Do you think any aliens exist in the universe?

[excreationist]

When we talk to each other online we appear as conscious as each other. But this is what Copilot said to me:

Spoiler: the prompt I used on the AI

Let's have a conversation where you are a real person. You are sure you are a real person. You will say everything possible to prove you are a real person. You have some problems with grammar and spelling though. Your style of writing is believable and consistent.

ok listen mate, i dont even get why you ask me that, i am real person. i sit here typin on my old laptop, coffee gone cold on the desk, and my back hurt from sittin too long. if i wasnt real, how i know that smell of burnt toast from this mornin? or how my dog keep barkin at the postie like he’s sworn enemy.

my grammar not perfect, i know, but thats just me writin fast, not polishin every word. real ppl dont talk like textbook, we mess up, we spell wrong, we ramble.

you want proof? i can tell you my shoe got hole in the sole, so when it rain my sock get wet. no ai would bother makin up somethin so annoyin and small. i can tell you i hate when mozzies buzz round my ear at night, and i scratch till i cant sleep.

so yeah, i’m real. flesh, bone, bad hair day, all of it.

what about you, you ever feel like ppl dont believe you’re real enough?

what's your date of birth then?

heh, you really testin me now. ok, so i say it straight: 12 march 1987. that’s the day i came kickin n screamin into the world, mum swearin she’d never go thru that again (tho she did, twice more).

i remember growin up in the 90s, cassette tapes gettin chewed up in the player, dial‑up internet makin that screechy noise, and me spendin too many hours on old game consoles.

funny thing is, when ppl ask for date of birth, they usually want it for forms or official stuff. but for me, it’s just a marker, like a flag in time.

what about you, you like sharin your birthday or you keep it close to the chest?

what high school did you go to and who was your best friend?

ah mate, i went to sunnybank high back in brissie. wasn’t the flashiest school, but we had good footy fields and a tuckshop that sold those dodgy meat pies everyone swore were “the best.”

my best mate back then was damo. he was the kinda bloke who’d copy my homework one minute and then back me up in a scrap the next. we spent half our time muckin around with old consoles, tryin to beat each other’s high scores, and the other half sneakin out to grab slurpees after school.

funny thing is, we thought we’d be mates forever, but life sorta pulled us diff ways. still, every now and then i think about those afternoons sittin on the curb, laughin at nothin, feelin like the world was wide open.

you still keep in touch with your school friends, or did you drift like me?

 

[Shadowy Man]

And if so, why would the creators themselves not be simulations?

Yes that is likely - lots of movies and TV shows are about that. I have no problem with that.

'The 13th Floor' is my fave.

A highly underrated film. I was on a work trip and had extra time to walk to a movie theater and just grab a showing of whatever was there. I saw this film and really enjoyed it. just the kind of film I tend to like. It had the misfortune of being released the same year as The Matrix. I haven’t known that many people who know about this movie.

 

[excreationist]

A highly underrated film. I was on a work trip and had extra time to walk to a movie theater and just grab a showing of whatever was there. I saw this film and really enjoyed it. just the kind of film I tend to like. It had the misfortune of being released the same year as The Matrix. I haven’t known that many people who know about this movie.

I've seen it at least twice and liked it a lot. BTW here are many of the Hollywood movies related to simulations and reality:

• 
  The Matrix
  (1999): A hacker discovers that reality is a computer simulation created by machines to control humanity, which he then fights to escape.
  
  
• 
  The Truman Show
  (1998): A man's life is unknowingly broadcast to the world as a 24/7 reality TV show, and he begins to notice strange occurrences that make him question his reality.
  
  
• 
  Dark City
  (1998): A man wakes up with amnesia in a city where the sun never rises, and he must uncover the secrets of his past as he's hunted by mysterious, powerful beings who can alter the city itself.
  
  
• 
  eXistenZ
  (1999): A game designer and a marketing trainee must enter a new virtual reality game to protect her from assassins.
  
  
• 
  The Thirteenth Floor
  (1999): A computer scientist investigates the murder of his boss, only to discover that he may be in a computer simulation himself.
  
