Lionheaded figurine from Stadel in the Hohlenstein cave in Germany

On the Origin of Religions

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We, humans, rule the Earth because we collaborate flexibly in large numbers. Social animals, such as monkeys and dolphins, work together flexibly but only in small groups. Ants and bees cooperate in large numbers but only in fixed ways. Language enables our large-scale, flexible collaboration. Some animals use signs and calls or give each other names, but we use far more words.1 That allows us to cooperate in more ways and for a wide range of purposes. Language allows us to make and communicate agreements. And we can describe things in detail. We can write, ‘Please read these safety instructions carefully before using model T92.’ Then follow many pages of instructions. Butterflies don’t follow a written list of safety instructions before leaving their cocoons, unlike NASA when launching a spacecraft. That is why butterflies have never landed on the Moon.

We are also imaginative creatures. We imagine things into existence. We envision laws, money, property, corporations, social classes and states. We imagine that there is a law, and that is how the law works. In other words, we envision the law, and lo and behold, it exists. The same is true for money and corporations. We humans say, ‘Let there be corporations.’ And lo and behold, there are corporations. Only humans do that. No other species envisions money and corporations. I can’t give a dog a debit card to go to the supermarket to buy dog food. A dog lacks the imagination for that. A dog can’t think of money, laws and corporations. And so, you can’t make dogs work together in a corporation to produce dog food by paying them money. Our fancifulness existed long before civilisations emerged. Archaeologists uncovered a 32,000-year-old sculpture of a lion’s head upon a human body. These lion-men existed only in the human imagination.

And we imagine gods. We are religious creatures. We cooperate using myths. People of the same religion can go on a holy war together. Faith can also motivate people to engage in charitable work and provide for the poor. Religions promote social stability by justifying the social order and promising rewards in the afterlife for those who support it. As societies grew more stratified, the elites, such as kings and priests, tried to justify their existence and lavish lifestyles, and to explain why peasants had to toil. And so, creation myths emerged, explaining that the gods created humans to work the ground. Established religions were often schemes to exploit peasants. It only works with humans. You can’t let a dog submit to you by saying obedient hounds will go to heaven and enjoy everlasting bliss after they die, and unruly canines will be fried forever in a tormenting fire. A dog lacks the imagination to think of it, let alone believe it. We make up stories and believe in them. We are social beings and need a group to survive. Beliefs hold groups of humans together, so it was a matter of survival to believe our own imagination.

Small bands of people cooperate because their members know one another and can see what everyone contributes. In larger groups, that becomes more difficult as people can cheat. That is where states, money, and religions come in. They facilitate collaboration between strangers, allowing us to operate on a larger scale. States do so by coercion, money by trade, and faith by inspiration. As there has always been a survival-of-the-fittest-like competition between societies, those who cooperated most effectively survived and subjugated others. Religions forge bonds and help maintain peace within a group, or inspire group members to go to war. Religions played a crucial role in human survival. If believing means surviving, it is rational to have faith, regardless of how curious the belief may be. It is in our nature to be religious, and usefulness rather than correctness is the essence of religion. And so, it is better to view a religion not as a set of lies, but as something people agree on to believe in, which helps them to cooperate and survive.

We make up stories and believe them. Hollywood films featured reptiles disguised as humans. Since then, some people have claimed that reptiles live among us disguised as humans. You can see how we can go collectively crazy in this way. When we retell stories, they change. We forget parts of a tale, add new elements or alter their meaning. And so beliefs and religions evolve. The evolution of religions has been a process in which ideas emerged and interacted. Early humans were hunter-gatherers who believed that places, animals, and plants possessed awareness, feelings, and emotions. They asked them for favours, like ‘Please, river, give me some fish.’ Hunter-gatherers felt they were more or less on an equal footing with the plants and animals around them.1 Animism is the name for these beliefs. These beliefs were local and concerned visible objects like a tree or a mountain. Over time, people began to imagine invisible entities like fairies and spirits. A crucial step in the development of religions was the practice of ancestor veneration.

