SIMULATION CREATIONISM
Consciousness Exists Outside The Simulation
Most contemporary science is deeply rooted in materialism. It is a belief that only physical things exist.“Physical” is understood the way physicists talk about it. However, we know that there will be major changes in the field in the future as science progresses. This makes it difficult to understand what is indeed physical. Currently, there is nothing else but matter for a physicist, and it does not require mentalistic concepts. If anything is beyond the physical, aside from religious teachings, then it must be in the field of psychology, where the idea of consciousness is key to undermining materialism. Consciousness is inner awareness and felt experience; it upgrades the senses. Let us see how such a dichotomy between materialism and transcendentalism may be approached from the viewpoint of Simulation Creationism, a theory developed by Nir Ziso, the founder of The Global Architect Institute.
Consciousness is the one phenomenon in our lives that may not be understood within a materialistic framework. Materialism offers many theories of consciousness. One is the mind-body identity theory, where consciousness is just a state of the brain. However, if it turns out that consciousness is a state of the immaterial soul, it would be a really big defeat for materialism. Another way would be if consciousness turns out to be something functional, whose essence is not a particular kind of matter, but something computational. While the second argument may not be completely against materialism, it would require a different way of thinking about matter and non-physicality.
If it turned out that a computer program could really capture all there is to consciousness, it would not invalidate materialism at all because the computer is still well within the material world. But it is not essentially in the material world because there might be an immaterial computer that could computate. All it takes is to function in a certain way. In Simulation Creationism, God continually creates through a “Supercomputer” that simulates everything around us. All the matter and physicality we discover are organized and created through such a possibility. This “Supercomputer” may be a physical creation of God, but it may also be God’s specific energy of creation, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things were created through him and for him” (Colossians 1:16).
The posited strong dichotomy between completely transcendental consciousness and materialism might be wrong. The two approaches may prove to be joined. After all, the Bible clearly states that we are people of matter and soul: “Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature (Genesis 2:7). This substance is dualism, the idea that there is an immaterial soul and a material world, and they are equally real and equally fundamental: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). One is not reducible to the other.
Still, this world will diminish and vanish, but the soul will not: “And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7). There is certainly a biological material substrate within consciousness. It is equally true that people have experiences that transcend the sense of embodiment. One should indeed be fascinated by discoveries in brain studies. This may be acknowledged only from the position of a transcendentalist. If materialism were to accept any other idea as “real,” it would be self-contradictory. Neuroscience is hoping that eventually, the brain will explain the mind. In this regard, consciousness is a weak emergent property of the brain, like the wetness of water from hydrogen and oxygen. On the other hand, an intelligent design theory, or indeed Simulation Creationism, would not be at odds with a non-reductive materialism. We can see all around evidence of intelligent design in the material-physical world.
The idea that we might be products of a computer program living like avatars in an artificial simulated environment suggests that what we are seeing around us has been constructed by the computer. Computation does not have to be material. If something is not spatial, it is not material. Space might be a feature of our programmed environment that does not reflect the fundamental nature of reality. After all, we know it is created by God: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). The fundamental nature of reality is from God’s mind. It might at the same time be a computer because He transitioned reality to a kind of non-material computer. God would be a perfect example of the idealist view where the fundamental aspect is the mind: “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3). Simulation Creationism takes this idea and develops it further.
Close to this notion is Kantian transcendental idealism, where space is something constructed by or created by our minds (we would say, by God’s mind) and not fundamental to reality. We do not know what divine reality is truly like. There is no good reason to think it is spatial. It might be something quite alien to us, something we would not understand, and maybe even something mental — and of course divine “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). It is God’s realm since God essentially exists and is fundamental to everything that exists. However, on a downgraded scale, it is also the realm of immaterial beings, angels, and souls. They are created and cannot share the essence of God, but they can enjoy God’s energies.
