Are We Just Simulations/Holograms

[elmarko]

I'm skeptical that you can create an AI with real self awareness (another reason why I think its possible this universe is a simulation and our self awareness exists outside it) you can theoretically create an AI that would react exactly like a human being would, do everything a human would but that doesn't (necessarily) make it self aware - while there may be some level at the quantum scale where self awareness can exist everything above that has absolutely no capacity for self awareness in its mechanics however complex you construct it.

Well, it depends on how you view self awareness & free will, I don't believe either exist in the sense most people do (I tend to sway towards believing we are guided by inner thoughts & ideas which are not of our own making) - Sam Harris has done a few videos on the subject which seem to resonate most with my view.

Taking this view, I don't believe it will be that difficult to create a self aware AI (given the current rate of progression) - but I can't know for sure as I don't know, but time will tell.

 

[mothermachine]

This is what happens when intelligent people smoke too much weed.

 

[TommyV]

I came in to post that mothermachine, damn you

 

[Lightnix]

Well to figure out if we are or not, we'd just have to find out if our universe is optimised for computation. Things such as a maximum possible speed, a minimum temperature...

 

[mmj_uk]

It's not that stupid, eventually computers will be powerful enough and instead of using a controller we'll probably be linked directly via the brain, we could all be from the year 50,000AD playing a 20th century Earth simulation.

There's a really good Star Trek episode along these lines where Picard's brain gets hijacked by some satellite, he wakes up on some strange planet and basically lives the rest of his life there having a family etc, then when he's about 80yrs old he's told that the planet he's on was destroyed when its star went nova and that his experience was a simulation to teach whoever the satellite found what their civilization was like, he then wakes back up on the Enterprise with only 20mins having passed.

I think the episode was called The Inner Light best I've ever seen.

 

[HAz]

First of all it is only something that interests me and i am no expert on this theory,what do you think of it all.

I think you are insane.

 

[dirtychinchilla]

There's a really good Star Trek episode along these lines where Picard's brain gets hijacked by some satellite, he wakes up on some strange planet and basically lives the rest of his life there having a family etc, then when he's about 80yrs old he's told that the planet he's on was destroyed when its star went nova and that his experience was a simulation to teach whoever the satellite found what their civilization was like, he then wakes back up on the Enterprise with only 20mins having passed.

I think the episode was called The Inner Light best I've ever seen.

Yeah that was a superb episode, very surreal though.

 

[piggeh]

Holographic/simulation theories are interesting theories and I think the original theory stated sometihng like an 80% chance of it being a simulation if you held all assumptions to be true. However there is of course many arguments that could be had about the assumptions

 

[InKursion]

, very interesting.

This theory implies that not even our minds exist (in reality) - odd, but fascinating.

Solipsism is the biggest cop-out in all of academic philosophy. Interesting, but a completely fruitless position to take. It's quasi-pseudo-psycho-babble of the worst kind: the sort of ontological and metaphysical posturing that really leads nowhere. Of course you can wonder all day if all of this isn't some elaborate dream taking place in the head of a giant space turtle as it flies through space with 4 large elephants and a giant disc on its back... but, really.

 

[Joshct]

The first video was kind of cool...
The second was "no **** sherlock* right until the end where it said "can we be sure it exists" at which i was like "Yes the images are inside our brain, but they're interpretations of external stimuli, so yes". Thought the second vid was useless.

all in all though no vids seem wrong to me also lol if we are...

 

[InKursion]

A lot of this seems like hack-applied Platonic idealism...

 

[Spook187]

I think you are insane.

Why though.

lots on this thread have given good input for the theory i posted about.

Don't shoot the messenger

 

[elmarko]

Solipsism is the biggest cop-out in all of academic philosophy. Interesting, but a completely fruitless position to take. It's quasi-pseudo-psycho-babble of the worst kind: the sort of ontological and metaphysical posturing that really leads nowhere. Of course you can wonder all day if all of this isn't some elaborate dream taking place in the head of a giant space turtle as it flies through space with 4 large elephants and a giant disc on its back... but, really.

Indeed, but it's an interesting position (not one I personally value either) - but not that usefull.

 

[badcompany]

http://www.simulation-argument.com/

Also

http://io9.com/5799396/youre-living-in-a-computer-simulation-and-math-proves-it

The whole "reality is an illusion" idea has been kicked around by everyone from Siddhartha to the existentialists. It is Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom who is most often associated with the idea that we are living in a computer simulation. His premise is based on a series of assumptions:

1). A technological society could eventually achieve the capability of creating a computer simulation that is indistinguishable from reality to the inhabitants of the simulation.

2). Such a society would not do this once or twice. They would create many such simulations.

3). Left to run long enough the societies within the simulations would eventually be able to create their own simulations, also indistinguishable from reality to the sub-simulations inhabitants.

As a result, you have billions of simulations, with a nearly infinite number of cascading sub-simulations, all of them perfectly real to their inhabitants. Yet there is only a single ultimate progenitor society. The math is actually pretty simple: the odds are nearly infinity to one that we are all living in a computer simulation.