A World of Pixels: What Is Really Real?

Imagine for a moment that you’re watching a video game. Everything seems so real: the landscapes, the characters, even the battles. But if you look closer, you see it’s all made up of tiny pixels, digital building blocks of a world that isn’t really real. Now, replace those pixels with what you see around you: your chair, your cup of coffee, maybe your cat brushing against your legs. And imagine that all of these things are also just… pixels.

Donald Hoffman, a cognitive scientist who loves to add a playful twist to the concept of reality, suggests that what we see, hear, feel, and smell is nothing more than an interface. Just as your computer screen doesn’t tell you what’s really happening inside the computer, your senses don’t tell you what’s truly going on in the world. It’s a strange thought, isn’t it? You could say that we’re living in some sort of cosmic video game without even realizing it.

Hoffman takes this idea to the extreme and says that the world as we know it—tangible, colorful, and full of sounds—doesn’t exist in the way we think it does. Just like in a game, we only use the interface that helps us navigate, but it doesn’t reveal the truth. It’s like wandering through a digital landscape without ever seeing what’s really happening behind the scenes.

And that’s where “A Course in Miracles” (ACIM) comes in. According to ACIM, the world we perceive is nothing more than a dream. The physical world, which seems so real to us, is a projection of our inner thoughts. We see what we believe to see, but that doesn’t mean it’s true. Instead of a world full of ‘pixels,’ we live in a world full of thoughts and beliefs, where every experience is based on what we choose to see—love or fear, truth or illusion.

So, if everything is an illusion, what’s left? Well, that’s the fun part: only love. According to ACIM, love is the only thing that’s truly real. The rest is like a video game in which we can get lost, but ultimately it leads nowhere—unless we choose to look beyond the pixels, beyond the senses, and discover what’s truly there.

With a smile, we can ask ourselves, “What if all this time I’ve been living in a well-designed video game?” And maybe, just maybe, it’s time to put down the controller and look at something deeper. Not the pixels, but the source from which everything arises. According to ACIM, that’s the path to true peace.