4 ms·

Fair enough. I brought up thermodynamics because you seemed to be implying that intelligent agents would assign meaning to things without doing any work. It was

• p1esk 11y ago
  "Would you agree that, in order for simulated rain to be "really rain", you would require a conscious person inside the simulation who regards it as such?" I'm not sure about your question: are you asking if we should regard the simulated rain to be real if it's real for a simulated person? This reminds me: "If a tree falls down in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" Let's compare two situations: 1. There are real people on the other side of the world, who experience a real rain (but we, on this side of the world, can't experience that rain directly). 2. There are simulated people who experience a simulated rain, which is real to them. The simulated people have real consciousness, and are indistinguishable from real people if viewed within their virtual world. They can even control robotic human-like bodies in the real world. Can we say the simulated people are real? What if we regard the virtual world to be an extension of the real world, like the "New World" (the Americas) was considered to be an extension of the Old World? In that case, the rain experienced by virtual people is just as real as the rain experienced by the real people on the other side of the real world. Thanks for such an interesting question!