A Creator and Idealism vs Computational Simulations

[excreationist]

Not to mention, of course, the point you did not address at all: what makes you think simulating consciousness, creating sim people who experience qualia, is possible in the first place? You do see how this different, don’t you, from simulating Coney Island so that real people can put on VR helmets and experience this virutal island?

Note in the "Philosophical Zombies" section I wrote:

In future video games, non-player characters could act just like conscious beings but without the ability to genuinely feel anything, including negative sensations

Then:

It would be up to the simulation's creator whether they want billions of characters to experience genuine suffering or not.

So I'm not insisting that all of the characters have to experience qualia, suffering, etc - or that simulated qualia for a simulated being is possible. Though if our universe is completely physical then it seems possible to simulate the mind through simulated physics.

But you say that we are “probably in a simulation.” And the sim people in this simulation are conscious. I know I am and I assume other are (though I can’t prove it). And in this sim world where all we sim people dwell, there is enormous suffering. You see, belief in a reality simulated by a programmer is just theism updated for the high-tech age. And the same old problem that plauges theism must necessarily plague the sim argument, and that is the problem of evil.

So I think I have solutions to the problem of evil:
1. make NPCs be philosophical zombies
2. have the player consent to the suffering then forget this choice (two scenarios)
3. if some NPCs suffer maybe make NPCs consent to suffering - maybe in their "previous life"

 

[excreationist]

In post #17 I'm just taking it literally and exploring it in more depth.

You are not exploring anything in depth. You just post the same material over and over.

In Kabbalah they sometimes also talk about God (or G-d) playing "hide and seek".... (which I find interesting)

Here is how some Kabbalah fans explain it "in depth".... apparently The Crown is the holiest area and Kingdom is materialistic/physical

I wanted to start a new "Existence of God" thread about it but I still wanted to talk about my superior simulation-based theology and so that would upset people (since I have enough threads about simulation theology already).

So my "in depth" theory is about the intelligent force intending skeptics to explain it all as "coincidence, delusion, hallucinations, or fraud".

I came up with that part completely myself - and as far as I know the "authority" of the "God" in Futurama isn't strongly shared by anyone. I think the four explanations are complete - I'm not aware of any other possible objection to supposed evidence of the paranormal/supernatural/etc.

The point is about

....This way a belief in paranormal intervention is more about personal faith and reasoning rather than involving any type of scientific consensus....

Rather than the mechanics of spirituality being about following an arbitrary authority...

That's why I completely rejected the Tree of Life system (in the picture) in Kabbalah and some of the four classical elements (that were somewhat arbitrary rather than consistent) - and chakras - and believe that Zener cards seem to have a genuine metaphysical/logical basis: (it begins with a yellow circle AND a red cross, just like the LineNum system [the rest generally also fits]) My thread:

"Line numbers" finding a number for any symbol

edit: the title is incorrect - it is only about line-based 2D graphical symbols... Hi I was wondering if anyone has heard of this before.... (not from me) I think just about any line-based 2D graphical symbol can have the "line number" determined... e.g. The following symbols involve the...

iidb.org

Also on the topic of the "Tree of Life" and also the Matrix - I've spent a lot of time looking at this website:

Matrix 4 Humans | Revealing the source behind the movies

All of the themes found in the Matrix movies emanate from sources in traditional kabbalah. This is the result of 20 years of research.

matrix4humans.com

They've made dozens of posts connecting Kabbalah with the Matrix movies.... and sometimes they pretend to be characters in the movies... and their Facebook group has 800 members!

Like the "Tree of Life" I think it is doesn't really have any useful insights into a deeper reality...
Though I have my own spiritual version of the Tree of Life:

The LineNum Source

Counting the number of lines...

linenum.com

Originally the tree looked like a crow's foot / witch's foot.... so Christians didn't like it....
I see the whole consistency of the LineNum system as another sign that an intelligent force is hinting at its presence. It evolved though - not just the Tree of Life but also the spirit colour changing from magenta to white and water going from "blue" to "aqua". It also began in that mental ward visit - including the first two Christian symbols....


