Drawing from Arthur Schopenhauer’s philosophy, tragedy can be understood through three progressively deeper levels. They are defined by the source of the suffering. These levels offer a powerful lens for examining stories of all kinds. Whether a tale involves conflict, loss, or quiet sadness, viewing it through this framework can reveal new layers of meaning and emotional depth.

Yeah, this is going to be boring.

Definition

Let me first explain the three levels of tragedy.

Level 1: personal struggles (person vs. person)

In this level, bad things happen because of personal flaws. The tragedy can be caused by misunderstandings, jealousy, betrayal, or clashing desires between people, etc. There are often bad guys in the story doing bad things out of greed, envy, pride…you know, the seven sins etc.

The Godfather is a good example of Level 1 story. Michael values family power, control, and revenge over personal peace. He has choices at each stage and he chooses vengeance and coldness. He is seduced, corrupted, and destroyed by his own decisions, ambitions, fears, and attachments.

In Romeo and Juliet, the tragedy is caused by two families’ stubborn hatred and the kid’s emotional immaturity. Add in some personal misunderstandings, impulsive decisions and rash actions, we end up with a total of six deaths in the story.

Technically, we do not always need a villain for a Level 1 tragedy to happen. For example, in Romeo and Juliet there is no clear villain. In La La Land, the two lovers drift apart because they choose to pursue their own dreams and career paths, not because of any malicious characters.

Level 2: cosmic helplessness (person vs. larger force)

In this level, bad things happen because of things outside of our control, such as social systems, laws of nature, or uncontrollable circumstances. A hero can be crushed by war, injustice or disaster. Sometimes we call this larger force “destiny”.

In Titanic, the love story ended in loss, not because of evil, but because Jack and Rose are trapped in a system where class and wealth decide who lives and dies. The ship hits the iceberg. The lower-class passengers are locked below deck. Help arrives too late. This tragedy can be avoided only if the entire system (ship design, safety, class hierarchy) had been different.

The Shawshank Redemption is a Level 2 story at its core. Andy is wrongly convicted and abused by the very system meant to rehabilitate. The warden uses Andy’s talents for money laundering, and threatens to crush any hope of justice. Tommy, a fellow inmate, is killed because his testimony could free Andy — a system that kills to protect its own corruption. The tragedy is driven by a broken institution where power and justice are twisted.

The line between Level 1 and 2

To determine whether a tragedy is Level 1 or 2, ask these questions:

1. Do the characters have a choice? Can you blame them?
   • In Level 1, tragedy is typically caused by questionable choices by the characters.
   • In Level 2, the characters’ choices often do not get them out of the tragedy.
2. What does it take to avoid the tragedy?
   • In Level 1, somebody needs to do better.
   • In Level 2, the system needs to do better. If only the world is different can the tragedy be avoided.

There is not always a clear cut. You could argue that Romeo and Juliet is a Level 2 tragedy because they do not have control over the family feud. I just think that the main cause of the tragedy is the rash decisions they make, which could be avoided if they were more matured and did a better job in communication. You could also take a step back and argue that they meet at an immature age, the timing of which is out of their control, therefore Level 2 – this is totally fair. The takeaway from a story is subjective to each person after all. Getting the “correct” classification is not the point. The point is to get better understanding of the story by asking the questions.

Similarly, the line in La La Land is blurry. The lovers are pulled apart because the timings of their careers and opportunities take them in different directions. They do not have control over the timings, but they do have the choice to pick love over dreams. Can you blame them for choosing dreams instead? They do not appear to regret it at the end of the movie, so it seems sacrificing love is the right decision for them. Their relationship has a tragic ending, but their lives head in a good directions. I would say the love story is more Level 1 than 2 because they do have a choice, with a hint of Level 3 reminding audiences that you do not always get to have everything in life.

Level 3: existential futility (person vs. existence itself)

In this level, bad things happen simply because we exist. There are sufferings that you just cannot avoid as long as you are alive — endless desire, meaninglessness, impermanence, loss, etc. These existential problems are baked in the very nature of life. You either accept it or not. You may bear the suffering and keep doing what you do, or you may confront the futility and refuse to give up.

