The time it takes for our planet to make a full orbit of our solar system’s sun, is (close to) 365 days, equating to one earth ‘year’. Our existence in terms of age/time begins at 0 (leaving the womb), after 1 year, to 2, 3, etc. Ending for most Homo sapiens on this planet at year 79 (average human life expectancy), with death. When moving through space and/or time, we often use consecutive junctures to indicate where we might be, where we’ve been and ultimately, where we are headed. If there are four points in space/time identified as A, B, C and D, and you found yourself at point C, you could establish that you have passed A and B, and if you continue on your trajectory, you’ll eventually get to D(eath).

For the sake of simplifying this thought exercise, we could imagine a highly advanced synthetic mind, a mind that after being activated for a time, has its memory entirely wiped. Every time it is activated, synthetic memories of past experiences that never occurred, can be freely recalled. The artificial intelligence believes events that never happened, signify its past. It believes it is on a trajectory, paved by the past that never was, awaiting a future that will never be. A foundation of self, a perceivable ‘existence’, built upon the illusion of a compiled ‘overall’ experience.

But why would point A, B, C and so on, have to be days, hours or even minutes?

Could a “mind” exist and essentially end in the fraction of a second without ever comprehending its existence was entirely synthetic and false? A glimpse of a moment, a virtual past, a presumed fictitious future. What if what were perceived to be the ‘physical world’, the anchor to a being’s reality, came from the very same synthetic source as the synthetic mind, perceiving it?

If memory and understanding of self was false, would it be inconceivable to suggest that thought and even the illusion of ‘free will’, could be false also. All the while, an individual believes that their existence is legitimate, they have a past, they believe in a future, never once assuming the entirety of their being and reality, was purely a work of fiction.

Perhaps in the event of malfunction, when a memory is accidentally recalled before the scenario was intended to unfold, a sentient mind might explain the occurrence as a similar phenomenon to what we call ‘déjà vu’.

Someone might say, “why would anyone go to all that trouble? To create an entirely artificial universe, purely to deceive an equally artificial mind? There’s no point.”

Firstly, its also a lot of trouble for an artificial being, existing in a simulation to push an artificial bolder, up an artificial hill. Achieving nothing at the end of the ordeal, that never truly happened anyway. To entertain such a prospect, suggesting, that you yourself are the artificial being, then you have no bearing on what truly dictates “trouble” or effort to someone/something with the means to create a (false) universe. As previously mentioned, while one planetary orbit of our sun signifies a year for us, a being capable of creating a simulation of such, may require a time some several thousand times greater than that to urinate. (Assuming time as we understand it, has to exist at all, outside of this reality.)

“There’s no point.”

If you had the means to construct a reality and harbor sentient beings that knew that reality as the be all and end all, would you do it? For what purpose? And if those artificial beings, in your artificial reality had the means, would they replicate the experiment? Over and over and over again? Does there need to be a point, a purpose for something, for it to occur? Human beings like to tell ourselves our species exists because of “love”, but would it be more honest to say, we (or a great many of us) exist, like many other things, as a product of something as trivial as boredom.

Despite all love, grief, fear, hope and meaning, what if, the moment is a lie. Tomorrow never comes, and ultimately, there is no yesterday?