> @ModerateOsprey said:<br />
> Cherry picked from the paper:<br />
> <br />
> If we are living in a simulation, then the cosmos that we are observing is just a tiny piece of the totality of physical existence. The physics in the universe where the computer is situated that is running the simulation may or may not resemble the physics of the world that we observe. While the world we see is in some sense “real”, it is not located at the fundamental level of reality.<br />
> <br />
> It may be possible for simulated civilizations to become posthuman. They may then run their own ancestor-simulations on powerful computers they build in their simulated universe. Such computers would be “virtual machines”, a familiar concept in computer science. (Java script web-applets, for instance, run on a virtual machine – a simulated computer – inside your desktop.) Virtual machines can be stacked: it’s possible to simulate a machine simulating another machine, and so on, in arbitrarily many steps of iteration. If we do go on to create our own ancestor-simulations, this would be strong evidence against (1) and (2), and we would therefore have to conclude that we live in a simulation. Moreover, we would have to suspect that the posthumans running our simulation are themselves simulated beings; and their creators, in turn, may also be simulated beings.<br />
<br />
You know what this excerpt made me think of?<br />
Making the Sims in our games get on the computer to play Sim City. Simulation within a simulation.
Yes, definitely deliberate, IMO.
The concept of a computer simulation is relatively new to the human race. Humans have virtualised their worlds in other media - books, paintings, but these are static representations and once created cannot be altered, without re-creation .
It is the computer that has enabled us to do real simulations, sure very crude at the moment, where the state of the system can be altered in response to the actions taking place in the simulation itself.
The simulated games in the Sims are really nothing more than an animation with the interactions by our Sims not having any effect on the in game simulation. Future versions may alter this as I am sure this concept has been thought of by the developers.
Humans are now creating simulations of all kinds of things from weather, to traffic patterns, consumer behaviour in shopping centres, and beginning to join these up to make larger simulations as more computing power becomes available.
The article's conclusion is the most authoritative:
A technologically mature “posthuman” civilization would have enormous computing power. Based on this empirical fact, the simulation argument shows that at least one of the following propositions is true:
(1) The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero;
(2) The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero;
(3) The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one.
If (1) is true, then we will almost certainly go extinct before reaching posthumanity. If (2) is true, then there must be a strong convergence among the courses of advanced civilizations so that virtually none contains any relatively wealthy individuals who desire to run ancestor-simulations and are free to do so. If (3) is true, then we almost certainly live in a simulation.
In the dark forest of our current ignorance, it seems sensible to apportion one’s credence roughly evenly between (1), (2), and (3).
Unless we are now living in a simulation, our descendants will almost certainly never run an ancestor-simulation.
Awake.
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity.... The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
> @ModerateOsprey said: > kineticlops wrote: » > > > > > Yes, definitely deliberate, IMO. > > The concept of a computer simulation is relatively new to the human race. Humans have virtualised their worlds in other media - books, paintings, but these are static representations and once created cannot be altered, without re-creation . > > It is the computer that has enabled us to do real simulations, sure very crude at the moment, where the state of the system can be altered in response to the actions taking place in the simulation itself. > > The simulated games in the Sims are really nothing more than an animation with the interactions by our Sims not having any effect on the in game simulation. Future versions may alter this as I am sure this concept has been thought of by the developers. > > Humans are now creating simulations of all kinds of things from weather, to traffic patterns, consumer behaviour in shopping centres, and beginning to join these up to make larger simulations as more computing power becomes available. > > The article's conclusion is the most authoritative: > > A technologically mature “posthuman” civilization would have enormous computing power. Based on this empirical fact, the simulation argument shows that at least one of the following propositions is true: > > (1) The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero; > > (2) The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero; > > (3) The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one. > > If (1) is true, then we will almost certainly go extinct before reaching posthumanity. If (2) is true, then there must be a strong convergence among the courses of advanced civilizations so that virtually none contains any relatively wealthy individuals who desire to run ancestor-simulations and are free to do so. If (3) is true, then we almost certainly live in a simulation. > > In the dark forest of our current ignorance, it seems sensible to apportion one’s credence roughly evenly between (1), (2), and (3). > > Unless we are now living in a simulation, our descendants will almost certainly never run an ancestor-simulation.
I just woke up so I only understood about half of that but hot plum that is a lot to think about.
I've thought about this a lot since I started playing Sims and I've often wondered if the game creators know something we don't
Something about the game does sort of draw you to think about the larger picture and how the Universe might run.