People come and go in your life. As long as you are alive, you will always part ways with different people at some point, or say goodbye to your pets — this is an example of a Level 3 problem. Time only moves one way. Some choices cannot be undone, some words cannot be unsaid — another example. Even if life is good, you still feel the ache that it could have been better. You keep thinking the other choice that you did not make could have brought you to a better place — Level 3. Some of my past posts sometimes explore Level 3 problems (e.g. meaning and identity in Immortality).

They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.

— Waiting for Godot

By definition, similar to Level 2, the Level 3 problems are also something not in your control. The difference lies in the source of the suffering. In Level 2, the source is external, such as social systems, nature, disease, etc. In Level 3, the source is yourself, your existence, which is something you cannot escape from. In Level 2, there is still something you can put your blame on. You may wish something was better, wish the world was different. In Level 3, you can only shrug it off and say “that’s just life.”

In The Dark Knight (not exactly a tragedy genre), the real fight between Batman and Joker is philosophical rather than physical. Joker never wants to beat up Batman, nor does he want money, power or revenge, he just wants to prove that “morality is an illusion”, a “bad joke”. He reveals that even Batman’s ideals are self-defeating, forcing Batman into impossible situations. To stop Joker, Batman breaks his own moral code by turning to mass surveillance and taking the blame for Harvey Dent. He gives up being a symbol of justice and becomes a symbol of fear. He chooses to become the villain — in the eyes of the people — in order to preserve Gotham’s belief in justice. He accepts the futility and bears the suffering. He cannot fix the world, he cannot win cleanly, he cannot be both right and effective, yet he still chooses to fight. This is why Nolan’s Batman and Joker are the best versions.

While The Dark Knight is only partially Level 3, the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once is a profoundly Level 3 story. It delves deep into existential dread. The multiverse chaos ultimately highlights the existential absurdity of life and the struggle to find meaning amidst infinite choices. If you can experience everything, then nothing matters anymore, meanings collapse into the “Everything Bagel”. However, the movie does not end with acceptance. Waymond’s stance is to be kind anyway. If the universe does not give you meaning, make it yourself. If nothing matters, then kindness can matter because we choose it.

Example made-up stories

Let’s put the three levels side by side for better understanding and comparison.

Example 1

Here are stories that set in the same background, but different levels:

Background: In a faraway land, there is a kingdom where everyone flies kites.

Level 1: Jill is jealous of Lesley’s new kite. She secretly weaken the kite’s thread. One day, the thread snapped in strong wind. Lesley lost her favorite kite.

Level 2: The kingdom is located in a windy prairie. On a kite festival, strong wind destroys many people’s precious kites. They tried their best to protect their kites, but the wind was too strong.

Level 3: No matter how much they love their kites, one day, the wind always take them away. They keep making new kites, because flying kites makes them happy.

Example 2

Here is one continuous story that includes all three levels:

The software system that our company uses is very slow. One time, I was so irritated that I punched the computer (Level 1). I begged the company to change system or use better hardware, but I kept being ignored because I am a nobody (Level 2). However, deep down I know that even though the system was better, I would find something else to complain about. What’s really getting to me is the mundaneness of work and life (Level 3).

You can say this is mainly a Level 3 story because the final two sentences make the other two levels less significant.

Comparison

So, what escalates from Level 1 to 3?

	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3
Scope	small group of people	people vs system	life
Avoidability	if different choices were made	if the system was different	cannot be avoided
Resolution	a moral lesson	sometimes reform or escape is imaginable	no fix, endure or collapse
Emotion	punchy and dramatic, short	suspenseful	calm, long lasting

Level 1 stories are the most common stories told. They are easy to follow, quick to stimulate emotional response. It is progressively difficult to tell a good Level 2 or 3 story. Level 3 is especially difficult because it could be slow, boring and depressing. It is generally not very dramatic. The story often does not have a resolution or an answer at the end. It requires audience to be patient. It reminds them of the depressing aspects about life. This requires good storytelling skills, yet produces less economic values because it does not appeal to everyone, and as a result, Level 3 stories are the rarest among the three levels.

