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Until I talked to Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, it never occurred to me that our universe might be somebody else’s hobby. I hadn’t imagined that the omniscient, omnipotent creator of the heavens and earth could be an advanced version of a guy who spends his weekends building model railroads or overseeing video-game worlds like the Sims.

But now it seems quite possible. In fact, if you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom’s, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation.

snip!

Dr. Bostrom assumes that technological advances could produce a computer with more processing power than all the brains in the world, and that advanced humans, or “posthumans,” could run “ancestor simulations” of their evolutionary history by creating virtual worlds inhabited by virtual people with fully developed virtual nervous systems.

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It sounds an awful lot like "brain in a vat" or The Matrix to me!

Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy's Couch

ETA: link

[ 15 August 2007: Message edited by: M.Gregus ]

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Originally posted by Michelle:
What if God is actually just some celestial kid and we're a science experiment?

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Dance!

syntax Error!

[ 15 August 2007: Message edited by: TemporalHominid ]

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Originally posted by quelar:
…where technology gets to a point where reality and computer simulations are virtually indistinguishable to us.

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There was a great article that I read the other day about a guy who is one of 8 million Second Life members who recently “married” a woman on Second Life, even though he’s married in real life. The guy consumes many hours every day “playing” Second Life, spending time with his virtual wife and other friends, and working on his virtual night club and other ventures. His real-life wife is not happy about it. It is creepy as hell.

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Originally posted by quelar:
The book I link above dives a lot deeper into that, it asks questions about AI, and 'spin off' personalities (meaning that people can live entirely in the digital world, so they can create copies of themselves that split off from them and stay digital all the time) and whether these AI's and split offs would be legal citizens.

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Good book suggestion, quelar. I’m going to get it.

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Originally posted by quelar:
You're right though, this will become more of an issue as the technology improves and all I can say is, I think I'm going to end up being a luddite despite the fact that I'm presently very connected with most of the digital world, and have been for many years. But now that people are starting to have far more of their lives online (facebook, youtube, linkedin) I find myself wanting to pull back and meet people face to face again.

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You know, I never thought that I would call myself a Luddite (I enjoy technology) but I’m with you on this one. For me, there’s nothing better than spending a weekend or week at our lake cottage with my Sweetie, reading books, taking snoozes, eating wonderful food, having a glass of wine, listening to the loons call at night, building a fire, hearing the wind through the trees, working in the yard, talking with folks in the nearby small town, etc., etc. That is living.

ETA: I see the book is free online. So, no book for me "to get"!!

[ 15 August 2007: Message edited by: Sven ]

And on top of that, if we knew we were in a simulation, we still have no way of getting out, and if we could get out it might be far worse of a universe than the one we've got.

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Originally posted by Sven:

You know, I never thought that I would call myself a Luddite (I enjoy technology) but I’m with you on this one. For me, there’s nothing better than spending a weekend or week at our lake cottage with my Sweetie, reading books, taking snoozes, eating wonderful food, having a glass of wine, listening to the loons call at night, building a fire, hearing the wind through the trees, working in the yard, talking with folks in the nearby small town, etc., etc. That is living.

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Like all major techonological shifts, I suspect it will be a generational thing. I might not plug into a virtual world or three to live my life, but my kid may well do so. And why not, if one can live without scarcity?

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Originally posted by arborman:
Like all major techonological shifts, I suspect it will be a generational thing. I might not plug into a virtual world or three to live my life, but my kid may well do so. And why not, if one can live without scarcity?

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I'm kidding Fidel, I know you're not crazy like this.

I've got a very conspiratorial friend who is according to common belief 'way out there' who is very sure that all of our media is tightly controlled (including things we tend to like a lot like this. or this). And that there is a small group of elite out there controlling society and how technology gets released.

Things like the internet, gps systems and other technological advances could really be years and years behind what the government elite are controlling and keeping from us.

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Originally posted by quelar:
Things like the internet, gps systems and other technological advances could really be years and years behind what the government elite are controlling and keeping from us.

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We know that much is true already. GPS is basically a spinoff of old technology. Sputnik is 1950's, and the Soviets were developing their own type of GPS in the mid 70's. See GLONASS. They didn't hand it off to private enterprise and a multi-billion dollar a year consumer market because there was none.