Reality isn't real

  On 8/18/2010 at 12:55 AM, wake said:

  On 8/18/2010 at 12:48 AM, disparaissant said:

cogito ergo sum motherfuckers

or maybe

meus matris reputo ego sum, ergo sum

 

But the I that thinks is not the I it thinks it is.

you know a good proof against the whole idea that since i am the only being whose existence i can prove, i may well be the only being that exists?

why the fuck would i dream up WATMM? answer me that eisenstain!

what i'm saying is that you all have proven your existence to me by being abrasive weirdos. but i love ya for it.

  On 8/18/2010 at 1:11 AM, luke viia said:

Agreed. Truth, however, is very appealing to me, and I like to pretend I have a grasp on it. One of the greatest truths I've come to believe is that Truth is relative. Dunno if that's really true though.

We made up bipolarity. Why does something have to be true or false? Something or nothing? Up or down? Black or white? It's something built into our perception, not the universe itself.

yer just real lonely, ms bush

not knowing is knowing

- tas

  On 8/18/2010 at 1:14 AM, disparaissant said:

why the fuck would i dream up WATMM?

You didn't. I did. And what a wonderful dream it is.

  On 8/18/2010 at 1:14 AM, wahrk said:

  On 8/18/2010 at 1:11 AM, luke viia said:

Agreed. Truth, however, is very appealing to me, and I like to pretend I have a grasp on it. One of the greatest truths I've come to believe is that Truth is relative. Dunno if that's really true though.

 

We made up bipolarity. Why does something have to be true or false? Something or nothing? Up or down? Black or white? It's something built into our perception, not the universe itself.

I dunno, nothing really has to be true or false, but quite often, things seem to be one way or the other. For example, genes. There are genetic "switches" that turn on or off, like a binary code in a much larger, non-binary system. I'm not sure that we made up duality/polarity, really, but it's a possibility... I see duality all over the place, but each scenario can be split into thousands of "wrong" or "right"s, not just one set. This is complicated, I'm gonna eat some chips.

  On 8/18/2010 at 1:18 AM, luke viia said:

  On 8/18/2010 at 1:14 AM, wahrk said:

  On 8/18/2010 at 1:11 AM, luke viia said:

Agreed. Truth, however, is very appealing to me, and I like to pretend I have a grasp on it. One of the greatest truths I've come to believe is that Truth is relative. Dunno if that's really true though.

 

We made up bipolarity. Why does something have to be true or false? Something or nothing? Up or down? Black or white? It's something built into our perception, not the universe itself.

 

I dunno, nothing really has to be true or false, but quite often, things seem to be one way or the other. For example, genes. There are genetic "switches" that turn on or off, like a binary code in a much larger, non-binary system. I'm not sure that we made up duality/polarity, really, but it's a possibility... I see duality all over the place, but each scenario can be split into thousands of "wrong" or "right"s, not just one set. This is complicated, I'm gonna eat some chips.

We're only aware of those switches having two values. It's quite possible that further values they could have are only perceivable in dimensions beyond our own.

Not that I firmly believe this is truth though, as I haven't thoroughly explored the idea as much as I could because I like and understand duality. But hey, I'm a fourth dimensional being.

This is good news !! , if we are a computer-generated reality , the programmer most likely designed an afterlife for us.

  On 8/18/2010 at 2:42 AM, Boxing Day said:

This is good news !! , if we are a computer-generated reality , the programmer most likely designed an afterlife for us.

This is bad news.

Living for eternity is the most terrifying thought. Living for eternity in an afterlife programmed by the maniac who designed this life is even more terrifying.

everything is everything.

  On 8/18/2010 at 4:10 AM, wake said:

  On 8/18/2010 at 2:42 AM, Boxing Day said:

This is good news !! , if we are a computer-generated reality , the programmer most likely designed an afterlife for us.

 

This is bad news.

 

Living for eternity is the most terrifying thought. Living for eternity in an afterlife programmed by the maniac who designed this life is even more terrifying.

eeeeemo...

why is it likely that they would create an afterlife? To entertain and comfort little righteous troons or punish the wicked surely was his intention.

  On 8/18/2010 at 1:18 AM, luke viia said:

  On 8/18/2010 at 1:14 AM, wahrk said:

  On 8/18/2010 at 1:11 AM, luke viia said:

Agreed. Truth, however, is very appealing to me, and I like to pretend I have a grasp on it. One of the greatest truths I've come to believe is that Truth is relative. Dunno if that's really true though.

