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Life, mind, technology, future, dreams, reality, PLAY!!

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posted on Apr, 27 2013 @ 02:49 PM
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The mind: a computer simulation.

What do we make of the computers of today? How are they used? What do we make of our minds, and how do we use them?

When we look at the graphic capabilities of computers today, we see a growing, ever expanding thing of beauty. Each year the polygon count rises, the textures increase, and our computer generated environments and characters look more real.

How long will it be until we are able to play a computer game that has graphics that resemble the world that we see? What 'resolution' is life?

Sure, we have developed computers that have reached the level where they can perfectly recreate the look of the every day world, and we are only a short amount of time away from enjoying those graphics on our home computers and gaming consoles.

But when will we be able to experience a true simulation? When will we be able to fully immerse ourselves in a computer game and believe that it is real?

With the old model of virtual reality, we simply put on a headset that contains a screen or a pair of screens, and we see a graphic representation of some sort of reality in front of our eyes. We can put on a set of headphones and make this experience even more immersive.

But this isn't believable at all.

The user would know that they are simply using peripheral devices to make up a single simulated experience. There is no true 'feeling' of reality.

So how do we achieve this?

Even if we were to project a three dimensional hologram onto the surrounding walls of a purpose built room, complete with surround sound, a type of omnidirectional treadmill beneath our feet and an air conditioning system made to pump artificial smells into the air, the experience is still one crucial step away from being real: the user has to believe it is real in every way.

The use of psychoactive drugs has been implemented in the past to achieve all sorts of things in many medical fields. They have been used in hypnotherapy to aid the patient in having a deeper session within their mind.

Many uses have been found for these drugs via vast medical experimentation.

Drugs such as '___' were frequently used by the US government in the middle of the 20th century. They understood its ability to alter the state of consciousness.

During the mid 20th century and beyond, drugs like '___', MDMA, ayahuasca and toxic mushrooms have been used recreationally to achieve different results. But they all have one similar property: they alter the perceptive powers of the mind.

So could we say then that the future of computer simulations, in particular the future of computer gaming, could be reliant on drugs or medicine if it is to be a truly immersive experience? Is it socially abhorrent to rely on chemicals to have a 'good time'?

Drugs are prescribed to millions of people every day, all over the world. They are used and abused, so there is no truth in saying that the establishment is in control of even the legal side of drugs.

Could a mixture of advanced technology and intricately designed drugs be the next big thing in the realm of computer entertainment?

Let us look at this.

Would a parent want their twelve year old child playing a computer system with the aid of a specific drug? Even if the drug were safe, what parent or guardian would even consider this, unless they were I'll equipped to be parents?

If such a computer/drug experience were to exist, why would a person want to ever stop playing? Surely a created world, perfect in its design, would be far more enticing than the cruel and difficult world we live in.

How long would this drug last? Would there be a safe daily dose? How would it be controlled? Could you overdose on it if you played for too long? Could you develop a psychosis from being in the computer world far more than the real world?


If the computer simulation was to be as real as this world, would it one day become self governed, with its own laws and social structure? Could humans become recognized citizens of this world? Would crime be punishable? Surely, if you stabbed somebody in the computer world, you've only stabbed a computer generated character.

But if that character was a computer user who was using this psychoactive drug, wouldn't that mean that the trauma felt would affect them as if it were real? Would they feel the pain of the knife going into their flesh? Would they panic? Would the panicked state have an effect on their 'real' body on the outside world? Would their heart rate rise? Could they potentially have a heart attack?

If you believe something to be real, even if it isn't, then it is real for you.

No questions asked.

So what safeguards would be in place? How would one stop the potential of a heart attack?

Would there have to be some sort of firewall between the mind and the body? How precise should the drug be when targeting only the places needed to make the computer simulation real? Surely not all of the brain would be needed to make the experience believable.

How would the drug and computer work together to make this simulation real?

Would the user simply sit in front of a screen, inject the drug and play? This would meat hat the body is still able to move, that the user still has to concentrate on hand controls, for instance.