MiffoShort made a very good point - I don't think my 'Player' uses any sort of cheats, either. In fact, I wonder if there is a way to appeal to the kinder nature of the Player or if some of us are doomed to be at the mercy of the sort who likes to torture their Sims?
Maybe we need to set an example to our Player by being kind to our own Sims - to let him or her know how it's done
And look up now and then with that quizzical expression on our faces to let him or her know we 'see' them.
Or maybe they control us controlling our Sims so the lives and characters of our Sims are more likely to reflect our own...
On the other hand, all those who give their Sims fabulous lives may be getting the message "Make the most of the fantasy, that's the closest you'll ever get"
And then you have that mirror vs. mirror effect because if your player is playing you and you are playing your sims and your sims are playing their sims and their sims are playing their sims we might already just be playing ourselves if we stare into the mirror long enough. lol
They listened and gave us toddlers! Thanks Devs your work is appreciated.
> @Scobre said:<br />
> I don't know why, but this reminds me of the Matrix. Like the concept of being programmed to be set in a dream world without knowing that people are actually being turned into batteries is interesting. I actually made a Sim of myself already and I nearly freaked out seeing my Sim self pregnant.<br />
<br />
Aww yeah you mentioned the Matrix when I was typing my comment about the Matrix! We must have the same simulation master or something. :P
Maybe. I saw the edited TV version, but just the whole concept of it was interesting. I really liked the movie Inception too. Like what if Sims was a dream within a dream type of thing going on? The was a recent Doctor Who episode based off Inception too. Some days in life it feels like I'm stuck in the Twilight Zone because things don't make sense anymore. It's like the older I get, the more I don't understand the world that surrounds me.
Love that movie Inception and how at the end they leave it open to whether he was awake or not. And I love having dreams within dreams it does make really waking up a little confusing cause you don't know whether or not you actually (if you dream boring everyday stuff that is) did the things you dreamt you did.
They listened and gave us toddlers! Thanks Devs your work is appreciated.
Love that movie Inception and how at the end they leave it open to whether he was awake or not. And I love having dreams within dreams it does make really waking up a little confusing cause you don't know whether or not you actually (if you dream boring everyday stuff that is) did the things you dreamt you did.
Yeah it's a great movie. Dreams within dreams can be confusing, but with the Sims 4 being in some alternate universe of the Sims, I sometimes wonder if it is the same situation that the Sims are stuck within a dream with everything being so happy it's like a nightmare.
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” –Helen Keller
If this has been posted before, then please forgive me, I find this concept quite...'interesting?'
There is a theory that has been taken, to some extent, quite seriously by some in the scientific community and that is our universe is actually one massive computer simulation.
Anyhow, make your own minds up.
This is an abstract of the published scientific paper:
This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.
And for those that like a really juicy read. Here is the whole thing:
#(1) Depends on Evolution and is, therefor on shaky ground, since no actual proof of Evolution has ever been found, it's all based on theory, supposition and extrapolation from questionable premise. People are the same today as when they were Cro-Magnon, and no other "pre-humans" have ever been found, just extrapolated from vague similarities. Man is vaguely similar to every other living species on Earth, including plants. That proves only that one overall template was used for living matter (to facilitate predation, living things need food), not that Evolution played a part, especially since the time-frame necessary for Evolution to work is longer than the existence of the universe, specifically noting that this applies in particular to Abiogenesis. The Cambrian Explosion puts the lie to Darwin.
#(2) Posthuman would still BE "human", therefore, as still being human, the possibility of them running copious simulations of their evolutionary history is 100%, if for no other reason than to certify how far "superior" to their predecessors they are.
#(3) Any point smaller than a Planck Length exists everywhere simultaneously, while anything shorter than one unit of Planck Time exists in all times simultaneously. In other words, our universe is pixelated, like a hologram, with a definite "bottom" size to each particle of reality beyond which our reality (space-time) no longer exists. Some physicists often refer to this as a "Holographic Universe", where all information for every part of our universe is contained in each pixel of the hologram (some really weird stuff as a result of this). This isn't just speculation, it's been proven to hold up through experiment, and they keep finding new evidence to support it.
Fascinating videos concerning the research into our universe being a simulation are all over YouTube, featuring top physicists, so this isn't just some wild speculation, science is taking it seriously. The first time I heard about it was through Dr. Chuck Missler, a Christian theologian who's also very into physics. Any discussion like this is by its very nature metaphysical, so religion has its place.
Quoting Robert Jastrow (September 7, 1925 – February 8, 2008) American astronomer, physicist and cosmologist, leading NASA scientist, populist author and futurist: "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."
If we do live in a sims game it's fair to say that it wasn't made by EA or upon occasion I'd wake up in the morning with no skin and default hair.
