Aaaand we're back to my cellular automaton theory.

This is the central conflict, in which I see no reason for conflict. This is confusing. Bear with me.

Imagine the universe is actually an incredibly large "computing device". "God" is some programmer who set it up. Or not. But it is a construct - it was created - and then .... set in motion! Shocking.

Since then it's just been running.

I have a similar but childishly trivial version I've been building myself. I have a little world (very little) in which every point has a state. Each point in the world follows an incredibly simple rule that determines it's next state, given the previous state of that point and a small number of points around it. (Think "Conway's game of life" on steroids.)

I choose the rule. I choose the initial state (often just one or two dots of energy). From there, an entire universe of stuff explodes. This all happens on my screen in a few seconds. I'm not making this up.

Depending on how I set up the rule for the "next state" calculation, I get very different results. But, fascinatingly, in a vast number of cases, something like "life" appears. There are small "creatures" (patterns) that appear, move, grow, shrink, encounter each other, and I'm not making this up - they reproduce, grow, multiply, until they fill the universe. Except that the universe can't support an infinite number so when there are too many some die. I swear I'm not making this up.

I built this program 10 years ago. I call it Animotes.

I think it is a very strong possibility that the entire universe we live in is a cellular automaton - a "matrix" of numerical values following some very simple, but carefully chosen rules.

This explains, also, why the incredibly balanced laws of the universe are what they are - how they appear to be chosen "just so". Indeed - they were. As were thousands of other iterations with different laws, and the ones that didn't work so well were discarded.

So - God is a software engineer messing around with an incredibly powerful computer. He's watching, but not doing much more than "poking" it occasionally and being totally fascinated by what he built.

And then he's thinking to himself - where did I come from. Maybe I'm in a simulation as well, built by an even more powerful being in an ever more complicated universe than mine.

And he's wondering - where did he come from. And thinking that...

It's turtles all the way down. (look it up)

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)