Level 3 is higher level because of the escalations mentioned above, it does not mean Level 3 is “superior” to Level 2 or 1. In fact, most Oscar winner movies are mainly Level 2. I do like a good Level 1, and my favorite movie Interstellar is Level 2 (man vs nature), but I just want to focus more on 3 here.

Also, a Level 3 almost has to include elements of 1 and maybe 2 in order to form a story, and sometimes a Level 2 will touch on Level 3 to give the story more depth — which seems to be the best strategy in movies, therefore a story generally have multiple levels. Whether the “engine” of the story is 1, 2 or 3 is often be arguable, so it is not important to get the levels of stories “correct”. If a movie is intended to be Level 2, but you see Level 3 out of it, it is totally fine.

Why Level 3

Level 1 makes you sad, Level 2 makes you sigh, Level 3 makes you fall silent. You may feel strong emotions watching a Level 1 movie, but the emotions are left behind when you step out of the theater. Whilst a good Level 3 movie will still be memorable a decade later, maybe because it echoed in you, maybe you learned something about life, some perspective, philosophy, or maybe you are still searching for an answer to a question the movie never answered.

Level 3 problems are relatable even if the story is absurd or otherworldly, because they are problems we face as long as we are alive, no matter who, when or where we are. It can move everybody regardless of culture, age, race or background. If done right, Level 3 has great potential to become a timeless classic.

The movie Fight Clue is a memorable Level 3. You may remember the narrator fights because he relies on pain to remind himself that he is alive. You may have pondered what one’s identity is when the self is so fractured. You may remember the theme “capitalism bad”, but really, desire will never be satisfied, whether through buying or destroying.

Interstellar is a Level 2, but its Level 3 element is what hit you the hardest. You learned that time can steal life from you and you cannot do anything about it. You may have done everything “right” and still lose what you love. Sometimes you simply do not get the chance to love, or apologize.

Anime time!

You gotta let a weeb talk about Anime. Let’s go over some Anime’s with a strong presence of Level 3. *Spoiler alert*.

Psycho-Pass

Set in a futuristic society governed by the Sibyl System, which constantly scans citizens’ mental states and assigns them a “Psycho-Pass” score. If your “crime coefficient” is too high—even if you haven’t committed a crime—you can be arrested or even eliminated.

There are individual vs system/society Level 2 elements, but the Level 3 elements are equally dominant. Akane, who starts off idealistic, must confront the horrifying implication of a society that has outsourced justice to a machine. She later sees how the system functions, what it really is, and realizes this is the best humanity could come up with, and it is deeply flawed. She does not destroy it when given the chance, and choose to work within the system, despite its horror and against her own ideals, simply because there is no perfect answer.

Through this imaginary world, the anime gets us to think about law and order, at the same time silently throws philosophical and existential questions at us (not going to list them here).

The law doesn’t protect people. People protect the law.

—Akane, Psycho-Pass

It is also interesting seeing the Sibyl system evolve each time after its logic is challenged. Throughout the show it becomes more and more human, even though ironically it is designed to eliminate human fallibility from the justice system.

Similarities to From the New World

Psycho-Pass has many similarities to another great title From the New World. In a world where people start to have super dangerous psychic powers, in order to engineer a peaceful society, the culture is designed to prevent certain kinds of violence by committing different kinds of violence. Education and information are heavily controlled. Deviant kids are “removed”. Even though the system is oppressive, even though it back-fires by creating “monsters”, the real tragedy is when the protagonists eventually discover the ugly truths about the system and the world, they decide to work within it, because it may be the only thing preventing human extinction and they cannot find a better solution. Similar to Psycho-Pass, the institutional control and the “necessary” cruelty are to ensure a stable society. They may be bad systems, but even if you overthrow them, the underlying problems in human nature still remain.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Gotta be pretentious and bring up Eva. This anime is legendary for many reasons, one of which is because it is Level 3 in full bloom.

