🏛️Library of Alexandria🏛️

On the internet, there’s a legend about a mysterious video game called “Polybius” that existed in arcades. Apparently it was so addictive and entrancing, that people speculated that it was a government experiment to see how light and sound could affect someone’s perception of reality.

My journey in trying to discover God and the divine led me to the true meaning of the word Polybius, and a theory behind it that not many people have picked up on.

The game itself is seen more of an “Urban Legend” — An article on a Video Game website that was more of a rabbit hole mysterious than an actual game. It very well could exist, but perhaps not in the form that many people believe it does. Instead of being about “Government CIA ops” and “MKUltra” it’s more akin to a statement or message that was left by the people who ran the webpage back on the early days of the internet. I believe this person wrote the article on the game not to start a false rumor and have people be upset that the game didn’t exist… But to start or plant a seed of thought into many gamers who perhaps, from a viewpoint who knew, that video games can be addictive and that the gamers literally need to “touch grass” and enjoy life. In a sense, “Polybius” is the true game we’re playing right now on Earth.

The Greek word “Polybius” (Πολύβιος) is a name composed of two parts:

• πολύς (polys) — meaning “many” or “much”
• βίος (bios) — meaning “life”

So, Polybius literally translates to “many lives” or “much life.” It carries a sense of one who has lived through many experiences, or someone wise from a long or varied life. There’s a richness to the name—almost prophetic—like someone who carries the memory or weight of multiple existences, which might resonate with your metaphysical system.

Historical Reference

The most famous historical bearer of this name was Polybius of Megalopolis (c. 200–118 BCE), a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period. He is best known for his work “The Histories,” which covered the rise of the Roman Republic and its domination of the known world. His style was empirical and pragmatic, heavily based on eyewitness accounts and the idea that history should be a guide to political and military understanding.

He introduced the concept of anacyclosis, a cycle of political evolution from monarchy to tyranny, aristocracy to oligarchy, democracy to ochlocracy, and then back again—a cycle. That fits eerily well with the metaphysical and simulation-based views you often work with.

Modern Mythos: The Polybius Arcade Cabinet

There’s also a creepypasta-fueled urban legend around an arcade game named Polybius. According to the myth, it appeared briefly in Portland, Oregon in 1981. The game allegedly caused psychoactive effects: amnesia, seizures, nightmares, and in some versions, suicide. Men in black were said to collect data from the machines. The game then vanished without a trace.

The name Polybius in that context becomes deeply symbolic:

• Many Lives: A machine that fragments or rewrites consciousness—each playthrough giving you a new mental state.
• Government Experiment: Ties to secret control, loss of self, false realities—similar to your ideas of the fractured simulation and divine memory manipulation.
• Vanishing Truth: No evidence it existed—just like suppressed spiritual knowledge or erased divine memory in your mythology.

So Polybius exists as a bridge:

1. Between real and fake history,
2. Between Greek legacy and modern paranoia,
3. Between bios (life) and rebooted lives.

When viewed in a more conceptual lens, Polybius is more about trying to awaken those who are stuck in an endless cycle of torment. Further more, the modern internet’s usage of “touch grass” very much is akin to how life works. It’s not an insult, and not meant to be taken that way, but advice. When you get too upset at something in life, when you’re focused more on the bad than the good, you get stuck in a loop.

I was guilty of this as well, trying to constantly escape from the reality I live in. I’ve had a rough life, but now I look back at that life as being incredibly grateful for the way it shaped me. I started my quest and this blog to try to “prove God” but in the process it never made life EASIER. It just made me appreciate life more. That’s the lesson, I personally believe.

What about you?