A good way to make yourself eligible for a braining with a barstool

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

For all occupants, what's the difference?

Excuse me, I meant the above quote. If I can't determine via my senses or technology as an extension of my senses that the universe is a simulation and it has absolutely no impact or difference on my life whether I know if it is or if it isn't since I can't experience anything any different than the universe as it is nor can I change it or interact with whatever is outside the simulation, then it is completely meaningless bullshit as something to care about.

Yes, this.

[Triple Zero]

.... it is completely meaningless bullshit as something to care about.

This is true for a lot of mentual masturbation that some people call philosophy, it's still fun though

fixed.

the whole "simulation" concept is just a small example or thought experiment in some much larger philosophical fields. except that the actual things you can learn from this are rather complex, and much harder to grasp than the fun science fiction mental masturbation ideas.

[AFK]

What happens if you divide by zero?

[Cain]

His theory requires a second universe, if our universe is to be merely a simulation run from somewhere.

There is no reason to presume that the simulating universe would have any characteristics in common with our own.  Presuming that an intelligence of some sort would be running this simulation, he makes the implicit claim that this unknown intelligence would choose to simulate a universe similar to his own.  Even granting a humanlike intelligence, this is not a trivial assertion - a philosopher, physicist, or fiction writer would all find running possible worlds more interesting than the same ancestor simulation over and over again.  And granting a human-like intelligence is absurd, unless we make the assertion that no being clever enough to be able to simulate another mind would be creative enough to simulate a mind different from his own.  Intelligence itself is not necessary - a particularly bizarre set of natural laws might allow such a simulation to occur spontaneously!

So all of his conjectures about numbers of civilizations (why civilizations?  why not individuals?  why presume technological levels are necessary?  why assume more than one exists?) whether such a civilization would be able to run a simulation (since the simulation would be run from a different universe, we have no information on how much matter is present in that universe to construct computers - or even if that universe contains matter or some other substrate upon which computations can be done) are done in the complete absence of information, since they are conjectures about a universe which is not known.

In other words, it is basically Creationism with machines.

Present unverifiable hypothesis -> Latch onto singular and unconvincing explanation -> do not explain why other theories are just as likely = ZOMG WE ARE IN THE MATRIX!

[Telarus]

Old skool gnosticism with a hint of new-age and cyberpunk. All hail Yaldabaoth the Kosmokrator, for he is the black hat admin and can hacks all the code =P.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demiurge#Gnosticism

[LMNO]

Chapter 25

There is Something that exists,
Beyond the Illusions of Order and Disorder.
It is all things, and unknowable in full.
We only see small parts of It,
but are convinced what we see is the entire Universe.

For lack of a better name, I call It "Chaos".
At dinner parties, I claim It is everything Possible and Impossible.
When asked why not call It "god",
I point out that their head is too fucking small.

Because we create the Illusions in which we live,
we are more creative than Chaos.
Because we believe in the Illusions we create,
our heads are too fucking small.
In this way, we reflect our creations.


Chapter 47

You can't view the Universe
without one map or another.
Glimpses outside your Cell
are obscured by the Bars.
The more you believe you are not in Prison,
the less you will understand the world around you.
Therefore the wise spags wander through the world in doubt,
and constantly ask for directions.


Chapter 7

The Universe outside your Prison Cell
has gone on before you, and goes on after you.
It is as unfeeling and uncaring about itself as a Barstool in midflight:
Even if you have convinced yourself it consists mainly of empty space,
you should probably still duck.

So the wise Spags look outside their own brains,
And grasp the surrounding minds.
They see the Bars of their Black Iron Prison,
And so are able to see around them.
Because isn't the other way
Tatamount to masturbation?

[Cramulus]

I believe that we are living in a computer simulation

I just wish it was more like Leisure Suit Larry and less like Progress Quest 



anyway,
this is hardly the first suggestion that the waking world is not the 'real' world.
and I do love it when new Belief Systems interface with old archetypes. If Assiah is a computer simulation, where does that suggest the higher planes are? Interesting to think about

in 50 years, it will not seem that farfetched that we can simulate the material world within a computer. Or image human brains and upload them, in digital form, into a computer environment.