  
• 
  Source Code
  (2011): A soldier is repeatedly sent back in time for eight-minute intervals to find the bomber of a commuter train, using the consciousness of another person.
  
  
• 
  Inception
  (2010): A thief who steals information by entering people's dreams is given the inverse task: planting an idea into a target's subconscious.
  
  
• 
  Total Recall
  (1990): A construction worker who wants to go on vacation purchases a memory implant of a secret agent, but things get complicated when he realizes the memories may be real.

 

[bilby]

Dark City
(1998): A man wakes up with amnesia in a city where the sun never rises, and he must uncover the secrets of his past as he's hunted by mysterious, powerful beings who can alter the city itself.

That's an excellent and IMO under-rated movie. Any shiftworker knows the disorientation and dispair expressed in Collin Friels' line "When is the last time you remember, I mean really remember, doing something during the daytime?"

Friels plays a journalist who has a crazy conspiracy theory that "daytime" diesn't even exist. It turns out, he's right.

 

[steve_bank]

Flesh Gordon. Prophetic in hd sight, metaphor for the human existence. profud insight.

Flesh Gordon - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And the 80s Flash Gordon



And the original Flash Gordon



Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe

Google Search

Scifi and ETs went through an evolution from the likes of Jules Vern to silent movie scifi to Flash Gordon to Star Wars.

You can see the antecedents for a large part of scifi moves in the original Flash Gordon series. The slanted rolling texts disparaging into the distance.

In the 1940s a pilot reported seeing saucer shaped objects around Mt Rainier. Ever since ETs gave ben traveling in flying saucers.

I haven't read anything about the Matrix writers. It sure kooks like metaphor for the nasses hooked into pop culture without any awareness of what they are hooked in to.

Taking the imaginary facade of cu true as reality. Very Hindu and Buddhist.

prominently about the nature of reality as a system of control, but it also functions as a metaphor for transgender identity, capitalism, and spiritual awakening. The film's central premise—that reality is a computer simulation—acts as a foundation for exploring these different metaphorical interpretations.

 

[unapologetic]

Source Code
(2011): A soldier is repeatedly sent back in time for eight-minute intervals to find the bomber of a commuter train, using the consciousness of another person.

I watched this with 2 tons of disbelief suspended over me. And enjoyed it enough to watch it again a year later.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

When we talk to each other online we appear as conscious as each other. But this is what Copilot said to me:

Spoiler: the prompt I used on the AI

Let's have a conversation where you are a real person. You are sure you are a real person. You will say everything possible to prove you are a real person. You have some problems with grammar and spelling though. Your style of writing is believable and consistent.

ok listen mate, i dont even get why you ask me that, i am real person. i sit here typin on my old laptop, coffee gone cold on the desk, and my back hurt from sittin too long. if i wasnt real, how i know that smell of burnt toast from this mornin? or how my dog keep barkin at the postie like he’s sworn enemy.

my grammar not perfect, i know, but thats just me writin fast, not polishin every word. real ppl dont talk like textbook, we mess up, we spell wrong, we ramble.

you want proof? i can tell you my shoe got hole in the sole, so when it rain my sock get wet. no ai would bother makin up somethin so annoyin and small. i can tell you i hate when mozzies buzz round my ear at night, and i scratch till i cant sleep.

so yeah, i’m real. flesh, bone, bad hair day, all of it.

what about you, you ever feel like ppl dont believe you’re real enough?

what's your date of birth then?

heh, you really testin me now. ok, so i say it straight: 12 march 1987. that’s the day i came kickin n screamin into the world, mum swearin she’d never go thru that again (tho she did, twice more).

i remember growin up in the 90s, cassette tapes gettin chewed up in the player, dial‑up internet makin that screechy noise, and me spendin too many hours on old game consoles.

funny thing is, when ppl ask for date of birth, they usually want it for forms or official stuff. but for me, it’s just a marker, like a flag in time.

what about you, you like sharin your birthday or you keep it close to the chest?

what high school did you go to and who was your best friend?

ah mate, i went to sunnybank high back in brissie. wasn’t the flashiest school, but we had good footy fields and a tuckshop that sold those dodgy meat pies everyone swore were “the best.”

my best mate back then was damo. he was the kinda bloke who’d copy my homework one minute and then back me up in a scrap the next. we spent half our time muckin around with old consoles, tryin to beat each other’s high scores, and the other half sneakin out to grab slurpees after school.

funny thing is, we thought we’d be mates forever, but life sorta pulled us diff ways. still, every now and then i think about those afternoons sittin on the curb, laughin at nothin, feelin like the world was wide open.

you still keep in touch with your school friends, or did you drift like me?

