Imagine for a moment that you were offered the opportunity to play a brand new virtual reality-based role-playing game.
In the game, you begin in the womb and one day you are born. You remember nothing of this reality, and thus you know nothing at all when you start your new life in the game. Gradually, you grow into a young person and eventually an adult in the game. The game feels completely real to you, and you live a full and eventful life there until you die.
You know this before you start the game. You understand that you will be born into an entirely new life in the game, completely unaware that it is a game and what lies outside of it.
You are also aware that during the game, you can never discover the true nature of your existence. Only when your life ends in the game do you return to your own body in this reality, and you will remember everything you know now, as well as all that you experienced in the game.
You are particularly aware that while you are in the game, you are effectively in a coma in this reality. Your real body lies in bed, connected to the game through a direct brain-computer interface, without perceiving anything happening in or around your body. Meanwhile, your in-game body feels as real as a body can.
Time in the game passes faster than here, but a typical game still lasts long enough in our time that your body here is nourished, exercised, and maintained on your behalf, so it does not unnecessarily weaken or fall ill during the game. However, you cannot communicate with your family members or friends living here during the game.
Quite likely, some of your family or friends are participating in the game as well, since it is naturally a massive multiplayer experience.
Of course, you wouldn't recognize them in the game, nor would any of them recognize you, since none of you would remember anything from your real life. Each of you would live entirely new lives, perhaps very different from your original ones.
Yet, perhaps you might meet in the game, and upon returning to this reality, you could compare your experiences and insights. Maybe you'll meet new people in the game, with whom you might become friends after the game as well.
Many of us would likely experiment with such a game, especially if our life situation allows for it. Many of us would surely want to play the game multiple times, but our true life would still be here.
Yet, in addition to our real lives here, we could live dozens or even hundreds of new and separate lives through the game, which could take place in different times and corners of the world. The starting points of the lives experienced in the game could be vastly different from one another - one life might find someone poor and marginalized in the modern West, another rich and privileged in ancient Rome, and yet another a pirate in the age of exploration in the Caribbean, and so on.
The game world could therefore be a historical simulation of our own world, perhaps beginning at the dawn of humanity or even further back, all the way to the universe's genesis. Perhaps before the rise of humanity, we played the game as other lifeforms, and perhaps we still do at times. As the game world evolves, we might play as artificial intelligences and robots if they develop the capacity to bear our consciousness within the game.
And if you were to play such a game, how would you want to play it? Would you have a personal reason or purpose for starting the game at all, something you wish to achieve? Merely for entertainment, or also something more profound?
Furthermore, how would you wish to influence your environment within the game, knowing that while you are in the game, it is the only reality you know? Would you strive for your own advantage without caring for others, thinking it's just a game, even though within the game you wouldn't know that?
Or would you wish that, after living a good life, you leave behind a game world that is pleasant to return to for living another, different life? And which would be pleasant for everyone else too?
If we succeed in creating such a game, our reality becomes Arkhe - a foundation for a new simulated reality or multiple such realities, for the only difference between simulation and reality is whether it is being viewed from the inside or the outside.
And if we indeed succeed in creating such a game, we have no reason to doubt whether we are living in such a game right now.
Be aware and present in that possibility, as well as in this moment, here and now, wherever or whenever that may be.