 

We made up bipolarity. Why does something have to be true or false? Something or nothing? Up or down? Black or white? It's something built into our perception, not the universe itself.

 

I dunno, nothing really has to be true or false, but quite often, things seem to be one way or the other. For example, genes. There are genetic "switches" that turn on or off, like a binary code in a much larger, non-binary system. I'm not sure that we made up duality/polarity, really, but it's a possibility... I see duality all over the place, but each scenario can be split into thousands of "wrong" or "right"s, not just one set. This is complicated, I'm gonna eat some chips.

i don't think there are any genetic "switches" and they don't turn "on" and "off." those are metaphors that create the illusion of A) static and B) binary things. they don't even really "create" the illusion. we just don't realize that our language constructs aren't the things themselves.

Where is ET? Isn't this thread right up his alley? Or has he already replied with a dupe account?

  On 8/18/2010 at 4:27 AM, happycase said:

  On 8/18/2010 at 1:18 AM, luke viia said:

  On 8/18/2010 at 1:14 AM, wahrk said:

  On 8/18/2010 at 1:11 AM, luke viia said:

Agreed. Truth, however, is very appealing to me, and I like to pretend I have a grasp on it. One of the greatest truths I've come to believe is that Truth is relative. Dunno if that's really true though.

 

We made up bipolarity. Why does something have to be true or false? Something or nothing? Up or down? Black or white? It's something built into our perception, not the universe itself.

 

I dunno, nothing really has to be true or false, but quite often, things seem to be one way or the other. For example, genes. There are genetic "switches" that turn on or off, like a binary code in a much larger, non-binary system. I'm not sure that we made up duality/polarity, really, but it's a possibility... I see duality all over the place, but each scenario can be split into thousands of "wrong" or "right"s, not just one set. This is complicated, I'm gonna eat some chips.

 

 

i don't think there are any genetic "switches" and they don't turn "on" and "off." those are metaphors that create the illusion of A) static and B) binary things. they don't even really "create" the illusion. we just don't realize that our language constructs aren't the things themselves.

let's hear it for metacognition.. we don't have all the answers, we never will, and some models are more useful in one instance than another. it's useful to have multiple models for looking at things, not just get buried in one. so i thinks anyway.. ymmv

funny, but as previously mentioned, a lot of the ideas in this thread aren't really incompatible or opposing at all, just different. when arguing about ideas that are perpendicular, not in opposition, you'll go on forever, in circles. sort of like the blind dudes in the zen koan arguing about the elephant.

actually, i'm bullshitting. we're all in the dream of the Lord Vishnu. and he's quite anally retentive, apparently

  On 8/18/2010 at 2:42 AM, Boxing Day said:

This is good news !! , if we are a computer-generated reality , the programmer most likely designed an afterlife for us.

How can you be sure, maybe this is an unfinished beta or just the demo version? What will happen when the 30-day trial period runs out?

this is a bit of a tangent, but it occurred to me last night while thinking about this thread, so I figure it sort of belongs here. sorry if it's tl;dr

on this subject, i read some book when i was in high school about how the entire universe could be a hologram or computer program, iirc the author's main point was that all atoms exist with either a top spin or a bottom spin, so they're all either 1 or 0. i dunno.

http://www.crystalinks.com/holouniverse1.html

there's some crap about it. i don't believe any of it, it was just an interesting read.

as for the idea that a programmer would build in an afterlife, why on earth would they? what's the motivation? that doesn't make any sense to me.

  On 8/18/2010 at 7:03 PM, disparaissant said:

iirc the author's main point was that all atoms exist with either a top spin or a bottom spin, so they're all either 1 or 0. i dunno.

not atoms, quarks.

  On 8/18/2010 at 6:54 PM, doorjamb said:

 

I bring this up because it occurred to me last night that the human mind is very likely much more aware of the nature of the universe than it realizes. I think when we are born, we have all the equipment we need to begin to understand and interpret the world in our own way. As we develop, however, we are distracted and molded by the other humans around us who have already reshaped the world and imposed their own ideas of how people and life should operate. This creates that barrier between conscious and subconscious, suppressing all the thoughts and knowledge that do not fit into the accepted human worldview.