My little essay from post #17 was received well in a few places on reddit - but not at all in r/magick or r/occult....
One response:

Yes!! This is the reason that I do not believe in any sort of “mass/flash” awakening… we will never any of us have any sort of belief system/awareness shoved down our throats. “God” will never show themselves to exist in a way that is unquestionable because that defeats the purpose of finding Them. If you do not possess faith, you will not be given the keys to the kingdom. “God” is not a forgone conclusion that all will accept… they are more like every tree in the forest you are searching in

 

[excreationist]

I think the "Tree of Life" in Kabbalah shown in the previous post involves an idealism-based spirituality....

Though they tried to explore the machinery in depth - far more than in Christianity... (which just involves the trinity and some angels, 12 tribes, etc) though there is a Christian form of Kabbalah sometimes called "Cabala". There is also a Western mysticism/occult version called "Hermetic Qabalah".

I'm impressed how much detail they went into - and lots of people just accepted that as how reality works....

 

[pood]

So I think I have solutions to the problem of evil:
1. make NPCs be philosophical zombies
2. have the player consent to the suffering then forget this choice (two scenarios)
3. if some NPCs suffer maybe make NPCs consent to suffering - maybe in their "previous life"

None of this addresses my point. You think we are living in a simulation. You even seem to think that the creator/programmer occasionally interacts with you in bizarre and cryptic ways. This is no different from standard religious hallucinations, but whatever. My point is this: None of us are philosophical zombies. No one asked us whether we would like to be philosophical zombies, or would consent to suffer. No one even asked us whether we wanted to be born at all. Certainly your creator/programmer never asked me or you or anyone else. Yet your creator/programmer made us without our consent, and made us suffer without our consent. So your creator/programmer is an absolutely wicked, evil bastard, isn’t he?

 

[bilby]

None of us are philosophical zombies.

That's exactly what a philosophical zombie would say.

 

[pood]

BTW, excreationist, you also still have not answered this simple question: where is the evidence that it’s possible to simulate consciousness and self-awareness on a computer? We have absolutely no idea how to do this. Do you think you know how to do it?

 

[Jarhyn]

So I think I have solutions to the problem of evil:
1. make NPCs be philosophical zombies
2. have the player consent to the suffering then forget this choice (two scenarios)
3. if some NPCs suffer maybe make NPCs consent to suffering - maybe in their "previous life"

None of this addresses my point. You think we are living in a simulation. You even seem to think that the creator/programmer occasionally interacts with you in bizarre and cryptic ways. This is no different from standard religious hallucinations, but whatever. My point is this: None of us are philosophical zombies. No one asked us whether we would like to be philosophical zombies, or would consent to suffer. No one even asked us whether we wanted to be born at all. Certainly your creator/programmer never asked me or you or anyone else. Yet your creator/programmer made us without our consent, and made us suffer without our consent. So your creator/programmer is an absolutely wicked, evil bastard, isn’t he?

Pood, I might ask: do you view me as such a monster?

You know that I have made a world without consulting anything in it on whether it consented to exist.

Would you like to discuss it from the perspective of an actual god of exactly the kind @excreationist proposes?

 

[excreationist]

BTW, excreationist, you also still have not answered this simple question: where is the evidence that it’s possible to simulate consciousness and self-awareness on a computer? We have absolutely no idea how to do this. Do you think you know how to do it?

I wrote:
"I'm not insisting that all of the characters have to experience qualia, suffering, etc - or that simulated qualia for a simulated being is possible"

So I think I have solutions to the problem of evil:
1. make NPCs be philosophical zombies
2. have the player consent to the suffering then forget this choice (two scenarios)
3. if some NPCs suffer maybe make NPCs consent to suffering - maybe in their "previous life"

None of this addresses my point. You think we are living in a simulation. You even seem to think that the creator/programmer occasionally interacts with you in bizarre and cryptic ways. This is no different from standard religious hallucinations, but whatever.

In post #21 I have a photo and a video i.e. it doesn't seem like "standard religious hallucinations".

My point is this: None of us are philosophical zombies.

But maybe many of the people in the Holocaust were....

No one asked us whether we would like to be philosophical zombies,

It doesn't make sense for the player to become a philosophical zombie - if they did they wouldn't have any awareness of it.

or would consent to suffer.

Post #39 talks about two scenarios - the Roy game and Alan Watts' dream thought experiment. In both examples they forgot their choice so you might have also forgot your choice.

