• Welcome to the new Internet Infidels Discussion Board, formerly Talk Freethought.

We live in a universe designed, built, and run by the mafia.

Substrate Independence: We have no evidence that consciousness is substrate independent. If it’s not, the simulation argument fails right there.
No like I said you could use brains in vats to handle the conscious beings.
Are these systems aware that they are doing these things? No. Did the computer that beat Kasparov know that it was playing chess and beating a human chess champ? No.
No one is claiming that current AI's are conscious. Chess computers weren't even self taught - unlike Alpha Go.
It remains to be seen whether awareness and self-awareness can be nonbiologically generated. So far this has not happened. Not even close. And no one knows how to make it happen.
Why is it that self-awareness can emerge on its own in the universe but you think it might not be able to be created by intelligence?
Ethics: Suppose it were possible to simulate worlds with simulated consciousness and self-consciousness. The ethics of this are highly suspect, and an advanced society might well ban such simulations (though no doubt there might be a thriving black market for them). Our world is full of suffering. If our world is a simulation, then its programmers are malicious sadists. It’s a parallel concern with the Problem of Evil with respect to God.
Like I said they could use philosophical zombies to avoid suffering.
Last Thursdayism: When did our simulation begin? Last Thursday? Why not? The fact that the universe looks really old could just be simulated. It’s the parallel argument to the God argument inLast Thursdayism: God made the world very recently but just made it look ancient, with fossils and everything.
I think it began a few decades ago (e.g. Roy game or dream thought experiment) and plausible fossils were generated.
But the most parsimonious assumption is that our universe looks old because it really is old. If it really is old, it’s not a simulation, unless one wishes to argue that the simulation began billions of years ago.
It is far less CPU intensive to have a recent origin of the simulation and generate plausible fossils.
Where are the flaws?
For a start there's this: (though I think coincidence is involved)
And there's things that are seen as hallucinations, etc.
Turtles all the way down: It’s either simulations all the way down or there is a base reality.
In post #26 you said "No, I don’t think there are either endless levels of simulations or no simulations at all"
no one has any idea how to simulate an actual consciousness or even that it can be done at all (see my argument on point one above).
Do you think consciousness involves some kind of non-physical substance? Even if this can't be simulated they could get conscious brains and connect them to the simulation.
Elon Musk: He’s a businessman and entrepreneur who finances inventions. He does not invent them.
He is "Chief Engineer at SpaceX" - so you're saying he wasn't involved at all in inventing the rockets?
Again, he is no more qualified to speak about the future than you or I. The fact that he has had deep conversations with his brother about the future of AI means nothing more than any other ordinary bull session that smart (or even dumb) people have.
Please look at the attachments in post #37. Can you explain how an AI generated those photorealistic images of avocado chairs and baby daikon radish cartoons? If you can't I'd say Elon Musk knows more about future technology than you do.
 
Last edited:
excreationist,

I don’t feel like responding to this quote by quote, so please connect each response to the relevant quote from you. It should be easy enough.

Musk is not an engineer, but he can bestow on himself any title he wants — he practically owns the world! He personally had nothing to do with developing rocketry or DALL-E. He’s a con artist with a lot of money.

Bostrom’s simulation argument doesn’t involve brains in vats. It involves substrate independence of consciousness. As to brains in vats, please show me how to make a brain in a vat. No one has a clue.

I never said that anyone is claiming current AI is conscious. What I said is that no one has any idea how to make AI conscious. None. The fact that current AI is not conscious is a clue that if we want to simulate conscious entities, computers may not be the way to do it because brains are not computers.

Intelligence makes self-aware entities all the time. They’re called babies.

They could use philosophical zombies to avoid suffering? But that’s not what the simulation argument is! The simulation argument is that we are conscious, and that we are simulations. If we are simulated, we obviously aren’t philosophical zombies, and I stand by my statement that if we are simulated the simulators are sadistic monsters. Would an ethical society countenance creation of ancestor simulations in which the simulated entities are conscious and suffering?

You think that we are indeed simulations and that the the simulation is only a few decades ago? Evidence?

