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Are you living in a simulation?

the fundamental drive of chaos to order. The fundamental drive towards equilibrium. If post-humans do exist then they don't neccasarily have their drives based on pleasure systems that are similar to ours and maybe not even comparable. Hypothetically speaking.
 
Tr6ai0ls4 said:
Somebody please explain to me what difference it would make if this was in fact a computer simulation. Other then us knowing that this is a computer simulation and not being able to do anything about it, what would be the difference?
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Its an old theory to suggest that the world is an illusion, which is even found in christianity. I dont see it opposite to christ, if you believe in christ as a spiritual being and it allows a lot of possiblities thinking in this way. Any simulation needs to be in part dependant upon its audience or captive, to reflect their own needs and wants inorder to produce a positive condition that sustains attention.

If its a simulation then your consciousness is stuck in some type of illusional casing we class as a physical body. Whats to stop out of body experiences then, if it was a simulation. Being a computer program the laws are not so firm as the laws of physics, and as all programs it can be hacked.
 
I agree with what you're saying yougene. I know it's impossible to word out what I want to say online, but I'll try.

Yes, we work, or the universe works, for equilibrium. We can see this in our actions and feelings. How does feeling happy feel? Well, not good or bad, but content. I'd call that an equilibrium.

But, we need a drive strong enough to get to that point. Pleasure is that drive that helps us become happy. I don't think I need to go on further, because I think you get what I'm saying.

And it's futile to debate over something we don't know. IE: We don't know what will drive post-humans and how similar they are to us.

But, back to this simulation theory. What are new born babies? New minds being plugged in? Or... This system just seems a little bogus, IMO.
 
Well the idea is....population expansion doesn't exist (I'm presuming). It WOULD be a figment of our imaginations (? or these over being people) I presume. Presuming that the system has no physical connection to some real self. We are actually experiencing simulated experience and not the real thing.
So giving birth is actually an illusion. Tell that to a pregnant mum and you get yer hand crushed in a fit of rage and adrealine (doubts people doubts).

Or there is some technical physical connection for whatever purpose.

Or that your reality is simply played off of you. I guess it would be a basic neuron feed kinda thing where you could feed the brain impulses based on what stimulae you were reacting to (which amounts to close to infinite possibility). So in that case your child, and birth is actually just your brain being feed a created reality. "Oh you want pain when you give birth here you go..." And then you'd want a sort of higher AI keeping track of what was going on. First you'd have to record every process that occured pre birth mentally to birth to death...like an infinite amount of information in your brain and then recreate it for a "brain" like candidate (would the experience be the same, identity be the same?).

Remember that your physical identity can be transfered/created for someone else. The only problem is that whole DNA thing relating to the brain. I'm assuming that you would inherit certain
traits from "parents" and sex (as opposed to gender) would play a part. It still leaves the fact that there is a physical thing, the brain, that needs to be created. So some type of birth would need to be done. A brain could be "grown" I suppose.

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Why is another question all together.
Some complex study on life when technology surpasses socio-cultural understanding of ourselves and we need to get back to brass tacks?
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So your brain is
just reaction to stimulae that is being fed to you. So your brain would make a choice and then the AI would create some logical outcome for that situation based on your own logic. So you would actually dream. Just what you'd be dreaming about would be from a simulated reality. Why this would be untrue is that everyone would have a perfectly functioning brain from the get go. And you "could" create everyone to be a genius/expert at whatever.
No autism. No epilepsy. etc. etc.

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I think if the world was actually a simulation our consciousness wouldn't be as extreme or far a field. I mean watching your spouse give birth to your child is a profound experience that goes beyond any means of simulation. Not that I would know but I can presume. Life is not a video game. I think good drugs were at work here in the actual writing of the essay. On some level sure I agree. I think there is a tendency to get caught up in the urbanity of our cities
and look at what "we" have created and go....wtf? Its all a simulated/created reality (by ourselves of course). Jean Baudrillard is a good read into that. The hyperreal and all that. Time to go rural and get your head checked I think if you start to get into that vibe of a city being a simulated collective (where coicindence becomes more than coincidence and its all pattern related...and people are not really people...ahhhh....) *sarcasm*
 
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What difference does it make if it is a simulation or not. You are still experiencing it. What does it mean for something to be "physical" anyway? Everything can be reduced to information, it's just a matter of having the technical ability and the know how.

A simulated woman having a simulated baby wouldn't be any different than a "real" women having a "real" baby in a perfect simulation other than they are on different realms of existance.
 
