6 ms·
<insert joke about natural selection>
by zapnap 16y ago
<insert joke about natural selection>
- nkassis 16y agowith proper TDD (tests representing the environment) it should be possible to generate random commits and only commit them when they pass the test suite.
- po 16y agoWhat do you do when there are serious ethical considerations with running your test suite?
- jrockway 16y agoRun it in a Virtual Universe with the ethernet cable unplugged.
- nkassis 16y agoI would say it should make us realize we are no more than mere simulations in some huge computer about to have the power cable pulled by god's boss before he tells him to get back to work. (scifi book idea )
- mbreese 16y agoI'm pretty sure that was the plot of a fairly well know scifi book cough hhgttg cough. Except it wasn't God's boss that pulls the cable - Earth was demolished to make way for an intergalactic bypass.
- swolchok 16y agoThat's kind of a stretch of an interpretation, don't you think? I always thought that the Earth was still physical in the way that we usually think of it, and humans were just part of its physical operation rather than being simulations.
- khafra 16y agoYeah, us being the substrate rather than the software is a bit of an unusual take on it, even now.
- Natsu 16y agoProcedurally generated programming? Given how that works out for the world we live in, there really would be more bugs than anything else.... http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/nmnh/buginfo/bugnos.htm http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/nmnh/buginfo/bugnos.htm
- RodgerTheGreat 16y agoBecause a passing test suite is proof of correctness, right?
- JonnieCache 16y agoThis raises the possibility of us finding out that happiness/nirvana is NP-complete, leading to the mass suicide of the entire human race. That would suck.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- electromagnetic 16y ago<insert derogatory anti-religious comment>
- iwjames 16y agoHaha, that breeds all kinds of crazy ideas. If one could simulate the world's biosphere and its organisms at the genetic or even cellular level, we might one day be able to predict the effects of evolution on humans and other animals. MAYBE even with bacteria and viruses to predict and then cure diseases before they even present themselves! I doubt our understanding of genetics/biology is extensive enough for this yet, not to mention the computing power needed, but it seems quite possible.
- wybo 16y agoThere is this professor here at Oxford, Nick Bostrom, who argues that we are currently living in a simulation: 1) Moore's law holds across worlds. 2) People/beings will, for various reasons (historic, sociological, experimenting, play) want to simulate another world (at a social/molecular/submolecular, etc level). 3) If they simulate one, they'll likely do more. 4) Ergo, there will be more simulated worlds than real ones. 5) Therefore we are more likely to live in a simulated world/universe than in a first order one. http://www.simulation-argument.com/ http://www.simulation-argument.com/ Think about this when you unplug something in the future...
- philwelch 16y agoClose; he doesn't argue that we are living in a simulation, he argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: - The human species is likely to go extinct before reaching a stage where it can simulate its ancestors. - Future humanity will have no interest in simulating its ancestors. - We are almost certainly living in an ancestor simulation now.
- wybo 16y agoI simplified it a bit, and explained the last, optimistic option... :)