Generate plausible fossils? Honestly, this is as nutty as young-earth creationism/Last Thursdayism. I’m not calling you a nut, only this arguments is … well, nuts. There is no evidence to support any of it and runs afoul sixteen thousand ways of Sunday of Occam’s Razor.

I’ll read the “glitches in the Matrix” thing later.

And I still did not say that there are either no simulations, or else there are simulations all the way down. I have no idea how you derived that from what I said. I said that there are either simulations all the way down or that there is a base reality. This is obviously true. It has to be one or the other. My point is that the most parsimonious assumption for the many reasons I listed is that we are the base reality, even assuming simulations in the Bostrom sense are possible.

I don’t know if consciousness involves anything non-physical. Whether it does or not, the persistent point is that we are no closer to simulating consciousness in a machine, or making a brain in a vat, now, than we were in 1350, when I believe they were trying to make golems.
 
I just read the glitches in the Matrix thing. Are you kidding me? A bunch of silly photos are evidence that we are simulated because these photos are supposedly of glitches? They’re just silly photos! I’m sure the whole thing was intended humorously, and not to be taken seriously.
 
It’s even labeled under the category, FUNNY.
 
Musk is not an engineer, but he can bestow on himself any title he wants — he practically owns the world! He personally had nothing to do with developing rocketry or DALL-E. He’s a con artist with a lot of money.
As CTO/Chief Engineer of SpaceX surely he would at least understand it - as well as understanding DALL-E - I completely disagree with "I don‘t think he is any more qualified to speculate about future technology than you or I". You keep on brushing over what I see as an amazing AI - DALL-E.... Would you agree that you don't understand how it works?
As to brains in vats, please show me how to make a brain in a vat. No one has a clue.
"....Guinea pig, dog and monkey brains have all been kept alive for hours or even days after being removed...."
I never said that anyone is claiming current AI is conscious. What I said is that no one has any idea how to make AI conscious. None. The fact that current AI is not conscious is a clue that if we want to simulate conscious entities, computers may not be the way to do it because brains are not computers.
So natural processes can cause consciousness to evolve and you don't think we'd ever be able to understand and replicate this?
They could use philosophical zombies to avoid suffering? But that’s not what the simulation argument is! The simulation argument is that we are conscious, and that we are simulations.
No there are many examples involving a consciousness outside of the simulation -
e.g. the Roy game and the dream thought experiment,





These imply the other characters are just "non-player characters" rather than involving billions of fully conscious beings...
and I stand by my statement that if we are simulated the simulators are sadistic monsters. Would an ethical society countenance creation of ancestor simulations in which the simulated entities are conscious and suffering?
I think Bostrom is saying that it involves a single brain then its inputs are simulated.... also most Christians would say that God is infinitely loving even if most people are going to suffer very severely in hell forever.... I'm talking about people on earth for a few decades (if the simulation wanted to involve genuine suffering).
You think that we are indeed simulations and that the the simulation is only a few decades ago? Evidence?
This is the case in the Roy game and Alan Watts dream thought experiment (check out the two videos)
I'm saying that they'd want to cut costs so they'd just simulate the recent past instead of 13 billion years. And if you started from billions of years ago remember the butterfly effect - any tiny changes would result in huge changes in history. Are you familiar with the butterfly effect?
Generate plausible fossils? Honestly, this is as nutty as young-earth creationism/Last Thursdayism. I’m not calling you a nut, only this arguments is … well, nuts. There is no evidence to support any of it and runs afoul sixteen thousand ways of Sunday of Occam’s Razor.
It would be easy for a future AI to generate plausible fossils.
I said that there are either simulations all the way down or that there is a base reality. This is obviously true. It has to be one or the other.
So say we are in base reality and then we create a single simulation that is indistinguishable from reality. The people inside that simulation involve one simulation - neither zero or infinity.
Whether it does or not, the persistent point is that we are no closer to simulating consciousness in a machine, or making a brain in a vat, now, than we were in 1350, when I believe they were trying to make golems.
"....Guinea pig, dog and monkey brains have all been kept alive for hours or even days after being removed...."
So that technology for putting brains in vats is equal to the technology in 1350? I'm not sure that at that stage they even knew the brain was used for thinking....
 