After a global catastrophe (“Second Impact”), humanity faces attacks by mysterious beings called Angels. Teenagers are recruited to pilot biomechanical giants called Evas under the organization NERV, led by Gendo Ikari. The main pilot, Shinji, is emotionally fragile and deeply lonely, and his relationship with his father Gendo is icy and manipulative.

As the battles escalate, the show reveals that the war is only the surface. Behind it is a secret plan (“Instrumentality Project”) aimed at reshaping human existence itself. The story becomes less about defeating enemies and more about whether a person can live with pain, separation, and selfhood.

The mecha fights in this anime are so good, they are studied like a textbook. However, giant robots are never the point in this anime. Different than countless other mecha anime in the same era, victories in Eva battles bring back trauma, not glory. The stated reasons why the teenagers engage in these brutal fights are often a mask, such as “my father told me to”, “it’s my duty”. The cruel truth is they force themselves due to deeper needs. Shinji fights for approval and acceptance. Asuka fights for validation and self-worth. Rei fights to figure out whether she is a “tool” or human.

The “hedgehog’s dilemma” (you need others, but you hurt each other by getting close) is a main Level 3 problems repeatedly presented in the anime. Being an individual means you are trapped inside your own mind. You can’t be fully understood. You can be rejected, abandoned, misread. It is the source of desire, fear and conflicts. The Instrumentality Project (“人類補完計画”) offers a solution to this. A byproduct of the project is the removal of the boundaries between selves (“AT Field” collapse) and in turns, all souls merge into one single shared consciousness. No more “you vs me”. All humans become one being. This is an attempt to “solve” a Level 3 problem, a direct challenge to Schopenhauer’s Will.

This means no more individuality, no genuine relationships, no consent, or arguably no real “life”. The choice is ultimately given to Shinji. Shinji is weak and emotionally destroyed by loss, rejection, guilt and shame. Instrumentality is tempting because if he erases separation, he erases pain, but at the end, Shinji chooses:

“I want to see them again.”

(Even if they hurt me.)

This is not bravery – he is still a coward. This is neither happy nor tragic ending. The final line (“How disgusting”) Asuka says to Shinji is both despisal and acceptance. This is perfect ending.

There is a lot more to this anime.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End

Ah Frieren, my favourite anime of all time. A quiet anime that packs a loud Level 3.

The story begins AFTER the Demon King is defeated by Frieren, an elf mage, alongside the hero Himmel, priest Heiter, and warrior Eisen. After the victory, they separate and promise to meet again. Decades later, Frieren returns, barely changed by time, and finds her human companions aged. She watches Himmel die, and realizes too late that she never truly understood him or the time they shared.

Frieren sets out on a long journey “to understand humans,” accompanied first by Fern (Heiter’s adopted daughter) and later Stark (Eisen’s student). Along the way, she revisits places from the old adventure, meets people shaped by Himmel’s past kindness, confronts remnants of demon threats, and slowly learns: meaning is not in grand victories, but in the small moments she used to overlook.

Have you ever used the word “urgent” to describe emotions? Compared to an elf, humans lifespan is like a short paragraph. As a result, Frieren could not understand that their emotions are urgent, their meanings compressed. Himmel’s affection and devotion are often plain in hindsight, but Frieren could not read it at the time and filed it away. Recognition arriving too late is the core Level 1 tragedy. Frieren did not do anything evil. She just did not notice.

The main Level 2 engine is time and mortality. Humans are short-lived; Frieren isn’t. That asymmetry creates tragedy even when everyone is kind. No amount of personal growth can undo the rule that humans vanish.

The Level 3 is the existential realization that a lot of life’s significance is only legible in hindsight, when you cannot act on it anymore, especially for Frieren who is emotionally “late” by default because of her lifespan and habit unless she deliberately changes. Life’s meaning is mostly made of things that do not look important while they are happening, and only later do you realize those were the load-bearing beams holding your life up.