Yougene -

A simulated woman having a simulated baby wouldn't be any different than a "real" women having a "real" baby in a perfect simulation other than they are on different realms of existance.

Thats a funny line. Because it goes directly to Mouse's arguement in the Matrix: "What if they got chicken wrong?" You wouldn't know, wouldn't care.

Then you're not talking about a simulation anymore. You're talking about a reality. So stuff could be different and people would have no idea. McDees could be a classy restaurant. Mickey Mouse could be a porn star. Or Jesus could be some dude, and Ralph is actually the guy in the Bible that does all that stuff. The world could be indeed flat. Zeus could actually be a God. The Moon could be a giant coconut. So? It isn't. Last I heard.
 
jpgrdnr said:

Then you're not talking about a simulation anymore. You're talking about a reality.
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And what would be the difference?

So stuff could be different and people would have no idea. McDees could be a classy restaurant. Mickey Mouse could be a porn star. Or Jesus could be some dude, and Ralph is actually the guy in the Bible that does all that stuff. The world could be indeed flat. Zeus could actually be a God. The Moon could be a giant coconut.
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perhaps, who knows how much freedom would be present in constructing such realities and still being able to produce sentient beings.

So? It isn't. Last I heard.
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So your saying just because the Moon isn't made of giant coconut it isn't true? Well what if in some other realm of "reality" there is this thing called coconut and they decided to make simulation where they have this thing called a Moon that is an exact replication of what they call coconut. How would you know?
 
We're talking about the same thing Yougene. ;)

So you're saying just because the Moon isn't a giant coconut it isn't true? Well, what if in some other realm of "reality" there is this thing called a coconut and "they" decided to make a simulation where they have this thing called a Moon that is an exact replication of what "they" call a coconut. How would you know?

You wouldn't. Exactly my point ;)

A simulation isn't reality nor does it try to be nor can it. This is semantics (word play). That's not the point.

A simulation is a model.

Reality does not follow a model. Chaos to order, remember? Or order to chaos. Or chaos and sometimes order. Or neither.
Or both. And maybe the words don't fit the meaning. And maybe its a difference in opinion.

A simulation is always ordered. For then you have control. If you do not have control of the simulation then there is chaos.

And chaos can't happen in a system/simulation because its turns to poop (thats ho ho hee hee ha ha for ya). This is where the idea of quantum computing gets fuzzy where you have the infinite shift between 0 and 1.

And it is sort of the same argument as Pi (or what the movie suggests). Is the sheer idiocy of mapping chaos. Look at the grass. Do you see an ordered pattern that is mappable? No. Can you have an ordered pattern?
Sure. Can you drop acid and see the grass as a bunch of snakes? Sure thing pluckum. Can you ignore the grass when you play golf? Uh-huh.

Where a simulated reality, because this is what we are indeed talking about, fails is that it has to be ordered. Otherwise there is no control.
You cannot simulate perfect chaos. Because chaos isn't perfect. Then you have a reality.

Which is the snake eating its own tail. And a return to the definition of a reality.

If you can prove that we live in an ordered simulation then you prove that God does indeed exist. That's the riddle.

Where the better question lies is that can God and chaos coexist?

My answer is yes. But its a better answer because in truth it is an unknown.
Which I like. A lot.

You've read my other posts Yougene so you have a glance of how I think.














I dont mean to hijack the thread.
 
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jpgrdnr said:

A simulation isn't reality nor does it try to be nor can it. This is semantics (word play). That's not the point.
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It is just word play. One mans simulation can be another mans reality.

A simulation is a model.

Reality does not follow a model. Chaos to order, remember? Or order to chaos. Or chaos and sometimes order. Or neither.
Or both. And maybe the words don't fit the meaning. And maybe its a difference in opinion.
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Order and Chaos is a model. In fact there is much research and experimentation being done in simulating chaos.

A simulation is always ordered. For then you have control. If you do not have control of the simulation then there is chaos.
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order is subjective. Chaos can be seen as a form of order. In typical "simulations" you have control of the variables you feed into it everything else plays out from there.

And chaos can't happen in a system/simulation because its turns to poop (thats ho ho hee hee ha ha for ya). This is where the idea of quantum computing gets fuzzy where you have the infinite shift between 0 and 1.
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There is much research being done in simulating chaos with some success. They have even been able to simulate the workings of short-term memory in humans(i'll post a link if i find it).

I agree though the properties of infinity would be needed to have an exact replicate simulation. But what if there was a way to build something that was able to compute and work with information infinite in nature? Wouldn't that make the simulation infinite in nature and capable of holding its own simulation infinite in nature?
 
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