Actually the biggest clue is all the mundane things that we go through: actually going to work, having to lay in bed for hours without going to sleep, putting clothes on piece by piece, and millions other minute things that no company would ever take the time to code into a game.
I have no patience to read that paper right now. Not sure what is meant by a posthuman stage. Does mean that we evolve past being human, like we are now in the postcaveman stage?
I doubt we are being run by a computer. Maybe you could consider evolution to be a kind of simulation: by trail and error different random genes are chosen and the ones that fail eventually get eliminated and ones that succeed multiply until they take over. I'm sure that a computer program based on evolution has already been created or is at least possible to create.
The player to sim relationship mirrors the God to human theory. But, I think that if we are in a sim-game then we are on fairly seamless one. For one thing there's seamless connection to cause and effect. If two cars bump into each other in my world then they have accident, if two cars bump into each other in sims3 they just go straight through one another. I can't make my stove fireproof by hitting repeatedly by a hammer, would have to install something to make it fireproof. It seems like if there is a God then he created science before he did anything else almost like he wanted to hide his existence from us and make everything explainable through rational thought and logic. If I was a sim I couldn't explain my world through logic because there sometimes is a logical basis for things that happen and sometimes there's not.
You're coming from the reality WE live in, think like a sim. In THEIR reality their "laws of physics" allow cars to go through each other, it's the correct process to bang a porcelain potty with a hammer to make it self-cleaning, it's natural to pull a needed item from your back pocket, because that's always where it is, it's normal to suddenly have new furniture where old stuff was before, or have the whole room rearranged around you. My sims find it normal to be chatting with someone who looks one way and suddenly be chatting with that same sim who now has a whole new look. LOL
That's a sim's reality and it's all they know, that's their "normal", because that's the state of current programming. Whatever the programming for OUR reality we, by default, would find it "normal"... after all, it's all we know.
If we are living in a simulation, then the cosmos that we are observing is just a tiny piece of the totality of physical existence. The physics in the universe where the computer is situated that is running the simulation may or may not resemble the physics of the world that we observe. While the world we see is in some sense “real”, it is not located at the fundamental level of reality.
It may be possible for simulated civilizations to become posthuman. They may then run their own ancestor-simulations on powerful computers they build in their simulated universe. Such computers would be “virtual machines”, a familiar concept in computer science. (Java script web-applets, for instance, run on a virtual machine – a simulated computer – inside your desktop.) Virtual machines can be stacked: it’s possible to simulate a machine simulating another machine, and so on, in arbitrarily many steps of iteration. If we do go on to create our own ancestor-simulations, this would be strong evidence against (1) and (2), and we would therefore have to conclude that we live in a simulation. Moreover, we would have to suspect that the posthumans running our simulation are themselves simulated beings; and their creators, in turn, may also be simulated beings.
Love that movie Inception and how at the end they leave it open to whether he was awake or not. And I love having dreams within dreams it does make really waking up a little confusing cause you don't know whether or not you actually (if you dream boring everyday stuff that is) did the things you dreamt you did.
Yeah it's a great movie. Dreams within dreams can be confusing, but with the Sims 4 being in some alternate universe of the Sims, I sometimes wonder if it is the same situation that the Sims are stuck within a dream with everything being so happy it's like a nightmare.
Oh, I have that movie queued at Netflix, haven't seen it yet, you make it sound very interesting!
TS4 as a The Sims dream sequence, neat idea.
With my current sim, I tried putting him in a plain, small house with nothing to buff his moods including furnishings. He won that "Fine" award in NO time. Also spent a lot of his time uncomfortable, stressed and pretty much miserable. That's when I discovered I WANT happy sims, "keeping it real" is for the birds. That "Nicely Decorated" moodlet is for ME, not my sim, I enjoy playing in a beautifully decorated house. After all, what self-respecting girl wants a tiny bare-bones boring hovel of a dollhouse with cheap furniture? Not this girl. I'll leave it to other, stauncher players to do the "keeping it real" thing, it's not for me.