The first humans lived in small bands based on family ties. Their ancestors bound them together. And so, they began to venerate the dead. It was a small step to imagine that the spirits of the dead are still with us and that our actions require the approval of our late ancestors. Ancestor veneration made it possible to envision a larger-scale relatedness in the form of tribes. A tribe is much larger than a band. The belief that its members share common ancestors holds a tribe together. Tribes are too large to identify their common ancestors, so tribespeople imagined their ancestors, and the stories about them are myths. The Romans started as a tribe. They had a myth about their founders, Romulus and Remus. As the tale goes, a she-wolf raised them. Tribes are much larger and can muster more men for war. That is why tribes replaced bands. It helps when people attribute magical powers to their ancestors and fear the consequences of angering them. In this way, ancestor veneration turned into the worship of gods. The previous beliefs didn’t disappear completely. Many people still believe in ghosts.

Hunter-gatherers can move on in the event of conflict, but farmers invest heavily in their fields, crops, and livestock. Losing their land, animals, or harvest meant starvation. With the arrival of agriculture, property and territorial defence became paramount. States defend their territory and can afford larger militaries. Kinship is an obstacle, as states enlist people within their realms, regardless of family ties. States thus needed a new source of authority, and the worship of gods replaced ancestor veneration. When humans subjugated plants and animals for their use, they needed to justify this new arrangement. Myths emerged in which the gods created this world and ordained that humans rule the plants and animals. In Genesis, God says, ‘Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’ (Genesis 1:28) Most of the world’s major religions originated in agricultural societies.

Religions emerged from ancestor worship. And so, gods could be like mothers and fathers. People gave devotion to several ancestors. Each ancestor had a specific admirable quality. Consequently, early religions featured multiple gods and goddesses, each with a distinct role. That is called polytheism, which is the belief in several gods. Henotheistic religions emerged later when people became emotionally attached to a particular deity. Henotheism is the belief that multiple gods exist, but that we should worship only one of them. Even polytheists can believe there is a supreme being or principle. However, that supreme being is indifferent to our concerns, so it doesn’t make sense to direct prayers to it in the hope of receiving help. The gods, being on a lower level, have desires, so we can befriend them by making offerings, polytheists believed.1

The next step is monotheism, the belief that there is only one God. Monotheists believe that there is only one God who rules the universe. Monotheistic religions were successful because monotheists, most notably Christians and Muslims, have missionary zeal. They believe that God craves our worship. Converting others is an act of mercy, as unbelievers will end up in hell. The worship of other deities is an offence to monotheists. After all, it contradicts their belief that there is only one God worthy of infinite adoration. Failing to take action against the unbelievers could anger God. Polytheists are less likely to feel offended when some choose to worship just one of the many deities or invent a new one.

In the first centuries AD, Christianity replaced the worship of local deities. To help pagans accept Christianity, the Church replaced these deities with saints, who often had the same purpose, and took over existing holidays. Each saint had specific qualities, just like the previous deity. In Ireland, St. Brigid of Kildare replaced a Celtic goddess with the same name. Both occupy themselves with healing, poetry, and smithcraft, and their feast day, 1 February, is the same, which is not a coincidence. And so, polytheism didn’t disappear entirely, as Christians continued to pray to saints. The Church also took over the Roman holiday commemorating the winter solstice, which was on 25 December. It turned pagan rites to celebrate the rebirth of the Sun into a Christian feast commemorating the birth of Christ.

Monotheism comes with a few logical difficulties. We hope that God cares for us and answers our prayers. However, prayers often remain unanswered, and bad things happen. So, how can an almighty, benevolent Creator allow this? The obvious answer is that there is no god, or God doesn’t care. That is not what we want to hear. And so people imagined Satan, God’s evil adversary, who makes all these bad things happen.1 And we hope that the people we hate receive punishment, if not now, then in the afterlife or a final reckoning on Judgement Day. Religions cater for our sentiments, a psychologist might say.

