What if our existence in a simulation is the best explanation for the classic biblical story of creation?
You know the one (and to summarize super expeditiously–cause this ain’t a sermon):
The Original Creation Story
Day 1: God creates light and separates it from darkness. He calls the light "day" and the darkness "night."
Day 2: God creates the sky, separating the waters above from the waters below, forming the expanse of the heavens.
Day 3: God gathers the waters below to create seas and reveals dry land, which He names "Earth." He causes vegetation, including plants, trees, and fruit-bearing plants, to grow on the land.
Day 4: God creates the sun, moon, and stars to light up the day and night, marking seasons and days.
Day 5: God fills the seas and the sky with living creatures, including fish and birds.
Day 6: God creates land animals, including cattle, creeping things, and wild animals. He also creates man and woman, Adam and Eve, in His own image, giving them dominion over the Earth.
Day 7: God rests on the seventh day, sanctifying it as a day of rest, known as the Sabbath.
Let’s rewrite that and imagine it as a conversation between programmers:
The Creation Story, the Programmer’s Perspective
Friend: “Hey man, what you been up to?”
Programmer: “Yo, dawg, check it. You know that idea I was telling you about? I told you how there was this “universe” thing I created, like a virtual space where I can put different objects. Today, I created a PLANET. Like ours. ‘Course, it also required a sun–like ours–so I could see it once I put it out there in virtual space.”
Friend: “Nice! So now your program has a world floating in virtual space, illuminated by a sun?”
Programmer: “Yep. Totally. Cool, right?”
Friend: “Super cool. But what else are you going to do?”
Programmer: “Oh, dude, I’ve got tons of ideas: I’m going to make the ball, ‘scuse me, planet, spin–and I’m going to give it atmosphere, ocean, light up the night sky with stars, oh and make all kinds of plants and animals to put on it. It’s gonna be so sick! …I’m done for today, but I’m gonna do the rest like tomorrow, and the next day, and so forth and try to get it wrapped up by the end of the week.”
To me, even when I WAS religious, it never made literal sense, within the rules of our existence as we know them, to expect our world and everything in and on it to be created in six days… but it makes a lot of sense, and it seems imminently reasonable, if our existence is actually a simulation.
Imagine for a moment, whatever realm or plane our creator exists on–i.e., True Reality–and how that advanced being might see “creation” of a world like ours. Maybe the days in True Reality are super long, so six days is billions of years in our time. Or perhaps our planet actually isn’t that old, and we just believe that it is.
If you’ve been following along, you already know that perhaps our lives don’t start with our birth. Our lives in this existence could start with our awakening this morning. No matter what age you are.
And if that’s the case then every detail of our existence, the house we live in, the car we drive, the neighborhood we live in, the job we have… all of it could’ve sprung into being the moment we opened our eyes. The entire world, suddenly, immediately created. Erected. Our memories aligned with every virtual detail of our brand-spankin’ new existence.
If that’s possible then of course throwing together a sweet existence like ours in six days is too.
Another thing that strikes me as interesting is that we usually think of the Creation story as referring to six human/Earth days (resting on the seventh). But what if the “days” the Creation story refers to weren’t “days” in the sense we think of them at all?
Interpreting "Days" in Creation
What if it wasn’t six of our days, but perhaps more like six pomodoro sprints, resting on the seventh? All on one of… whatever they consider a “day” in True Reality.
What is a “day?”
The word for “day” in Genesis 1 is the Hebrew word yom. It can mean either a day (in the ordinary 24-hour day), the daylight portion of an ordinary 24-hour day (i.e., day as distinct from the night), or occasionally it is used in the sense of an indefinite period of time (e.g., “in the time of the Judges” or “In the day of the Lord”). Without exception, in the Hebrew Old Testament the word yom never means “period” (i.e., it is never used to refer to a definite long period of time with specific beginning and end points). The word which means a long period of time in Hebrew is olam. Furthermore, it is important to note that even when the word yom is used in the indefinite sense, it is clearly indicated by the context that the literal meaning of the word “day” is not intended.
To me I take this as evidence that Creation, from a biblical perspective, could’ve taken any amount of time. Little to… none, or a lot. If the Hebrew word used doesn’t map to our concept of time (which has particular beginnings and endings: day, month, year, etc…) then all bets are off. More than anything it suggests all we can take from the story is the order in which creation was achieved, and what it was composed of.
To me, the story of Creation is actually the story of a programmer (or organization, team, AI…), our creator, making this place we call home. Making our lives with all their highs and lows, frustrations, joys, satisfactions, and tragedies.
I’ll admit: I tend to see all religions and mythologies as hinting at where we come from, and why we’re here.
If you’re religious, I imagine, at this point, you’re probably feeling unsettled. You might enjoy the idea that there’s support for some variation of a literal interpretation of the Creation story; but it might bother you to imagine Creation, and our existence through…a somewhat mundane lens. Almost like it might feel to be humans, tall, mighty, strong, and capable looking down on ants…until you realize WE might be the ants, and our creator(s) are the tall, mighty, strong, and capable humoring us…or exterminating us, as the case may be.
Humility and the Mystery of Existence
Beyond the interesting aspects of this perspective, I guess my point is that the more I consider the simulation hypothesis the more humbled I am. The more I see the need for curiosity, and for patience with other people and their own dearly held beliefs.
After all, if, in the simulation, our existence could spring together in moments or days, then what else becomes possible? Anything. As bland, banal, and mundane as life may seem sometimes, I suspect it’s far more mystical, magical, and mysterious than we have any conception of. I mean, solid objects in our existence are mostly empty space. Say WHAT?!?
There is one big BUT though: I strongly believe no one mythology or religion knows the whole picture. They frequently think they do–and dearly need to believe they do. After all, who tithes 10% for anything less?
Perhaps our world, our existence, is/was fabricated in six pomodoro sprints, or six Godly breaths, or six human days, or six heavenly days, or whatever…but maybe the Creator was a company with teams of engineers in True Reality, using vastly advanced technology to construct our reality.
Perhaps every participant in this simulation is a scion of the wealthy and mighty in True Reality–the only beings rich enough to afford this experience. Or, perhaps like TVs and game consoles these days, access to this experience is ubiquitous. Perhaps even the heavenly homeless carry around a Simulator in their pocket.
We’ll get into that in a future episode.
I’m Abe Fox, author of Life in the Simulation. Thanks for tuning in (or reading)! If you're digging the newsletter, make sure to subscribe!– you won't want to miss what's coming up.
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