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

a reply to: scubagravy

No.
But I should probably mow my lawn.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: superman2012

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

He man the master of the universe.

So really, this story is just singularitarianism with a twist. Rather than technology overtaking us, we're supposedly going to break free of a technological prison.

And the whole thing is just a sci-fi way of talking about God, because the same basic assumption (universe deliberately constructed as experiment) underpins both. (Even the Matrix movie sort of recognised this with all its nods to gnosticism).

Well, billionaires are as entitled to crazy beliefs as the rest of us. Probably more so, if they can afford to finance the right research.

But let me ask the inquiring reader this: If we are part of some vast computer simulation, how exactly are we planning to exist outside it?

Reply to swanne -

So riddle me why the atoms that you are a composed of, 99.99% empty space

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: superman2012

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

Okay, you found something more terrifying....being Phage.

originally posted by: audubon
So really, this story is just singularitarianism with a twist. Rather than technology overtaking us, we're supposedly going to break free of a technological prison.

And the whole thing is just a sci-fi way of talking about God, because the same basic assumption (universe deliberately constructed as experiment) underpins both. (Even the Matrix movie sort of recognised this with all its nods to gnosticism).

Well, billionaires are as entitled to crazy beliefs as the rest of us. Probably more so, if they can afford to finance the right research.

But let me ask the inquiring reader this: If we are part of some vast computer simulation, how exactly are we planning to exist outside it?

Who's to say we don't? **wavy line end of a dream sequence begins**

a reply to: superman2012

Goo goo g'joob.

originally posted by: pikestaff
So we are all living in a computer program, right, where is this computer? who types all the programs for all the snowflakes, blades of grass, tree leaves, raindrops, grains of sand, pebbles, clouds, lightening, storms, people, dogs, cats, birds, sheep, pigs, cattle, lions, elephants, snakes, horses, fish, and everything else?

Most or all of it could be procedurally generated by algorithms.

a reply to: neoholographic

For all those who want their brains to merge into that Great Computer in the sky...what are you gonna do when some random computer super virus invades your new and "perfect" (I'm guessing) world?

originally posted by: Rubicon3
a reply to: neoholographic

For all those who want their brains to merge into that Great Computer in the sky...what are you gonna do when some random computer super virus invades your new and "perfect" (I'm guessing) world?

If it is a simulation, we are already there. It's not humans creating our simulation.

a reply to: neoholographic


Simulation means we live in a reflective world. Or our world is a reflection of some other or better world.


That’s actually a spiritual idea. The problem though, in spiritual; terms, is that you can't just break out of it and go into the better world because your in this simulated world because of your Karma


You cant raid heaven like people try to raid a music concert


Our own ignorance is what keeps you here

a reply to: swanne

I speak of it as an illusion from the perspective of the Tibetan Buddhists.

Not sure if you are familiar with it at all, but the Tibetan Book of the Dead became popular and goes into the methods of helping one who has died traverse what they call "Bardo" states.

Within this context the call our world of birth and death samsara. Throughout our lives they teach preparation for the moment of death in order wake up from the illusion of samsara, this can also be accomplished in the world through enlightenment, which ultimately is the unification of the self with the whole, which they call Moksha or Nirvana.

It is an interesting theory, one that I appreciate, for the way death is honored and perceived as sacred!

originally posted by: neoholographic

originally posted by: elementalgrove
a reply to: neoholographic

It is indeed interesting times and I say bon voyage to all those merging their brains int to the AI world the billionaires are making.

There are esoteric practices that can unite our consciousness beyond the illusion of space time reality, to me it seems as though they are going to try to convince people that we are already in a "matrix" so why not jump into "ours" and become immortal!

Excellent Quote!

This is true. In a sense they want to create gods in the cloud.

I was thinking along the lines of this , lots of spiritualists believe we share one conscious so a cloud hypothetically speaking and just by being we are uploading already .

originally posted by: neoholographic
Tech billionaires think we live in the Matrix and have asked scientists to get us out

Just more evidence that it takes very little 'intellect' to accumulate vast wealth, just 'selfish greedy vanity'. (See; Trump)

everyone in this thread really seems to be on separate pages as far as this topic is concerned, it's a really disjointed read, and i think it's maybe because no one who thinks it's a legitimate possibility has explained the rationale behind it?

so basically the thought process goes that one of the things civilisation does is create small scale simulacra. we've been doing it ourselves for decades now, not just in labs but in 'games' like the Creatures series, which essentially models a very tiny world of incredibly simple life. We were doing that with windows 95!
As the civilisation grows, so does the capacity for emulation, so by the time you have, say for arguments sake, dyson cloud type technologies/energy consumption, you also have the ability to realistically model a small blue planet or two full of life.
As far as the life on that planet is concerned, the simulation IS reality. it may as well be. there would certainly be no breaking out of it all morpheus pill style [tho potentially if you were to attract the attention of a mind involved in running the damn thing you might be able to get yourself copied to a floppy disk?].
Everyone still with me? cool so if you're a civ running world simulations, for fun or science or.... who knows, some sort of bet even, is there a limit to the worlds you could simulate? simultaneously, almost certainly as it would take a great deal of computing, but consecutively? you'd imagine a civ of that level would be pretty stable and long lasting, and there's no reason they'd have to run sims at anything like 1:1 speed. the entire history of a universe could unravel at x10 000 000 speed in the space of an "afternoon", no reason why not.

SO
all it takes is one civ to get to that level of technology, and then you have one "real" reality, and any number of billions of simulated realities.
what are the odds we're that first one, or in the same reality?
speaking on a sheerly statistical level, which is where the crux of the theory lies, it's not likely at all.

In 2003, philosopher Nick Bostrom proposed a trilemma that he called "the simulation argument". Despite the name, Bostrom's "simulation argument" does not directly argue that we live in a simulation; instead, Bostrom's trilemma argues that one of three unlikely-seeming propositions must be true

- "The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage (that is, one capable of running high-fidelity ancestor simulations) is very close to zero", or

- "The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero", or

- "The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one"

Bostrom goes on to use a type of anthropic reasoning to claim that, if the third proposition is the one of those three that is true, and almost all people with our kind of experiences live in simulations, then we are almost certainly living in a simulation.

en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: roadgravel

- "The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one"

See, this is where it breaks down. He's assuming that the number of people inside simulations almost exceeds the number outside. There's no basis for that assumption at all, and I can't understand why he's slipped it into the argument like that. Unless he just didn't think it through.

For example, if we were right now to run a simulation of the entire course of human history, we would end up with 107 billion human sims. There are only seven billion real humans alive today.

BUT - not all of those 107 billion human sims would exist at the same time, even in the simulation.

So the trilemma is demonstrably wrong in the one example that we can actually measure. This is a 100 per cent fail rate for Mr Bostrom's grand notion, and he must be asleep on the job if he hasn't realised by now.

a reply to: audubon

you've lost me
why would they have to exist at the same time?

a reply to: continuousThunder

Not sure what you're asking there; could you clarify, please?

For example, if we were right now to run a simulation of the entire course of human history, we would end up with 107 billion human sims. There are only seven billion real humans alive today.

That would be one simulation.

It is stating that once this level of simulation is reached, it is likely most of the universes of our level are simulations. Once one can be done then it would be easy to make many more. So it is likely they are simulations.