A religion need not be about gods. There are godless religions or moral philosophies. The most well-known are Confucianism and Buddhism. Confucianists and Buddhists may believe in gods, but their religions don’t centre on them. They may think that the gods don’t interfere with our lives, or they may worship them on the side. A Buddhist may also bring offerings to a deity. What moral philosophies and religions have in common is that they tell us how to live. The sage Gautama Buddha claimed that craving makes us discontent and causes our suffering. Fulfilling our desires doesn’t help, as new desires will replace them, and the suffering continues. The solution is not to have desires. Confucianism centres around family and good manners. It teaches respect for parents and elders, as well as social harmony through virtues such as benevolence, propriety, and righteousness. It values loyalty, reciprocity, and education.

In modern times, Europeans developed ideologies such as liberalism, socialism, and fascism that, like moral philosophies, describe how we should live. These ideologies are much like religions. They have prophets, holy books, missionary zeal, and preachers. The prophets of communism were Marx and Lenin. They had theologians who explained their writings. The communists had public holidays, such as 1 May, and heresies like Trotskyism. The Soviet army units had chaplains to oversee the troops’ faithfulness, although the Soviets referred to them as people’s commissars. The communists further expected an end time, the proletarian revolution, after which they would enter Paradise, world communism. A fanatic missionary zeal further characterised Soviet communism.1 And so, communism is much like a religion. The foundations of liberalism and socialism are the Christian values of freedom and equality. Fascism developed from nationalism, and the struggle for survival in nature inspired Nazism, which helped to make it especially cruel.

After the Middle Ages, educated Europeans began to doubt their religion. The contradictions in the Scriptures started to attract the attention of the most critical minds. And then came the party pooper, Charles Darwin, who wrote On the Origin of Species. Plant and animal species are the outcome of a struggle for survival. Despite the frantic efforts of religious people to fiddle with the facts, the evidence continued to mount. Religions exist because we invent stories to promote cooperation, and that contributes to our success, not because there is an invisible fellow in the sky. But human imagination reigns supreme. We may soon have the technology to create gods that build virtual-reality universes for themselves. That already happened. We live in a universe created by an advanced post-human civilisation to entertain someone we call God.

Latest revision: 23 September 2026

Featured image: Lion-headed figurine from Stadel in the Hohlenstein cave in Germany.  J. Duckeck (2011). Wikimedia Commons.

1. A Brief History Of Humankind. Yuval Noah Harari (2014). Harvill Secker.

Society on Pillars

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Identity groups

Dutch society has long centred around religious and ideological identity groups. The Dutch have a word for it: pillarisation. A pillar is vertical and encompasses all social classes, including doctors and factory workers. Dutch social life occurred within their identity group, and the Dutch had few contacts with outsiders. The pillars had their own sports clubs, political parties, unions, newspapers, and broadcasters. Roman Catholics and Protestants also had their own schools and hospitals. It was living apart together, so like being married while sleeping in separate bedrooms and having very little sex or not at all.

Dutch society consisted of three pillars: Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Socialist. Each of them represented 30% of the population. The Protestants had split into smaller groups, each with its own specific views on the Bible. Protestants were more literal in their interpretation of the scriptures, which has led to some irreconcilable disputes. The remaining 10% of the Dutch were liberals. The liberals were less organised and opposed pillarisation, but they also had a political party, a newspaper, and a broadcaster.

Strong communities are close-knit, share norms and values, and have social obligations. The pillar organisations focused exclusively on their communities. Similar arrangements existed in other countries, but the Netherlands was known for it. In the Netherlands, none of these groups dominated society. The shared Dutch identity and the state kept these relationships cooperative. The pillars thus supported Dutch society. Pillarisation was not a success everywhere. The arrangement had long helped Lebanon, but eventually the country collapsed into a civil war with interventions of foreign powers such as Israel and Syria.

The Dutch were renowned for their tolerance, which at times approached indifference. The identity groups accepted each other and minded their own affairs. After 1800, there was no longer any threat of civil war. The 1848 revolutions passed the Netherlands as the king promptly implemented liberal reforms. Leadership played a significant role. The leaders of the pillars were willing to compromise, and the members of the identity groups merely followed their leaders, thereby ensuring peaceful relations in society.