> @ModerateOsprey said:<br />
> Cherry picked from the paper:<br />
> <br />
> If we are living in a simulation, then the cosmos that we are observing is just a tiny piece of the totality of physical existence. The physics in the universe where the computer is situated that is running the simulation may or may not resemble the physics of the world that we observe. While the world we see is in some sense “real”, it is not located at the fundamental level of reality.<br />
> <br />
> It may be possible for simulated civilizations to become posthuman. They may then run their own ancestor-simulations on powerful computers they build in their simulated universe. Such computers would be “virtual machines”, a familiar concept in computer science. (Java script web-applets, for instance, run on a virtual machine – a simulated computer – inside your desktop.) Virtual machines can be stacked: it’s possible to simulate a machine simulating another machine, and so on, in arbitrarily many steps of iteration. If we do go on to create our own ancestor-simulations, this would be strong evidence against (1) and (2), and we would therefore have to conclude that we live in a simulation. Moreover, we would have to suspect that the posthumans running our simulation are themselves simulated beings; and their creators, in turn, may also be simulated beings.<br />
<br />
You know what this excerpt made me think of?<br />
Making the Sims in our games get on the computer to play Sim City. Simulation within a simulation.
Yes, definitely deliberate, IMO.
The concept of a computer simulation is relatively new to the human race. Humans have virtualised their worlds in other media - books, paintings, but these are static representations and once created cannot be altered, without re-creation .
It is the computer that has enabled us to do real simulations, sure very crude at the moment, where the state of the system can be altered in response to the actions taking place in the simulation itself.
The simulated games in the Sims are really nothing more than an animation with the interactions by our Sims not having any effect on the in game simulation. Future versions may alter this as I am sure this concept has been thought of by the developers.
Humans are now creating simulations of all kinds of things from weather, to traffic patterns, consumer behaviour in shopping centres, and beginning to join these up to make larger simulations as more computing power becomes available.
The article's conclusion is the most authoritative:
A technologically mature “posthuman” civilization would have enormous computing power. Based on this empirical fact, the simulation argument shows that at least one of the following propositions is true:
(1) The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero;
(2) The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero;
(3) The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one.
If (1) is true, then we will almost certainly go extinct before reaching posthumanity. If (2) is true, then there must be a strong convergence among the courses of advanced civilizations so that virtually none contains any relatively wealthy individuals who desire to run ancestor-simulations and are free to do so. If (3) is true, then we almost certainly live in a simulation.
In the dark forest of our current ignorance, it seems sensible to apportion one’s credence roughly evenly between (1), (2), and (3).
Unless we are now living in a simulation, our descendants will almost certainly never run an ancestor-simulation.
Perhaps I'm missing something... do you really think that conclusion follows from the parameters set out in the argument?
If this has been posted before, then please forgive me, I find this concept quite...'interesting?'
There is a theory that has been taken, to some extent, quite seriously by some in the scientific community and that is our universe is actually one massive computer simulation.
Anyhow, make your own minds up.
This is an abstract of the published scientific paper:
This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.
And for those that like a really juicy read. Here is the whole thing:
#(1) Depends on Evolution and is, therefor on shaky ground, since no actual proof of Evolution has ever been found, it's all based on theory, supposition and extrapolation from questionable premise. People are the same today as when they were Cro-Magnon, and no other "pre-humans" have ever been found, just extrapolated from vague similarities. Man is vaguely similar to every other living species on Earth, including plants. That proves only that one overall template was used for living matter (to facilitate predation, living things need food), not that Evolution played a part, especially since the time-frame necessary for Evolution to work is longer than the existence of the universe, specifically noting that this applies in particular to Abiogenesis. The Cambrian Explosion puts the lie to Darwin.
#(2) Posthuman would still BE "human", therefore, as still being human, the possibility of them running copious simulations of their evolutionary history is 100%, if for no other reason than to certify how far "superior" to their predecessors they are.
#(3) Any point smaller than a Planck Length exists everywhere simultaneously, while anything shorter than one unit of Planck Time exists in all times simultaneously. In other words, our universe is pixelated, like a hologram, with a definite "bottom" size to each particle of reality beyond which our reality (space-time) no longer exists. Some physicists often refer to this as a "Holographic Universe", where all information for every part of our universe is contained in each pixel of the hologram (some really weird stuff as a result of this). This isn't just speculation, it's been proven to hold up through experiment, and they keep finding new evidence to support it.
Fascinating videos concerning the research into our universe being a simulation are all over YouTube, featuring top physicists, so this isn't just some wild speculation, science is taking it seriously. The first time I heard about it was through Dr. Chuck Missler, a Christian theologian who's also very into physics. Any discussion like this is by its very nature metaphysical, so religion has its place.
Quoting Robert Jastrow (September 7, 1925 – February 8, 2008) American astronomer, physicist and cosmologist, leading NASA scientist, populist author and futurist: "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."
