unscriptured

Posted in unscriptured, by Toby T, Friday, June 17th, 2011 at 12:01 am.

Last week I mentioned that while having a little bit of fun God and I came up with two alternate “explanations” for the universe. Theories that offer more than the “simple” scientific view of the world, but that don’t require God to be behind everything. Last week I talked about the universe as a giant bit of computer memory. Now I’m going to tell you about our second idea. It’s called Polytheistic Solipsism.

In Polytheistic Solipsism, the universe is a shared hallucination.  We are all beings of pure thought.  The physical reality we experience is the result of consensus driven story-telling amongst us all.  Some people are better at pushing their ideas into the physical realm than others and so they have more power over the universe.  This doesn’t necessarily give them a better life, after all some people have pretty horrific stories they want to tell.  We can overcome the influence of strong individuals though, by combining our wills together to affect the universe in a greater fashion than we do as individuals.  This is a very democratic view of the universe, but still has a touch of feudalism to it.  Getting a large group of people to pray for something is an attempt to get our “real selves,” our selves that exist outside of physical reality, to join together in a cause and to change the universe in a way that is consciously directed.

We are all gods, hence “polytheistic” and the universe is literally what we imagine it to be, hence “solipsism.”

Polytheistic Solipsism can be used to explain miracles (two thousand years ago we had a collective belief in “magic” and so magic and miracles were possible), reincarnation (our “outside” selves continue on and can choose to reenter the physical world after they have finished one story and are ready to tell another), and even luck.

It even explains science. Just as the rules to some games have changed over time, by agreement amongst the players, the rules of the universe have changed. Those of us that collectively believe in a rational, explainable universe now dominate the discussion, that is have control of the hallucination, so now magic is out and science is in. There are still pockets of people that want a less rational universe so we get things like poltergeists and UFO sitings. The next time you experience something that seems a little paranormal, maybe you should look around and wonder what the people near you believe in. Maybe if the universe is weirder than you think it’s really because the people around you are weirder than you think.