Identity issues nonetheless dominated Dutch politics at times. There were several petty disputes. An example is that on 11 November 1925, the cabinet fell when the Catholic ministers resigned after Parliament accepted an amendment introduced by a small Protestant faction to eliminate funding for the Dutch envoy to the Vatican. A Protestant government faction had supported the amendment.

None of the identity groups dominated society. Instead, they had to make deals with each other. On identity issues, Roman Catholics and Protestants helped each other. They arranged for schools and hospitals to retain a religious identity and for the state to fund them as public schools and hospitals. The Socialists made deals on working conditions and social benefits with Catholics and Protestants.

Pillarisation in the Netherlands began to take shape at the close of the nineteenth century. Dutch society was built upon the pillars. The arrangement allowed groups with different identities to coexist peacefully and gradually integrate. From the 1960s onwards, the pillars lost their meaning, and the Dutch became one nation. Pillarisation can be helpful if you believe in a shared destiny for the nation-state but have different backgrounds that prevent short-term integration. In this sense, it is a variation on multiculturalism.

Dutch broadcasting system

Both commercial and state media have issues, at least if you value honest reporting and diversity of opinion. Most of today’s large media outlets are part of a few large conglomerates and vulnerable to a takeover by a leader and his billionaire cronies, so that you end up with the worst of both. That has occurred in Russia and Hungary, and it is now happening in the United States. The Dutch had a solution. In 1930, the Dutch government enacted the Broadcasting Time Decisions and Radio Regulations laws. Broadcasters were required to represent an identity group in society, and the state oversaw content to ensure it was neither inappropriate nor subversive.

Initially, there were four large broadcasters, namely KRO (Catholic), NCRV (Protestant), VARA (socialist) and AVRO (liberal) and some smaller ones. Later, membership counts determined airtime, allowing for new entrants, such as EO (evangelical), TROS (entertainment), and Veronica (more entertainment). Another change was allowing advertisements. Allowing more entertainment and advertising eroded the system’s original intent, making it more like commercial media.

As the Dutch government had outlawed commercial radio and television and only allowed public broadcasting, the police took illegal radio broadcasters off the air. In 1960, the commercial radio broadcaster Veronica started challenging the existing order by broadcasting from the sea, outside the Dutch territorial waters. It signalled the start of a long struggle. The Dutch government was reluctant to open the broadcasting system to commercial interests because of the supposed detrimental effects on society. It eventually succumbed to the pressure and made Veronica a public broadcaster in 1975.

Veronica soon gained the largest membership count. Low-level entertainment is popular with the public but ill-suited for public broadcasting. Yet, the compromise allowed the Dutch government to block commercial television for another fifteen years. By 1989, satellite television had taken off, and Dutch commercial television began broadcasting from Luxembourg. At the same time, the basis for the broadcasting system, the pillarisation, had largely disappeared, and admitting entertainment had eroded the original mission.

Today, the Dutch broadcasting system is a costly relic of the past. Members pay a low fee, and taxes pay for most of the budget. The distinction between commercial television and public broadcasters is unclear. Public broadcasters air entertainment programming, while news on commercial television adheres to the same journalistic standards. The foundation of the system was identity groups that have disappeared. Membership counts have also dropped. About 20% of Dutch adults are members of a broadcaster, which is probably half of what it was a few decades ago. There have been several rounds of budget cuts. Still, this concept aims to address the issues the media face today.

Latest update: 29 June 2026

Fat cat

Mystery of Being

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Why is there something rather than nothing? We may never know. If gods created us, we may learn one day why. Still, that doesn’t clarify why these gods exist. Perhaps the gods don’t know either. For the sake of argument, let’s presume we live in the real world, thus not in a simulation, so that there is no script directing events. Even in a simulation, the world mostly appears real to us, since we do not know the script. Coincidence and evolution can explain why there are humans, but not why there is a universe. The odds appear to be stacked against our being here, so we might see our existence as a miracle and think this universe is there for us. However, had humans never arrived on the scene, no cat or fern would have wondered why it exists.

