Spieglein, Spieglein...

 

OK - alternate reality time. Simulation theory/fantasy. Religion - name your poison/fantasy. Creationism versus whatever theoretical physical model you care to choose. I got rabbit-holed this evening - there's a phrase for ya! - by a YouTube channel called The Why Files, and a 'piece' entitled:

"The evidence we are living in a Simulation is everywhere. All you have to do is look."

I'll leave the cut and paste shouty, as that is the usual styling of this kind of stuff: say it loud enough, often enough, and your message will be taken by someone as gospel...

As is also usual, all manner of 'facts' are trotted out in support of 'the truth'. Given that the entire video lasts just twenty-two minutes, fifteen seconds, I think the guy sets the bar a tad high to encompass and encapsulate the entirety of human evolution, history and philosophy in a narrative space shorter than an episode of the original series of 'The Bill' [for those too young, or living outwith the cultural milieu of eighties/nineties British TV, you'll just have to Google it]: at most they could squeeze in two intersecting story arcs into a twenty-five-minute slot, including the ad break.

The guy on this channel even talks about 'The Mandela Effect' to describe false memory: a term coined by some 'paranormal researcher' who discovered that she had been labouring under the misapprehension that Mandela had died in prison in the Eighties, rather than in 2013, having served as President of South Africa, after his release from prison. That's not false memory, it's just plain ignorance, and naming a 'syndrome' for such crass stupidity after the great man does us all a disservice. Yes, false memory is a thing: we are human, and it afflicts us all, to a greater or lesser extent; and is circumstantially bound. But simply taking note of our surroundings, our history, and at least bothering to check facts, as opposed to half-baked untruths, goes some way to mediating its effects.

The belter at the heart of this diatribe on the matter is when he uses the 'Mirror, mirror...' speech from Snow White as an example of how people misremember stuff. Now, anyone who knows the story: and I've read it, as a child, in the English translation, and in the original German, as a teenager; that the quote is 'Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?' or in the original: 'Spieglein, Spieglein, an der Wand, wer ist die schönste im ganzen Land?' The narrator of course claims that this remembrance is an example of 'Mandela Syndrome' and false, in that the quote should be 'Magic mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?'. I suppose that the guy, an American who obviously doesn't get out much, could be forgiven for mistaking the Disney version of Snow White for the original, but hey, it fit his narrative.

As to the Simulation 'Theory' of reality, we already had a shedload of competing ideas: just take the major world religions: each one either claiming they worship 'the one true God', in the case of the Abrahamic religions, or even the 'many true Gods', in the case of a religion such as Hinduism: whatever the case, they can't all be right or all be wrong at the same time. The question of 'rightness' in this instance is anyhow a category error, as belief and experience are radically different, though philosophically entangled spheres. I would put 'Simulation Theory' into the belief category, simply because it makes no more nor less sense than religious dogma. I might throw in Cosmology and Astrophysics into that pile, too, as proof that there is no proof, as yet only theory, but that's science for ya. What we have is what we have, as humans, for as long as we are alive.

 

But that doesn't mean we have to be stupid and ignorant about the one thing we should be able to rely on: the accumulation of our own histories, written and curated by our own hands. What would you rather trust: a flawed, sometimes biassed and partial, but broad and inclusive set of histories; or the hearsay, sound bite rantings of people trying to monetize those rantings for personal gain? It's a close call for most, on the face of it, but I grew up in a pre-internet-bullshit age, and have sufficient experience of life outside the box to say, I'll go with the analogue. As I've said before, I cleave to a belief system with no belief. And don't these people realize that 'Simulation Theory' is infinitely recursive?