Last edited:
If we have a simulated universe, did the simulators simulate their own universe? Simulated universes all the way down?
Well Bostrom seems to think so ("ancestor simulations"). But they simulated their past, not their present. Their present could be trillions upon trillions of times more CPU intensive. If you simulate a world without its own simulations then the chain of simulations ends.
 
I just read the glitches in the Matrix thing. Are you kidding me? A bunch of silly photos are evidence that we are simulated because these photos are supposedly of glitches? They’re just silly photos! I’m sure the whole thing was intended humorously, and not to be taken seriously.
I thought it was interesting.... there are also stories talking about more complicated "glitches". Perhaps just about any real flaw/glitch wouldn't convince people of a simulation since it could just be seen as a hallucination..... (and some people believe in group hallucinations like Jesus ascending, etc)
 
you people are convinced that I'm secretly a theist and you're trying to draw me out and expose me. You are all complete idiots and it's impossible to talk to you. keep believing what you want to believe and ignore what's right in front of you. I am exactly what I say I am.
 
you people are convinced that I'm secretly a theist and you're trying to draw me out and expose me. You are all complete idiots and it's impossible to talk to you. keep believing what you want to believe and ignore what's right in front of you. I am exactly what I say I am.
What the hell?
 
I just read the glitches in the Matrix thing. Are you kidding me? A bunch of silly photos are evidence that we are simulated because these photos are supposedly of glitches? They’re just silly photos! I’m sure the whole thing was intended humorously, and not to be taken seriously.
I thought it was interesting.... there are also stories talking about more complicated "glitches". Perhaps just about any real flaw/glitch wouldn't convince people of a simulation since it could just be seen as a hallucination..... (and some people believe in group hallucinations like Jesus ascending, etc)
It’s not interesting in any relevant sense to this discussion. It’s a joke. It’s a humor site.
 
you people are convinced that I'm secretly a theist and you're trying to draw me out and expose me. You are all complete idiots and it's impossible to talk to you. keep believing what you want to believe and ignore what's right in front of you. I am exactly what I say I am.
Well. this post is right in front of me and I bleve what I read. A tememental person who can not support assertions and clams everyone else is crazy.

It is not unique on the forum, quite common.

One thing I would like to know. I have a sneaking suspicion even fear you myu say that I am textually in a coma dreaming and this forum is not real, a figment of my imagination. Is there any way to tell?
 
So your OP was serious and not a joke? You think the mafia is running a simulation of reality? I thought it was a joke that precipitated good discussion. It never occurred to me that you were serious.
 
The universe is not an illusion. The universe is real and it exists inside a computer. It is inside a computer of limitless power and speed. A computer that is not made of atoms but made of a completely different sort of matter that does not exist in our universe. Our universe is full of death and suffering and only the mafia would be psychotic enough to create such a universe when they could have easily created a paradise.
 
Unless you are intending the mafia as some sort of metaphor for god.
 
Our universe is full of death and suffering and only the mafia would be psychotic enough to create such universe
If you think that it is bad for characters to suffer for a few decades what about the Christian belief that most people will suffer forever - and to a much worse degree than what is usually the case on earth?
In the Roy game and Alan Watt's dream experiment, the player chose this life involving suffering.... (but then temporarily forgot this) but in those cases it might only be the player who is suffering and not the other characters.
BTW it is somewhat common for sadistic Sims players to want to see the sims suffer:
 

Attachments

  • sims-burning.jpeg
    sims-burning.jpeg
    237.7 KB · Views: 4
Last edited:
BTW Elon Musk is also co-founder and CEO of Neuralink which involves futuristic technology - brain-computer interfaces - which could be used to link to simulations...
Other future technology he is knowledgable about includes colonising Mars (he wants there to be a million people there in the near future).
 
Last edited:
Our universe is full of death and suffering and only the mafia would be psychotic enough to create such universe
If you think that it is bad for characters to suffer for a few decades what about the Christian belief that most people will suffer forever - and to a much worse degree than what is usually the case on earth?
I am not a theist dude. What the hell do you think I think about it? There is no hell and only the mafia would be psychotic enough to send people to one if it did exist
 
Back
Top Bottom