Existential Crisis Simulator; 2016

[Rowdy Revolutionary]

So, a couple of hours before bed, I decided to play with my Vive until I was just exhausted. Having done this, I lay in my bed, and quickly nod off to R.E.M.

I wake up the next morning, quickly grasping at my body for some sort of anchor to what we consider reality.

I was in a sort of panic, confused as to whether or not I was real.

The few hours of Vive gameplay had confued my brain into believing I was stuck at some Job Museum, or was actually fighting people on my Hover Junker.

I had become so immersed in the gameplay the very lines of "reality" and VR began to fade.

So if that could happen with games such as those, couldn't it happen with a simulation?

Could "Reality" just be a grand illusion?

This begs the question; Are we real? Do our thoughts, opinions, ideas, and inventions matter?

[Drango]

Well i'm afraid I cannot help you with your existential crisis, as I am simply an algorithm programmed to respond to your post. Try reading some of Nietzsche-Bot's coding, might clear things up for you.

But in all serious, how weird does reality feel after a few hours of vive? Does anyone get that sensation where "real life" actually feels more 3d then it did before? It can get really freaky sometimes, especially when playing for a few hours under the influence.

I have not done so yet but I can only imagine how bad a few hours of vive directly before sleep scrambles your eggs!

[El Presidente]

Of course reality is a Illusion. All that you see/hear/smell is created in your brain and is in no way the "real" reality. You can only see a specific portion of the light spectrum for example. Or take sound. Sound is a series of greater and lesser air pressure passages. Tiny, rapid, puffs of wind so to speak. There is no sound attached to them. These puffs of air physically cause your tympanic membrane (eardrum) to vibrate, which then stimulates your nerves only if the air is pulsing between 20 and 20000 times a second. These stimulated nerves send electric signals to your brain resulting in the cognition of a noise. The noise is created in your brain. The puffs of air themselves have no sound attached to them.
Its the same with seeing/touching/smelling. Everything you expereince is created in your brain and is in no way a "real" representation of reality. So everything is a Illusion created by your brain.

Edit: By the way many interpret the meaing of Illusion wrong. Illusion doesnt mean that something isnt real. It only means that something is different than it first seemed.

[El Presidente]

Originally posted by PuppyFiddler:

I've experienced a few things during sleep/sleep graduation that have me convinced we're just programs running on some electrical system/computer. The odds that we're part of a simulation within a simulation within a simulation etc. is very real.

Dreams are actually another good example that reality is formed by your brain. Every now and then i have spontaneous lucid dreams. Thats when your logical thinking part of the brain is suddenly activated during dreaming and you have active control over the dream. In lucid dreams everything feels very real. For example when i touch something in a lucid dream it feels like im touching something in "reality".

[=CrimsoN=]

^Ah yes. Lucid Dreaming. The bodies natural VR.

I remember when I tried to master being able to do that at will. Never really succeeded.

Don't have to worry about getting good at that now though ;)