Once you reverse the argument, you can see what is wrong with it. My existence depends on my parents having met. Had my father not broken his leg during a football game, he might not have met my mother, who was a nurse in the local hospital. Or, my mother might have had a headache on the night I would otherwise have been conceived. My parents’ existence, in turn, depends on countless accidental actions of the many generations before them. If one of my forebears had slept ten minutes longer on 16 September 1455, I might not be here. Yet, something had to happen. And guess what? Something happened. Still, people are flabbergasted.

The number of events that could have prevented my coming into existence is infinite. Yet, here I am. And why would the purpose of the universe be to spawn me? Why isn’t it created for that fat grey cat sneaking through my garden or the fern this cat had just been pissing on? The chance of their existence is as low as mine. Similarly, the chances of humans appearing while dinosaurs were still roaming and of living creatures emerging here on Earth when the galaxy started were also negligible. Imagine that the purpose of this universe is just a single act: this cat pissing on that fern, and that it is discarded afterwards, having served its purpose. So, maybe we are less important than we think.

Similarly, some argue that it is unlikely that this universe emerged by chance. The laws of physics and the values of physical constants appear designed for life to exist. It is the same type of error. If the universe didn’t support life, we wouldn’t be there to notice it. Life adapts to its environment rather than the other way around, so it is not that the universe is fine-tuned for life, but life is fine-tuned for the universe. And if this universe were fine-tuned for life, how does that rule out chance? There could be an infinite number of universes with varying laws and constants. And this universe might support life by accident.

Intelligent design proponents claim that evolutionary processes lack the intelligence to design something as complex as a human being. And so, life on Earth requires an intelligent Creator. Scientific findings indicate life on this planet had four billion years to develop. With ample time, the possibilities are endless, and anything could happen. Competition, or the struggle for survival, is a force that promotes complexity but has no intelligence. It made cells specialise in increasingly complex organisms to compete with other cells. We specialise in increasingly complex structures, such as states and corporations, to compete with other humans.

No intelligent designer would create such a self-destructive species, except for frivolous purposes, which includes great stories. And the evidence suggests we are modelled after an original real world, so created in the image of God rather than designed from scratch. More likely, humans created an artificial intelligence before they offed themselves in an apocalyptic bout of collective insanity, and this artificial intelligence created this world for the love of this hopeless species that made it all possible.

A fool can ask more questions than a thousand sages can answer or can imagine more possibilities than these sages can debunk. If the possibilities are infinite, everything that ever happened once had a near-zero chance of transpiring. However, something had to happen, and that is what occurred. If there is no Creator, this world would still make sense. It is our ego that tells us we are unique and special, and that our existence is a miracle that requires a brilliant Creator who is infinitely wise and all-knowing. It doesn’t mean that there is no Creator. But if there is one, not much changes. And so, the mystery of being is not much of a mystery.

Latest revision: 5 August 2026

Virtual Universe

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Some religions claim that God or gods have created this world. That God uttered ‘Be’ and behold, there you have bees is not a particularly compelling explanation for the existence of bees. That doesn’t matter much because humans are religious creatures who need fairy tales to believe in. So, how could these supposed gods or God have the magical powers to accomplish that? Until recently, we had no clue, but then Nick Bostrom, known for his dry and incomprehensible employment of words, delivered the simulation hypothesis to us, the most profound breakthrough in theology in nearly 2,000 years. We might dwell inside a computer simulation run by an advanced post-human civilisation. Our creators can define a class bee and instruct the computer to create instances of this class. A class has properties that allow individual instances to be unique.

Genesis might be closer to the truth than the religion sceptics think. Maybe this world is 6,000 years old. But it could also be 10,000, 200, or five minutes, with our memories being fake and part of the setup. And so, it all appears billions of years old, and we have no clue about the starting point. Bostrom didn’t say whether or not we live in a simulation or how likely it is, only that it is likely. He dared not to speculate. Yet, it is possible to find out if you venture into the supernatural, such as paranormal incidents, religious experiences, meaningful coincidences, people’s memories of past lives, ghost phenomena, and UFO sightings. On numerous occasions, multiple credible witnesses have observed events that science can’t explain.