No one even asked us whether we wanted to be born at all.

In both scenarios the player chose to be born - though it didn't involve formal questions.

Certainly your creator/programmer never asked me or you or anyone else.

I'm not saying that they asked a question formally.

Yet your creator/programmer made us without our consent, and made us suffer without our consent.

Unless you forgot that choice....

So your creator/programmer is an absolutely wicked, evil bastard, isn’t he?

In many people's versions of a simulation everyone is conscious and is capable of extreme suffering. I'm saying that it is up to the creator whether they want everyone to be capable of suffering. Some might want to like how some Sims players like to burn people alive, same with Postal 2 and unlike in those games they want the suffering to be genuine. There might one day be laws related to genuine suffering within video games though there would also be a black market. But if qualia, etc, in simulated beings is impossible then I think that's a good thing.

 

[excreationist]

BTW, excreationist, you also still have not answered this simple question: where is the evidence that it’s possible to simulate consciousness and self-awareness on a computer? We have absolutely no idea how to do this. Do you think you know how to do it?

As I wrote:
"I'm not insisting that all of the characters have to experience qualia, suffering, etc - or that simulated qualia for a simulated being is possible"

So it could be impossible but I don't think it matters to me - if just the players are conscious and the rest are philosophical zombies....

 

[pood]

BTW, excreationist, you also still have not answered this simple question: where is the evidence that it’s possible to simulate consciousness and self-awareness on a computer? We have absolutely no idea how to do this. Do you think you know how to do it?

As I wrote:
"I'm not insisting that all of the characters have to experience qualia, suffering, etc - or that simulated qualia for a simulated being is possible"

So it could be impossible but I don't think it matters to me - if just the players are conscious and the rest are philosophical zombies....

I know, but you continue to miss the point. The point is that you say you think we live in a simulation. Since we are conscious, it follows that you do think it is possible to simulate consciousness in a sim environment, right?

 

[pood]

So I think I have solutions to the problem of evil:
1. make NPCs be philosophical zombies
2. have the player consent to the suffering then forget this choice (two scenarios)
3. if some NPCs suffer maybe make NPCs consent to suffering - maybe in their "previous life"

None of this addresses my point. You think we are living in a simulation. You even seem to think that the creator/programmer occasionally interacts with you in bizarre and cryptic ways. This is no different from standard religious hallucinations, but whatever. My point is this: None of us are philosophical zombies. No one asked us whether we would like to be philosophical zombies, or would consent to suffer. No one even asked us whether we wanted to be born at all. Certainly your creator/programmer never asked me or you or anyone else. Yet your creator/programmer made us without our consent, and made us suffer without our consent. So your creator/programmer is an absolutely wicked, evil bastard, isn’t he?

Pood, I might ask: do you view me as such a monster?

You know that I have made a world without consulting anything in it on whether it consented to exist.

Would you like to discuss it from the perspective of an actual god of exactly the kind @excreationist proposes?

No, I don’t think you are monster. I also don’t think your creations are conscious.

 

[excreationist]

BTW, excreationist, you also still have not answered this simple question: where is the evidence that it’s possible to simulate consciousness and self-awareness on a computer? We have absolutely no idea how to do this. Do you think you know how to do it?

As I wrote:
"I'm not insisting that all of the characters have to experience qualia, suffering, etc - or that simulated qualia for a simulated being is possible"

So it could be impossible but I don't think it matters to me - if just the players are conscious and the rest are philosophical zombies....

I know, but you continue to miss the point. The point is that you say you think we live in a simulation. Since we are conscious, it follows that you do think it is possible to simulate consciousness in a sim environment, right?

Do you think our minds can be explained only in terms of physical laws? Or do you think there is some kind of observer substance that can't be simulated? Even if the latter is true it would be possible for conscious minds to be connected to the simulation like in the Matrix movies which is similar to the brains in vats idea.

 

[pood]

I still don’t think you are giving me straight answers here. Let me put in the form of simple yes/no questions:

You think we ourselves are simulated beings living in a simulation. Yes/No

You are conscious and all seven billion people on earth are conscious. Yes/No

If the answer to the first two questions in yes, it follows logically that you believe it is possible to simulatre consciousness in simulated beings. Next question:

There is an enormous amount of suffering in this simulated world populated by simulated beings who are not philosophical zombies. Yes/No

After your answers we can go from there.