Some excellent viewing and reading over my morning brew, and made me smile to see my thread alive once again
I wish I could select lol and like, the lol I did wasn't sarky - The ending line of Jastrow's quote got a solid chuckle out of me - I'm the one laid back with a beer in one hand and a cig in the other
The obvious detailed structure of the universe has always been fascinating to me and science makes for the best tool for humans to model this structure, but it is just a tool resulting in models of reality. The nature of reality obviously has to be bigger than it's human deduced model and there will always be things that are unknowable to us in the same way as an understanding of the basics of car mechanics will always be unknowable to my cat.
I am of the opinion that it is our artists (of all types) and theologians that are 'drawing the pictures' of the boundary between what we know and what will always be unknowable. They can help us begin to glimpse what is there, but we will never actually know it, just like my cat will never ponder the tuning of a carburetor.
The simulation argument has been popping up again and again, since that paper's publication. The author of the paper indicated he did it for fun in a 'I wonder...' kind of way, but that his intent was serious. Now we have Stephen Hawking, and others, warning us to back off AI research.
Kevin Warwick of Reading University in England (Professor of Cybernetics) did another 'for fun' article where he suggested our future may well be very much like that from the film - The Matrix. I had to struggle to actually find the full text, but I did manage to hunt it down. It gets particularly interesting when he talks about the moral framework held by each side.
Awake.
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity.... The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
ModerateOsprey, thanks for posting this off-topic thread, you hit one of my favorite topics... and, IMHO, it actually is applicable to The Sims.
Hehe, I posted more out of mischief originally and am pleased it has stayed in General Discussion, because it absolutely relevant to The Sims. Your post above in response to @AthenaOnyx made excellent use in the game's concepts as metaphors and had gales of laughter coming from me having just written a similar argument, but I used my cat. You see, this simulation has a real good Pets EP.
Awake.
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity.... The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
If this has been posted before, then please forgive me, I find this concept quite...'interesting?'
There is a theory that has been taken, to some extent, quite seriously by some in the scientific community and that is our universe is actually one massive computer simulation.
Anyhow, make your own minds up.
This is an abstract of the published scientific paper:
This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.
And for those that like a really juicy read. Here is the whole thing:
#(1) Depends on Evolution and is, therefor on shaky ground, since no actual proof of Evolution has ever been found, it's all based on theory, supposition and extrapolation from questionable premise. People are the same today as when they were Cro-Magnon, and no other "pre-humans" have ever been found, just extrapolated from vague similarities. Man is vaguely similar to every other living species on Earth, including plants. That proves only that one overall template was used for living matter (to facilitate predation, living things need food), not that Evolution played a part, especially since the time-frame necessary for Evolution to work is longer than the existence of the universe, specifically noting that this applies in particular to Abiogenesis. The Cambrian Explosion puts the lie to Darwin.
#(2) Posthuman would still BE "human", therefore, as still being human, the possibility of them running copious simulations of their evolutionary history is 100%, if for no other reason than to certify how far "superior" to their predecessors they are.
#(3) Any point smaller than a Planck Length exists everywhere simultaneously, while anything shorter than one unit of Planck Time exists in all times simultaneously. In other words, our universe is pixelated, like a hologram, with a definite "bottom" size to each particle of reality beyond which our reality (space-time) no longer exists. Some physicists often refer to this as a "Holographic Universe", where all information for every part of our universe is contained in each pixel of the hologram (some really weird stuff as a result of this). This isn't just speculation, it's been proven to hold up through experiment, and they keep finding new evidence to support it.
Fascinating videos concerning the research into our universe being a simulation are all over YouTube, featuring top physicists, so this isn't just some wild speculation, science is taking it seriously. The first time I heard about it was through Dr. Chuck Missler, a Christian theologian who's also very into physics. Any discussion like this is by its very nature metaphysical, so religion has its place.
Quoting Robert Jastrow (September 7, 1925 – February 8, 2008) American astronomer, physicist and cosmologist, leading NASA scientist, populist author and futurist: "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."
Some excellent viewing and reading over my morning brew, and made me smile to see my thread alive once again
I wish I could select lol and like, the lol I did wasn't sarky - The ending line of Jastrow's quote got a solid chuckle out of me - I'm the one laid back with a beer in one hand and a cig in the other
So glad you enjoyed it. Not insulted, I knew what the LOL check was for, that quote made me laugh the first time I read it, too.
The obvious detailed structure of the universe has always been fascinating to me and science makes for the best tool for humans to model this structure, but it is just a tool resulting in models of reality. The nature of reality obviously has to be bigger than it's human deduced model and there will always be things that are unknowable to us in the same way as an understanding of the basics of car mechanics will always be unknowable to my cat.
But would your cat even care?