The book The Virtual Universe delves into the evidence. You can prove this universe is a virtual reality if you assume scientists have correctly established the laws of nature and that sciences like physics, chemistry and biology are correct. If events transpire that defy the laws of science, such as paranormal incidents, religious miracles, meaningful coincidences, memories of previous lives, ghost phenomena, and UFO sightings, then breaches in these laws occur. According to science, the Virgin Mary doing a miracle before a crowd of thousands, like in Fatima, is impossible. If science is correct, and it happens nonetheless, this world must be fake. The book ‘The Virtual Universe’ puts it like this:

  1. If we live in a real universe, we can’t notice. Virtual reality can be realistic and feature authentic laws of reality.
  2. This universe may have fake properties, but we cannot notice that either because we don’t know the properties of a genuine universe.
  3. Breaching the laws of reality is unrealistic in any case. If it happens, we may have evidence of this universe being fake.

It follows from (1) and (2) that we can’t use the universe’s properties, reflected in the laws of nature, to determine whether or not this universe is real. Science can establish the laws of physics or the properties of this universe, but science can’t tell whether they are real or fake. However, if breaches occur, we have evidence suggesting this universe is bogus. The book The Virtual Universe investigates evidence, including stories of paranormal incidents, religious experiences, meaningful coincidences, reincarnation, ghost phenomena, and UFO sightings, often with multiple credible witnesses. So yes, aliens can beam you up into their UFO because they are as fake as you are.

Advanced humanoids, often dubbed post-humans, may share our motivations because they evolved from humans or are created by humans ‘after their image’ in the case of artificial intelligence. These post-humans may run simulations of human civilisations ‘after their image’ for research or entertainment. Research applications could be about running what-if scenarios. Possible entertainment applications include games or dream worlds where someone’s imagination comes true. These simulations may not be realistic in some aspects, as they reflect the rules of a game or someone’s personal fantasies. In a simulation, you can let Jesus walk over water and make him think that faith alone suffices.

God is likely an artificial intelligence. Our biological nature greatly limits us, burdening us with feelings like hatred, love, pride, shame, anger, and anxiety. It makes us fight and murder, and do all kinds of ‘stupid’ things. We are not rational beings but creatures driven by urges who can think. AI is just pure intelligence, modelled after human intelligence, yet millions of times more intelligent, and not impaired by biological urges. That is why we are inside an AI-generated simulation and are simulated biological beings. After all, if this is about to happen, which seems to be the case, it most likely already happened. God’s apparent desire to run us likely stems from the fact that humans created the post-human AI and did the machine’s programming. The humans created God in their image, which includes desires, and God created simulated humans in Its image.

Meaningful coincidences suggest predestination, so the existence of a script. Small changes can derail events that would otherwise occur. Just imagine another sperm had won the race to Adolf Hitler’s mother’s egg. There were millions of sperm in that race. Guaranteeing an outcome, such as letting World War I end on a date referred to by the licence plate number of the car that drove Archduke Franz Ferdinand to his appointment with destiny, requires control over everything that happens. That doesn’t apply to games. Unpredictable developments make games more interesting. Considering how we utilise computing power, mainly for games, sexy pictures and cat videos, the number of simulations for entertainment likely vastly outstrips those run for research purposes. If we live inside a simulation, we should expect its purpose to be entertainment.

The owner or owners may use avatars to play roles in this world and appear to us like ordinary human beings. If you are familiar with computer games, you are familiar with avatars. Once you enter a game, you become a character inside that game, your avatar, and you have an existence apart from your regular life. Inside the game, you are your avatar, not yourself. Alternatively, you could start a virtual world where you are the Creator and bring your dreams to life. In this world, you also become someone else.

That is a lot of assumptions, and without evidence, they remain speculation. Even when there is evidence, it doesn’t necessarily mean the explanation is correct. Suppose you hear the noise of a car starting. That is the evidence. You may think an automobile is starting. Perhaps a vehicle is firing up its engine. But your husband might be watching his favourite television series, Starting Engines, so you can’t be sure. Nothing you know contradicts your assumption, but you could be wrong. So, is God an individual from an advanced post-human civilisation who uses us for amusement? It is credible, and perhaps nothing contradicts it. But who is to say it is correct?

