Is Distance / Depth An Illusion?

In any video or computer game, "what if" science research simulation, or even training exercise in virtual reality, while there is a left-right and top/up-bottom/down dimension, there is no front-back, only the illusion of front-back that gives the player or viewer or trainee the perception that they are interacting in a totally 3-D 'world' although they are really viewing a 2-D 'world', something that's quasi-holographic.

But no doubt to the characters part and parcel of these game simulations, if they could tell you, they'd tell you their virtual world was indeed a 3-D world, albeit we know it's not.

That seems to be rather analogous to the current cosmological idea that our universe is an actual hologram - the Holographic Universe principle. On a cosmic scale there is no real depth to the Universe, just the illusion of one. You look at the Universe and see from your perspective left-right and top-bottom but do you really see a cosmic front-back?

You could say well that light has taken ten years to reach us from that star we think is ten light-years away from us and therefore that light has obviously travelled in a back to front manner (back being the star; the front being us). But there's no little sign on that starlight's photons that says "I've been travelling for ten of your years just to meet and greet you".

If we are beings in an actual Holographic Universe, then depth is illusionary in the same way that depth is illusionary to our virtual reality characters.

2-D images masquerading as 3-D:

*Holograms.

*Any TV / movie / YouTube videos, etc. images, which we 'see' as 3-D but in reality on a 2-D monitor so in reality there is no depth.

*Characters in video games appear to move backwards and forwards but they really don't. What would be their point of view though I wonder? Is there virtual reality landscape 3-D from their point of view?

*A planetarium can show the expansion of the Universe but it's just a projection on a 2-D surface.

*A dream may appear as 3-D but it is of course 2-D.

100% of everything you have ever seen, are seeing now and ever will see in the future is actually perceived or experienced in the brain. You might think that you reside inside the Universe, but in a very real way the Universe resides within you (you being defined as your mind-set that's encoded within your brain). Since the Universe cannot literally fit inside your skull, your brain has to do some sleight-of-hand 'magic' act to get the external Universe inside of your head. Your perception of life, the Universe and everything may seem to be life-sized and 3-D but it is really shrunk down to something mind-sized and 2-D. It's kind of seems like there is a little person sitting down inside your brain watching the movie you are constructing through your senses in real time. But maybe all was really 2-D from the get-go.

Obviously you see 2-D images (i.e. - holograms, TV pictures, paintings with depth perception, etc.) in your mind as 2-D even if you perceive those images as 3-D. So, if life, the Universe and everything were in reality 2-D, your mind would see those images as 2-D albeit perhaps while still perceiving a 3-D illusion.