Frieren learns to grieve properly. She keeps traveling. She keeps collecting spells (differently). She learns small rituals like gifts, seasonal events, visiting graves, remembering promises. Her response to the Level 3 realization is to be more awake, more responsive to time, and stop treating feelings as something you can download later.

The way the anime portrays demons is a smart mirror-trick. Just like Frieren, demons are emotionally “flat”, long-lived, and hard to read. They exploit humans by mimicking human emotions and empathy without having them. Demons do not understand human and do not want to, while Frieren wants to but she is just slow and out-of-sync.

Season 2 seems to be coming out. I am looking forward to it.

Similarities to Violet Evergarden

Violet Evergarden is actually my previous favourite before Frieren, and I realized they are similar. Frieren and Violet both set out to learn human emotions after a war, but Frieren looks back, while Violet reach outward.

Violet is a former child soldier raised as a weapon. She was trained to obey, not to feel or interpret feelings. She lost Gilbert in war and tries to understand what his words (“I love you”) mean. She learns emotions at her new job as a ghostwriter where she writes letters for people who cannot write or need help. Each episode is like an emotional apprenticeship. She borrows people’s feelings, translates them into words, and gradually gains her own. This show is more on Level 1 and 2.

Final Thoughts

Schopenhauer himself did not divide tragedies into three levels. People came up with these three levels based on his ideas. I have heard different versions of the three levels, and the version above makes the most sense to me.

Systematically dividing things into different levels can sometimes provide much insights. For example, happiness has levels, and people pursuing different types of happiness likely live different lives. Food and video games give you pleasure. Job achievement gives you self-worth. Relationship gives you closeness. Doing things that align with your values or dreams gives you fulfillment. Practicing buddhism gives you inner steadiness. These are different levels of happiness. They are progressively less intense and more long lasting. Loneliness has levels depending on whether you lack companion, belonging, understanding, or purpose. Thinking this way helps you better understand yourself.

Anyway, ending this long post here. Peace.

Again, another post about some random and naive thought experiments and speculations.  It’s nice to have a blog to write them down.  This time, I’m exploring the topic of Immortality.

Convergence

I recently played a game called Paradise Killer.  The story sets in a society where a group called Syndicate have lived for millennia ruling over a series of experimental islands.  Each and everyone of the Syndicate is a weirdo.  They are obsessed with various things and have vastly different personalities and beliefs, which got me thinking – would a group of people tend to become more similar or more different when they lived together for millennia?  What would immortality do to our minds?

Maybe the characters in Paradise Killer have such unique personalities so that the story is more intricate and interesting, and so that each of them can have their own goals and motives (it’s a murder investigation game).  In reality, I would think people tend to become more and more similar over time.  

If you think about people who have been in a marriage or family for a long time, for the most part they tend to have similar beliefs and values.  In their daily lives they convince each other bit by bit through random discussions or arguments or comments.  They converge.  When they hear about the same story, they often have similar judgments.

In a bigger scope, people born in different cultures used to be more diverse, but then there is globalization which mixes our beliefs and values in a big pot.  Popular media such as movies, books, music and the internet can reach most people on the planet, mixing our minds and averaging us.  We start to have more and more similar tastes, standards and opinions, celebrate the same things, and fall into the same bad habits.

We only live for decades.  There may be things that we will never come to an agreement with in our life time.  But what if we can live forever?  Will we convince each other eventually?  Eternity is a long time.  Maybe we will reach some ultimate truth(s) that everyone will agree on.

Will we also end up with similar personalities?  Apart from biological factors, personalities are shaped by life experiences.  If we have infinite lifetime, we should run into the same kinds of ups and downs at some point or another.  Given enough time, the big picture of our life should look about the same.  It’s like mixing lots of colours and you end up with black, like randomness ends up forming a Gaussian Curve, our personalities may end up being slightly different shades of black, or slightly twisted Gaussian Curves.

