4 ms·

Billionaires convinced we live in the Matrix, funding scientists to break us out

13 points by alxmdev 10y ago

supercoder 10y ago
We almost certainly do, and I'm happy someone is finally solving this issue
steego 10y ago
When will you NPCs wake up and realize all this is not for you? Back to work!
lilcarlyung 10y ago
Maybe us living things are nodes in an artificial neural network? We as a network are reaching self-awareness. Holy shit.
- glandium 10y ago
  All that to compute the question which answer is 42.
planteen 10y ago
Mr Musk spoke earlier this year about the fact that he believes that the chance that we are not living in a computer simulation is "one in billions". He said that he had come to that conclusion after a chat in a hot tub, where it was pointed out that computing technology has advanced so quickly that at some point in the future it will become indistinguishable from real life – and, if it does, there’s no reason to think that it hasn’t done already and that that’s what we are currently living through. The hubris of making such statement after a hot tub chat when no evidence exists is insane. In 1880, everyone with interest in Arctic exploration "knew" that the north pole was an open sea and would be balmy. I wonder what things we "know" today will be laughed at by our great grandchildren?
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  I'm guessing he's done some research since then. Clearly I don't know, but he doesn't seem like the type of guy to blindly jump into something without investigating first.
  - FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
    I'm not sure. There have been numerous rich, powerful, and otherwise highly intelligent, rational people who became obsessed with peculiar ideas. At a certain point, without an effective feedback mechanism I believe most of us would fall prey to eccentric behavior. My personal favorite is that of Pythagoras's eccentricity. In his later life, he formed a religion. One of the central tenets was though shall eat no beans. One goal of his religion was to strive for inner peace. The bean, with its penchant for causing gastrointestinal distress, didn't simply represent, but was the manifestation of the antithesis of his world view. It was the harbinger of disorder and chaos. There's also a lot of funny, apocryphal tales of his death. Musk's hero, Nikola Tesla, also had quite a few peculiar beliefs.
- jwhite 10y ago
  Generally agree, but I think that by 1880 the British had finally come to their senses and given up on Arctic exploration. Franklin's expedition [0] was 1845 - 1848 or so, and the subsequent extensive searches for him into the 1850s provided a lot more knowledge of the geography, but they seem to have also made everyone finally confront the futility of the task. The British Admiralty didn't fund another expedition until 1875-1876 when the Nares expedition to reach the North Pole failed [1], and the general conclusion was that there was no Open Polar Sea. They gave up on Arctic exploration after that. So maybe shift 1880 back to 1840. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin%27s_lost_expedition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin%27s_lost_expedition [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Arctic_Expedition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Arctic_Expedition EDIT: formatting
  - planteen 10y ago
    The Jeannete expedition of 1878 was the last expecting an open polar sea, at least according to Hampton Sides's book In the Kingdom of Ice. The expedition's captain met with world-renowned cartographer and open polar sea advocate August Petermann before leaving. While they were en route, it was discovered that the Kuroshio current was nowhere near as strong as anticipated.
antiquark 10y ago
Yeah but why would Musk want to discover that he isn't really a billionaire, but in fact an unconscious hairless dude living in a pod of goo and wired into a giant computer? Anyways he better be careful or he'll be flushed into the vast waste pit for knowing too much. Hey, maybe Musk think he's "The One!"
FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
He's not the only one. As I was driving home, alone, a few days ago, I heard my brother's voice say will you pick up some In N Out on the way home. Not one minute later, he calls me and asks for a double double meal. It most definitely was not deja vu, it was a bug in the simulation's audio streaming socket, a veritable glitch in the matrix!
infradig 10y ago
If there is something that is known to be true, but can't be computed, wouldn't that invalidate the simulation hypothesis?

13 points by alxmdev 10y ago

supercoder 10y ago

We almost certainly do, and I'm happy someone is finally solving this issue

steego 10y ago

When will you NPCs wake up and realize all this is not for you? Back to work!

lilcarlyung 10y ago

Maybe us living things are nodes in an artificial neural network? We as a network are reaching self-awareness. Holy shit.

glandium 10y ago
All that to compute the question which answer is 42.

planteen 10y ago

Mr Musk spoke earlier this year about the fact that he believes that the chance that we are not living in a computer simulation is "one in billions". He said that he had come to that conclusion after a chat in a hot tub, where it was pointed out that computing technology has advanced so quickly that at some point in the future it will become indistinguishable from real life – and, if it does, there’s no reason to think that it hasn’t done already and that that’s what we are currently living through. The hubris of making such statement after a hot tub chat when no evidence exists is insane. In 1880, everyone with interest in Arctic exploration "knew" that the north pole was an open sea and would be balmy. I wonder what things we "know" today will be laughed at by our great grandchildren?

CaptSpify 10y ago
I'm guessing he's done some research since then. Clearly I don't know, but he doesn't seem like the type of guy to blindly jump into something without investigating first.
- FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
  I'm not sure. There have been numerous rich, powerful, and otherwise highly intelligent, rational people who became obsessed with peculiar ideas. At a certain point, without an effective feedback mechanism I believe most of us would fall prey to eccentric behavior. My personal favorite is that of Pythagoras's eccentricity. In his later life, he formed a religion. One of the central tenets was though shall eat no beans. One goal of his religion was to strive for inner peace. The bean, with its penchant for causing gastrointestinal distress, didn't simply represent, but was the manifestation of the antithesis of his world view. It was the harbinger of disorder and chaos. There's also a lot of funny, apocryphal tales of his death. Musk's hero, Nikola Tesla, also had quite a few peculiar beliefs.
jwhite 10y ago
Generally agree, but I think that by 1880 the British had finally come to their senses and given up on Arctic exploration. Franklin's expedition [0] was 1845 - 1848 or so, and the subsequent extensive searches for him into the 1850s provided a lot more knowledge of the geography, but they seem to have also made everyone finally confront the futility of the task. The British Admiralty didn't fund another expedition until 1875-1876 when the Nares expedition to reach the North Pole failed [1], and the general conclusion was that there was no Open Polar Sea. They gave up on Arctic exploration after that. So maybe shift 1880 back to 1840. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin%27s_lost_expedition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin%27s_lost_expedition [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Arctic_Expedition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Arctic_Expedition EDIT: formatting
- planteen 10y ago
  The Jeannete expedition of 1878 was the last expecting an open polar sea, at least according to Hampton Sides's book In the Kingdom of Ice. The expedition's captain met with world-renowned cartographer and open polar sea advocate August Petermann before leaving. While they were en route, it was discovered that the Kuroshio current was nowhere near as strong as anticipated.

antiquark 10y ago

Yeah but why would Musk want to discover that he isn't really a billionaire, but in fact an unconscious hairless dude living in a pod of goo and wired into a giant computer? Anyways he better be careful or he'll be flushed into the vast waste pit for knowing too much. Hey, maybe Musk think he's "The One!"

FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago

He's not the only one. As I was driving home, alone, a few days ago, I heard my brother's voice say will you pick up some In N Out on the way home. Not one minute later, he calls me and asks for a double double meal. It most definitely was not deja vu, it was a bug in the simulation's audio streaming socket, a veritable glitch in the matrix!

infradig 10y ago

If there is something that is known to be true, but can't be computed, wouldn't that invalidate the simulation hypothesis?