The boundaries are always farther away than first perceived when we're not paying attention. That's why I love astrophysics and theoretical physics, those two take me the farthest out of my comfort zone to the edge of what I can imagine, shoving both my mind and spirit free, if only for an instant, but that instant is like skyrockets in a black sky, all Ooooo and Ahhhhh. Too much fun.
I am of the opinion that it is our artists (of all types) and theologians that are 'drawing the pictures' of the boundary between what we know and what will always be unknowable. They can help us begin to glimpse what is there, but we will never actually know it, just like my cat will never ponder the tuning of a carburetor.
Never say "never". My opinion: We're all just spirits inside avatars here on Earth. Where we really are and who we really are is a discovery left for a time when we're no longer here. (Where did I gather that conclusion? From the Bible.) Think that's one reason I enjoy The Sims and RPGs, I relate very strongly to my in-game avatars.
The simulation argument has been popping up again and again, since that paper's publication. The author of the paper indicated he did it for fun in a 'I wonder...' kind of way, but that his intent was serious. Now we have Stephen Hawking, and others, warning us to back off AI research.
Kevin Warwick of Reading University in England (Professor of Cybernetics) did another 'for fun' article where he suggested our future may well be very much like that from the film - The Matrix. I had to struggle to actually find the full text, but I did manage to hunt it down. It gets particularly interesting when he talks about the moral framework held by each side.
Interesting article, dystopian with an upbeat twist. I don't agree with him as to the inevitability, but must agree concerning human nature. It presupposes we actually have the final say in something like that developing, but since it was just a thought experiment for fun...
"Luddites", great word I was only vaguely familiar with, we're coming into a modern Season of the Luddites now because of robots.
Years ago I spoke with a roboticist who was designing robot AI for the military and asked him if he was incorporating Asimov's Three Laws into the AI. His answer was disturbing, because he said, "No, I'd like to, but it's for military use." That kept me up that night. If we wind up with machines that want to rule us or even wipe us out, it will be because of people like that and those who employed him.
ModerateOsprey, thanks for posting this off-topic thread, you hit one of my favorite topics... and, IMHO, it actually is applicable to The Sims.
Hehe, I posted more out of mischief originally and am pleased it has stayed in General Discussion, because it absolutely relevant to The Sims. Your post above in response to @AthenaOnyx made excellent use in the game's concepts as metaphors and had gales of laughter coming from me having just written a similar argument, but I used my cat. You see, this simulation has a real good Pets EP.
Thanks! Yes, it is relevant to The Sims... in a rather uncomfortable way for some. The Sims, as it classically has been is a great simulation, very immersive, wish TS4 was more in line with the rest of the franchise.
LOL I must agree, great EP! Our dog dances, she also serenades us, singing while accompanying herself on the Green Squeaky Foot.
In a simulation like the sims there does seem to be any logic. Cars can go through, but they are one of the few objects that do. Some items are in your pockets, some items are not. If we lived in a simulation like the sims it would be pretty easy to figure it out because things aren't bound to any law. Like in real life there's the law of gravity. Most things are bound to the laws of gravity, and as far as I know everything is. In the sims somethings seem to have gravity and other things have none.
All I have to say is the person playing me isn't doing a great job. I have no girl, no money, no job. I mean come on person give me something good!!!
Just to make it worse, we may well be in the equivalent of The Sims 4 - The Sims Forever
Awake.
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity.... The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
Comments
Yes, definitely deliberate, IMO.
The concept of a computer simulation is relatively new to the human race. Humans have virtualised their worlds in other media - books, paintings, but these are static representations and once created cannot be altered, without re-creation .
It is the computer that has enabled us to do real simulations, sure very crude at the moment, where the state of the system can be altered in response to the actions taking place in the simulation itself.
The simulated games in the Sims are really nothing more than an animation with the interactions by our Sims not having any effect on the in game simulation. Future versions may alter this as I am sure this concept has been thought of by the developers.
Humans are now creating simulations of all kinds of things from weather, to traffic patterns, consumer behaviour in shopping centres, and beginning to join these up to make larger simulations as more computing power becomes available.
The article's conclusion is the most authoritative:
A technologically mature “posthuman” civilization would have enormous computing power. Based on this empirical fact, the simulation argument shows that at least one of the following propositions is true:
(1) The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero;
(2) The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero;
(3) The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one.
If (1) is true, then we will almost certainly go extinct before reaching posthumanity. If (2) is true, then there must be a strong convergence among the courses of advanced civilizations so that virtually none contains any relatively wealthy individuals who desire to run ancestor-simulations and are free to do so. If (3) is true, then we almost certainly live in a simulation.