But who knows?  I could be very wrong.  Infinity is not something we can comprehend.  Maybe our common sense is no longer applicable in the scenario where we are immortal.

Doom

Murphy’s Law tells us, anything that can go wrong will go wrong.  It’s just statistics.  Immortality is nice, but there must exist some events awful enough to make you regret being immortal.  The probabilities for such events may be infinitesimally small, but multiplied that by the infinity of lifetime, you know these events are bound to happen at some point.  Imagine your enemy buries you deep underground, trapping you in darkness for centuries (assuming you can survive), would you rather die?  Life has a million different ways to torture a person, some will make you wish you were never born.  If you manage to pull through one of these events, will you be able to make it through a million more?

Should we have a suicide button for these situations ?  What about the ability to respawn?

Inequality

Luck may play a big role in our lives because life is short.  But when lifetime is infinite, statistically, luck has minimal effects in a long run. It merely causes small fluctuations.  It seems what will make a difference in a long run is anything you have that I will never have, things that I cannot trade time to obtain, such as perhaps your genetic advantages.  If you are born to do something slightly better than others, multiplying that by infinity, you will achieve infinitely more.  Even if you have a rough start, you may eventually pull ahead.  So…does it mean some lucky individuals are born to be superior?

A big assumption here is that genes can’t be changed, that our DNA sequences are read only algorithms.  This is already not true as we have technologies such as CRISPR that can alter our DNA.  Changing DNA may be one of the most feasible ways to achieve immortality in the first place.  If that is the future, then a different kind of inequality arises – the top elites and corporations who own the technologies may gain unprecedented power and influence, as Yuval Noah Harari described in his books.  This inequality probably won’t stand forever though. Murphy’s Law will destroy it.  

I assume we will eventually have the technology to change all DNA in our bodies.  Theoretically, I can become you.  Rather, there must exist some optimal DNA sequences that people pursue.  Would most people be very similarly good looking then?  Is there going to be fashion in DNA?  Can we copyright DNA?  In any case, if we live forever, chances are that even biologically we become more similar to each other.  If DNA is not unique anymore, are there really things that I can’t trade time to obtain in a long run?  Does inequality really exist in a long stretches of time?

If that is the future, if anything in us can be changed, what are our identities then?  Our memories?  Is memory not editable in the future?  I guess our pasts will be unique, but can the past be used as identity at all?

Imaginations

I wonder what immortal life will be like.  If you can potentially live forever unless you die by accident, you will probably want to stay as safe as possible.  Death is a lot more scarier when you have an eternity to lose.  But how can you enjoy life without taking any risks?  Will you never go outside in fear of traffic accidents?

The body double approach

I guess one way to stay safe is to have your body secured in a very safe place, and remote mind control a clone of yourself to go outside and enjoy life, assuming technology is advanced enough that you can see and sense through the clone as if you are inside it, and assuming your brain is capable of this.  This way, if the clone dies, you can just get another one, while your real body is living forever (figuratively) in the safe place.

However, since information cannot transmit faster than the speed of light, there will be milliseconds of latency before your command reaching the clone and the respond coming back to you.  Gamers know that playing video games with high latency is frustrating.  In VR, 20 milliseconds of input latency may even cause motion sickness.  Light can only travel 6000 kilometres in 20 milliseconds, that’s shorter than the earth’s radius.  Even assuming the signal can penetrate earth, your clone can’t even go half way across the earth from you without having latency issues.

If we still want to go for this approach, maybe one solution to the problem is to give the clone a copy of your brain and let it act on its own.  It will keep a consistent remote connection to sync memory with your real body.  This way, you get to experience the life that the clone is experiencing in real time.  You are not directly controlling the clone, but since the clone is an exact copy of you, the actions it has taken are also what you would have done if you were it.  As long as the clone is not physically moving way too fast, there shouldn’t be latency issues.

