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  1. #1

    Elon Musk Is Wrong. We Aren't Living in a Simulation

    Two really smart guys who've been thinking about this problem for years post about it, are we living in a simulation?

    Far as I can tell what they are saying is that if a simulated apple has all the characteristics of an apple, it's not a simulation but a real apple. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck so they believe we are living in reality.






    really long article at link
    http://motherboard.vice.com/read/we-...urce=mbtwitter

    A Mind Needs The World

    Finally, there is one more argument against the notion that we live inside a massive simulation of everything. Suppose that, against all odds, we were living inside a simulation made of something different from the now (in)famous “Musk base reality.” If this were the case, the simulated world would be the only world we could access. Such a world would have the properties of the world everyone calls the physical world. Such a simulated world would therefore be identical with what everyone calls the physical world. The base reality would be utterly beyond our grasp and thus it would be, with an unavoidable conceptual twist, immaterial to us. It is a bit like that old joke: after centuries it has been found that William Shakespeare’s plays have not been really written by William Shakespeare but by another man called William Shakespeare.
    Either way, we live in a physical world, where physical is a catchphrase to refer to the world we live in. Once more, embracing an all-encompassing massive world simulation defeats its very nature. If the simulated apple replicates all properties of the apple, the simulated apple is the apple.
    To recap, Elon Musk’s argument—that a) once we had Pong, now we have Doom, therefore b) in the future there is a very good chance that we will live inside simulated worlds (and this might be already the case)—is unconvincing because nothing links b) with a). They are different things, both empirically and conceptually. The world we live in is made of real stuff. Simulations are things made of the same stuff. Musk’s argument does not show that we are getting any closer to producing an alternative reality. Rather it shows that we are getting better and better at shaping the physical world.
    In fact, games are becoming like little aquariums that flesh out with increasing accuracy a piece of the physical world. They are a bit like ultrasmart dynamic HDdioramas. In fact, dioramas are three-dimensional full-size or miniature models, sometimes enclosed in a glass showcase for a museum. Dioramas are physical simulations. A virtual world is like a diorama only that it uses electronic colored surfaces rather than wood or plastic scale models. A screen inside a VR headset is an amazing piece of reality that, like a superfast chameleon, reproduces all colors and shapes. It is not an immaterial figment of one’s imagination. It’s a piece of matter with colors, mass, and electricity interacting with your brain.
    If a simulated waterfall is not wet, why should a simulated mind think or feel? A mind, unless one believes in disembodied souls, requires a brain, a body, and a world. A mind without a physical world is a myth. And a simulated world is a myth too. The fact is that all minds we know of, human minds and possibly animal minds, are embodied and situated: they have a body and they partake of the physical world. We have never met a disembodied mind. We always meet bodies in the world.
    Riccardo Manzotti is a Professor in Psychology at the Institute of Human, Language and Environmental Sciences at the University of Milan, holds a PhD in robotics, and is the author of 50 papers on the basis of consciousness. His website is consciousness.it
    Andrew Smart is a cognitive scientist and the author of two books, Autopilot: The Art and Science of Doing Nothing and Beyond Zero and One: Machines, Psychedelics and Consciousness (OR Books).
    .

    "This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can."

    -- Capt. Copeland

  2. #2
    Deleted
    'How to argue semantics and look really smart while doing it'

  3. #3
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Taftvalue View Post
    'How to argue semantics and look really smart while doing it'
    I'll take a good academic discussion of abstract things over regurgitated "are all muslims terrorists?" pseudoarguments that constitute 90% of current public discourse, any day. Entertainment-wise, ofc.

    Not to mention, abstract thinking tends to lead to science later on in some lucky cases. From abstract phylosophical debate about the nature of reality came mathematical models that build the theories of relativity, from that came physics, from physics came the GPS transponder in your phone.
    Last edited by mmoc4588e6de4f; 2016-06-21 at 10:11 AM.

  4. #4
    Since the main argument here seems to be the apple thing:
    If you would ask Mario what a real mushroom is, he would define it as the thing that comes out of a box, when you jump against it. Using definitions from the people living in the simulation to disprove that they live in a simulation is nonsensical.
    "And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five?
    A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head."

  5. #5
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by owbu View Post
    Since the main argument here seems to be the apple thing:
    If you would ask Mario what a real mushroom is, he would define it as the thing that comes out of a box, when you jump against it. Using definitions from the people living in the simulation to disprove that they live in a simulation is nonsensical.
    He is well aware. This is th ecrux of his argument; that for Mario a mushroom is a mushroom, since Mario can't escape his world, this is THE meaning of mushroom. Sim argument is pantheism in modern disguise, nothing more.