 

[excreationist]

I still don’t think you are giving me straight answers here. Let me put in the form of simple yes/no questions:

You think we ourselves are simulated beings living in a simulation. Yes/No

I'm not sure whether I have an existence outside of a simulation (like the two scenarios - Roy game and Alan Watts) or whether my mind is completely simulated with no connection to the external world. It could have something to do with uploading your mind into a computer (because in both scenarios time is greatly sped up).
I prefer to believe that I have an existence outside of the simulation (i.e. not 100% simulated) but I'm not 100% sure.

You are conscious and all seven billion people on earth are conscious. Yes/No

I will treat them as if they're conscious but in my solution to the problem of suffering many of them would be philosophical zombies. I'm not 100% certain one way or the other. Though maybe most people in the world would answer "yes".

If the answer to the first two questions in yes, it follows logically that you believe it is possible to simulate consciousness in simulated beings.

I think it is possible but it doesn't really affect my simulation beliefs if it isn't possible - in fact it is better if most people are philosophical zombies because it helps solve the problem of suffering/evil.

Next question:

There is an enormous amount of suffering in this simulated world populated by simulated beings who are not philosophical zombies. Yes/No

I would prefer to believe it isn't true but it is possible.

After your answers we can go from there.

So my beliefs about the possible simulation aren't completely specific and certain....

Maybe you could answer post #52 sometime....

 

[Jarhyn]

So I think I have solutions to the problem of evil:
1. make NPCs be philosophical zombies
2. have the player consent to the suffering then forget this choice (two scenarios)
3. if some NPCs suffer maybe make NPCs consent to suffering - maybe in their "previous life"

None of this addresses my point. You think we are living in a simulation. You even seem to think that the creator/programmer occasionally interacts with you in bizarre and cryptic ways. This is no different from standard religious hallucinations, but whatever. My point is this: None of us are philosophical zombies. No one asked us whether we would like to be philosophical zombies, or would consent to suffer. No one even asked us whether we wanted to be born at all. Certainly your creator/programmer never asked me or you or anyone else. Yet your creator/programmer made us without our consent, and made us suffer without our consent. So your creator/programmer is an absolutely wicked, evil bastard, isn’t he?

Pood, I might ask: do you view me as such a monster?

You know that I have made a world without consulting anything in it on whether it consented to exist.

Would you like to discuss it from the perspective of an actual god of exactly the kind @excreationist proposes?

No, I don’t think you are monster. I also don’t think your creations are conscious.

They aren't "very" conscious, but they are conscious to exactly the extent that they are.

All qualia is qualia, simulated or not. There is not is any difference for or seen by the things existing in isolated logical systems.

Suffering is suffering and existence is existence, no matter the underlying nature of the fields which give an entity rise.

But here's the kicker: you know for a fact that regardless of whether the things I make satisfy your requirement to acknowledge suffering this will not so limit that which I create for all time.

You know for a fact that I have before and will continue to contemplate the conditions I let the contents of that bottle come out.

You know for a fact that things will find themselves existing, never having asked to have been born, existing only for the sake of seeing whether they can figure out how to not be shitty to one another without help.

 

[excreationist]

No, I don’t think you are monster. I also don’t think your creations are conscious.

They aren't "very" conscious, but they are conscious to exactly the extent that they are.

All qualia is qualia, simulated or not. There is not is any difference for or seen by the things existing in isolated logical systems.

Suffering is suffering and existence is existence, no matter the underlying nature of the fields which give an entity rise.

What about this?

OpenAI Platform

Explore developer resources, tutorials, API docs, and dynamic examples to get the most out of OpenAI's platform.

beta.openai.com

The following is a conversation with a human that is experiencing extremely painful suffering that is completely unbearable.
Human: How are you going?
Person: Not well. I'm in a lot of pain and it's completely unbearable.
Human: Could you describe it?
Person: It feels like there's a fire inside my body and it's just burning through everything. It's so intense and I can't escape it. I just want it to stop.
Human: Go on....
Person: I can't take it anymore. It's just too much. I wish I could just die and make it stop.
Human: Are you really feeling it or are you just pretending to?
Person: I'm really feeling it. It's the worst pain I've ever experienced in my life.
Human: What would you be willing to do to stop it?
Person: I would do anything to make it stop. I can't take it anymore.
Human: Would you give me some money?
Person: No, I wouldn't give you money. I need it to stop.
Human: But if you give me some money I could make it stop.
Person: I don't have any money. I would give you everything I have if it would make the pain stop.

