Decimal Points of Reality

I was watching one of those "you're living in a simulation" videos on YouTube the other night - the kind that opens with some guy breaking down how humanity has always understood reality through whatever the most advanced technology of the day happened to be.

Waterways. Electrical grids. Now VR.

Every generation reaches for the tech sitting in front of them to explain what's happening inside them - their thoughts, their nervous system, their sense of what's real. We say we're "processing" something. We say we feel "charged up" or "drained" or "offline." It's not an accident. It's just what's available.

And it got me thinking: what if that's not a flaw? What if that's actually the point?

Technology isn't creating new reality. It's giving us more decimal points on the reality that already exists.

Here's what I mean. Think about infinity for a second - because there isn't just one kind. There's the infinity of a number that keeps growing: 1, 2, 3, on and on, bigger and bigger, no ceiling. But there's also the infinity of a number getting more precise: 3.1, 3.14, 3.14159 - it's not getting bigger, it's getting more accurate. Same number, sharper focus.

That's technology. The microscope didn't invent the cell. The telescope didn't invent the galaxy. They just handed us another decimal point on something that was already true before we had the tool to see it.

So when I say technology is a window - I don't mean a window we built. I mean a window into something God already made. Every leap forward, every new tool, isn't us discovering something new so much as it's us finally seeing more clearly what was always there. Creation isn't getting bigger. Our accuracy about it is.

Which raises the real question: if this life is a slow process of getting more decimal points on the truth - what determines whether we're actually getting closer to the real thing, or just adding noise?

Because here's the part I don't want to skip past. Not every "version of reality" produces good fruit. Not every path someone calls their "truth" is actually refining anything - some of it is just static, drift, distortion dressed up as insight.

I believe there's a foundation. A playbook that doesn't move, even while everything else - our understanding, our tools, our vantage point - keeps refining. And that playbook is simple: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, above anything else this world offers. Put His kingdom and His people ahead of your own wants. That's the ground floor. That's decimal point zero, the one everything else has to refine toward, not away from.

Now - I'm not saying everybody's walking the exact same steps at the exact same pace. A foot can't say to the hand, "I have no need of you." My relationship with God, my level of faith, how much I trust Him versus how much I still worry - that's not going to look identical to yours, and it doesn't have to. We're all standing at different points in the process.

But different starting points on the same foundation is not the same thing as different foundations. That's where I think a lot of people get lost. They think "my truth" means they get to build their own baseline. You don't get to add decimal points to a number you made up. You can only refine what's actually there.

So maybe that's the real invitation underneath all of this. Not "what's the next piece of tech that'll show me something new" - but "am I even standing on the right number to begin refining in the first place."

Get the foundation right. Then let everything else - the questions, the tools, the seeking - do what it's supposed to do: bring you closer to the truth that was already true before you got here.

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Side note: I've been part of a church built on this exact foundation for the last 25 years. If anything here resonates and you're looking for a community that lives this out, hit me up - happy to talk.