 

Indeed. when you born, you are under the tabula rasa effect, it's the initial point, there are no preconceived ideas, thus why children have such a pure view of everything that surrounds them and even no fear at all (you see how easily they can touch an animal they never saw, even if it is somehow dangerous). we grow up and start conceiving our own ideas and then, one of two things happen, in my opinion:

a) you see the world filtered by all the ideas that life experience and growing up progressively brought to you, letting your mind manage them in a balanced way, influenced by people, books, tv, nature, [etc..etc], but always with a little bit of that child naivité that gives you the wonderful possibility of being surprised, of discovering the unknown, even tho you are aware and accept that this childhood state is inevitably lost and impossible to recover;

b)you let your mind enter in the domain of the extremely complex theories about life and yourself in a way that you start losing balance; your senses are no longer the way you contact with the world, you consider yourself an abstraction or a part of a certain software, you can no longer see the beauty that surrounds you, altought it's close to you as always have been..and you live in a constant state of depression.

  On 8/18/2010 at 7:03 PM, disparaissant said:

as for the idea that a programmer would build in an afterlife, why on earth would they? what's the motivation? that doesn't make any sense to me.

that totally reminded me of something I've read ages ago, and of course wikipedia provided the answer. if you want to get really out there, there's always the Omega Point theory (well I'd call it a hypothesis or conjecture myself)..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Point_(Tipler)#The_Omega_Point

  Quote

In his controversial 1994 book The Physics of Immortality,[4][5][6] Tipler claims to provide a mechanism for immortality and the resurrection of the dead consistent with the known laws of physics via the use of computers which use the entire universe to compute on and which diverge to a state of infinite computational resources that Tipler terms the Omega Point and which he identifies with God. The line of argument is that the evolution of intelligent species will enable scientific progress to grow exponentially, eventually enabling control over the universe even on the largest possible scale. Tipler predicts that this process will culminate with an all-powerful intelligence whose computing speed and information storage will grow exponentially at a rate exceeding the collapse of the universe, thus providing infinite "experiential time" which will be used to run computer simulations of all intelligent life that has ever lived in the history of our universe. This virtual reality emulation is what Tipler means by "the resurrection of the dead."

  On 8/18/2010 at 7:03 PM, disparaissant said:

on this subject, i read some book when i was in high school about how the entire universe could be a hologram or computer program, iirc the author's main point was that all atoms exist with either a top spin or a bottom spin, so they're all either 1 or 0. i dunno.

http://www.crystalinks.com/holouniverse1.html

there's some crap about it. i don't believe any of it, it was just an interesting read.

 

as for the idea that a programmer would build in an afterlife, why on earth would they? what's the motivation? that doesn't make any sense to me.

you are getting back to the initial subject of discussion.

i don't believe in it either and i defend myself with a simple argument: man created the computer and somehow found himself lost in the infinite possibilities it brought to him, thus reaching the point of even considering himself a product of the same computer. it was a concept too complex, too huge for his mind to interpret.

i have given a couple of more reasons for why i don't believe in such thing and my position will hardly change.

Best argument against us living in a simulation that I ever came across:

I forget where I read it, as I never really formally studied information theory, but I recall somewhere it being said that basically a simulation must contain the same amount of information as what it is simulating. To simulate every quanta in the universe would take a simulation.. which contains that same amount of information and hence would have to be at least the same size as the universe.

  On 8/18/2010 at 7:36 PM, TwiddleBot said:

Best argument against us living in a simulation that I ever came across:

 

I forget where I read it, as I never really formally studied information theory, but I recall somewhere it being said that basically a simulation must contain the same amount of information as what it is simulating. To simulate every quanta in the universe would take a simulation.. which contains that same amount of information and hence would have to be at least the same size as the universe.

...and what? Rather the worst arguement if you ask me.

  On 8/18/2010 at 7:36 PM, TwiddleBot said:

Best argument against us living in a simulation that I ever came across:

 

I forget where I read it, as I never really formally studied information theory, but I recall somewhere it being said that basically a simulation must contain the same amount of information as what it is simulating. To simulate every quanta in the universe would take a simulation.. which contains that same amount of information and hence would have to be at least the same size as the universe.

I think quantum computers resolve this problem. Don't they ?

  On 8/18/2010 at 7:36 PM, TwiddleBot said:

Best argument against us living in a simulation that I ever came across:

 

I forget where I read it, as I never really formally studied information theory, but I recall somewhere it being said that basically a simulation must contain the same amount of information as what it is simulating. To simulate every quanta in the universe would take a simulation.. which contains that same amount of information and hence would have to be at least the same size as the universe.

a [2-d] mandelbrot set containing an infinite amount of detail can be generated from a single equation iterated across the complex plane - z[n+1]=z[n]^2+c