4 ms·
Even if you are a simulation, would you prefer not to exist? What, really, is the difference between reality and a perfectly-executed simulation? It's hard to c
by csallen 13y ago
Even if you are a simulation, would you prefer not to exist? What, really, is the difference between reality and a perfectly-executed simulation? It's hard to condemn one without condemning the other.
- ceejayoz 13y agoIf I'm a simulation, I'd prefer to exist and have a legal right to continue doing so.
- aa0 13y agoIf you were a simulation, you might not have free will. To even propose that you'd have a decision beyond state-machine-dynamics is a world away.
- tensor 13y agoYou might not have free will as a meat brain.
- vidarh 13y agoI've yet to see a convincing definition of "free will" that makes any sense as anything other than an abstraction on top of determinism or randomness. To propose that we have any ability to make decisions beyond state-machine-dynamics possibly with some randomness sprinkled on top, is totally nonsensical to me.
- aa0 13y agoPrecisely. It's almost certain that we don't have free will. I would define free will as the mere appearance that thought processes are governed by self in a non-local time frame. I would gander that a simulated brain might have less of this illusory 'free will.'
- ggreer 13y agoI think the GP is talking about current simulations, not future ones. Current simulations don't have sensory organs, and I doubt the simulated neurons accurately reflect a real brain at this stage. Most likely, early simulated minds would be insane and in great pain, with no way to communicate. Considering we experiment on animals to reduce human suffering (heck, we kill and eat them just because they're tasty), running a tiny fraction of a simulated brain for a few subjective seconds doesn't worry me much. Of course, as computers get faster and cheaper this could become a huge issue. It's only tangentially-related, but Robin Hanson has some good talks and papers about emulated minds. The shortest summary of his views is probably this talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qcIsjrHENU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qcIsjrHENU. A more in-depth version of that talk is at http://vimeo.com/9508131 http://vimeo.com/9508131.
- ars 13y ago> early simulated minds would be insane and in great pain Insane maybe, but why in pain? Why would you add pain signals without also communication? Even currently existing lower animals (lobsters and down) don't feel pain - why would you expect a simulation to do so?
- jonnathanson 13y agoExactly. If we are in a simulation, then ipso facto, we have no idea what 'reality' outside our simulation is actually like. We can only surmise that it probably resembles our simulation, in as much as the creators probably used their own reality as a template. Even more reason why there is no functional difference, subjectively speaking, whether we're living in a simulation or in actual reality. Only when given the choice to enter or leave a simulation does the distinction becomes meaningful.