Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah is a novel by writer and pilot Richard Bach. First published in 1977, the story questions the reader's view of reality, proposing that what we call reality is merely an illusion we create for learning and enjoyment. Illusions was the author's followup to 1970's Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
A number of personal development teachers have cited "Illusions" as a major influence on their life path, including Dr. Joe Vitale, Bob Doyle, Brad Yates and Mike Dooley.
The simulation hypothesis was first published by Hans Moravec.Later, the philosopher Nick Bostrom developed an expanded argument examining the probability of our reality being a simulacrum.His argument states that at least one of the following statements is very likely to be true:
1. Human civilization is unlikely to reach a level of technological maturity capable of producing simulated realities, or such simulations are physically impossible to construct.
2. A comparable civilization reaching aforementioned technological status will likely not produce a significant number of simulated realities (one that might push the probable existence of digital entities beyond the probable number of "real" entities in a Universe) for any of a number of reasons, such as, diversion of computational processing power for other tasks, ethical considerations of holding entities captive in simulated realities, etc.
3. Any entities with our general set of experiences are almost certainly living in a simulation.
There were also,by some sort of coincidence that we wish to call coincidence at the moment that took place alongside reading the book.
First,when the messiah who had gifted the book felt like he didn't need any light after he'd finished reading the book,I immediately visualised a bed beside a window,the city still in the arms of the blackout it had been facing.And he indeed was sitting on a bed beside a window,in a evening - something I didn't know back then.
Secondly,from the evening before completing the book - I could see a kind of series of doors,doors inside doors.And I searched for such a picture but I couldn't find any.The next day,I found it written on the book.
Thirdly,no matter how close I felt to Donald Shimoda,I could never visualise him.I could visualise his dusty leather jacket and black trousers but I couldn't see his face.I still have the lingering taste of his fingers on mine and from inside it,all of a sudden,he wasn't all that limited anymore.He travelled from one nameless continuum to another.
Fourthly,I cried my heart out after reading the part situated before the epilogue and I felt very impulsive.So,I had to go and surrender my very limited body to the amicable starlight who stared at each part of it with precision on the rooftop.The sudden sound of crumbling of dry leaves made me realise I was still in the wrong outfit,I had shoes on.So,I opened them,too.The cool breeze that spirally dozed off towards me took a whirl in mid-air and came over and from their wingtips were born a pair of brand new wings which they put on me until I reluctantly agreed to carry their weight.All this time,I still felt someone watching every little step of mine,every single move I made.I was uncomfortable but I had accepted the wings.I didn't have the way not to encompass the endless now.I was destined to do this.I touched the shadow of two young leaves on the wall and there was a flicker of lightening,literally.
Things from as high up there as it was,are pretty different,if you ask me.
I do not know what to call that - that is,a simulation,a wall,solid water or airy wings,I don't know if I am a criminal carrying those wings silently,accepting them without having a thought or two,about premonitions and notions - but there's no going back once I'm on flight.
For a moment,I was sick of number.I had been avoiding silly calculations because I knew at the end of the day,there would still be that oblivion a number certainly couldn't define.What was a number,then? A sense?
Just when I was nearly finished,on the verge of it,one fine morning,I met a messiah.I didn't have any reason to tear the pages of my book,something I had been reluctantly writing until back then.I had everything,and that I didn't have problems certainly turned into the biggest problem.So,I began gathering from people's problems and then I got confused if whether these problems were as much mine as theirs and as I could not decide anything,I couldn't sleep.And I didn't know when I was sleeping or waking or if I was doing both of this together,which made matters worse. And then,after he had come,he implanted a certain sense that being outcast wasn't wrong,wasn't a fault,wasn't a choice,it just was.And someone didn't need to explain everything. And just when I had begun to believe that heartbeat was the limit,he gave me 20 pages that changed my life in a evening and scream it off to me that I was illiterate,I didn't know anything.I was dumb.I could redefine my dumbness and there's nothing more I can be thankful for.And of course,heartbeat wasn't the limit.Limit could never be the limit.
It took me a day each to complete each book and the flight that each of them offer you is so attractive that obviously,you want to do it for a million times again and then you begin to realise the infinity point in a circle,which certainly is the reason why you can't define pi,it goes on,running,in circles.
I have read about tough things in the past,manifestos,practical stuff,absurdist fiction,cosmos,spacetime,science,atheism,language,linguistics,political science,philosophy,programming,statistics and some more but nothing,nothing threw laser beams on me and made me realise my questions weren't faults,they couldn't be.My questions were my possessions,my answers,my troubles,my satisfaction.I used to plunge on them and get on top of them and take a close hold as the whole feeling would start mystifying and intensifying,all at once,or all at difference onces. Both of these books redefined my definition of both life and knowledge.And I couldn't have been more grateful than this.I can't express it in curves of symbols that collectively form a language,or in numbers,or in ripples or waves.I don't know how to explain it,Mr.Richard Bach but if you are out there,still breathing water and swimming the solid earth,I am thankful.You unknowingly saved a soul,as ordinary as anything else could ever be but saving is the point,you see.
And just when I had begun to merrily erase the lines between extreme absurdity and newborn reality,someone whispered that all that had been spoken could be redefined yet again and stripped down my senses."My weariness amazes me,I'm branded on my feet"...the streets are never dead enough now.They're treading as I relive my impulse to control the motion in my eyes.
I had thought it was all a bunch of individualist text before I had started it and I was an idiot to think so,now that you've successfully opened my eyes.I do not like my thoughts being controlled,so I can't express how it feels getting the key handed on an able mind,at least for the moment.Limit feels like dandelions now,dispersed here,there everywhere.Circumstances stand beyond definition.Or capability.Or continuums or the distinct essence they are intertwined with.