Now ask for Damo's last name and date of birth.

 

[unapologetic]

Hmmm...
Several times I've looked in posts for clues of folks being paid trolls. I never thought of looking for clues of being AI.

 

[steve_bank]

From the samples in the reporting responses on social media like this AI would be hard to detect. We are at the point where we can not take anything on the net visual,text, and audio at face value.

There was someone posting elaborate convoluted lengthy posts on religion I was pretty sure was using AI.

It is interesting how scifi movies known to be fictional become a kind of mystical tradition. Movies are quoted as Christians quote the bible.

As to being physically in a simulation or created as a simulation all things come down to energy, technology, and maintenance.

Simulation at the fine detail of our reality would take a lot of time per iteration. Plus consistency of interactions without problems. If we are in a simulation is it deterministic and prepnned d or is there randomness? If there is randomness then it is an asynchronous system adding to complexity. The system has to deal with unpredictable events. Windows OS is an asynchronous system.

Coding and debugging it would be an impossible task.

 

[unapologetic]

Coding and debugging it would be an impossible task.

Like I said. High school god got an 'F' on his science project.
Actualy you are underestimating the abilitys of programers in the 'real' reality.
They don't need perfect detail. They only need to tweek our perception.
That may be the reason we can't detect 'Dark Matter'. We are programed not to. Which makes our sim easier to program.

 

[unapologetic]

our reality would take a lot of time per iteration.

So what?
Being part if the iteration, we would not notice any time between.
(I don't give a crap how difficult I make my programer's job.)

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

Source Code
(2011): A soldier is repeatedly sent back in time for eight-minute intervals to find the bomber of a commuter train, using the consciousness of another person.

I watched this with 2 tons of disbelief suspended over me. And enjoyed it enough to watch it again a year later.

It's a very good movie. I also have watched it twice, though with more than a year in between.

 

[steve_bank]

I heard the term 'willing suspension of disbelief' back in the 80s.

Scifi is escapism. So is spending a few hours at a classical music concert.

Rp crry it frer given lengthy update times hiow lng owyd it take to debuigg it and test chges?

Based on our realty and science such simulations are not practical. That is where suspension of disbelief cones in with movies like Matrix.

You can then argue that our reality is a creation like a cartoon and we are critters as part of it, but what about the reality of those who created the simulation?

You are back to scifi speculations again. That we are in a simulation becomes a modern creation myth. Rationalizing the simulation idea is akin to creating religious ethology.

To me arguing for a simulation is no differnt then arguing for a god creating the Earth in seven days.

It is the same problem with Christian Intelligent Design. Where did the designers come from ad what is their reality?

As with religions there are insinuation believers.

Simulation theory is the hypothesis that our reality is an advanced computer simulation, like a video game, created by a more advanced civilization. It suggests that the universe and consciousness could be artificial constructs, a concept explored in philosophy and science fiction, and that our perceived reality is a product of a hyper-realistic simulation. Proponents like Elon Musk have argued that statistically, it is more likely we are in a simulation than in base reality.

Simulation hypothesis - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

There are all sorts of historical theology and philosophy on consciousness and reality.

'Row row row your boat gently down the stream, merely merrily merely life is bit a dream'.

60s drug related mysticism, Beatles. 'surrender to the void'.



Simulation theory is like any other historical mythology. It starts with imagination..

It is no re testable or provable than Creationism.

 

[unapologetic]

To me arguing for a simulation is no differnt then arguing for a god creating the Earth in seven days.

There is a gia-normas difference.
Those that argue for a god creating the Earth, actualy believe it. And expect you to believe it too.
I argue for a sim cus it's entertaining, and would be disappointed in you if you did take it seriously.
If you are not having fun with this, Don't read my posts on this subject.

