Metaphysical Speculations
This is a collection of speculations I cannot get out of my head. They are too interesting to ignore, but too unformed to believe. If you read them, think about them. I will not lay out all the consequences. I will just share a few thoughts.
We Live All Lives
What if, after death, we experience the life of another person? We would live through everything. Right now I am a young, white father from Switzerland. Next time, a seamstress from Asia.
Consequences
Heaven and Hell
Who gets into heaven? Everyone. Or rather, me. I am humanity. Of course a part of it, but in a way also the whole of humanity. Either all of humanity is redeemed, or none of it is.
Of course, it could also be that I experience all consciousnesses simultaneously in heaven and in hell.
Respect
It pushes us to show understanding for others. Because we made exactly the choices (when we lived that life) that the other person chose. Our tormentors and our victims are us. We are the Jews and Hitler. We are Jesus and the Pharisees. We are Buddhists, Muslims, and Atheists.
Free Will
There is maybe no free will in this world. At least, it works very differently. Because afterward I simply live another life, and that life happens to me. But what would be much more interesting to me is this: these are all our free choices that happen there, and they happen for real. Yet that would mean the same life cannot be lived twice, otherwise one of those two lives would be without free will.
Simulation and Implantation into Another Reality
We are the creation of an intelligent being or an intelligent species. It created a computer simulation, and it is so good, so real, that true life and true consciousness emerged within it.
Arguments
Pro
Computer simulations are becoming more and more realistic. It is to be expected that soon they will be indistinguishable from reality. If they are indistinguishable, then there is also life there with conscious beings. They will also develop and develop technology within the simulation. That too will become more and more realistic, and so on. The consequence is: how likely is it that we live in this first, only real world? Roughly 0%.
Con
I have not yet seen a simulation that can simulate itself. Simulation always has overhead. If not, then the information density is very low. But I do not see how one can build, from matter with little information density, a simulation that allows simulating itself. I do not believe simulations can ever become indistinguishable without using more resources than the original. For me, such a simulation would only be information compression. That can work (as said) in areas with low information density, but not in general.
Consequences
I find the argument in favor weak, and I believe a simulation must always be fundamentally different from the original. Our current example shows this too. AIs live without time. They live from token to token. They do not live in space, nor in time. And I believe this will always be so. The fundamental dimensions of the reality of simulations will be completely different (AIs with tokens and hidden weights) from ours (forces of nature, space, and time). But we will create such different realities, and perhaps ours was created that way too. One could also call the simulator God.
Maybe the simulators care about how their creatures are doing. Maybe they transfer consciousnesses into their world. Compare this to AI: say we invent truly artificial intelligence. We could build robots and materialize AIs into our world. Of course they would still be programs, but they could interact with the "real" world. Maybe our simulation-creators do the same. In that way we would receive, in heaven, a new body that functions according to God's laws and no longer according to ours.
We Live in a Zoo
The Fermi paradox asks: if life can arise through evolution, why does it not exist on other planets we have found?
One answer that came to me in my creative writing episodes was this: we were defeated long ago by a higher race, and it keeps us in a zoo. It gives us a solar system (or universe) that will keep us occupied. But they make sure that we cannot detect the aliens and also that we cannot escape. Yet they keep us in species-appropriate conditions, so that we can play politics, military, and religion exactly as suits us. Like Zurich Zoo, only better.
This thought comes from the deep conviction that truly intelligent beings always care for the good of the whole. I believe that if a being utterly outshines us in intelligence, then it acts humanely. And leaves us an environment that is "natural" for us.
Universal Reconciliation
Only eternal life can be thought together with the love of God. If God truly loves and can grant eternal life, then he will work on all people for as long as needed (keyword: purgatory), call to them (keyword: proclamation to the dead), and be patient with them until the last one enters his presence.
Additionally, it is conceivable that life turned away from God simply ceases (annihilation). Eternal torments of hell are not compatible with love and omnipotence.
Remaining in the Final Moment
After death, or more precisely at death, our consciousness slows down and then freezes in the state of dying. So after death there is neither "heaven," nor "hell," nor a "great nothing." Rather: the moment of death is frozen and preserved.
Consequence
We should prioritize "good" dying and enable people to pass away as free from pain and fear as possible.
God Is Not (Only) Good
God is both the one who gives life and the one who gives suffering. Or biblically: God lets it rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. In this sense, rain and blessing are almost synonymous. God meets you in your striving. He is the spiritual force that guides you.
He accompanies you through your story. If you are bitter and surrounded by dark people, God becomes a demon and drags you into the abyss, taking with him whatever he can. If you have hope for the world, that hope can bring light even to the possessed.
Our task is to remain faithful to God and thus believe in his love, because otherwise madness will follow. And the deep biblical insight is this: we must believe that God is good, then he will reveal himself to us as "Papa." We are carried and can endure the unimaginable. The love of God is higher than all our understanding. All these biblical statements gain a new, deep dimension. It also makes stories like Job understandable.
Consequences
In this version, hell is quite conceivable, because perhaps after death we are drawn toward our poles. Whoever is in a downward spiral will fall into the deepest depths, and others will fly to the highest heights.