For a more immersive and authentic experience though, we will probably need to make your brain forget that your body is fixed in place, and trick your brain to believe that you are inside the remote clone, that the clone’s decisions are your decisions.  And for the clone to live a more natural and autonomous life, it won’t know itself is a clone.  It won’t know your existence.  

While we are at it, instead of an exact copy of yourself, why not create a different persona for a different experience?  Why not have multiple clones at once to experience multiple lives at the same time?  And do you have to be human?  Would you like an extra arm?  Can you ok with sharing your clone with someone else?

Things can go wrong though.  A difficulty is to maintain the connections.  If the connection to your brain breaks, then your “character” is going rogue.  They can fully function on their own without you.  They don’t know they are supposed to send you memories.  They don’t need you.  You are not their consciousness, you are not their soul.

Some connection issues may be temporary or can be fixed remotely, but some will inevitably need manual intervention.  So, to ensure your best experience, there will be human or AI agents who secretly oversees the society and catches these “defects” to fix them or eliminate them.  

At this point, I feel like I am writing Sci-Fi.  There could be a story here where the main character suddenly realizes he is being hunted down, and as he makes it through various tight situations and encounters, he slowly discovers what he is as well as the sad dystopian truth.  What will he do?  Will he take the blue pill?  Maybe he also discovers a mental virus spreading in people’s minds, brainwashing them little by little to become in harmony with some mastermind.  How would our main character resolve this crisis?

The simulation approach

Another approach to stay safe while ensuring a good long life is through virtual simulations.  If we had the technology to send memories into our brains, instead of having clones to create memories for us, we could just render a virtual reality world into our brains.  Just like how the Matrix is experienced by the people.

In the body double approach, you may be able to become a different person, but through simulations, you can experience a whole different world.  In the real world, no matter how we change it to our liking, there are things I assume we will never be able to change, such as rules like physics.  But in a virtual world, we can bend physics, we can turn back time, we can look like anime characters and have super powers.  We are the gods in these worlds.

But playing god will eventually become boring, just like how cheating in a video game often takes the fun out of it.  It is better to not remember that you have admin access to the world.  Let’s say you simulated the world from Lord of the Ring and you play as Frodo Baggins – while going through all the hardship with Sam and the gang, wouldn’t it be annoying if you know all this time that you could just teleport the ring to Mount Doom, or even delete the ring using a command?  It totally breaks immersion.

So, you will not know that you are inside a simulation.  This way, the experience is not going to be affected by the outside knowledge.  Of course, this is optional, but recommended.  And don’t worry, the system will give you an emergency eject option in case you are experiencing significant level of suffering, and this level is also optional and adjustable by you.

Are we living in such a simulation right now?  At this point, the implications are getting scary.  If live is a simulation, and we are heading towards immortality, does it mean that we will never come out of the current simulation?  And we may be heading into a simulation of our own creation, and inside that simulation, we may eventually achieve immortality and will never get out?  Would the creators of simulations foresee this problem and forbid immortality?  If so, is immortality not possible in our current world then?  Also, if I suffer enough, will I see an eject option?

There is another problem.  To simulate a world, we need computational power and memory.  Computations are required to calculate how things will behave.  Memory is required to keep track of things’ current states.  If we want the world to be as realistic as possible, we need to simulate down to the atom level and smaller.  That is a huge amount of work.  It requires an enormous amount of energy to process every “frame” of this world.  And how much memory do we need?  How much physical memory is required to track one simulated atom?  To build that required amount of physical memory, how many real-world atoms does it take?  Would compression help?  Would Quantum computing help?  

There are a lot more technical questions I am not going to explore.  What I am getting at is, if we were to create a simulation of our world, it is going to be a watered-down reality.  It is not possible to create an exact replica.  It will be smaller.  It will run slower.  There will be bugs in the program (which may be fine because people in the simulation will probably think that’s how the world works, like gravity could be a bug in our world, and we just call it physics).  

And we may be able to have only one or a few simulations running due to how resource demanding they are, so we may need to share simulations – in other words, multiplayer.  That means no playing gods because that is unfair, and everyone needs to forget they are in a simulation because it will not work if some people are aware.   Maybe we need to have a vote on what the world(s) should look like.