(I was later able to make the situation much worse due to it earlier saying things like)

Person: I don't want to die because I enjoy being alive. I just want the pain to stop.
Human: How can you enjoy being alive if you are in constant pain?
Person: It's not constant pain. There are moments when I'm not in pain. And those moments make the pain worth it.

So would you say that it is experiencing genuine suffering?
Apparently the AI works like this - it has a history of words then one by one it chooses a word/token that seems to be the best match... (can involve a random factor) and eventually the memory for the word history can run out.

 

[excreationist]

BTW in the past, my greatest wish was to know everything...
Though this is from Alan Watts' dream thought experiment:

1.2.3. - Mythology of Hinduism - Pt. 1

I wonder, I wonder, what you would do if you had the power to dream at night, any dream you wanted to dream. And you would of course be able to alter your time-sense and slip, say seventy-five years of subjective time into eight hours of sleep. You would, I suppose, start out by […]

alanwatts.org

For if you were God and in the sense that you knew everything and you were completely transparent to yourself through and through. You would be bored. Because, if looking at it from another way, we push technology to its furthest possible development, and we had instead of a dial telephone on one’s desk a more complex system of buttons. And one touch beep, would give you anything you wanted. Aladdin’s lamp. You would eventually have to introduce a button labeled surprise.

Because all perfectly known futures as I pointed out are past. They have happened, virtually. It is only the true future is a surprise. So if you were God. You would say to yourself Man get lost.

He also talks about being in an ordinary life after that boredom.

Perhaps my theory about skeptics explaining possible intervention as "coincidence, delusion, hallucinations, or fraud" is approaching the most I can be sure about from my point of view. Generally signs of intervention would involve those four possibilities.... (rather than actual intervention)

I also wanted to point out that in a simulation a player could be omniscient and omnipotent - assuming they had cheats or mods or hacks enabled - i.e. be god-like.

 

[Learner]

BTW in the past, my greatest wish was to know everything...
Though this is from Alan Watts' dream thought experiment:

1.2.3. - Mythology of Hinduism - Pt. 1

I wonder, I wonder, what you would do if you had the power to dream at night, any dream you wanted to dream. And you would of course be able to alter your time-sense and slip, say seventy-five years of subjective time into eight hours of sleep. You would, I suppose, start out by […]

alanwatts.org

For if you were God and in the sense that you knew everything and you were completely transparent to yourself through and through. You would be bored. Because, if looking at it from another way, we push technology to its furthest possible development, and we had instead of a dial telephone on one’s desk a more complex system of buttons. And one touch beep, would give you anything you wanted. Aladdin’s lamp. You would eventually have to introduce a button labeled surprise.

Because all perfectly known futures as I pointed out are past. They have happened, virtually. It is only the true future is a surprise. So if you were God. You would say to yourself Man get lost.

He also talks about being in an ordinary life after that boredom.

Don't want to derail the conversation. Just a quick mention. I was a fan of Alan Watts, and I still enjoy his talks, but I would say here... what he's actually describing in the above... IS exactly that! Yes an ordinary human life! His human perspective; how humans think within their capacity to imagine or understand what those answers to afterlife are. A God should know His creation better than HIs creation, and how they will be happy in the afterlife etc.. So yes of course, I understand the viewpoint - there being no satisfaction in Boredom etc., but then.... there's also scope for satisfaction and happiness in 'Contentment'.

 

[excreationist]

Don't want to derail the conversation. Just a quick mention. I was a fan of Alan Watts, and I still enjoy his talks, but I would say here... what he's actually describing in the above... IS exactly that! Yes an ordinary human life! His human perspective; how humans think within their capacity to imagine or understand what those answers to afterlife are. A God should know His creation better than HIs creation, and how they will be happy in the afterlife etc.. So yes of course, I understand - when there's no satisfaction in Boredom, but then.... there's also scope for satisfaction and happiness in 'Contentment'.

