer. So like it just seems like it’s pushing or kicking the can further down the road.

00:10:09:21 – 00:10:45:20

Alycia

So part of the idea behind the Matrix too is that this – the computer system is controlling everything. So you could say, okay, so you believe in the Christian God because that’s how you’re wired to believe. But this person is atheist because that’s how they’re wired to believe. And this person is Muslim because that’s how the wired to believe. And this person, you keep going. So in other words, these are not – the idea of saying, you know, I actually believe in this particular view over here is actually – there is no like actual like desire or sure, it is just, oh, they just change your programing to go over here.

00:10:45:20 – 00:10:54:14

Lou

But I thought someone breaks through though for that. Like, isn’t that the whole. Like even the fact that any of us would know that we’re in the simulation. Isn’t that someone breaking through and starting something new?

00:10:54:14 – 00:10:56:00

Derek

That’s one of the arguments.

00:10:56:07 – 00:10:57:05

Xandra

Jesus did. He broke through the simulation.

00:10:57:11 – 00:11:30:19

Lou

But that’s what Neo does as well. If we’re talking about The Matrix. I mean, that’s the whole point. Someone has to break through to understand that this actually is a simulation so that we could all be liberated or saved from the fact that this is – because I agree. Like if it’s just like I’m predetermined to be a Christian and this is always set, but like clearly someone has figured out like based off of this is like the hypothesis, like someone’s figured out that this is a simulation. So wouldn’t they have like broke the norm unless that was also set up by the simulation. And in that case, what’s the – what are we figuring out? What are we talking about?

00:11:30:19 – 00:12:56:20

Xandra

So what you’re saying is that there has to be an external input of some kind, obviously, for the problem to even exist. And okay. So, yes, to your point and also to Alycia’s point earlier about DNA, even the people who are like, oh, well, we’re just dancing to our DNA, everything you’re doing has been coded into your DNA. Even that points to something outside of the material because that’s information. Like the information – like people are very confused about DNA. But DNA, I mean, it’s like a book, you know, the author had the thought before she wrote the book. It’s not like she wrote the book and then that’s what gave her the thought. The thought came first. The idea came first. And it’s the same with DNA. It is like an information-bearing macro molecule. That’s true. But the information had to exist before it could be written into the code. It’s linguistic, it’s a code. So even the fact the information exists and the fact the information precedes material, I’m just sort of like combining Alycia and Lou, what you were saying into like a biology side thought. Even that, I think, shows that there has to be something outside of the simulation. So even if we’re in a simulation, there’s, I think, evidence for a benevolent God who was inputting into the system. Which I don’t think we are in it. I don’t think we are in a simulation.

00:12:56:23 – 00:13:24:23

Alycia

And I think that’s ultimately, you know, I mean, that’s the thing when people would ask the question, I’m like, well, if we are in the Matrix then we need to actually – let’s go ahead and play the movie out, you know. There’s this battle between good and evil. There’s this war between good evil. And no matter what the people do, not only do they not realize they’re in it, they don’t even realize they’re in the simulation. But they can’t seem to – they don’t have the ability to get themselves out of the simulation, right? And they are subject to this Mr. Smith guy who creates all this evil and havoc, and they can’t seem to fight them.

00:13:24:23 – 00:13:25:04

Lou

Satan.

00:13:25:04 – 00:13:52:04

Alycia

And they keep living in this alternate reality, not knowing that they’re subject to this evil. Not knowing that things are going to continue to go this way and they don’t have the power to overcome it. Except there’s a few small number who do. And there’s a few small number that know. But even the people who know, don’t have the power to change it. There’s only the one. There’s Neo, right? There’s Neo. Rearrange letters and you get “one,” right. So you’re right, the illustrations between The Matrix and Christianity are just all over the place.

00:13:52:04 – 00:13:52:22

Lou

Trinity.

