this post was submitted on 05 May 2025
74 points (88.5% liked)

Showerthoughts

34095 readers
380 users here now

A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.

Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Magic may well have been real. Healing crystals, shamanry, witchcraft, voodoo, things of this nature may have been real at one point and have since been patched out. These could have simply been glitches in the program.

We've all heard of glitches in games that can be exploited that eventually get patched. Could have been real.

top 35 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There's a book series based on this general idea, it's called Magic 2.0

[–] toynbee@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

That's an excellent series by a pretty fun author. There's an older example that I once read, but at the moment all I can remember is that the spells are calibrated to the exact physical state of the world at the time of casting (like that one xkcd comic). As a result, the protagonist foils enemy spells by doing things like causing worms to shift in the dirt or rocks to fall over.

Though the system doesn't really hold up to scrutiny, I enjoyed the book. Hopefully someone remembers the premise and can tell me the title.

If you liked Magic 2.0, you would almost certainly enjoy the older YA series WebMage.

edit: Corrected auto correct.

Nothing matters and we're all going to die. Nobody will remember or care about anything we did. Everything that will ever exist will eventually die a cold death due to entropy. So just have fun and be nice to each other until it's over.

This applies whether it's a simulation or not. The end result is the same.

[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago

There was this old cold fusion joke that went something like that. Where a programmer notices someone getting free energy. They proceed to fix the bug, recompile and reboot. Fixing the problem.

[–] vane@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Remember that elevators and bathrooms are service desks. They close you up alone in small space to patch your software.
Everything is real as long as you believe in it.

[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago

Elevators are loading screens.

Bathrooms are for core dumps.

[–] remon@ani.social 3 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Glitches usually don't accidentally cause entire "features" to emerge.

[–] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 3 points 23 hours ago

arbitrary code execution vulnerabilities

[–] RisingSwell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 day ago

~~bug~~ feature

[–] RandomVideos@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago

I have seen glitches in games where 2 objects get the same ID and doing something to one would also do something to another

[–] sxan@midwest.social 16 points 1 day ago

Or, just phases in the game. Like, Civilization, only magic fades away when you enter the industrial age. Sure, you've got all this written media talking about the supernatural and magic, but there's no enduring proof, and later generations just accept it as superstition, despite the global written anecdotal evidence.

Love it.

[–] PineRune@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The ruling class has the cheat codes.

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 6 points 1 day ago

Never change, Lemmy.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The second Matrix movie basically had this idea in it. Those ghost twins were part of it, but they also straight up mention vampires and werewolves casually as the French dude explained how these all used to be systems setup by the machines to control the system, like a precursor to Agents.

I could imagine that "daemons" may have manifested as actual demons inside the Matrix.

[–] PapaBurrito@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

That is actually the entire premise behind the book series Magic 2.0 by Scott Meyer.

People find the data file for our simulation and modify it to do "magic".

[–] Arkouda@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 day ago (5 children)

I prefer to assume that we are simply the hallucinations of a brain floating through space. Which is more probable than everyone living in a simulation and a lot funnier to think about.

[–] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Until you name that "brain" Azatoth and everyone loses their minds.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

One of the best episodes of all time.

[–] avattar@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Imagine we mix the two. If a single developer created the (computer) simulation we are living in, aren't we a hallucination of his brain?

I wonder if it's more or less likely that would be the work of a single developer, or a collaborative effort, like complex development projects require a large group for us. Would assuming a hyper-intelligent brain, or one with infinite time change the equation?

Now I imagine how having infinite power and resources in this universe would make a difference. Is this floating brain (let's call him 'god', just as a placeholder) be more likely to create a physical structure (atoms and such) to run his simulation/hallucination/thought experiment, or just use abstract structures? And would it make a difference for the simulated/hallucinated people inside?

[–] Arkouda@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

Imagine we mix the two. If a single developer created the (computer) simulation we are living in, aren’t we a hallucination of his brain?

While the creator of the simulation developed the program using his brain, and one could argue thoughts are simply hallucinations of the brain, inside of the simulation we are no longer a part of the "creator". They may have dreamed us up, but once inside a self contained system we couldn't be the hallucination of his brain because we now exist outside of it without further control from the creator. (Assuming of course they do not continue to mess with the initial program.)

An interesting though.

I wonder if it’s more or less likely that would be the work of a single developer, or a collaborative effort, like complex development projects require a large group for us. Would assuming a hyper-intelligent brain, or one with infinite time change the equation?

Assuming that the brain is both all knowing and immortal, I would assume that it is capable of creating everything on its own inside of itself. Much like a dream, but far more detailed and consistent.

Is this floating brain (let’s call him ‘god’, just as a placeholder) be more likely to create a physical structure (atoms and such) to run his simulation/hallucination/thought experiment, or just use abstract structures? And would it make a difference for the simulated/hallucinated people inside?

Like our own brains, I would assume it is happening within the biological structures present in the brain. Because it is just a brain in space, I don't think it is safe to assume it could build foreign structures for use. I would also assume that any changes made could be known by everyone, but likely ignored to maintain the reality. We could explain these changes with the mandala effect, just for fun. Some of us remember, some of us don't, and this is because the brain is incapable (like us) of full control of every mental faculty.

[–] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

How did the brain get into space?

[–] Arkouda@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It formed there.

Statistically speaking it is more likely that a single brain formed randomly and is hallucinating the existence of our lives than our species forming as we are through billions of years of evolution and existing on Earth.

[–] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Mark Twain, or possibly Benjamin Disraeli

[–] Arkouda@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

People who don't believe in Math are doomed to be taken advantage of. ;)

[–] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm honestly charmed and impressed by how infuriatingly you applied that quote. Bravo!

[–] Arkouda@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

Haha Thank you!

[–] JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago

I prefer to think we're simply the hallucinations of a possible brain, with no way to distinguish every possible brain that could exist from 'real' brains that exist in reality.

[–] Spacehooks@reddthat.com 1 points 1 day ago

If you into the administration panel be careful what you set. Don't want to immortal stuck in a lava pool.

[–] Mediocre_chad@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago

This exact sentiment crosses my mind on occasion while I ponder the apparent infinity that is the universe.

[–] Mowcherie@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

The placebo effect can be incredibly powerful, and remains so to this day. So in that sense, some of the 'magic' was not patched out.

[–] Opinionhaver@feddit.uk 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

People tend to misintrepret what the simulation hypothesis actually suggests. The idea isn't that these simulated worlds would somehow be fictional or like video games. The point is that we take the known physics of the universe and run computer simulations of it. Things like magic would be just as impossible in these simulations as they are in the base reality. There's no reason to expect that things would be any different even if we in-fact did live in a simulated world.

[–] monsterpiece42@reddthat.com 8 points 1 day ago

Your point doesn't necessarily disagree with the OP point. OP is saying that the simulation was supposed to be realistic but had glitches that people interpreted as magic.

[–] JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 4 points 1 day ago

There are multiple simulation hypotheses, both are possible, as are others.

[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Or—they were different concurrent simulations using overlapping memory locations.