A Glitch in the Matrix

Watched that documentary last night. Anyone else seen it yet? There was one guy who, when describing what could be called a dissociative event, came to the conclusion he was living in a simulation. If he had been raised in Buddhist culture (ironically he was in a church when it happened), I think he would have come to a very different conclusion. What he described sounded a bit like a glimpse of conditionality or anatta.

Yeah it was interesting, that guy and one other person described experiences that sound a lot like experiences one would have along the meditative path.

I’ve heard/read that the framework you ‘believe in’ when you wake up (or whatever you want to call it) will permanently colour the experience and will tend to fanaticize some people into believing that’s the true and only path and all other paths are false.

But yeah, to your point, I wonder how they would’ve described their experiences if they had been exposed to the Buddha’s thoughts instead of believing (somewhat) that we’re in a simulation. I thought the movie was worth watching, fairly interesting points, but it bogged down a bit at the end with the kid describing the crime he committed against his family, not sure if I’d recommend it to someone…

Yeah, it’s interesting, but not earth-shattering. The guy at the very end was clearly mentally ill, and so his story was the least interesting (but horrific and tragic). However, it illustrated the dark side of believing we are living in a simulation, which the documentary hinted at several times.

The engineer/entrepreneur just struck me as…narcissistic, for lack of a better word. Claiming people he passed on the street were NPCs, and not real, living, feeling beings, to me is…arrogant. That’s one of my biggest grips about simulation theory, or at least the way people presented it in that show. I got the feeling that some of them seemed to think they were real, but others weren’t.

That sounds like solipsism syndrome:

:thinking:

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That term was brought up several times throughout the documentary. I meant to look it up, but forgot.

This is the wiki entry on the topic of solipsism itself:

:anjal:

Sounds like the ‘mind only’ (cittamatra) school of Buddhism. :slight_smile:

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Yes, indeed, there is a section on the topic within the article. :anjal:

I’m sorry, but what documentary? I don’t see any video or link, perhaps this topic is splitted from another topik :thinking:

The documentary in on Netflix, so I didn’t post a link.