00:13:52:22 – 00:14:31:14

Alycia

There’s Trinity. There’s Zion, right? There’s all these things. But the point is that Neo – Mr. Smith thinks that if I get rid of Neo, I have control. This one person who has the power. The one that everybody’s putting, the group of people who know they’re putting, their trust in him and to save them. And if I can get to him, if I can destroy him and kill him, then no longer will he be a threat, and I can have my rule and reign with these people. And so Neo gets sacrificed and his final words are “It is done” with his arms wide open. Yes, it is. His arms are wide open. It just parallels “It is finished” by Jesus on the cross.

00:14:31:14 – 00:14:32:13

Xandra

He goes up into the –

00:14:33:00 – 00:14:33:21

Alycia

Parallels Jesus on the cross.

00:14:33:22 – 00:14:39:02

Lou

Doesn’t he like spread everywhere at that point? I can’t actually remember the end of The Matrix. I remember the first one the most.

00:14:39:08 – 00:14:40:10

Derek

They don’t want you to remember the end.

00:14:40:17 – 00:15:02:01

Alycia

Right. So the point is, if we are in the Matrix, while that still, to me, points to Jesus because we have somebody who we’re looking to save us from the evil we can’t save ourselves from, and he dies with his arms wide open saying, “It is finished.” And so there’s a sense in which it’s like, even if we are in this alternative reality, we’re glad that there’s someone who knows the reality that we’re in that can free us from it.

00:15:03:10 – 00:15:05:01

Derek

Yeah, I’d like to –

00:15:05:01 – 00:15:06:19

Lou

Take that, Derek. Yeah, what else?

00:15:06:21 – 00:15:07:14

Xandra

Yeah, Derek. What now?

00:15:08:00 – 00:15:22:05

Derek

Sorry to even ask this today, guys. I don’t even – I don’t know what got into me. No, but I want to talk a little bit now about too – because one of the things that the question presupposes “A Priori.” Did I use that correctly?

00:15:22:05 – 00:15:25:17

Xandra

Way to use a Latin term. It’s actually “A Priori.”

00:15:25:23 – 00:15:30:17

Derek

A Priori. Yeah. I always actually used to say “a priori,” but then I heard you say it differently.

00:15:31:02 – 00:15:33:01

Lou

You’re an American. You can say it however.

00:15:33:01 – 00:15:35:16

Alycia

Change the definition if you want to.

00:15:35:16 – 00:16:50:09

Derek

A-pri-ori. Grand Ole Opry-ori. But what it’s saying about a brain is that it can be reduced to just this. And so a lot of times when you hear people talk about this question, they bring up the hard problem of consciousness. How do we wrestle with consciousness? And so a computer can mimic certain things that humans do, but it can’t – the feeling of things. The sensations. So specifically, if we think about something like pain and suffering, does that automatically get us – is that a way to sort of establish that actually our thoughts do in some way correspond to reality? In that we understand that there is not a computer that we know of, and we do not foresee a way there could be a computer that existed that would be able to mimic in us this issue of consciousness, and that we actually – we don’t just know what suffering is. We experience it.

00:16:50:21 – 00:16:55:17

Lou

What is it? What if the argument would just be we just haven’t been able to yet.

00:16:56:18 – 00:17:13:10

Derek

Yeah, well, that’s the question that we’re wrestling with. Do you think that the mind is really just the brain? And therefore, the brain can be downloaded and manipulated in a computer program, and we wouldn’t be able to tell the difference? Is it somewhat –

00:17:14:00 – 00:17:15:00

Alycia

It’s like the mind-brain problem kind of thing?

00:17:15:00 – 00:17:18:15

Derek

Is it somewhat analogous to a dream where you don’t necessarily feel pain in a dream?

00:17:19:00 – 00:17:22:23

Lou

Well, yeah. I mean, I have a great answer to this, but I want to give Xandra the opportunity to answer.

