Belief vs. Fact
  • Benj96
    2.2k
    We live in a world where facts maintain the consistency of our reality. Tomorrow the sun will rise and set like any other day. Ten months from now will be the same duration of time as since ten months ago. Memories will be forgotten. Everyone will die some day. If I eat too much I will get fat.

    But let’s take a hypothetical universe where the only governing facet of reality is “the power of belief”.
    Let’s suppose that reality (physics, chemistry, biology etc) in this universe shifts to align with the most dominant beliefs in descending order. Each person is initially an equal unit of belief and has the freedom to choose to believe in something someone else believes in or to deny/ignore it in favour of other beliefs. And so this universe is governed by the collective - the “popular vote” - the most commonly held set of beliefs.

    What do you think this universe would look like? What do you think would happen to people? How do you think they would change and shape reality according to their beliefs? Would it be a utopia?
    Would it be a dictatorship? Would it find a balance between beliefs that are permanent and unchanging and ones that change regularly?
    Benj96 Options
  • 180 Proof
    14.1k
    ↪Benj96
    A 'consensus reality' would never evolve or emerge from pre-consensus so ... such a "universe" would have to be a simulation (perhaps within a higher simulation) programmed for its agents to collaboratively rewrite the program within which their executable files runs. The hard-coded constraints on rewriting the program would determine what the agents' consensus can come up with and how perdurable and complex their reality would be or even if it would ever reach a kind of final-state equilibrium. I suppose the process would include the agents changing also themselves by consensus / dissensus. Something like the "Titanomachy" in Hesiod's Theogony ... or Tolkien's Quenta Silmarillion ... or a very very glitchy Matrix populated only by "Agents" & programs like the "Merovingian", the "Oracle", the "Key-maker", etc. :yikes: :smirk:
    180 Proof Options
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    Tolkien's Quenta Silmarillion — 180 Proof
    http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Quenta_Silmarillion
    tim wood Options
  • T Clark
    13k
    I suppose the process would include the agents changing also themselves by consensus / dissensus. Something like the "Titanomachy" in Hesiod's Theogony ... or Tolkien's Quenta Silmarillion ... or a very very glitchy Matrix populated only by "Agents" & programs like the "Merovingian", the "Oracle", the "Key-maker", etc. — 180 Proof

    Maybe a bit off-subject, but this brought to mind "The Lathe of Heaven" by LeGuin. In that book, one person has the power to change past and present reality for everyone. Good book. Ok movie.
    T Clark Options
  • 180 Proof
    14.1k
    ↪T Clark
    :up:
    180 Proof Options
  • baker
    5.6k
    What do you think this universe would look like? What do you think would happen to people? — Benj96
    I suspect they'd all go crazy from having to operate with too many variables.

    Their universe would look like one of those circular, self-referential M.C. Escher pictures.
    baker Options
  • 180 Proof
    14.1k
    ↪baker
    :up:
    180 Proof Options
  • synthesis
    933
    But let’s take a hypothetical universe where the only governing facet of reality is “the power of belief”. Let’s suppose that reality (physics, chemistry, biology etc) in this universe shifts to align with the most dominant beliefs in descending order. Each person is initially an equal unit of belief and has the freedom to choose to believe in something someone else believes in or to deny/ignore it in favour of other beliefs. And so this universe is governed by the collective - the “popular vote” - the most commonly held set of beliefs. — Benj96

    Look out any window.
    synthesis Options
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