How do you know who you are, or more appropriately, what you are? How do you know that your experiences are not mere perception or simulated reality? Are you a living, breathing member of the human race, or are you programmed to believe you are? Is pain and love and experience of virtually any kind all just written code by some master programmer? That's hard to fathom, I agree wholeheartedly. If we are merely programmed into existance, why then are we governed by natural, physical laws? Why don't we float, for example, or fly or why would we die at all? What's the point? I suppose the same questions can be asked if you believe in an all-powerful, omnipotent being that created man in his image, having the ability to create anything at all, with no real rules until He creates them for us. If He can alter physics, or define them any way He deems fit, then why can't we fly? Why do we die? Why are we anything at all?
Believe me when I say this: The subject I am writing about today is not a religious one. I have no authority to speak on behalf of centuries of organized religion. I would gladly have that discussion with you ANY TIME you like, but this is something completely different. Today's entry may use some very religious ideas to illustrate points, but the concept applies to many facets of our existence. This entry is more philosophy than it is religion, no matter how closely the two may be intertwined.
Faith in anything, whether it be the existence of God, or god, or gods, or Big Foot, or big foot, or big feet, or your father's love, or Jazz Hands, the royal version or the standard one, should not be based on the suspension of disbelief. The true test of strong faith is to never be afraid to ask the hard questions. To test yourself and question everything. Asking questions should never be confused with defiance.
Today I will deploy my Jazz Hands as I have done for the past seventy-seven days in a row...you do not have proof of any such deployments, other than the rare first hand account. All you have is the written testimony you see before you describing my hand jazzings in written form, sometimes vaguely. You may choose to believe that I jazz my hands every day, or you can choose not to believe. You may question it all you want. After all, I question the activity every day, myself. Even the royal Jazz Hands gets questioned by me from time to time. That's all part of the game.
You may be a computer program, you may be a brain in a vat, or you may actually be human. If I ask you to prove one scenario over the others, would you be able to? Does it even matter? If we're experiencing something, or virtually experiencing something, the bottom line is that we may as well embrace our existence regardless of what we are. It is amazing that we are anything at all, simulated or not.
Believe me when I say this: The subject I am writing about today is not a religious one. I have no authority to speak on behalf of centuries of organized religion. I would gladly have that discussion with you ANY TIME you like, but this is something completely different. Today's entry may use some very religious ideas to illustrate points, but the concept applies to many facets of our existence. This entry is more philosophy than it is religion, no matter how closely the two may be intertwined.
Faith in anything, whether it be the existence of God, or god, or gods, or Big Foot, or big foot, or big feet, or your father's love, or Jazz Hands, the royal version or the standard one, should not be based on the suspension of disbelief. The true test of strong faith is to never be afraid to ask the hard questions. To test yourself and question everything. Asking questions should never be confused with defiance.
Today I will deploy my Jazz Hands as I have done for the past seventy-seven days in a row...you do not have proof of any such deployments, other than the rare first hand account. All you have is the written testimony you see before you describing my hand jazzings in written form, sometimes vaguely. You may choose to believe that I jazz my hands every day, or you can choose not to believe. You may question it all you want. After all, I question the activity every day, myself. Even the royal Jazz Hands gets questioned by me from time to time. That's all part of the game.
You may be a computer program, you may be a brain in a vat, or you may actually be human. If I ask you to prove one scenario over the others, would you be able to? Does it even matter? If we're experiencing something, or virtually experiencing something, the bottom line is that we may as well embrace our existence regardless of what we are. It is amazing that we are anything at all, simulated or not.
Today's Jazz Hands questioned its own existence. Day seventy-eight complete. Or is it?
PS:
I will be posting a brain teaser titled "Brain in a Vat" published in Harper's Magazine, as a "non-Jazz Hands bonus post." If this sort of Matrix/Inception concept is interesting to you, please give it a read. Let me know your thoughts on what the answer is. I have my own ideas...
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