Uh, no, if anybody thinks life is a video game, therapy is needed ASAP, like shit, seek help right away.

Well scientists believe it's more likely we're fake than real. So take that as you will.

So I was playing the new game Everything yesterday and its focus on changing your perspective on the universe based on degrees of magnification got me thinking about perspectives on life itself. I was reminded in particular of a recent study that unearthed the first hard evidence that the universe we live in is a hologram.

I'm not sure that's an accurate description.  I'm not a physicist, but I don't think they mean hologram in the same way you do.  From what I understand, the theory states that the universe could be viewed as a sort of projection of a 2D universe, but the model breaks down at a macroscopic scale.

The important thing to note about physics is that there can be multiple models that accurately describe the universe in certain situations.  So, a holographic model may make usable predications and calculations at certain scales, energy levels or speeds, but break down once you reach the level of humans, similarly to the way newtonian physics works at our level, but not at near light speeds.  So, it may make sense to view the universe as a hologram in certain situations, but not in others.  Until there is a unified theory, then we're left in the position of using multiple models that often contradict one another depending on the situation.

Of course, you are thinking of holograms in the way we typically do in a sci-fi sense, when the word projection would probably be a better and less loaded term.

Think about this for a minute: long before video games existed, people tended to "play" life like it were one. Like a VR game. You know, religious people see all kinds of characters that I can't, they have systems for scoring points, losing points, getting good and bad endings of various sorts and degrees, etc. Life to them has win states and lose states, perhaps looping narrative structures in some cases, all that sort of thing. But just as video games are simplifications of life, I think perhaps "playing" life like it's a game is likewise perhaps to over-simplify reality.

This really isn't surprising.  I don't think people are "playing" life so much as we are developing videogames based on what we experience.  I think you have it backwards.  It's art imitating life.  

And yet, does the hologram theory that's now emerging as credible not suggest some kind of intelligent design? Perhaps the mistake of the religious is simply that of arrogantly assuming that we are the player characters in this game. Maybe we're not actually "plugged in", Matrix-like. Maybe whatever it is we call god or goddess, gods or goddesses, or whatever it is that applies, is/are actually the people who are playing this game and we are just A.I. characters there to fill up their world. Maybe that explains why we have things like instincts pulling our behaviors in certain directions instead of possessing total self-control, for instance. And/or why we sometimes have "glitches" like deja vu. Maybe this whole game has been played before many times and that's why we seem to inexplicably remember various scenes at times. Maybe all our memories are false and were just programmed into us when we woke up this morning. Maybe this is the first day of our "lives". And maybe it's the last too.

This is why I don't like the term hologram being used instead of projection.  When they say hologram, they don't mean it in the sense of something electronically developed by an intelligence, or something fake.  It's really a matter of how we perceive information.

When something is sucked into a black hole, tits particles (call this information... and I know that says tits particles, but it's a funny typo and I'm leaving it) exists on the surface of the black hole.  Theoretically, we can recreate the data in a 3D space again.  And because this works in a black hole, it's theorized that it could also work for the universe at large.  Similarly to the way that if I have a photograph, I can, given the materials, replicate that in 3D space.

But, none of this has anything to do with a matrix, gods, programming, or artificial intelligence.  It's really (from my limited understanding) just a matter of being able to view the world as a 2D or 3D.  Unfortunately, when the lay person gets into these physics theories with limited understanding (not that mine is all that much better) they try to attach mystical or science fiction properties to it, and that's really not justified. 

Nothing about the theory suggests any kind of intelligent design until you attach the baggage associated with the word hologram. 

Well these are just my free-floating thoughts on the subject. Personally, with this emerging evidence that the universe is a hologram, I think it's more likely than not that some kind of intelligent design exists. I also think though that we're just supposed to be pawns in this game; that we're not supposed to know its point because its point isn't relevant to us, which is why no one knows what the purpose of life is even though we all search for it. It does seem kind of silly that our prevailing academic assumption (humanism) is that we are the center around which everything revolves. And it certainly makes more sense to me that intelligent design would exist rather than just the Big Bang somehow by itself explaining everything. There HAD to be some cause for the Big Bang.

Not necessarily.   There is evidence that there are some things in physics that, as of yet, seem to be entirely uncaused, namely virtual particles.  There also is the issue of whether it makes sense to say something is caused.  If the Big Bang came from a singularity, the laws of time and space would be very different then they are, and causality, which makes sense according to our perception of time, may no longer make sense.  

You're also a bit off on humanism.  Humanism isn't necessarily that we are the center of which everything revolves around (and I don't know if I'd call it our prevailing academic assumption), but that as humans that is what we are most concerned with.  It's the same way that I care more about my life and my family than I do about yours (sorry not sorry).  I know that there is nothing particularly special about my life that deserves special consideration, but it's mine, and the one I experience, so I'm more concerned about it.  It's a matter of practicality rather than reality.

What's happening here is what happens alot.  You're taking ideas from physics that you don't fully understand (don't think anyone who isn't a theoretical physicist would) and you're trying to make analogies based on things that you do understand and experience.  This may make for a fun thought experiment, or a sci-fi story, but it shouldn't be anything more than that.  You're trying to fill the gaps in your understanding by making some pretty unsubstantiated leaps.

To answer the question in the OP.  Is life a video game?  I see no compelling reason to believe that it is.

Lol

Why would you use Hologram theory to question life as a game when humanity scale simulation will eventually be possible in informatics, thus making life as it is a highly likely "future" simulation ?

I immediately thought of this..

If life is a videogame, I'm going to ask for a refund because this game sucks!

I have no Idea :D

haha yeah :D

reincarnation like FF7 with the life forces being recycled