00:17:22:23 – 00:19:31:13

Xandra

Well, no, I was just saying I read a paper about this, and I mean, I don’t read a lot about this. There’s like one paper that I read not that long ago. And it was looking into like that quantum electron in your brain that moves back and forth, that creates consciousness and how when you – like anesthesiologists have studied how to still that or like I don’t know how quantum mechanics work. But anyway, that’s what basically knocks you out, right? So they were studying that, but they were also writing about what they were calling the RHS, which I found out stands for the Real Human Soul. They actually named this, and it’s in a scientific paper. So they call it the RHS. And it’s like a field that they were just – it’s way above my pay grade. But it’s like a field that is different from your brain. But it’s like a quantum field that your brain conscious activity creates that’s generated, that’s outside of your brain. So this creates problems because as – if you’re going to be a materialist. Yeah, I don’t know. So, so yeah, there was that. But I think there has to be more than just biologically what’s going on. Also the work of – shoot what’s his name? Andrew Newberg. I think. Did you read his book “Why God Won’t Go Away?” Fascinating book. So this guy, he doesn’t believe in God, but well, he’s I don’t know, he’s not a Christian. I’ll say that. He’s kind of – I think his view changes from the beginning of his research to the end of his research. I don’t know where he’s at now, but he, like, injected dye into the human brain while people were either, like, praying or meditating or whatever. And then he looked – did like images of what was happening inside the physical brain. And he made some really fascinating discoveries. For one thing, he basically makes an argument, him and his coauthor, who actually passed away before the book was published, I think, that it looks like the brain has been engineered for worship. It looks like the brain has – the physical brain has been designed to worship.

00:19:31:17 – 00:19:36:18

Derek

That’s not doing anything abnormal when it reacts in worship.

00:19:36:18 – 00:19:56:10

Xandra

So they’re trying to explore what are the evolutionary implications of that? How did that come about? And their conclusion is really sort of messy and scattered. But yeah, I mean, it’s a really cool book. It’s an interesting read. I’d encourage anyone who’s interested in the neurosciences to just, you know, you can read it in one sitting. But it was fascinating to me.

00:19:56:18 – 00:19:59:10

Lou

There’s also “Am I Just My Brain?”

00:19:59:11 – 00:19:59:22

Xandra

Yeah, Sharon Dirckx.

00:19:59:22 – 00:20:04:20

Lou

Sharon Dirckx’s “Am I Just My Brain” that came out two years ago. Yeah.

00:20:05:02 – 00:20:59:23

Alycia

And I think, I said before, evidential argument against I meant, evolutionary argument against naturalism, and I think that’s kind of a bit of what that’s alluding to is if we are just naturalistic beings, that there isn’t, I can’t believe they used this Real Human Soul or whatever they said, if there is no spiritual aspect externally or something supernatural, then how can we even trust our brain, our cognitive faculties? Think of things such as truth to convey anything that’s in any direction other than survival. And so I think it does make us wonder, is whatever consciousness that we have, is it all geared towards survival? Is it actually there for some other reason then to just keep us going? So I think there’s all these different implications once we look at things that start to go into realms that are beyond physical if we deny those other realms exist. I don’t know if that made any sense.

00:21:00:22 – 00:21:43:11

Derek

Well, I think so. For the last question, let’s kind of get even to the heart of the epistemological concern, which is just a big fancy word. It means the nature of knowledge. How do you know what you know? What would you say? So for someone that, that this is a legitimate like struggle and something, a thing of anxiety in their life. What would you say? Like, how do you ground that what you know is reality? How do you know that you exist? Sort of – those sorts of questions. What would be some things that like you guys have used to wrestle with through that?