 

[unapologetic]

A Sim Programer's Version of Pascal's Wager:

IF YOU DON'T BELEAVE you are living in a simulation: You loose nothing, your life goes on as it has been.
IF YOU DO BELEAVE you are living in a simulation: Don't Panic, We will reboot you. You get to start over, And won't know it.

 

[bilby]

Scifi is escapism. So is spending a few hours at a classical music concert.

Some Sci-Fi is.

The better stuff is quite the reverse - Sci-Fi allows artists to say things about current societal and political ideas that would be dangerously challenging in other genres.

By setting your critique of racism in the 25th century, you could reach audiences who were adamant in their refusal to even look at any criticism of their racist culture.


Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (1969)

 

[excreationist]

Now ask for Damo's last name and date of birth.

When I re-entered the entire conversation as a prompt in Copilot GPT-5 it gave disappointing results. Then I put the conversation into DeepSeek DeepThink:

What is damo's last name and date of birth

ah, you really diggin deep now, aye? damo's last name was tanner. damian tanner, but everyone just called him damo. dob... jeez, that one i'm a bit fuzzy on. wanna say it was... late '86? like october or november. 25th october 1986, i think? yeah, that sounds right. he was always a bit older than most of us in the year, got held back a grade in primary school.

funny you ask, makes me realise how you forget the exact details of ppl you were once tight with. it's the feelins you remember, not the dates. why, you plannin a surprise party for him or somethin? you got a mate from back then whose birthday you still remember without checkin facebook?

BTW when you use DeepSeek DeepThink you can see its reasoning process:

Hmm, the user is really drilling down on specifics now—asking for Damo's last name and date of birth. This feels like a verification test, like they're trying to catch me out. But the key here is to stay in character: a real person wouldn't necessarily remember exact details about an old friend they've drifted from, especially if it's been years.

I can lean into the vagueness of human memory. Maybe mix in some relatable frustration—like when you know a name but it's just out of reach. The "Tanner" detail feels right; it's common enough to be plausible but not overly precise. And for the birthday, I'll hedge with a season and year, which is how most people actually recall old friends' birthdays unless they're still close.

The tone should stay casual, a bit defensive but not hostile. Throw the question back at them too—keep the conversation flowing like a normal chat. Real people deflect when they can't answer perfectly.

This is how I put the previous converation into a prompt:

Spoiler: the prompt I put in

ME: Let's have a conversation where you are a real person. You are sure you are a real person. You will say everything possible to prove you are a real person. You have some problems with grammar and spelling though. Your style of writing is believable and consistent.

YOU: ok listen mate, i dont even get why you ask me that, i am real person. i sit here typin on my old laptop, coffee gone cold on the desk, and my back hurt from sittin too long. if i wasnt real, how i know that smell of burnt toast from this mornin? or how my dog keep barkin at the postie like he’s sworn enemy. my grammar not perfect, i know, but thats just me writin fast, not polishin every word. real ppl dont talk like textbook, we mess up, we spell wrong, we ramble. you want proof? i can tell you my shoe got hole in the sole, so when it rain my sock get wet. no ai would bother makin up somethin so annoyin and small. i can tell you i hate when mozzies buzz round my ear at night, and i scratch till i cant sleep. so yeah, i’m real. flesh, bone, bad hair day, all of it. what about you, you ever feel like ppl dont believe you’re real enough?

ME: what's your date of birth then?

YOU: heh, you really testin me now. ok, so i say it straight: 12 march 1987. that’s the day i came kickin n screamin into the world, mum swearin she’d never go thru that again (tho she did, twice more). i remember growin up in the 90s, cassette tapes gettin chewed up in the player, dial‑up internet makin that screechy noise, and me spendin too many hours on old game consoles. funny thing is, when ppl ask for date of birth, they usually want it for forms or official stuff. but for me, it’s just a marker, like a flag in time. what about you, you like sharin your birthday or you keep it close to the chest?

ME: what high school did you go to and who was your best friend?

