131–140 of 211 posts
It's apparently a good time to link to a writing entitled "Creating Infinite Suffering": http://www.utilitarian-essays.com/lab-universes.html "Abstract. I think there's a small but non-negligible probability that humans or their descendants will create infinitely many new universes in a laboratory. Under weak assumptions, this would entail the creation of infinitely many sentient organisms. Many of those organisms wo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The quote is a somewhat poor rephrasing of a more solid argument from this paper: http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.pdf Anyway, your objection here isn't actually relevant as far as I can tell. It's a probabilistic argument about the number of real minds vs. the number of simulated minds, and the bulk of the "proof" is in demonstrating that, under certain assumptions, the number of simulated minds would b…
...and the main flaw of this still remains: we don't know the probabilities of a very advanced civilization running a simulation because we can have no idea of whether this would be interesting for them to do, we can't predict what would their goals and motivations be . Out great-great-...-great-grandchildren will not just be super-smart versions of us, they will have concepts and goals we cannot even imagine! A simu…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
...and the main flaw of this still remains: we don't know the probabilities of a very advanced civilization running a simulation because we can have no idea of whether this would be interesting for them to do, we can't predict what would their goals and motivations be . Out great-great-...-great-grandchildren will not just be super-smart versions of us, they will have concepts and goals we cannot even imagine! A simu…
Did you read the paper? It takes that all into account. This is one of its three possible conclusions, as stated in the abstract.
The theory that we are living in a computer simulation has always intrigued me, but if we were truly running inside of a simulation wouldn't said simulation have safe-guard protocols in place preventing us from determining whether or not we are within a simulation? Very curious to see if we are all really living within Simcity or The Matrix.
Who knows? Maybe our universe was created by the lowest bidder and cut corners to improve profits.
Isn't it obvious for most that for an advanced enough simulation, it is impossible to prove that you are in a simulation from inside the simulation? Even if we find proof that our current model of reality is wrong, it would only mean we need to search for another model of reality, we can't just say "but out theory doesn't actually match the reality because the reality is actually a simulation that computes approximat…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well the most interesting part of the Matrix trilogy was when Neo used his powers in the 'real' world; specifically stopping the drones and being able to see despite losing his eyesight.
Totally. I expected the simulation within a simulation, turtles all the way down, plot twist. My favorite theory was that all the humans were passengers on a generational seed ship traveling to the next star, kept in near stasis to keep them alive and mostly sane during the millennial transit. That would have played nicely with The Architect's explanation that in the perfect simulated world, humans went insane. So Th…
Isn't it obvious for most that for an advanced enough simulation, it is impossible to prove that you are in a simulation from inside the simulation? Even if we find proof that our current model of reality is wrong, it would only mean we need to search for another model of reality, we can't just say "but out theory doesn't actually match the reality because the reality is actually a simulation that computes approximat…
(c) We are unintended by-products of whatever is being simulated.
Isn't it obvious for most that for an advanced enough simulation, it is impossible to prove that you are in a simulation from inside the simulation? Even if we find proof that our current model of reality is wrong, it would only mean we need to search for another model of reality, we can't just say "but out theory doesn't actually match the reality because the reality is actually a simulation that computes approximat…
Found this : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/154163/detect-virtualized...
Whether something like this exists for our virtualized environment, we have to find out.