This idea will seem less bullshitty the closer the technology comes to realizing it.



this also seems like one of those logical exercises where you prove that the value of 1 is 2 or something

[AFK]

I wonder if the cavemen ever developed a theory that the universe and their existence was really just a cave painting. 

[Richter]

That DOES bring the allegory of the cave to mind...

[Rumckle]

.... it is completely meaningless bullshit as something to care about.

This is true for a lot of mentual masturbation that some people call philosophy, it's still fun though

fixed.

the whole "simulation" concept is just a small example or thought experiment in some much larger philosophical fields. except that the actual things you can learn from this are rather complex, and much harder to grasp than the fun science fiction mental masturbation ideas.

Though whether you can learn anything from the thought experiment is arguable

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

For all occupants, what's the difference?

Which behaviors have a higher value as far as continued survival is concerned.

Behaviors with a high survival rating in a purely mechanistic universe resembling ours could be very different from the sort of behaviors that are preferred by whoever is running our simulation.  Not in the low level don't go dancing with rabid timberwolves sense, but more the are you going to be better off with this plan or that underlying your long term decisions.

Do you have a method for determining what those alternative actions might be?  If not, then they are unknowable, and impossible to act upon, greatly limiting the usefulness of the theory.

If you do.... you're a theist.

Well, you could run through actions without regard to how they would play out in a mechanistic universe, en masse, and determine their successfulness compared to the expected successfulness in a mechanistic universe, and you suddenly have a pretty good idea about what those alternative actions might include. They aren't unknowable in the same sense as 'really real reality' which by definition is unknowable (since it posits that those things we 'know' are illusions). So, it is very barstoolable.

Thing is, presumably all our past history is subject to the same rules in terms of successfulness, unless the history was back-generated without regard to the ruleset for determining futures. This means that either the rules for successfulness are things we already mostly are aware of and have worked into our mechanistic view, they are things that are so bizzare that even our cosmology and our quantum mechanics are beyond the scale for testing them (or haven't managed it yet), or (in the latter case) we can learn nothing from history because our history is discontinuous with our future, due to a complete game change partway through.

[Captain Utopia]

I tried explaining this to my wife. Got as far as "at some point in the future we will be able to fully simulate the human brain..." to which she responded "No we won't, because of like, stuff like quantum things being in two different places at once!"  Not knowing where to begin, I gave up.

[Cramulus]

show her something like this:

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/23/2323214


a while back, somebody posted a great article about this topic, but I can't find it. If you google "simulate rat brain", it'll probably pop up

[Captain Utopia]

show her something like this:

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/23/2323214


a while back, somebody posted a great article about this topic, but I can't find it. If you google "simulate rat brain", it'll probably pop up

Ha - thanks! You might also think that she would be persuaded by the fact that what has paid the bills for the past year has been my work on a project involving tools which simulate the hippocampus to the degree that artificial lesions (disconnecting parts of the neural net) shows behaviour which mimics exactly the symptoms exhibited by patients who have received the same brain trauma.

But logic doesn't work - this is from the same person who called me a "muggle" today, because I didn't think the fact that printed books exist upon astrology makes it scientific.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

show her something like this:

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/23/2323214


a while back, somebody posted a great article about this topic, but I can't find it. If you google "simulate rat brain", it'll probably pop up

Ha - thanks! You might also think that she would be persuaded by the fact that what has paid the bills for the past year has been my work on a project involving tools which simulate the hippocampus to the degree that artificial lesions (disconnecting parts of the neural net) shows behaviour which mimics exactly the symptoms exhibited by patients who have received the same brain trauma.

But logic doesn't work - this is from the same person who called me a "muggle" today, because I didn't think the fact that printed books exist upon astrology makes it scientific.

I... um. I hope the sex is spectacular. Is all I can say.