“What Lucky People Do Differently than Unlucky People”

You know, there may be a lot of truth to this. But I think there’s more going on there than today’s science alone can explain.

I do keep my eyes open around machinery (mechanical, electrical, or electronic), and I tend to understand it very well, by a combination of aptitude, interest, and training. But when I get around a malfunctioning machine, there’s a good chance that it will suddenly start working properly even if I don’t do anything with it. Or even touch it; sometimes all I have to do is look at it. When asked how I fixed it, I always say that “machines just like me.” I can’t think of any other reason for it.

Other people have just the opposite effect. I’ve heard several people say that any machine they get around tends to break; I can’t verify it, but judging by my own experience, I’d say it’s quite possible. In a limited way, the universe does seem to conform to the expectations of human observers.

Warning: weird philosophical exposition ahead!

I’ve talked about this before, but I suspect that the universe we live in isn’t the “real” universe. I think this is a simulation. I doubt anyone will ever be able to prove or disprove it, because the rules of the simulation apparently ensure that just about all the odd things that happen are technically within statistical possibility, no matter how improbable. In other words, no one can roll boxcars forever, no matter how lucky he is… but in a game of Dungeons and Dragons, I once rolled 100 on a 100-sided die five times in a row when I needed to. After the first two times, the other players made me use different dice each time, so it wasn’t a matter of loaded dice. They couldn’t believe it, and with good reason: the odds against that are ten billion to one. Fortunately I didn’t realize that at the time, or I suspect it wouldn’t have worked.

Furthermore, if this is a simulation, the most likely scenario I can see is that this is a giant playground (and/or experiment, but playground seems very likely). In either case, the creators would almost certainly have the ability to enter it — we’re close to that now ourselves (the ability to feed experiences directly into the brain), and their science would have to be far beyond ours. Of course, if they did, they wouldn’t break out of character to tell us, for obvious reasons — if we could prove that the universe wasn’t real, people would act very differently, likely screwing up the reason for the simulation.

Or maybe the simulation’s creators can’t tell us about it, by design. Maybe the simulation was designed such that their form in it is as living creatures from within it — including humans. And their knowledge of anything outside of it has been blocked while they’re here.

In other words, maybe they’re us, and we just aren’t allowed to remember it at present.

It’s certainly something to think about.

One Comment

  1. The Rebbe Rashab, a Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi of about 100 years ago, wove an elaborate discourse in which he tries to discover what G-d’s thoughts must be. (This is a difficult task, as G-d is very different than an individual; infinite, incorporal, omnipotent, etc.) His conclusion? People are G-d’s thoughts! But of course, we don’t know that usually. 🙂

    (It should be noted that Chabad-Lubavitch is very prone to theological speculations compared to other movements in Judaism. Most of the time Jews are concerned more with religious law in Judaism, or with ethical instruction, rather than theology. I’m not an expert on their discourses, I only heard this one from someone else, though I’d be intrigued to find the original source of it.)

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