It's the year 2107, and pretty much every personal computer but the ones sitting in museums, has more than enough computing power to run a then popular and prominent, yet controversial, but still legal, simulated reality "video game", complete with the ability to have sentient AIs living inside it if the player so desire. While every single variable of the simulation is fully customizable to accommodate the player's creative take on how their universe should work, there are some presets to simplify things, such as one that was made to very closely mimic our own universe.
Then there was John. A simple, happy, married man. John was an atheist, but he fancied the idea of being a god - and he liked to play video games, so when the simulated reality game came out, he got so excited and decided to grab one despite all the critics and controversies surrounding it. Fast forward a few weeks, and John have focused his attention on this particular world, where its intelligent inhabitants have made it to a level of civilization that resembles the first quarter of 21st century Earth, without its dilemmas. What intrigued John was the fact that this world's inhabitants were unique compared to the rest that he have observed. They have never been interested to the idea of a god, religion, or any superstitious fallacies throughout their entire development, all without John's intervention. Their world was a utopia, the dream of every sensible person, John thought to himself.
But then came a terrible realization, they were too late. The intelligent life on that particular world emerged just before its host star was going to go nova. All thanks to the fact that the planet was previously orbiting the cold, inhabitable outermost region of its host star, and it had only became a habitable, lively planet that it was when its host star turned into a red giant. This made John thinks hard. Should he delay the star's nova until the civilization got advanced enough to escape their doom? But then they would notice that extraordinary, unexplainable anomaly. They were no fool, they knew their math and physics, they knew they were doomed. They have been constructing a generation starship, planning to take refugee in the deep reach of blackness in space, but both the people of the utopia and John knew they won't made it in time to escape the star's fiery explosion.
Since it was a simulated reality, John could go back in time and alter some variables, but what can be changed? What if John dragged the planet closer to its host star back when it was still just a normal star, another kind of civilization would emerge? One that's fundamentally different than this one. What if John altered anything in the past, they just won't be the same for one reason or another? No, John wanted this one, this very special one that came to existence all without John's intervention. He was curious, curious to see whether or not this particular civilization would eventually realize they were living in a simulated reality even though John have never meddled with them, and how they are going to make that happen. So no, John cannot intervene, at least not in the past, not by changing the universe's constants, and not in a way that its inhabitant would realize that there was a 'divine' intervention.
What should John do?
Then there was John. A simple, happy, married man. John was an atheist, but he fancied the idea of being a god - and he liked to play video games, so when the simulated reality game came out, he got so excited and decided to grab one despite all the critics and controversies surrounding it. Fast forward a few weeks, and John have focused his attention on this particular world, where its intelligent inhabitants have made it to a level of civilization that resembles the first quarter of 21st century Earth, without its dilemmas. What intrigued John was the fact that this world's inhabitants were unique compared to the rest that he have observed. They have never been interested to the idea of a god, religion, or any superstitious fallacies throughout their entire development, all without John's intervention. Their world was a utopia, the dream of every sensible person, John thought to himself.
But then came a terrible realization, they were too late. The intelligent life on that particular world emerged just before its host star was going to go nova. All thanks to the fact that the planet was previously orbiting the cold, inhabitable outermost region of its host star, and it had only became a habitable, lively planet that it was when its host star turned into a red giant. This made John thinks hard. Should he delay the star's nova until the civilization got advanced enough to escape their doom? But then they would notice that extraordinary, unexplainable anomaly. They were no fool, they knew their math and physics, they knew they were doomed. They have been constructing a generation starship, planning to take refugee in the deep reach of blackness in space, but both the people of the utopia and John knew they won't made it in time to escape the star's fiery explosion.
Since it was a simulated reality, John could go back in time and alter some variables, but what can be changed? What if John dragged the planet closer to its host star back when it was still just a normal star, another kind of civilization would emerge? One that's fundamentally different than this one. What if John altered anything in the past, they just won't be the same for one reason or another? No, John wanted this one, this very special one that came to existence all without John's intervention. He was curious, curious to see whether or not this particular civilization would eventually realize they were living in a simulated reality even though John have never meddled with them, and how they are going to make that happen. So no, John cannot intervene, at least not in the past, not by changing the universe's constants, and not in a way that its inhabitant would realize that there was a 'divine' intervention.
What should John do?
thanks for the welcome anyway.
