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Are You Living In a Computer Simulation?


Transhumanism

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There is a Nick Bostrom, PhD, of Philosophy Faculty, Oxford University who makes the case that we humans may be living in a computer simulation. See http://www.simulation-argument.com/ I have not read it as yet, but will soon. If others want to read it and paraphrase the info., go for it.

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I love The Matrix. It's a fabulous movie. Great characters, amazing effects, and a brilliant story concept. It has style. There is something deeply cool about it.

I love it. I love it to bits.

It's awesome.

But if Nick Bostrom, PhD, of Oxford University, thinks we're living in a computer simulation, then he's off his ****ing head.

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Even if we are living in a super complex computer system, how could we ever know? Why would we ever want to know? If you can't do anything about it then why care at all?

I certainly don't care. Call me cypher if you will, but whats the difference? whistling2.gif

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You got to be kidding me I dont believe we are living in a computer simulation I guess some people have crazy beliefs and idea after watching movies and stuff. laugh.giflaugh.giflaugh.gif

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You got to be kidding me I dont believe we are living in a computer simulation I guess some people have crazy beliefs and idea after watching movies and stuff. laugh.giflaugh.giflaugh.gif

And how would you ever even know that your world is "real." When you dream, do you think it's fake during the dream?

What if your life is one long dream in which you never wake up. Have you never taken philosophy?

My friend is taking philosophy and the class has mostly Christians and they were all damning the teacher to Hell Fire for questioning their perceptions of reality.

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It's amazing how people dismiss theories simply because they feel uncomfortable with them.

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I didn't dismiss any theories the just seems hard to believes. Off course we need some research to prove a theory(even theory are hard to believe)I heard of some theory that is hard to believe but it actually turn out that it does work. Example-When you get a heavy object and a light object some people may think that the heavy object will drop faster.But when you experiment with it they both drop at a same speed.

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If we live in a compu sim'd world then why the hell can't they make it more goddamned interesting!!!!

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What method could you possibly use to prove that we are living in a computer program anyway?

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Ctrl Alt Delete? laugh.gif

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You got to be kidding me I dont believe we are living in a computer simulation I guess some people have crazy beliefs and idea after watching movies and stuff. laugh.giflaugh.giflaugh.gif

i don't see how it's a crazy idea at all. but like monkyburd, i don't care much one way or the other.

Ctrl Alt Delete? laugh.gif

lol wicked, jenk.

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in terms of probability, i would imagine being in a simulated world would be more likely than say being part of a universe created by a supernatural all powerful being:)

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What method could you possibly use to prove that we are living in a computer program anyway?

If we are living in an artificial world, then the "laws of physics" would not be constant or even non-arbitrary but dependent on the whims of those that created our world, like the movie "The Matrix." As such, the scientific method may not work. But, it may also be that the evidence for such a scenario is not accessable to man, similar to how the evidence for black holes was not available 500 years ago. So, it's just philosophical speculations at the moment. But, Nick Bostrom says he has evidence in support of the "Matrix" scenario, but I have not read anything on his site as yet.

I DO wish though I was living in a computer, that would give me the prospects of living for ever and the possibilty of creating my environment to fit my desires.

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When you dream, do you think it's fake during the dream?

What if your life is one long dream in which you never wake up. Have you never taken philosophy?

The difference between dreaming and waking is concious thought. If life was a dream we wouldn't have concious thought. As Descartes said, 'I think therefore I am'.

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Guest Lottie

I love The Matrix films, all of them especially the second one.

I do not believe or disbelieve that there is a possibility that we are living in a computer simulation, however I do not think it would be exactly like the matrix.

Anyway you could say that our brains are computers [sorry if this has already been mentioned] and then yes you could say that we are controlled by computers because our brains control us.

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The difference between dreaming and waking is concious thought.  If life was a dream we wouldn't have concious thought.  As Descartes said, 'I think therefore I am'.

In dreams we THINK we have conscious thought. When we are dreaming, we think what we are experiencing is real, we are experiencing consciousness in the dreams. But, once we wake up, we realize it was only a dream and not real. Well, one day you may wake up from this current world and realize it was never real to begin with. You never know. Reality as we perceive it is nothing more than electrical activity in the brain. Scizofrenics believe in unreal things because their brains are putting forth the mechanical processes that create such mental pictures. In other words, our world can be completely fake and artificial stimulations could be fed to our brains to create the perception of our fake world. What if you are stuck to a bunch of electrodes at this very moment and are being fed artificial input? How would you ever know? So, this is a philosophical matter, not a proclamation that our world is indeed fake.

Edited by Transhumanism
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As Descartes said, 'I think therefore I am'

indeed he did. still, as this is a philisophical view, it doens't so much prove anything.

this thread has amde me think of this pome here:

Butterfly

By Dave Gibbons

Chuang Tzu had a dream

In the dream he was a butterfly

When he awoke

Chuang Tzu was unsure

If he was a man

Who had dreamed

That he was a butterfly

Or if he was a butterfly

Who was dreaming

That he was a man

In truth Chuang Tzu was neither

Man nor butterfly and yet he was both

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And how would you ever even know that your world is "real." When you dream, do you think it's fake during the dream?

What if your life is one long dream in which you never wake up. Have you never taken philosophy?

My friend is taking philosophy and the class has mostly Christians and they were all damning the teacher to Hell Fire for questioning their perceptions of reality.

Did they really damn the teacher to hell fire?

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The Christians were very angry at the instructor for questioning their religious perspectives. Many dropped the class because they thought the teacher was promoting Satanism.

I know one Muslim who took the class and by the end of the semester became an agnostic.

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If we're living in a computer simulation why do the programmers let lunatics like Nick Bostrom, PhD tell us about it? Unless he's like the dude in Total Recall who tries to tell Arnie that he's screwed, and Arnie [because he's great and skill] sees the bead of sweat and puts a bullet in the poor [censored] skull.

Haven't read the article yet. I will though.

Edited by Mentalcase
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Cool! Is that an elective in college? Or is it an elective in high school? Because I'm in high school.

I don't believe in god/religion anyway, so me and the teacher would get along just fine. tongue.gif

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My friend is taking philosophy and the class has mostly Christians and they were all damning the teacher to Hell Fire for questioning their perceptions of reality.

those kind of christians are very annoying. they are the narrowminded ignorant people who give the entire religion a bad name. still, with any movement, religious or otherwise, you're going to find these annoying ignorant zealots... disgust.gif

as for dreams. when we dream, , as was said, we think we have conscious thought. no matter what crazy thing happens, we take it in stride and think nothing of it. for example: "this frog is talking to me and there's a horse fighting a dragon with a salt shaker. all is right in the world." when we wake up, we realize how utterly bizarre that dream was.

say we "woke up" right now. looking back on our dream, what we call reality right now, would it still seem logical? sensical? or would it seem as if it was just a very long, very strange dream?

it's an interesting thing to think about.

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  • 3 weeks later...

say we "woke up" right now. looking back on our dream, what we call reality right now, would it still seem logical? sensical? or would it seem as if it was just a very long, very strange dream?

I don't believe that we're all holograms running around a little computer-generated world, but there are still a few confusing things about our biological makeup that scientists still haven't figured out. Like how our brain works. It's more complicated than any computer, but it's completely natural as well. I think the possibility is out there, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

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It's amazing how people dismiss theories simply because they feel uncomfortable with them.

Rubbish! I dismiss that completely!

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