17 replies to this topic

[Darkness]

I've been reading BigThink.com, and love some of the ideas. This one is great.
http://bigthink.com/ideas/39548

Depending who you ask, there’s a 20 to 50 percent chance that you’re living in a computer simulation. Not like The Matrix, exactly – the virtual people in that movie had real bodies, albeit suspended in weird, pod-like things and plugged into a supercomputer. Imagine instead a super-advanced version of The Sims, running on a machine with more processing power than all the minds on Earth. Intelligent design? Not necessarily. The Creator in this scenario could be a future fourth-grader working on a science project.

[TheUnknowable]

NO!!! It's not true!! That's Impossible! (to quote Luke Skywalker)

[NBathory]

Or as Victor Hugo said

“Nothing is more imminent than the impossible . . . what we must always foresee is the unforeseen.”

[Rhuen]

Star Trek the Next Generation did a few episodes like this, one where the hologram actually left the Holodeck on its own *and with out a personal projector like the later Doctor from Voyager would need*, and it turned out the program got a glitch that made that world real *that or Q did it, I forget*. and Riker made the comment about what if the real universe was just a program sitting on someone's desk.

there was an episode of Deep Space Nine with a village on a planet, the people lived, grew old, died, ect...but turned out to all be holograms.

those two are the most notable in my mind fitting this idea.

[Darkness]

Out of curiosity, what percentage would you give that this idea is true? Do you feel there's a 80% chance it could be true, or a 20% chance? Maybe you're 0% or 100%.

[Rhuen]

I'd like to know where and how they got their percentages? What mathimatical formula supported this notion?

Its just as bad as saying, "God did it" only its "a computer programmer outside our universe did it"

[Darkness]

I'm guessing it's a gut feeling. Just a rough estimate on your intuition about the likelihood. That's all I'm asking for here too, is if you were to guess, what would you put the % at that this might be true.

[TheUnknowable]

I'd guess something pretty small like 5%. It seems the more I learn, the more I run into ideas I never would have thought of. Not that that makes it impossible, but you'd think that a computer program wouldn't challange your presupposed notions, else you risk becoming aware of the system. Of course I'm thinking of the matrix, but....

[Rhuen]

eh, I'd only put it about 10%, in that Its very slightly possible, but in a way we don't comprehend possible utilizing an extremly complex system; something like ALs only left to keep going as part of a very broad network, with dark matter as the cables and galaxies as the nodes kind of thing. Sheesh now I'm thinking of "Reboot".

[TheUnknowable]

so what? different solar systems are different computer systems?

[Rhuen]

If it were a computer, stars would be more like energy exchange points in the larger galaxy data note, making planets...tiny bits of dust in the system. Or tiny ubernanobits of data, the fractional lost bits of data existing in the system.

in Reboot that would be like the things living in the computer, only on a more divine level, living things are remnant matter following a kind of copy pattern to more complex forms which serve a function on the cosmic level (like data storage, clean up, data process observation units) which would be the gods, celestial beings, cosmic forces, and life is the matter the tiny extra data attempting to also copy the same forms but instead going its own way in the system with out direct function to the over-all system, but in its own way having its own function at its level...but probably thinking or trying to have importance on a larger scale like the intentional designs it unintentionally copying.

...hmmm...thats not Reboot, I wander if thats been done before, maybe a videogame somewhere, where the universe turns out to be fake and the people are just extra data floating around and there was some "god" trying to delete them as its a virus clean up program and mistook like for a virus.

that last "like" was meant to be "life": I can't edit posts.

but of course if I type a new post in less than a minute of the old post it merges and makes my last sentence look weird.

[Bard of Thorns]

You trying to refer to Star Ocean 3, Rhuen?

[Rhuen]

Maybe, I'll have to go look that game up; I remembered hearing something like it in a review somewhere of RPGs.

[ErrantKnight]

a former co-worker postulated that we could all conceivably live in a Utopia like that, we had several decent discussions on how the physical workings would be maintained while the virtu-real populace 'lived' their lives in the construct.

Physically, it's a fun thing to banter about. Psychologically/emotional/'logically', aren't we all potentially just a figment of a god's imagination, anyway? Do we necessarily have to be plugged in somewhere for us to be living in an imaginary world presided over by some higher intelligence, whether divine or other?

the things that populate my dreams (when they aren't chasing me or whatever other sundry activities that go on in that realm), would those then be random errors in the datastream of 'consciousness'? If this is all simulated, then at what point does somebody either release it to production or ctrl+alt+del the program? What about upgrades?

can a dream dream?

DO androids dream of electric sheep?

As far as percentages, who knows. 1% = 100% if the other 99% are wrong, so that's just a matter of perspective.

brings up the visual at the end of the Men in Black movies. i know, not as highbrow as Neo Christ or anything, but still amusing.

hrm, the above statement proves that i still possess more words than thoughts. I shall lurk another few years until something relevant avails itself..

[TheUnknowable]

You trying to refer to Star Ocean 3, Rhuen?

I played 1 and 2 but if 3 is like that I'll have to get it.

can a dream dream?

DO androids dream of electric sheep?

I Robot. (the movie) A Robot dreams due to some form of higher technological evolution.

[Rhuen]

I've had a dream or two where I went to sleep in the dream and started to dream something else.

Had others where I went to sleep in the dream and then woke up.

Reminds me of a movie whose title I can't remember; there was a woman who had two lives, one in the city as a buisiness woman, the other as a suburban house wife, both lives felt completly real, and she'd switch between them when she went to sleep at night; and in fact in both worlds there were therapists telling her the other was fake and based on some psychological missing need she was feeling deep inside.

[Darksparrow]

Star Trek the Next Generation did a few episodes like this, one where the hologram actually left the Holodeck on its own *and with out a personal projector like the later Doctor from Voyager would need*, and it turned out the program got a glitch that made that world real *that or Q did it, I forget*. and Riker made the comment about what if the real universe was just a program sitting on someone's desk.

I believe you are thinking about Moriarty when he gained awareness and took over the ship, and they tricked him by putting him in the simulation he believed to be real.

[Bard of Thorns]

Maybe, I'll have to go look that game up; I remembered hearing something like it in a review somewhere of RPGs.

Actually, in Star Ocean 3, the "god" was just the head of the gaming company that designed the universe, and he wanted to delete everything because humans started studying how to use in-game "magic" ("symbology") to modify DNA. The intent was to forcibly erase everything, then start from scratch, with three (out of 8) of the player-characters being the only ones capable of doing anything to stop it.