In the dark forest of our current ignorance, it seems sensible to apportion one’s credence roughly evenly between (1), (2), and (3).
Unless we are now living in a simulation, our descendants will almost certainly never run an ancestor-simulation.
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity....
The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
> kineticlops wrote: »
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> Yes, definitely deliberate, IMO.
>
> The concept of a computer simulation is relatively new to the human race. Humans have virtualised their worlds in other media - books, paintings, but these are static representations and once created cannot be altered, without re-creation .
>
> It is the computer that has enabled us to do real simulations, sure very crude at the moment, where the state of the system can be altered in response to the actions taking place in the simulation itself.
>
> The simulated games in the Sims are really nothing more than an animation with the interactions by our Sims not having any effect on the in game simulation. Future versions may alter this as I am sure this concept has been thought of by the developers.
>
> Humans are now creating simulations of all kinds of things from weather, to traffic patterns, consumer behaviour in shopping centres, and beginning to join these up to make larger simulations as more computing power becomes available.
>
> The article's conclusion is the most authoritative:
>
> A technologically mature “posthuman” civilization would have enormous computing power. Based on this empirical fact, the simulation argument shows that at least one of the following propositions is true:
>
> (1) The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero;
>
> (2) The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero;
>
> (3) The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one.
>
> If (1) is true, then we will almost certainly go extinct before reaching posthumanity. If (2) is true, then there must be a strong convergence among the courses of advanced civilizations so that virtually none contains any relatively wealthy individuals who desire to run ancestor-simulations and are free to do so. If (3) is true, then we almost certainly live in a simulation.
>
> In the dark forest of our current ignorance, it seems sensible to apportion one’s credence roughly evenly between (1), (2), and (3).
>
> Unless we are now living in a simulation, our descendants will almost certainly never run an ancestor-simulation.
I just woke up so I only understood about half of that but hot plum that is a lot to think about.
And then you have that mirror vs. mirror effect because if your player is playing you and you are playing your sims and your sims are playing their sims and their sims are playing their sims we might already just be playing ourselves if we stare into the mirror long enough. lol
Love that movie Inception and how at the end they leave it open to whether he was awake or not. And I love having dreams within dreams it does make really waking up a little confusing cause you don't know whether or not you actually (if you dream boring everyday stuff that is) did the things you dreamt you did.
Okay...I just spit my drink at the screen! LOL!
#(1) Depends on Evolution and is, therefor on shaky ground, since no actual proof of Evolution has ever been found, it's all based on theory, supposition and extrapolation from questionable premise. People are the same today as when they were Cro-Magnon, and no other "pre-humans" have ever been found, just extrapolated from vague similarities. Man is vaguely similar to every other living species on Earth, including plants. That proves only that one overall template was used for living matter (to facilitate predation, living things need food), not that Evolution played a part, especially since the time-frame necessary for Evolution to work is longer than the existence of the universe, specifically noting that this applies in particular to Abiogenesis. The Cambrian Explosion puts the lie to Darwin.
#(2) Posthuman would still BE "human", therefore, as still being human, the possibility of them running copious simulations of their evolutionary history is 100%, if for no other reason than to certify how far "superior" to their predecessors they are.
#(3) Any point smaller than a Planck Length exists everywhere simultaneously, while anything shorter than one unit of Planck Time exists in all times simultaneously. In other words, our universe is pixelated, like a hologram, with a definite "bottom" size to each particle of reality beyond which our reality (space-time) no longer exists. Some physicists often refer to this as a "Holographic Universe", where all information for every part of our universe is contained in each pixel of the hologram (some really weird stuff as a result of this). This isn't just speculation, it's been proven to hold up through experiment, and they keep finding new evidence to support it.
I found the discovery of Dr. Sylvester James Gates fascinating:
This one is fun:
This one references the paper you posted a link to:
Fascinating videos concerning the research into our universe being a simulation are all over YouTube, featuring top physicists, so this isn't just some wild speculation, science is taking it seriously. The first time I heard about it was through Dr. Chuck Missler, a Christian theologian who's also very into physics. Any discussion like this is by its very nature metaphysical, so religion has its place.
Quoting Robert Jastrow (September 7, 1925 – February 8, 2008) American astronomer, physicist and cosmologist, leading NASA scientist, populist author and futurist: "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."