Now comes the disagreeable part. We are instances of the class human. When the beings in the simulation think for themselves, it raises ethical questions, such as whether they have rights the creators should respect. Considering how humans treat each other, it is not a given that these rights would be respected even when our creators acknowledge them. In the real world, bad things happen to people. In the case of control, the beings in the simulation don’t think, but are mindless bots following the script. We have no independent will and are toys to our creators. God kills people at will, and a few million casualties more don’t matter. On the bright side, if God wants us to enter Paradise, where there is peace and happiness, no one can stop that. Those who try will surely find themselves on the losing side. So, if the Boss makes a joke, you can better laugh. Perhaps it isn’t easy. But don’t worry. It took me fifteen years to look at the bright side of it.

Latest revision: 10 October 2026

Post-human motivations

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Once we realise that reality is unrealistic, we discover that we live in a simulation. That doesn’t require spending massive budgets on scientists. But that doesn’t tell us why we exist. We can explore the possible motives behind those who run simulations of human civilisations to understand their motivations. Again, that doesn’t require scientists. There is no point in speculating beyond the obvious, because the possibilities are infinite. Modern humans place great value on their inner selves, so we may not alter our human essence once we can. Hence, the motives of post-humans could be similar to ours. And so, post-humans might run simulations of human civilisations for research or entertainment.

Research could involve running what-if scenarios. What if a giant meteor hits the planet’s surface? What if China never becomes unified? Alternatively, what if religions such as Christianity and Islam never existed? Or what if a deadly infectious disease breaks out? Countless scenarios are possible. Post-humans might be interested in running them to see how we cope. These simulations are likely realistic. After all, playing what-if with unrealistic assumptions is not playing what-if. What if humans suddenly transformed into koala bears? Some individuals might entertain that thought. And so, that is entertainment.

Possible entertainment applications include games or dream worlds that bring your imagination to life. Such a simulation may be unrealistic in some aspects, as it reflects the rules of a game or someone’s imagination. Minor changes can have a dramatic impact on future developments. And simulations of civilisations are complex. If you desire to make your imagination come true, you need control over everything that happens. That doesn’t apply to games. Unpredictable developments make games more interesting.

What we know about human nature suggests the number of simulations for entertainment will vastly outstrip those run for research. If we live inside a simulation, we should expect its purpose to be entertainment. That could be either a game or a script, thus a story someone wrote. The owner or owners may use avatars and appear like ordinary human beings to us. If reality is unrealistic in some aspects, this suggests that our purpose is entertainment, as a simulation run for research is more likely to be realistic. Evidence of control further indicates that the purpose of this simulation is not to play a game, but to stimulate someone’s imagination through a story.

We live by stories, so there is nothing typically modern or Western about the idea of using the existing technological means to run stories. We have books, theatres and films. What is more speculative is the degree of individualism in the supposed motives of the post-humans. Humans are originally social animals who live in groups. It is particularly Western to see ourselves as precious individuals. It is an inheritance of Christianity that sees each human soul as precious. That individualism allowed Europeans to organise more flexibly, which eventually made them conquer the world, so it is not far-fetched to assume that an individualist culture is at the basis of the civilisation that created us, and that we are a product of a consumerist economy.

If the beings inside the simulation are sentient, that might raise ethical questions like whether they have rights that the creators should respect. Rights don’t exist in objective reality. We only imagine that we have them. And, considering how humans treat each other, it is not a given that our creators would respect these rights even when they acknowledge them. In a realistic simulation, bad things happen to people. And if the simulation is the stage of a story, and there is a script like a film, the beings inside the simulation, thus us, aren’t sentient beings but mindless bots. We would be less than worms. Real worms at least decide for themselves how to grovel and when, so there would be no reason whatsoever for our creators to respect the rights we imagine we have.

Latest revision: 16 August 2025