Tech billionaires think we live in the Matrix and have asked scientists to get us out

a reply to: Dwoodward85

I like your style.

According to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, it's like Hell out there.

a reply to: pikestaff

Quite so!

To second-guess the OP, with whose views I am familiar, we have met the stenographers, and they are us.

This sounds like a creative excuse by a couple of eccentric billionaire businessmen to create a venture to hide money to me.

Books and speaking engagements to follow$

I'm afraid we are trapped inside this wormhole of existence, as long as we live in this body... We have entered into some kind of amnesia when we think so highly and importantly about what's going on around us like it's all there is, not realizing the truth is beyond what we can perceive.

The matrix is inside, it is the dreamworld we believe to be real that is constructing our world through language and conditioning. It won't ever be found externally.

a reply to: queenofswords

I like your style too.

But books and speaking engagements are kid stuff. What you do is float a company, and get neo, Poetry and their friends to invest.

Better still, make it a trust; then they won't even have to pay tax on it.

Upload our consciousness to the cloud?

Maybe I am old fashioned, but that seems scary.

If my consciousness becomes digital then that means it could be hacked. The Mandela Effect could truly be real at that point.

this is as crazy as saying that we will one day become immortal and our consciousness would be trapped in a cloud, if the "archon" theory is real while we are on the believing that anything is possible track, then this would be their goal to trap the thing that conceives fear to feed of the energy it emits, this conscious cloud could be a prison battery that is self sufficient, or maybe we are already in it.....

a reply to: neoholographic

It wouldn't be the first time the tech-savy were into pseudoscience or philosophical and religious hum-drum. Steve Jobs denied his doctor's orders in order to try "alternative" (pseudoscientific) treatments, thereby exasperating his own death.

originally posted by: swanne
Sorry if I came on harsh, it was not my intention; my apologies!

originally posted by: elementalgrove

I simply mean that there are varying levels to experience and from one perspective it could be said that this is an illusion, that we wake up from when we die and a little known molecule is released.

I've woken up from a dream in which I've lived an entired lifetime, grew old, and died. When I opened my eyes, I was in my bed, confusingly staring at the wooden ceiling. I've learned to accept both existences as "real", to my empiricist mind at least. I just can't qualify this life I've dreamed of as an "illusion", not even from my current reality point of view.

I think, therefore I am.

I think this whole cloud notion is a literal trap of soul and find it to be dangerous indeed.

Yes, indeed, I agree most vehemently.

I highly highly recommend this Star Trek episode to you. It's very similar to your dream.

Star Trek The Next Generation: The Inner Light

"In the story, Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) is struck with an energy beam from an alien probe. While minutes pass for the rest of the crew, Picard experiences 40 years as Kamin, a humanoid scientist whose planet is threatened by the nova of its sun. Picard learns that the purpose of the probe was to keep alive the memory of Kamin's race long after the death of their civilization. The probe also contains Kamin's flute; Picard, having mastered it as Kamin, finds he retains the skill to play it. He keeps it as a memento for the remainder of the series."

He lives an entire life that's so real to him, he has to accept it as part of him and it becomes a permanent part of his personality. It's one of the best episodes of anything I've ever seen on TV.

It's on netflix but you can also find it "free" if you search online

a reply to: RedDragon

He lives an entire life that's so real to him, he has to accept it as part of him

Longish episode, then?

The trouble is no-one and I mean no-one has got the ba*** to tell these "billionaires" to stop being idiotic.
Someone please sit them down and tell them that as soon as they"upload" they will lose all their money and become just ordinary people, things or its like the rest of us. When that sinks in that they will lose all the influence that their billions get them, they will soon pull the plug on the funds as I would guess that they are bankrolling the investigation.

If we are in a simulation then there is no breaking out. Everything about us and our world is simulation. The creators could make us think we have awakened and then break out but that is still just the simulation.

a reply to: roadgravel

If everything is a simulation, doesn't that mean that we are too?
Simulated creatures.

Break the simulation and *poof*.

Not the room on earth for us all?
not the food, to much war and many other things.
so in a futre they use virtual reality!

only thing is we are In a virtual reality now!
a virtual reality in a virtual reality in a virtual reality???

a reply to: neoholographic

"Egon, this reminds me of the time you tried to drill a hole in your head, remember that"?

"That would have worked if you didn’t stop me".

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: roadgravel

If everything is a simulation, doesn't that mean that we are too?
Simulated creatures.

Break the simulation and *poof*.

Exactly.

Now if we are more like Boltzmann brains being manipulated, it might be different. That then bring in the possibility that breaking free might be worse.

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: Dwoodward85

I like your style.

According to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, it's like Hell out there.

Ha, I liked that. It's either an experiment or an escape from reality. In both cases, we probably don't want to know what's real. However, something tells me that won't stop any intrepid adventurer from looking anyway. In every story I've ever read, the need to know hte truth always outweighs the potential negatives. But those're stories, is that how the real world works?

The way I look at it's I agree we need to merge somewhat with our technology to counter the threat of either being devalued to nothing or having to fight our AI overlords. It's practical to not take an extreme position. Merging, at least somewhat, is a moderate position, versus not merging at all or merging completely.

Technology will keep advancing, not stop. Eventually we'll be able to enter 3d worlds and it'll be nearly indistinguishable form our real world. We'll see and feel and hear and smell and taste and have the capacity to travel instantly anywhere or even read the thoughts of other people in the simulated world. There's no reason not to use this. We'll find a way to use it.

This doesn't mean we can or should abandon the real world. That'd be unnecessary and probably dangerous. The simulated worlds RELY on the real world. Any productive action in the real world automatically has an advantage over the simulated actions. Those who best use the simulated worlds to strengthen their hold in the real world will be fitter.

EDIT: "Real" is referring to our real, not the creator's real--if there's a creator or a pantheon of creators. Sometimes I have wondered.

The only reason why we can view a past and present is because of memories and consciousness. Who's to say that our memories weren't created yesterday, all the knowledge of the past imprinted for what we are 'supposed' to know and we go about our lives by the memories we have not knowing, or even being able to understand, that they were created yesterday?


That is super terrifying to me.

a reply to: superman2012

What if we aren't we?
What if I am he as you are he as you are me.

a reply to: Phage

you need sleep..... after the debate