What if everything you thought was real—your memories, your routines, your very sense of time—was just a layered illusion? That thought hit me this weekend, somewhere between the chaos of a birthday party at Westfield Mall and my Meta Ray-Bans feeding streams of data into the ether.
At first, I was geeking out on the tech—wondering how Meta manages to stream video from the glasses. It’s not Bluetooth, not for video. So what kind of silent, high-bandwidth sorcery is happening behind the lenses? And why can’t I tap that feed into Microsoft Teams if Meta and Microsoft are such cozy collaborators?
But soon, my curiosity drifted from protocols to perception. Because the thing that really scrambled my brain wasn’t the signal—it was what I watched over the years: underrated films that each cracked open reality and whispered:
“What if this isn’t the base layer?”
The Iceberg, the Nines, and the Twisted Floor
I stumbled across the Existential Crisis Iceberg, a visual meme that went viral on Reddit and TikTok. Add to that a YouTube deep dive featuring a scientist-turned-believer in the “All-At-Once” theory of time (Emily Adlam interviewed by Curt Jaimungal). The idea is this: we don’t move through time; we generate the illusion of it through consciousness. Past, present, and future? All coexisting. Just… layered. Like folders open in God’s Finder window.
That one concept alone launches you into the whirlpool of free will, determinism, and the meaning of “now.” And from there, I couldn’t not think of three reality-twisting films:
- The Nines (Ryan Reynolds, Melissa McCarthy)
- The Thirteenth Floor (secret simulations inside simulations)
- eXistenZ (David Cronenberg’s bio-gaming, VR nightmare)
All three are mind loops. I won’t spoil too hard, but fair warning: spoiler sprinkles ahead.
We Are the Creators… Stuck in Our Own Code?
In The Nines, Ryan Reynolds plays a God-like “Nine” who gets trapped inside one of his own created worlds. It’s not a messiah narrative—it’s more like a spiritual coder lost in his own software. Melissa McCarthy plays a strange guardian figure, almost like a checkpoint for his awakening. It’s wild. The film folds reality like origami.
Then there’s The Thirteenth Floor, where 1990s scientists create a virtual 1930s world—only to discover that they themselves are part of a simulation created by someone else. Simulation inception. When your character’s character is also a character, we’re talking meta-cubed.
And then eXistenZ—arguably the most unsettling of the three—where people plug into organic VR systems and forget what’s real. Each time they “wake up,” it might still be another level of the game. By the end, you’re left wondering whether the very first scene was the real world or just another layer of illusion.
Honestly, I feel like I’m living inside one of those loops after three coffees and a couple hours of quantum YouTube.
Simulation vs. Purpose: Are We the Code or the Coders?
The idea that we live in a simulation isn’t fringe anymore. The math supports it more than it refutes it. We might actually be beings inside a black hole, encoded and observed from outside. Think about the double slit experiment—how observation itself alters the behavior of particles. Makes you wonder: are we being observed? And if so, by what? A post-human civilization? A recursive AI god? Or just higher-level Sims laughing at our pizza delivery quests?
And here’s the kicker: did we invent math—or did we discover it? That single question could launch your next midlife-burnout—turned—cosmic-awakening.
Trump, Captchas, and the “Am I a Bot?” Dilemma
Today, I caught an episode of America in 15 Minutes about Bill Maher finally sitting down with Donald Trump. Apparently, off-stage Trump is chill, funny, reflective—nothing like the red-tie WWE persona we see in public. And while it doesn’t excuse his public behavior, it raises a bigger question: how many public personas are just characters? Reality TV meets reality itself.
Which brings me to this short film I saw: “I Am Not A Robot.” A woman keeps failing captchas, calls tech support, and is told, “You wouldn’t be the first bot to find out this way.” Plot twist: she is a bot.
I love that premise. It eerily mirrors an old concept I had for my first sci-fi philosophy novella (still unpublished… maybe it’s time).
The Paradigm Shift No One Sees Coming
We’ve already lived through these:
- The Flat Earth to Round Earth
- The Geocentric to Heliocentric Universe
What’s next?
Maybe it’s time itself that dissolves. Maybe the observation principle in quantum mechanics becomes our next spiritual revolution. Or maybe we’ll finally admit we’re in a simulation managed by entities that evolved beyond physical form.
So I’ll leave you with this thought—especially if you’re raising kids or pondering careers in this AI-saturated world:
What if the most important jobs in the future aren’t engineers, coders, or CEOs… but philosophers?
What if ethics becomes the anchor we cling to in a world where everything else is automated?
Because if everything happens all at once, then maybe our only real task—the only thing that’s truly ours—is to choose how we observe it.
The Next Plot Twist?
What’s the biggest shift waiting for us—one that might make flat vs. round seem like preschool science? Observation affects matter. Code might be consciousness. And maybe, just maybe…
We’re all nines who forgot we were never eights.
Now that’s a plot twist.
What's on your mind?