  6. #6
    The Patient
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    Shouldnt take a very smart guy years to think about this. If two things cannot be differentiated between by us, theyre the same for all intents and purposes. You could argue in favor of countless undetectable entities that cannot be disproven, but it serves no purpose if you cannot provide proof for it. This article is discussing semantics, while technically its just a different physical interface that could feed our brains input, that doesnt make it what normal humans refer to as the real world. This argument of wether everything is a simulation or not is nothing more than religion. In order for it to be anything more than that, it needs to provide falsifiable claims and proof either for or against our current belief of what constitutes the physical world.
    Another flawed argument is that a mind requires a brain, body and a world. No one is arguing against the existence of a world, just wether we are directly in it or in a computer in that world. A body isnt needed either, our movements could be simulated based on the parameters of the world and the signals our brains give off. And finally, a brain isnt needed either. Our brain is just a collection of atoms, theres no magical ingredient as far as we know. As such a powerful enough computer could simulate every atom in a brain to simulate a brain. But as long as that brain were to live in a perfect simulation that never ended and was never interfered with, it would be exactly the same as being in the real world. But this will be a "He said she said" argument until once side comes up with a claim that can be proven or disproven.

  7. #7
    It seems to be one of those things that can never have evidence for it, one way or the other. I see it as a philosophical dead-end and not particularly interesting to discuss.
    "In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance." Paradox of tolerance

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Daish View Post
    why do people think Elon Musk is smart?
    Started several innovative businesses that have already revolutionised many different industries, (spaceX, Tesla, PayPal). Created the idea for the hyperloop that will likely change how people and goods move in this country and around the world.

    What kind of question is this? Are you incapable of comprehension?
    Gamdwelf the Mage

    Quote Originally Posted by Theodarzna View Post
    I'm calling it, Republicans will hold congress in 2018 and Trump will win again in 2020.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Daish View Post
    why do people think Elon Musk is smart?
    Because he's successful in technology businesses - which is attributed to being smart. See people think Bill gates is smart, Steve Jobs was smart, Peter Thiel even for the same reason.
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    which is kind of like saying "of COURSE you can't see the unicorns, unicorns are invisible, silly."

  10. #10
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Bovinity Divinity View Post
    He still didn't start PayPal, I dunno why that keeps being a thing that people say.
    Because in reality, he did. Don't know what simulated existence you're speaking from where he didn't, but here in the real world he was one of the founders of Paypal.

  11. #11
    musk didn't even say that we are 100% living in a simulation.

    the video i saw he said there's a 1 in a billion chance we could be.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Bovinity Divinity View Post
    Except he wasn't, PayPal was created by entirely different people and his company bought out/merged with them.
    But when they acquired PayPal it wasn't really anything. Musk was really the one who turned a minor ancillary product into the PayPal we have today.
    Gamdwelf the Mage

    Quote Originally Posted by Theodarzna View Post
    I'm calling it, Republicans will hold congress in 2018 and Trump will win again in 2020.

  13. #13
    Herald of the Titans Tikaru's Avatar
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    Sounds like an old saying about fake breasts, "if I can touch them, they're real".

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Daish View Post
    so if a person is "smart" when they make a guess based on nothing it holds more value? i do not understand why he is smart in reference to this guess about living in a simulation
    Yes it hold much more weight than a hobo on the street yelling about living in a simulation. Pretty simple concept.
    Gamdwelf the Mage

    Quote Originally Posted by Theodarzna View Post
    I'm calling it, Republicans will hold congress in 2018 and Trump will win again in 2020.

  15. #15
    *shrugs*

    Never even knew who this musk guy was until coming here...

  16. #16
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Bovinity Divinity View Post
    Except he wasn't, PayPal was created by entirely different people and his company bought out/merged with them.
    Nope.

    The company Paypal was non-existent before the merger you're talking about. There was a service called Paypal that was offered by the company that his company merged with, but the company paypal was founded by the merged companies.

  17. #17
    The sci-fi quote seems strangely appropriate:

    Humans consider themselves unique, so they've rooted their whole theory of existence on their uniqueness. "One" is their unit of "measure" — but its not. All social systems we've put into place are a mere sketch: "one plus one equals two", that's all we've learned, but one plus one has never equaled two — there are in fact no numbers and no letters, we've codified our existence to bring it down to human size, to make it comprehensible, we've created a scale so we can forget its unfathomable scale.

  18. #18
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Bovinity Divinity View Post
    /facepalm

    Ok, sure, after the X/Confinity merger they later changed the name to "PayPal" because that was the name of their primary product (and X was a dumb name).

    So sure, if you want to stretch the meaning of the terms all over the place - which even Musk himself hasn't done - then sure, because he was a founder of X which later merged with Confinity which created a single company which later renamed itself PayPal...you can say he co-founded the merged company that was renamed PayPal.

    Ultimately that's so convoluted as to be a bit pointless, though. The actual service PayPal - which is all people think of when you say PayPal - was already in existence before Musk was on the scene at that company.
    A service is created, not founded. A company however, is founded. Sure, it's pedantic, but people saying he co-founded Paypal aren't wrong.

    And it's all as pointless as the question of his authority on the perception of reality, no?
    Last edited by mmoc82e782b950; 2016-06-21 at 01:53 PM.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Taftvalue View Post
    'How to argue semantics and look really smart while doing it'
    ... says the person with a Donald Trump avatar.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by derpkitteh View Post
    musk didn't even say that we are 100% living in a simulation.

    the video i saw he said there's a 1 in a billion chance we could be.
    Other way around, it's 1 in billions chance that we're not, on some conditions.

    If it's possible to create a simulated universe, and if it's possible for more than one of these simulated universes to exists, then it is likely there are billions of simulations in the one "real" universe, so odds are we exist in one of the billions of simulations rather than the one "real" universe.

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