Living in simulations

Well if the aim of the game is to live, reproduce and attempt to succeed. It would suggest that one of the aims of the game is to make other levels to get to.

I theorised about it one day in regards to the old personification of Death. You know the suggestion that you can challenge Death to a game (a bit like Bill & Teds Bogus Journey). Obviously if the only way to continue your existence is to keep winning games (or in this case levels) then thats what you'd have to do.

Admittedly it goes a bit deep. I mean lets say we simulate the universe so that when we die we get put in the simulation. Obviously people aren't going to be necessarily happy with reliving the same life over and over again, this means that different universes would have to be formed where different outcomes occur. In fact it doesn't have to even be limited to the mundane existence we once knew, it could be a future or past life that we move on to in a simulated environment.

Obviously however when it becomes realised that we'd exist as proportion of our own future in such an environment, it's no longer viable just to "Exist" in these incarnations but to become Games "Avatars". It definitely throws a whole new twist on war and who's out to get you.

(Remember kids this is just a philosophical reasoning, I'm not suggesting you go out and shoot people... like I said there should be rules and Anti-PKing or TKing are obviously in there... along with the not quitting early commonly known as Suicide.)

 

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If you want to see yourself walking toward a fire, touching it and feeling the heat, smelling the burning wood, you're going to need some sort of computer simulation. Even our most complex thoughts, wants, and needs are based on very basic functions of the brain. You'd never be able to induce a specific scenario like that without external stimulus, like a VR machine. Maybe one day they'll be able to induce basic feelings, like euphoria or pleasure or pain through chemicals (you can already, but you gotta take narcotics), but there would be no way of setting the scene for you.

 

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Does anyone here remember what happened in the first Matrix movie? The blue pill has nothing to do with suicide. Neo was taken out of the matrix because he chose the red pill. When I said that “I wish I had the option of taking the blue pill” I was trying to say that I wish I could connect my brain to a realistic virtual reality because I hate my life. The virtual reality that I have on mind is a little different from the matrix. The futuristic scenarios in the matrix movies are unrealistic. I can imagine a futuristic world where people would connect their brains to a virtual reality to do just about anything that can be done in the real world. The only difference is that you would have the option of being in complete control of everything that you experienced in the virtual world. You could choose to create a simulation where you could experience sexual pleasure or acquire knowledge. Perhaps you would prefer to choose a realistic simulation where you would face the same challenges and dangers of the real world. Or you could choose to enter a virtual world like Second Life where you would be interacting with real people. If all of this technology existed today I would probably be spending at least 40% of my waking hours in virtual reality.

 

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Our entire conciousness of the world is created by external stimuli, by our senses. What I am suggesting is that if we had the ability to control the messages sent by our sensory organs and make them so that they are fooling the brain into making our conciousness somewhere it isn't. i.e, we could be sitting on a couch but in our conciousness, we are in the desert.

 

Well, it will be a long time before computers can interface with the human brain directly, in order to fully simulate reality. However, the human brain already does this on its own each night as it dreams, still, dream reality is never consistent.

 

Yes, and IMHO, the brain is always, making a "Real Time Simulation," RTS, (of the external world and everything that is "you") when you are conscious.

The main difference is that in dreams this RTS is not constrained to model the world your sensory systems are detecting. In REM sleep, and certainly in most dreams, neither your sensory system nor your motor systems are "engaged" to the RTS (but sensory input is at least monitored).

See:
http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1294496&postcount=52
for details why I think this, and evidence supporting this non-standard POV.

It is a long read, about 8 pages if printed.

 

There is another interesting paper which I'm sure many of you have seen.

It purports:
"A technologically mature “posthuman” civilization would have enormous computing power. Based on this empirical fact, the simulation argument shows that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero; (2) The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero; (3) The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one.

If (1) is true, then we will almost certainly go extinct before reaching posthumanity. If (2) is true, then there must be a strong convergence among the courses of advanced civilizations so that virtually none contains any relatively wealthy individuals who desire to run ancestor-simulations and are free to do so. If (3) is true, then we almost certainly live in a simulation. In the dark forest of our current ignorance, it seems sensible to apportion one’s credence roughly evenly between (1), (2), and (3).

Unless we are now living in a simulation, our descendants will almost certainly never run an ancestor-simulation."

http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

Enjoy...

 

Did you have any methods in mind? All I've heard you say is that you're looking for a way to do it without some kind of VR. I'm positive it isn't possible without it. You said yourself that we work on external stimuli, so how would you possibly get the same effect without external stimuli? I guess if there is a way, we're a looooong way out.

 

No, it would be with external stimuli, but rather by fooling our senses into telling the brain they are experiencing something that, physically in the real world, the person is not.

 

To some extent, we already have that. If you go on the Spider-Man ride in Universal Studios, you will experience the perception of falling from a 100-story building, even though you really aren't even moving. Trust me, it feels very real.

But if you are saying that we can't use a computer to achieve the results...then no, I can't see any way in which we could accomplish what you're asking for.

 

Of course we can use technology.


The ride is different. You would be experiencing that, but not directly. I mean, if you can trick your sensory organs into believing they are falling from a 100 story building, you'd be feeling the same as if you WERE falling from a 100 story building.

It's simple in concept: since our conciousness of the world is based on our senses, if you tweak what the senses tell you, you change the conciousness of the world.

 

But you do get the feeling that you're falling. You are tricking your sensory organs into thinking that you're falling, so your stomach jumps into your throat, you push back against your seat, and you scream.

Again, I'm not sure what the difference is between what you're asserting, and what I'm asserting. By viewing a large, first-person perspective of someone falling off a building, then you are changing your reality.

 

Exactly