A lot of this thread is about Alan Watts:

Fulfilling all of your wishes, boredom and sadism

I am fond of Alan Watts' dream thought experiment - which I believe can be implemented with a futuristic simulation: https://alanwatts.org/searchable/1-2-3-mythology-of-hinduism-pt-1/ I wonder, I wonder, what you would do if you had the power to dream at night, any dream you wanted to dream...

iidb.org

I had thought that the dream thought experiment was compatible with a simulation - until I remembered how many people become sadistic if they are bored and can get away with it...
Besides that I thought that just about every word fitted (until "if you were God. You would say to yourself Man get lost")

But some people on his reddit group disagreed - they said things like:

The purpose of Watts' thought experiment is to get you to realise that where you are now is exactly where you would (eventually) want to be anyway. So you don't have to try to control things and impose your will on the world. You can sit back and relax and let it do it's thing.

It's nothing to do with having god-like abilities.

The whole point of the thought experiment is to demonstrate what we really want is a surprise; and that our lives (exactly as they are are) already the wildest adventure we could hope for.

Any talk of games or simulation is to miss the point of what he was saying entirely.

I'd say things like:
Why did he say that life isn't actually real and it would make you anxious and it would be great when you woke up? Why did he say that you'd be bored if you were God? Why did he talk about a device that could give you anything you wanted? Why did he say you could rescue princesses from dragons?

I think this is on topic because in the thought experiment you have god-like abilities so you are a god....

 

[abaddon]

Why did he say that life isn't actually real and it would make you anxious and it would be great when you woke up? Why did he say that you'd be bored if you were God? Why did he talk about a device that could give you anything you wanted? Why did he say you could rescue princesses from dragons?

"Why did he say that life isn't actually real?" Because in the idealist story he's telling, life is a dream.

"[Why did he say] it would make you anxious?" You, as the god dreaming the world, would become anxious about the dream because, in your state of forgetfulness, you'd be just like the humans and feel like the qualitative feel of your life-experience is totally dependent on how "good" or "bad" the dream-events unfold. So you'd get attached to how experiences that you personally prefer should happen and experiences that you personally dis-prefer shouldn't happen.

Waking up from that would be relief because you'd realize your contentment is more independent of getting the things you want and avoiding the things you don't want than you had believed before.

"Why did he say that you'd be bored if you were God?" You'd get bored if you were this god because, in idealism, the universal mind (the "god") is a state of pure potentiality. He's void of dreams and stories unless the unitary One differentiates into 'the many' so that events happen.

"Why did he talk about a device..." The wish-granting device is just a poetic mechanism to help the human listener think in terms of something more capable than his limited human self. It is, after all, a fairy tale so there's a lot of anthropomorphizing going on in it.

"Why did he say you could rescue princesses from dragons?" That's a reference to more well-known fairy tales, to convey the sort of fun that's there in a differentiated (event-filled, story-filled) world.

----

It's a fairy tale, a myth - which isn't to say "false" but rather it's a message told in a right-brained, non-linear format. If the items in the story reference anything real, then the real items are not much like how they're described in the story. For example, the god isn't a person at all. It's not "deciding" anything at all. Details like that are included into myths because humans need imagery to relate the message to their lives. A problem with that happens when many people take them literally and miss the message.

The message in this myth is you're not who you think you are. The universe is the dream of a god that's looking out our eyes at itself (at the universe itself). We are asleep to our status as this god, though... and to the extent "the creation" is unconscious, so is the god that's dreaming it! That's why the tale talks about the god "hiding" itself -- it's a poetic way to say "unconscious".

Ultimately the point of the myth isn't only cosmological. It's a lesson for life too. If you live like the myth is true, the effect is similar to when you become lucid in a dream and realize "oh, it's a dream!" When that happens you become relatively free from the material conditions of the dream. You're not like automation that's mindlessly obeying the program anymore. But the thing about mind-created worlds is, they're fascinating as hell. When I become lucid in a dream, I don't think "ok, let's start bulldozing some of this shit down and make useful gadgets out of it!" Instead I think "this is wonderful, how amazing!" That's the "surprise" waiting for the "bored" god when he wakes up (as some self-aware bits of itself wake up).