Simulated Reality

It sounds cool. Although I do wonder: Would we all be AIs that nobody controls? Or are we individually controled like characters in WOW?

 

Well, since it's impossible to prove anything physical in this world itself, why should we expect to prove the 'higher order' world true with our pitiful reasoning skills? The Scientific Method? Pah.

The 'base world' you're refering to is a Supernatural element to our day to day lives. Who or what dwells there? What form do we assume there? Why, or through what means, are we suspended here?

And now a deeper question, what is consciousness? Is Godel's Incompleteness Theorem trying to tell us something?


Personally I don't believe in this...my main reason for denying its truth is that a 'computer program' is something based on our reasoning. Thus the base world would have to be within our reachable realm, via our scientific method/reasoning skills, which is a contradiction to the very definition of the base world. (Similar to the proof of the fact that there's no scientific proof of God)

So instead of a computer program, maybe our consciousness is somehow projected onto some smaller space, like a stereographic projection...maybe if we understood what consciousness was, we could understand this realm. However, consciousness is itself supernatural.

So why not?

 

So what your saying zenrot is that we are stuck in something like the matrix, but a lot bigger. Wow, i could live with that, but not being fed dead humans as a baby, ugh.
Nice pic and to add on to that, if we were in such a place we could figure out what it is we are in. We would simply have to look for things that have changed from our current laws of nature. In other words, a "Miricale". If we did we could prove that at the very least there is a higher deity then ourselves, or that our world really is simple A.I. or something else entirely. Gee, isn't this fun?

 

Actually funny you should mention that. The theorem I refered to (Godel's Incompleteness Theorem) is a proof that Math can never be modelled fully by A.I. and that no computer program will ever fully discover math...it will always take human ingenuity, creativity, to pursue the underlying nature of the universe. This is of course, not limited to Math, but since it's a mathematical proof they chose to prove it about Math. (I can go into more detail about the history behind the theorem, and the 'scare' that mathematicians and logicians had in the early 1900's if anyone cares)

In a sense, this has proven that our world is not simply based on A.I. It is instead a mixture of logical inference (which cannot be captured by A.I., the program must be 'told' the logical inference in a sense), and observation (which a computer can (sort of) accomplish).

What really distinguishes people from computers is simply that humans are plastic (ie. 'mouldable') beings. If you tell a computer program how to add and subtract, it will never know how to multiply...this is essentially the idea of Godel's Theorem. A human on the other hand could 'figure out' or stumble upon multiplication....or in other words, if something unexpected happened to a computer, it would simply cease function. A human being on the other hand, in an unexpected situation, could react a number of ways, including some ways which they have never reacted before.


So in short, our world has at least two 'layers.' One is a mindless following of instructions, as in a computer...human thought, or consciousness forms a higher overlaying level. But human logic is still flawed, with the seeming notion of a paradox. (For example, "This statement is false." Is it true or false?)

Then the question that plagues mankind now is, why stop at two? Can we extrapolate further? Is there a higher being, or some undetectable life form which resolves this problem? And then, is there some higher level than them?

Of course if you believe in God, God would be the ceiling, or upper bound of these levels...but that doesn't make for the most interesting discussion, since you are merely defining God to be the ceiling and then stating that He is.

Philosophy is fun indeed.


EDIT: Although I'm making a very bold inference when I say A.I. will never discover math, I assure you these are not my words or opinion, but a consensus among all mathematicians. Do a quick google search for Godel's Incompleteness Theorems and you will find the exact kind of thing I've been saying. The details are actually hidden in the proof...Godel's proof is really quite ingenious...and it's pretty hard to comprehend without a strong math background (I don't even get it fully).

 

Intresting. Have any of you ever heard of the Akashic Records?

 

The meaning I associate with that term is "Collective Consciousness." It's a belief in many Pagan religions.

Note: Don't be scared by my use of the word "Pagan." Pagan literally means non-Jewish/Islamic/Christian. So something like Hinduism is a Pagan religion. I just mean many non-Jewish/Islamic/Christian religions have the belief in a collective consciousness.

Many people see the word Pagan and warning bells go off that it's something Satanic...which isn't quite true. It's really more of an umbrella term.

 

The Akashic records seems to me is a library where all of information is stored and it can be acessed in different ways by anyone but it's difficult to acess. We can assume that everything exist in some other universe if you beleave it the Akashic Records.

 

i like the idea of a matrix. if it were true, as was said before, we wouldnt know. and if that bothers some people (which i hope it doesnt) look at how happy most of us are in this world. assuming that something like the matrix existed, i think that it wouldnt really matter anyway, because we'd be so blissfully ignorant, and probably never even think to question reality.

 

this just gets more interesting and now i'm compelled to post on it.
If the theory of simulated reality is correct then (If I'm right)there is some kind of God, because a computer cannot run by itself,sure a program can run automatically but someone must program it too.

 

I wonder is it possible that their could be different files on the computer and each of these files is a universe and things that are fiction in our universe are reality in another?

 

Guys, simple logical argument:

People created computers
=> Computers are within our comprehension
=> Computers are 'less than or equal' to us (and I posted saying strict inequality holds)
=> Computers are not supernatural

Which contradicts the nature of this simulated reality; it is supernatural.