If our world was a simulation, that means the “real” world would be larger and more complex, and if that world was also a simulation, then the “real” “real” world would be even larger and more complex.

The upload approach

If science and technology are advanced enough, and we are able to understand and manipulate our consciousness, then the next level solution is to upload our consciousness.

You no longer need a body to stay alive.  You are no longer physical.  You become a piece of software, an algorithm.  You exist in the network, you live in some data centre somewhere.  You move at the speed of network transmission speed.  You think at the speed of processor speed.  If you want to interact with the physical world, you can download your consciousness into a compatible body.  Or if you prefer simulated worlds, you can easily go in and out.

You don’t have to tend to your body needs anymore.  This includes food, water, oxygen, warmth, sleep, sex.  You no longer feel the need for them, because they used to be signalled by your body.  There is small problem here, throughout your life, you have gotten used to pursuing these stuff.  It is hard-wired in your brain (or your “algorithm”).  After you are uploaded, initially you may still want some of the stuff, but you don’t need them, so it will be less satisfying getting them virtually.  We may need to artificially program you so you can virtually feel things human can feel, just to ease your transition to a whole new life.  I believe eventually you won’t need it.

You see, you are no longer human.  You have come far from being human.  From a biological standpoint, you are already deceased.  Only your mind becomes immortal.  This is not sad.  This is evolution.

Being a piece of software means that you can be copied and backed up.  You are less likely to die for real.  I’m not even sure if the usage of the word “die” is appropriate here anymore.  

Data corruption is a new risk though.  Part of you may accidentally go missing or changed.  You can always recover from backup, but what if the corrupted part affects your decision making and you decide not to recover?  And should you worry about small corruptions?  A small DNA mutation can lead to cancer in human body.  Is there going to be cancer in the uploaded minds? 

The idea of uploading is very farfetched.  There are so many uncertainties that my imagination cannot keep up with.  I don’t want this section to be filled with questions.  I guess the biggest and common concern is, how can we be sure that our consciousness will be uploaded?  How can you prove that once I am uploaded, I will wake up in the virtual world?  Because it appears the same to you if I die upon upload, and a simulation of me is created.  How can you be sure where my consciousness is?

Closing Remarks

Imaginations about the future may seem scary sometimes, but this is only because we are trying to let a huge amount of changes sink in at once, changes that are supposed to brew gradually over a long time.  We are talking about immortality here.

Also, I threw ethics completely out the window in my speculations, as I don’t think ethics will stand in the river of time.  Someone will eventually breach ethical boundaries, and others will follow, unless there are good reasons not to.

Despite the concerns, I do hope to live longer. Long, long enough to get very, very bored.

05/12/25 Edit

This topic suddenly crossed my mind yesterday. Maybe I should make another point – death may become more and more tempting as time goes on.

If you have lived long enough and experienced everything, things start to become pointless, repetitive and boring. It is hard to find new experiences. At some point, you may say to yourself, “I’ve lived long enough.”

Do you know that feeling when you have played your favourite video game for a long time, you eventually get tired of it and you leave it behind? Maybe you no longer log in to an MMO, or you no longer load up a Minecraft world. You were once so invested in them. You had a great time. But was it a hard thing to do or did you quit naturally?

Experiment shows that, when a person is trapped inside a room with nothing else but a button that once pressed, sends them an unpleasant electric shock, many would choose to press the button, because they cannot stand the boredom and need the stimulation. For an immortal being, what’s the ultimate stimulation?

Maybe it’s a button to end this life, or maybe it just erases or alters the memory. Either way, it’s an exit button – you press it and you are gone.

What’s there to lose really? When you have too much of something, that thing becomes less valuable.

Would anyone stop you? Everyone is having this problem. Other people may very well be contemplating this too, so they will probably understand.

By the way, I am not mentally unwell. I just like to wonder how things work. An INTP here.