You're coming from the reality WE live in, think like a sim. In THEIR reality their "laws of physics" allow cars to go through each other, it's the correct process to bang a porcelain potty with a hammer to make it self-cleaning, it's natural to pull a needed item from your back pocket, because that's always where it is, it's normal to suddenly have new furniture where old stuff was before, or have the whole room rearranged around you. My sims find it normal to be chatting with someone who looks one way and suddenly be chatting with that same sim who now has a whole new look. LOL
That's a sim's reality and it's all they know, that's their "normal", because that's the state of current programming. Whatever the programming for OUR reality we, by default, would find it "normal"... after all, it's all we know.
LOL "It's turtles all the way down."
Oh, I have that movie queued at Netflix, haven't seen it yet, you make it sound very interesting!
TS4 as a The Sims dream sequence, neat idea.
With my current sim, I tried putting him in a plain, small house with nothing to buff his moods including furnishings. He won that "Fine" award in NO time. Also spent a lot of his time uncomfortable, stressed and pretty much miserable. That's when I discovered I WANT happy sims, "keeping it real" is for the birds.
Perhaps I'm missing something... do you really think that conclusion follows from the parameters set out in the argument?
Some excellent viewing and reading over my morning brew, and made me smile to see my thread alive once again
I wish I could select lol and like, the lol I did wasn't sarky - The ending line of Jastrow's quote got a solid chuckle out of me - I'm the one laid back with a beer in one hand and a cig in the other
The obvious detailed structure of the universe has always been fascinating to me and science makes for the best tool for humans to model this structure, but it is just a tool resulting in models of reality. The nature of reality obviously has to be bigger than it's human deduced model and there will always be things that are unknowable to us in the same way as an understanding of the basics of car mechanics will always be unknowable to my cat.
I am of the opinion that it is our artists (of all types) and theologians that are 'drawing the pictures' of the boundary between what we know and what will always be unknowable. They can help us begin to glimpse what is there, but we will never actually know it, just like my cat will never ponder the tuning of a carburetor.
The simulation argument has been popping up again and again, since that paper's publication. The author of the paper indicated he did it for fun in a 'I wonder...' kind of way, but that his intent was serious. Now we have Stephen Hawking, and others, warning us to back off AI research.
Kevin Warwick of Reading University in England (Professor of Cybernetics) did another 'for fun' article where he suggested our future may well be very much like that from the film - The Matrix. I had to struggle to actually find the full text, but I did manage to hunt it down. It gets particularly interesting when he talks about the moral framework held by each side.
It's here (about 2 US letter pages long):
http://www.dvara.net/hk/matrixessay8.asp
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity....
The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
Hehe, I posted more out of mischief originally and am pleased it has stayed in General Discussion, because it absolutely relevant to The Sims. Your post above in response to @AthenaOnyx made excellent use in the game's concepts as metaphors and had gales of laughter coming from me having just written a similar argument, but I used my cat. You see, this simulation has a real good Pets EP.
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity....
The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
So glad you enjoyed it.
But would your cat even care?
The boundaries are always farther away than first perceived when we're not paying attention. That's why I love astrophysics and theoretical physics, those two take me the farthest out of my comfort zone to the edge of what I can imagine, shoving both my mind and spirit free, if only for an instant, but that instant is like skyrockets in a black sky, all Ooooo and Ahhhhh. Too much fun.
Never say "never". My opinion: We're all just spirits inside avatars here on Earth. Where we really are and who we really are is a discovery left for a time when we're no longer here. (Where did I gather that conclusion? From the Bible.) Think that's one reason I enjoy The Sims and RPGs, I relate very strongly to my in-game avatars.
Well, maybe he wasn't the first:
Interesting article, dystopian with an upbeat twist. I don't agree with him as to the inevitability, but must agree concerning human nature. It presupposes we actually have the final say in something like that developing, but since it was just a thought experiment for fun...
"Luddites", great word I was only vaguely familiar with, we're coming into a modern Season of the Luddites now because of robots.
Years ago I spoke with a roboticist who was designing robot AI for the military and asked him if he was incorporating Asimov's Three Laws into the AI. His answer was disturbing, because he said, "No, I'd like to, but it's for military use." That kept me up that night. If we wind up with machines that want to rule us or even wipe us out, it will be because of people like that and those who employed him.
Thanks!
LOL I must agree, great EP! Our dog dances, she also serenades us, singing while accompanying herself on the Green Squeaky Foot.
Sincerely, well...You should know me, considering you are my creator! Lol.
The Sims2 Land Rich: Cash Poor Challenge
The Gods of Monte Vista
Athena & Crog: Life in Sims 4
Hit the Like Button - and let me know you liked my story.
Just to make it worse, we may well be in the equivalent of The Sims 4 - The Sims Forever
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity....
The Ghost Song - Jim Morrison
https://themostevilfish.wordpress.com/