P.S - I am endlessly grateful to the messiah I have personally met,too.
A number of personal development teachers have cited "Illusions" as a major influence on their life path, including Dr. Joe Vitale, Bob Doyle, Brad Yates and Mike Dooley.
1. Human civilization is unlikely to reach a level of technological maturity capable of producing simulated realities, or such simulations are physically impossible to construct.
2. A comparable civilization reaching aforementioned technological status will likely not produce a significant number of simulated realities (one that might push the probable existence of digital entities beyond the probable number of "real" entities in a Universe) for any of a number of reasons, such as, diversion of computational processing power for other tasks, ethical considerations of holding entities captive in simulated realities, etc.
3. Any entities with our general set of experiences are almost certainly living in a simulation.
There were also,by some sort of coincidence that we wish to call coincidence at the moment that took place alongside reading the book.
First,when the messiah who had gifted the book felt like he didn't need any light after he'd finished reading the book,I immediately visualised a bed beside a window,the city still in the arms of the blackout it had been facing.And he indeed was sitting on a bed beside a window,in a evening - something I didn't know back then.
Secondly,from the evening before completing the book - I could see a kind of series of doors,doors inside doors.And I searched for such a picture but I couldn't find any.The next day,I found it written on the book.
Thirdly,no matter how close I felt to Donald Shimoda,I could never visualise him.I could visualise his dusty leather jacket and black trousers but I couldn't see his face.I still have the lingering taste of his fingers on mine and from inside it,all of a sudden,he wasn't all that limited anymore.He travelled from one nameless continuum to another.
Fourthly,I cried my heart out after reading the part situated before the epilogue and I felt very impulsive.So,I had to go and surrender my very limited body to the amicable starlight who stared at each part of it with precision on the rooftop.The sudden sound of crumbling of dry leaves made me realise I was still in the wrong outfit,I had shoes on.So,I opened them,too.The cool breeze that spirally dozed off towards me took a whirl in mid-air and came over and from their wingtips were born a pair of brand new wings which they put on me until I reluctantly agreed to carry their weight.All this time,I still felt someone watching every little step of mine,every single move I made.I was uncomfortable but I had accepted the wings.I didn't have the way not to encompass the endless now.I was destined to do this.I touched the shadow of two young leaves on the wall and there was a flicker of lightening,literally.
Things from as high up there as it was,are pretty different,if you ask me.
I do not know what to call that - that is,a simulation,a wall,solid water or airy wings,I don't know if I am a criminal carrying those wings silently,accepting them without having a thought or two,about premonitions and notions - but there's no going back once I'm on flight.
For a moment,I was sick of number.I had been avoiding silly calculations because I knew at the end of the day,there would still be that oblivion a number certainly couldn't define.What was a number,then? A sense?
Just when I was nearly finished,on the verge of it,one fine morning,I met a messiah.I didn't have any reason to tear the pages of my book,something I had been reluctantly writing until back then.I had everything,and that I didn't have problems certainly turned into the biggest problem.So,I began gathering from people's problems and then I got confused if whether these problems were as much mine as theirs and as I could not decide anything,I couldn't sleep.And I didn't know when I was sleeping or waking or if I was doing both of this together,which made matters worse. And then,after he had come,he implanted a certain sense that being outcast wasn't wrong,wasn't a fault,wasn't a choice,it just was.And someone didn't need to explain everything. And just when I had begun to believe that heartbeat was the limit,he gave me 20 pages that changed my life in a evening and scream it off to me that I was illiterate,I didn't know anything.I was dumb.I could redefine my dumbness and there's nothing more I can be thankful for.And of course,heartbeat wasn't the limit.Limit could never be the limit.
(Photograph Source : Google Images)
It took me a day each to complete each book and the flight that each of them offer you is so attractive that obviously,you want to do it for a million times again and then you begin to realise the infinity point in a circle,which certainly is the reason why you can't define pi,it goes on,running,in circles.
I have read about tough things in the past,manifestos,practical stuff,absurdist fiction,cosmos,spacetime,science,atheism,language,linguistics,political science,philosophy,programming,statistics and some more but nothing,nothing threw laser beams on me and made me realise my questions weren't faults,they couldn't be.My questions were my possessions,my answers,my troubles,my satisfaction.I used to plunge on them and get on top of them and take a close hold as the whole feeling would start mystifying and intensifying,all at once,or all at difference onces. Both of these books redefined my definition of both life and knowledge.And I couldn't have been more grateful than this.I can't express it in curves of symbols that collectively form a language,or in numbers,or in ripples or waves.I don't know how to explain it,Mr.Richard Bach but if you are out there,still breathing water and swimming the solid earth,I am thankful.You unknowingly saved a soul,as ordinary as anything else could ever be but saving is the point,you see.
And just when I had begun to merrily erase the lines between extreme absurdity and newborn reality,someone whispered that all that had been spoken could be redefined yet again and stripped down my senses."My weariness amazes me,I'm branded on my feet"...the streets are never dead enough now.They're treading as I relive my impulse to control the motion in my eyes.
I had thought it was all a bunch of individualist text before I had started it and I was an idiot to think so,now that you've successfully opened my eyes.I do not like my thoughts being controlled,so I can't express how it feels getting the key handed on an able mind,at least for the moment.Limit feels like dandelions now,dispersed here,there everywhere.Circumstances stand beyond definition.Or capability.Or continuums or the distinct essence they are intertwined with.
P.S - I am endlessly grateful to the messiah I have personally met,too.
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