We DO live in a simulation even if we don't!

I can play a video game and become the consciousness for the role I am playing, but I don't exist inside the computer or 2D screen.

Technically, I believe you do. Your actions manipulate the software. You are part of it by proxy.

originally posted by: 123143

I can play a video game and become the consciousness for the role I am playing, but I don't exist inside the computer or 2D screen.

Technically, I believe you do. Your actions manipulate the software. You are part of it by proxy.

I agree that part of my consciousness exists there as a proxy. I guess my main point is that none of my physical universe atoms (or quantum energy fields) exist within the character I'm playing. Could this not be the same with our human bodies, that our true consciousness does not exist in this physical universe?

I don't claim to have the answer, I hope to learn more when I, this body, dies. Hopefully not just a power off event.

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

Hello Kev,

This could get very deep if you want it to.

The Oxford English Dictionary definition of simulation is

1[mass noun] Imitation of a situation or process.
1.1 The action of pretending; deception.
1.2 The production of a computer model of something, especially for the purpose of study.

So if our version of reality is all an imitation then what exactly are we an imitation of? And/or who or what could be deceiving us?

Maybe it's a mix of the two. We are both being deceived and part of a simulation. A 13 billion year old one?

It's hard to get your brain around it all. Maybe because it's only a simulated brain LOL!

There seems to be a randomness to the known universe but we can also find patterns. On a micro scale we have electrons spinning around atom nuclei and a macro scale we have planets in orbit around stars and that seems to be repeated on a galactic scale.

Then we have what we know as life. It seems to turn up everywhere we look. Well here on this tiny blue planet anyway. All of it with an inbuilt instinct to survive. The more complex the life form the more complex the life it can create for itself. We humans have powerful brains and our imaginations have led to some of our finest discoveries and inventions. But our technology can often be used for unsavoury purposes. It feels like there is some sort of framework to it all ,always with multiple paths leading to different outcomes. Nuclear power isn't good or bad in itself but how we choose to use it can be.

All we know, is all we know.

I doubt we'll be around long enough as a race to ever know everything there possibly is to know. So we will probably never understand why we are here. Ultimately our lives are just the products of the choices we make.

The question is what really influences those choices?

I'm going for lie down now.

a reply to: mirageman

1.2 The production of a computer model of something, especially for the purpose of study.

Well in one of my more pseudo-mystical moments i feel (can't prove) that the universe is trying to figure itself out by growing simulations (our brains and the personalities within them).


So that's the basis of my Ring0 Ring1 analogy that everything is a simulation or involved in running simulations-even the physical universe itself.

I think that even super skeptic Carl Sagan once said something similar.

Thanks for stopping by.

Kev

On some level, in some way, we are all "simulations", whether purposefully or "accidentally" through blind evolution. To me, we will never know which is true and it doesn't matter. A simulation is a simulation is a simulation, whether it evolved purposely or randomly. And even if we ARE a purposeful simulation.. odds are, the "original simulator(s)" are a randomly evolved base simulation. It's "simulations all the way down".

Yup ...

one needs a sense of duality to do the sentience thing, as far as we know, and if the information that is giving at least the appearance of duality exists, then it may be generated, or simulated.

So I guess we could be termed simulations, or with some signal loss, approximations... ?

I had a longer post, but further thought refined it to a simple agreement ... again, there may be some leeway due to definitions of terms, but... yup.

Either way, glad to see your mind again!