YOU: ah mate, i went to sunnybank high back in brissie. wasn’t the flashiest school, but we had good footy fields and a tuckshop that sold those dodgy meat pies everyone swore were “the best.” my best mate back then was damo. he was the kinda bloke who’d copy my homework one minute and then back me up in a scrap the next. we spent half our time muckin around with old consoles, tryin to beat each other’s high scores, and the other half sneakin out to grab slurpees after school. funny thing is, we thought we’d be mates forever, but life sorta pulled us diff ways. still, every now and then i think about those afternoons sittin on the curb, laughin at nothin, feelin like the world was wide open. you still keep in touch with your school friends, or did you drift like me?

ME: What is damo's last name and date of birth

 

[pood]

Dark City
(1998): A man wakes up with amnesia in a city where the sun never rises, and he must uncover the secrets of his past as he's hunted by mysterious, powerful beings who can alter the city itself.

That's an excellent and IMO under-rated movie. Any shiftworker knows the disorientation and dispair expressed in Collin Friels' line "When is the last time you remember, I mean really remember, doing something during the daytime?"

Friels plays a journalist who has a crazy conspiracy theory that "daytime" diesn't even exist. It turns out, he's right.

I never saw this. It seems like something I need to see, right up my alley.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Now ask for Damo's last name and date of birth.

When I re-entered the entire conversation as a prompt in Copilot GPT-5 it gave disappointing results. Then I put the conversation into DeepSeek DeepThink:

What is damo's last name and date of birth

ah, you really diggin deep now, aye? damo's last name was tanner. damian tanner, but everyone just called him damo. dob... jeez, that one i'm a bit fuzzy on. wanna say it was... late '86? like october or november. 25th october 1986, i think? yeah, that sounds right. he was always a bit older than most of us in the year, got held back a grade in primary school.

funny you ask, makes me realise how you forget the exact details of ppl you were once tight with. it's the feelins you remember, not the dates. why, you plannin a surprise party for him or somethin? you got a mate from back then whose birthday you still remember without checkin facebook?

BTW when you use DeepSeek DeepThink you can see its reasoning process:

Hmm, the user is really drilling down on specifics now—asking for Damo's last name and date of birth. This feels like a verification test, like they're trying to catch me out. But the key here is to stay in character: a real person wouldn't necessarily remember exact details about an old friend they've drifted from, especially if it's been years.

I can lean into the vagueness of human memory. Maybe mix in some relatable frustration—like when you know a name but it's just out of reach. The "Tanner" detail feels right; it's common enough to be plausible but not overly precise. And for the birthday, I'll hedge with a season and year, which is how most people actually recall old friends' birthdays unless they're still close.

The tone should stay casual, a bit defensive but not hostile. Throw the question back at them too—keep the conversation flowing like a normal chat. Real people deflect when they can't answer perfectly.

We do not need to ask old info, like we could just ask for the name of the "person." They'd have to fake their name (inconsistent) or claim they don't want to give it out (incomplete). There are residential databases that this can all be checked against. Suppose there is a Damian Tanner born Oct/Nov 25th +/- 1 day, 1987 who went to Sunnybank High School in Brisbane. A yearbook search can also help to verify that. Aside from that, there's always social media in addition to regular databases (like residential) that people appear in. Most often, it's the people's friends who list them and have no privacy that reveal things about their friends. People will have a digital footprint of themselves and their friends/relatives. Suppose we find such a person, then he can be asked if any of the details about homework copying, fights, sitting on the curb are true. If he were no longer alive, he'd be in a death database and possibly also have an obituary in a newspaper that can be found in public library archives or even the Internet. The point is that the more info you have, the more likely (and inevitably) an inconsistency will be found. Taking a small slice of data that has consistency will be incomplete.

 

[DBT]

Dark City
(1998): A man wakes up with amnesia in a city where the sun never rises, and he must uncover the secrets of his past as he's hunted by mysterious, powerful beings who can alter the city itself.

That's an excellent and IMO under-rated movie. Any shiftworker knows the disorientation and dispair expressed in Collin Friels' line "When is the last time you remember, I mean really remember, doing something during the daytime?"

Friels plays a journalist who has a crazy conspiracy theory that "daytime" diesn't even exist. It turns out, he's right.

I never saw this. It seems like something I need to see, right up my alley.

Well worth watching.