Perhaps, it would be better to come up with a way to 'implant' the computer experience directly into the brain, via electrodes, a signal, or something along those lines.

The user could simply lay down, hook themselves to the machine and begin to play.

So if we could directly import the experience to the brain, would we even need drugs to make the experience real?

Moving on, lets assume that the world that we live in right now is a computer simulation. Is it an interactive simulation? Are we able to become a character of our choosing?

Or are we pure simulates? Are we lacking even the human mind on the 'outside' that controls us? Are we 100% computer code in nature, with a highly advanced artificial intelligence that gives us a sense of self, a consciousness?

What are the implications of this?

Going back to the moral question of hurting or killing each others computer avatar, if we truly are nothing more than sentient computer code, should we have to worry about things like empathy, or even the law?

If a person were to go on trial for murder, could he or she use the defense that the entire world is a computer simulation? If the world wasn't a computer simulation, then surely they would be laughed out of the courtroom and convicted.

What if the world was a simulation? It would stand to reason that the simulate judge would still convict the defendant. Why? Because the judge would have the artificial intelligence built into his programming, too. He or she would not know that they were a simulated entity.

This is all based on the premise that we are all 100% simulated. But we can be sure that even if we were true humans 'playing' or 'taking part' in a simulation, the ignorance of their true nature would be present inside of the simulation.

I'm particularly interested in the 'resolution' of life.


Any input would be helpful to me.


Thank you.



posted on Apr, 27 2013 @ 02:53 PM
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So lets say that the world is a program that real humans take part in.

What would be the reason for going to jail on a murder charge? What could possibly be learned?

Did the player commit murder because he or she wanted to? Did they commit murder because it is a part of their game?

Perhaps this simulation isn't for fun. Perhaps it is for education, research, or even work related.

Assuming its for education or research, and given that this kind of technology won't be around for a long, long time, we can assume that it has something to do with studying history.

In one or two-hundred years we can be certain that humans will have changed quite dramatically, in all respects. Culture will have changed. Laws will have changed. Wars will have been fought and records will have been lost.

So perhaps what we are living in now is our descendant's attempt at recreating the past, for means of study. Perhaps they have gathered all the archaeological evidence about us that they can, and now they have compiled it all into a computer simulation, and are using it to study us posthumously.

If that is the case, how accurate is the simulation?

We can be fairly certain that it is accurate, given that our species has collected an insurmountable databank of our history up until the modern times.

But we mustn't be too quick to make assumptions.

If this simulation technology is two or three-hundred years away, what could have been lost? What vital evidence may have changed?

Books are a very good way of preserving data. They last a long time and their words do not change.

Digital data, on the other hand, whilst being cheap and efficient, is a very fragile medium. Storage devices can be damaged. Data can become corrupted.

And technology becomes obsolete.

Just over ten years ago, humans were still mass producing VHS cassettes. Now they are no longer on sale, and neither are the machines used to view them.

That is an example of a fairly modern technology that has become obsolete.

So how can we be guaranteed that our computer data will be accessible in the years to come? How much of it will be intact? How can we be sure what is true information and what is false information?

Even though the Internet isn't a stand alone entity per se, how can we be sure it will survive the ravages of time?

There is no guarantee.

Just as archaeologists excavated the pyramids at Giza, they do not know all there is to know about them. Why? Because not all of the data has survived the thousands of years until its rediscovery.

If solid stone structures can't survive a few thousand years in the sun, how do we expect digital data to be accessible in the same amount of time?

Are we taking measures to keep our data safe? Should our supercomputers be filled with data and buried in a bunker in the arctic, with instructions of use to future explorers?

Perhaps something like that has happened.

What if we aren't even human on the 'outside'?

Perhaps our avatars are human, but our controllers are of another species, even from another planet. Is it so ludicrous to wonder, or even argue for?

After all, we may one day take to the stars, and discover long gone civilizations. So it may be that in our future, our records have been discovered by an alien race.

They could have taken all of the data on us humans, and created a simulation, a means of understanding our species.






Thank you for your time.





I really am looking for any evidence that suggests that life may be a simulation of some sort.


Have a lovely day.



 
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