So it can't be governed by a computer program. It has to be something we cannot comprehend or produce for it to lie in the supernatural realm (by definition of what the supernatural realm is).

But then of course one could argue that the 'computer' is metaphorical, and doesn't literally mean computer in the sense we know in everyday life. But then why use the term 'computer' at all? It's just causing confusion, as in DoD's post above...if it's not the computers we know and love (which I've just demonstrated it can't be), then it wouldn't function as we expect it to (ie. files).


Note: Infact, by the very definition of supernatural, no matter what we mention in this thread is (at least partially) wrong...otherwise we would understand it, and it would lie in the natural realm.

 

So I'm guessing that Mike is trying to say that whatever the thing is (if it exists) we can never find it,see it,or come to terms with it.

 

Exactly. But the suggestion I made is that it would have to somehow be 'consciousness-based" wouldn't it? I mean it would somehow project our consciousness, so it's got to tie in somehow. (Another reason it couldn't be a 'computer' in the literal sense is that they are not self-aware)


Science has no clue what consciousness is, or where it came from. If we are the biproduct of evolution, what evolutionary (or even scientific) sense do emotions, and consciousness play? Scientists have a hard time explaining this, simply because they don't know!

So I personally take it one step further and say: science will never know what consciousness is. Consciousness is our natural link to the supernatural; beit God, a simulated reality, karma, whatever it is you believe in...consciousness is the key, and the evidence that it is there.

I'll use a slightly mathematical example to explain what I mean further:

If I have let's say, 30 numbers written down, but I don't tell you which one. Let's say they're all distinct (ie. no 2 numbers are equal) just to make things less ambiguous. Is it a fair assumption for me to say "One of them is bigger than the other 29" ? Of course it is...but does this logic tell me what the biggest number is?

Absolutely not...it just tells me there IS some largest number. I mean think about it, if I told you 'The biggest number is 30' I would be right only if all of my numbers were less than 30...but I'm not restricted to that! What if 31 is one of my chosen numbers? We just don't know...

Infact, if people are up for a little game, we can play 'who can write the biggest number,' but we would have to do so via PM. It's kind of a fun, yet nerdy game to play with several people. It further illustrates this concept.



But anyway, this is an analogous situation; I believe that consciousness (ie. the soul, but if you want to believe those are 2 different things feel free) is a statement saying 'there is something bigger than us.' But it doesn't tell us what...

 

I'm intrested in this but only have ten mins so I'll play your game but quickly.

 

Well, I don't know if anyone is up for this, and Chocobo is probably off of the internet now...but here's my game:

Anyone interested, PM me a number...any number. The person who PMs me the largest number wins. There is no restriction...except I think to be fair, some people here are probably not familiar with Sigma Summation or Pi Product notation...so if you know what those are, don't use them. Restrict yourself only to familiar functions, such as quadratics, exponentials, etc.

IMPORTANT: When I say largest number, I mean largest finite number...so anyone who's a math buff and says something like "Aleph-Null" or "infinity" is disqualified...hahaha.

So examples of a valid entry:

1) 32
2) 32^2 ("thirty two squared")
3) 32*32^99 ("thirty two times thirty two to the power of ninety nine")
4) 32*32^(99*99)
5) 32*32^(99*99) + 1

Etc. (There is no reason for me to use 32, I did this completely randomly)

Whoever PMs me the largest number wins...I'll then post all the numbers to determine winners. If people are embarrassed about losing, I won't post who wrote which number...but I'll provide explanations in regards to ambiguous numbers.

EDIT: The reason it must be PM'd and not posted in this thread is because otherwise people can just add 1 to the previous answers and keep making them bigger...it defeats the purpose.

 

Except the problem with your analogy is that 'throwing motrin on yourself' is in no way identical to 'curing yourself.' The game has just made that connection.

However, AI and provability have everything to do with math. Oh sure, the laws of (for example) math may differ in this higher universe...but then so does the very notion of AI.

It's not AI in the sense we know and love...it's different.


So I'm arguing (and by posting this, I'm merely emphasizing this point), that it cannot be orchestrated by a computer where a computer is our primitive, human notion of a computer...ie. one with files and sectors, binary code, all that jazz.

Because these are constructs of mathematics (well, physics...but they follow mathematical rules). So if in mathematics they are disproven, then you have 3 options:

1) -Alter 'computers'
2) -Alter mathematics (which will in turn alter 'computers' since they are based on math)
3) -It's untrue

But my claim still stands in any case...it cannot be run by a computer as we know them to be.

 

Nope, definitely not claiming that. Infact, assuming all of this holds, each universe MUST have different laws, for this sort of 'embedding' of worlds to occur...otherwise, it would just be a chain of worlds 'smooshed' down into one, and it would all lie in one world (but of course for the purpose of this discussion, we're assuming that's not the case).

EDIT: In other words, if the higher realm had the same physical laws we do, we would be able to access this higher world through science...but we're assuming that we can't, so there must be different laws up there.

Instead what I was saying is that we can't necessarily think of it as being 'a computer, where universes are stored on different files' as an example, because this corresponds to our primitive outlook on computers.