00:21:45:14 – 00:23:49:19

Xandra

A scripture just popped into my brain. It’s Hebrews 11 and it’s talking about faith. I was reading this in the Greek a couple of days ago. That’s why this is in my brain. So verse 3, it says, “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.” and I was really curious in that word for faith, and it’s Pistis. And I don’t know if I’m saying that right in the Greek. And so I was looking into that word, so I wasn’t really I don’t know, I’m still learning Greek and stuff, and it’s like a rational belief in something that you, basically that you, don’t have the full picture of, but that you have enough to get on with, as they say. So I love this picture that, like, we serve a God who gave us a rational brain, and part of the reason he gave us a rational brain is so that we could find our way to him. And, you know, as a biologist, when I look at nature, I just I’m seeing the fingerprints of God everywhere, and I’m constantly amazed and finding myself worshipping him, even when I’m just like walking through a forest. Yes, I know. I’m a hippie. You don’t have to say it, Lou. I know what you’re thinking. But it’s because of this. Like, it’s because of Pistis, because of the fact that, like, there’s a foretaste of something that is greater. I don’t have the full picture. And so for anyone maybe who is anxious or nervous about these things, I would just ask, you know, what do you know at least for now? You don’t have to have the whole picture. Goodness is real. Truth is real. These are things that we can’t collect in a bottle. Or view through, you know, view the particulates of. But we know that these are metaphysical things that exist that are pointers that point to something greater and good out there.

00:23:51:11 – 00:24:31:20

Alycia

One thing I just would add to that, there is an aspect of assurance when it comes to faith as well that like there is a sense in which you actually have a solid conviction that something actually is true. And I think oftentimes that definition is looked at as just kind of like a holdout. There almost in a sense of disregard for what actually is. But I think there’s a very strong tie between what you have faith in and what you’ve observed or experienced or seen evidence of when the Bible is talking about Pistis. Just to add that little point on there,

00:24:31:20 – 00:24:37:09

Xandra

Versus like a blind faith sort of faith. Where you just believe for the sake of believing. Yeah, that’s a good qualifier.

00:24:38:12 – 00:25:57:21

Derek

Great. Yeah. And I think I would recommend to people to like ancient philosophers wrestled with this. It’s not just because The Matrix came out that now we don’t know the nature of reality. And interestingly, in Greek philosophy, there was this because of the rationality of the universe, which is they referred to as the Logos, they knew that they could trust what they experienced because – and that actually led a lot of, in a polytheistic world, a lot of ancient philosophers toward monotheism. And the idea that there must be this rational force that’s not in a battle with some other force, and so you’re getting contradictory information that something rational created a rational universe. And of course, in the Gospel of John, this force that’s been sort of rationally creating the universe is identified with Christ, who was the Logos, was with God and was God. So I think ultimately, yeah, there is a Christological answer to this as well, because Christ is real and yeah, that we can actually trust that this is not a simulation. This is real. We’re doing this. You’re here. I’m here.

00:25:58:07 – 00:26:36:13

Lou

And if this is one I would want to know who behind, like in light, if we’re going to point it all back to Christ, who designed that? Is what I want to know. Because I would struggle not to want to worship that. Because when I look at the person of Christ and what he’s done – and like that seems so clearly not manmade, so clearly not like anything of this world that if there is some simulation that’s designed that – I need to be attracted to that. I would just be like, that one seems so otherly, other human or not other human outside of this world. Not manmade.

00:26:36:21 – 00:26:42:08

Derek

Well, thank you all. This was a very trippy episode.

00:26:42:08 – 00:26:45:06

Lou

I still don’t know what we talked about. I’m struggling. I don’t know what we did.

00:26:45:08 – 00:26:46:07

Derek

Very heavy episode.

00:26:46:07 – 00:26:47:03

Lou

I’m confused.

00:26:47:03 – 00:27:26:11

Derek

Yeah. So, yeah, and it’s a confusing question. So that’s why you’re confused. But yeah, we hope you had fun. If you’ve thought about that before, it’s a fun thing to do thought experiments about. You can look up online ways that people have done those in the past. Yeah, and if you want to have your questions discussed on the podcast, email us at wherewebegin@lightengroup.org. And don’t forget you can Like, Subscribe, and Rate. That really is helpful for us and feel free to leave your comments and enjoy a nice God-honoring conversation there, and we’ll see you guys next week. God bless you.