Can we be happy anywhere – real or virtual? At the moment of choice, it’s not the world that matters, it’s you who lives in it.
“You seem troubled. Would you like to talk about it?”
One day, you are approached by someone with a familiar vibe and a familiar story. You try to shrug it off as a matter of course, but he’s a sage, and he explains to you the difference between “reality” and “virtual reality” and gives you the choice to live in either world, just once. He shows you the familiar blue and red pills from the movie The Matrix.
Here’s how Doyin describes reality and virtual reality “Reality” is the world you live in right now, and ‘virtual reality’ is another world that someone has created that looks like reality. Everything that is in the real world is also in the virtual world, and everything that is in the virtual world is also in the real world. This virtual reality is so perfectly implemented that all of the human senses – sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch – are present, and the inhabitants of the world never realize that they are living in a virtual reality until they die. This is probably what virtual reality is like in The Matrix. Furthermore, what happens in the virtual world has no effect on the real world, and what happens in the real world has no effect on the virtual world. Even though it’s called “virtual reality,” it’s best understood as another world.
At the crossroads, you can distinguish between virtual reality and reality, but once you’ve chosen one or the other and taken the pill, the fact that you’ve made this choice will be erased from your memory, and you’ll firmly believe that the world you live in is “real” and that there is no other world. You only have one chance to make a choice, what choice will you make? The blue pill, which allows you to live in this world and forget that you ever met the Master, or the red pill, which allows you to move on to the virtual reality world described by the Master? But wait, do you really have to choose?
To simplify the choice as much as possible, we’ve assumed that the only difference between reality and virtual reality is that one is real and the other is virtual. However, no matter what other assumptions you make, one thing remains the same: if you live in one world, you live in the belief that it is the only world you live in. So what are the implications of distinguishing and choosing between virtual reality and reality? Just as an ordinary human lifetime is a speck of dust in the history of the universe over 13 billion years, it doesn’t matter at all what the reality of the world is to you, the tiny unit that makes up the world. Just as an ant can be moved to another colony and after a while it will naturally blend into it, so you can live in the world you live in for your own happiness. That world, that time, is your reality.
Some people may be uncomfortable with the artificiality of the word virtual reality, or they may feel that it is against their nature to choose virtual reality, so they choose reality. But you never know if there’s another world beyond the two choices you’re presented with: “real” and “virtual”. The fact that there are two worlds, ‘reality’ and ‘virtual reality’, is only known because it was presented to you as a choice by the Taoist. It is reasonable to doubt whether this world you are living in is really ‘reality’. The world you live in may have been referred to by the Taoist as ‘reality’, and even the word ‘reality’ may have been used as a proper noun, not in the sense of the word. A “virtual reality” may not be a reality in the sense of the word, but simply another world, or a parallel world. “We don’t know” is not synonymous with ‘there is no such thing,’ so it’s entirely possible that there are countless worlds just like the one you live in. The only thing that matters is that this world is “real” to you, the person living in this world.
Next, let’s talk about the nature of humanity. What is the essence of humanity? Is Homo sapiens sapiens a human being? If there is something artificially created by combining the substances that make up the human body, can it be called a human being? This is not an easy question to answer. This is because there is no set definition of “what ‘human nature’ is,” but rather human nature is a social consensus. Throughout human history, from ancient times to the present, the scope of what counts as human has been constantly changing. In the movie 300, there were 300 Spartan warriors and thousands of slaves on the battlefield, but only 300 warriors were on the battlefield. Slaves weren’t considered “human” by the standards of the time, and women didn’t have the right to vote until about 200 years ago. In effect, they were not recognized as human beings. In this way, the essence of being human can only be explained by how society treats you as human. Are you treated as a human being in the world you live in? If so, that is the essence of your humanity. Whether the world you live in is “real” or “virtual” has no effect on the nature of humanity.
Some people may choose virtual reality because they are frustrated by failure in the real world, or because they are curious about a world they don’t understand. However, as we’ve said before, virtual reality is a mirror image of the world you live in, and the person you’ll be living in it hasn’t changed, so if you think you can escape your current frustrations by going to another world, you’d be wrong. Even in small virtual worlds like online games, which are not the perfect virtual reality we’re talking about here, people experience frustration all the time, whether it’s having their avatar killed by someone else or having an expensive item stolen from them. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the virtual world you choose is everything you’ve ever wanted. Sure, you might be very happy with your world right now. But can you guarantee that what you want now will be exactly the same as what you want in 10 years? Just as what you wanted 10 years ago is different from what you want now, what you want 10 years from now will be different from what you want now, and you’ll have to work to get it, and if you fail, you’ll feel frustrated all over again. No world can be a utopia free of frustration unless people are completely indulgent of all their desires. What matters then is your achievement in overcoming the frustrations that will inevitably come your way, and that has nothing to do with whether the world you live in is real or virtual, but everything to do with you. There is nothing more to be said about curiosity about unknown worlds, as it presupposes that they are exactly the same as this one.
Now, it is your turn to choose. Do you take the blue pill and live in your world now, forgetting only that you ever met the Master? Then this world is your reality. Do you take the red pill and live in another world that is exactly the same as yours? Then that other world is your reality. The important thing is that whichever world you choose, you must be prepared to be happy in it.
