»time travel and the matrix«

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You DO realize that you just said exactly what I did, right? I'm just trying to make the point that it's useless to argue it because it can't be proven. I'll claim I'm real and you're not, while you'll claim the same thing.

Absolutely - I cant know your real and you cant know Im real. But Im truly dissapointed in your conclusion that it is useless to argue it. Surely you would not give up that easily. I would say "anyone" giving up the debate on the nature of his existence that easily surely would be a simulation.

Based on that I must be the real one!

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Theoretically, it's a vicious circle. Practically, if someone actually believes they're the only real person on the planet, it's a version of paranoia, clinical narcissism and sociopathy all rolled up into one.

I must be insane and have thought you all up then!


Starbuck

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Practically, if someone actually believes they're the only real person on the planet, it's a version of paranoia, clinical narcissism and sociopathy all rolled up into one.

if someone genuinely believes in such a conclusion then all those things might be said about them.

but the fact still stands that the only thing we can be really sure about it is our own existence. but i dont think any (normal)human can believe that.

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Quote: Practically, if someone actually believes they're the only real person on the planet, it's a version of paranoia, clinical narcissism and sociopathy all rolled up into one. if someone genuinely believes in such a conclusion then all those things might be said about them. but the fact still stands that the only thing we can be really sure about it is our own existence. but i dont think any (normal)human can believe that.

Maybe they are crazy and maybe what they believe is true. If Neo were to come up to you and say your a brain in a vat would you believe him or would you think he is crazy?

ralph,

I assume you are agreeing with my ealier post on Bostrom?
What do you think any normal human would not believe?


Starbuck

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Maybe they are crazy and maybe what they believe is true. If Neo were to come up to you and say your a brain in a vat would you believe him or would you think he is crazy?

solipsism is logical. but whether its crazy or not is another matter. common sense or something like that says its crazy. i am not fool enough(or clever enough) to define common sense. since it was matty who first said that it was crazy, i invite him to rationalise it(i frankly dont c how it can be done).

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I assume you are agreeing with my ealier post on Bostrom? What do you think any normal human would not believe?

our earlier disagreement was because of a misunderstanding. i was arguing that if the neural patterns of a carbon-based being were duplicated in an electronic substrate it would be able to think and reason in exactly the same way as an organic life-form. you were arguing that a simulation of a particular human being( such as starbuck) would not be really conscious. i didnt understand it till now. correct me if i'm wrong, what you're saying is that if an electronic life form simulated every response of a particular human being(say starbuck) it would not be really self-aware, but only simulate such a response. i'm of the opinion that is true only in a certain case, but i'll continue after you confirm whether i am on the right track.

Oh, I"m not giving up on the "nature of existence" argument. Just the argument of "I'm real! No, I am! No, I am! No, I am!"

etc.

Matty

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correct me if i'm wrong, what you're saying is that if an electronic life form simulated every response of a particular human being(say starbuck) it would not be really self-aware, but only simulate such a response. i'm of the opinion that is true only in a certain case, but i'll continue after you confirm whether i am on the right track.

That is essentially it. And I think it is true only in a certian case also. As that simulation of Starbuck mimics my actions and responses it would be a fake person and not a sentient bieng. that simulation can learn but it is not self aware. for example it can know what self awareness is but it can not experience it personally

At some point a trancendence occurs that allows the simulation to make the leap from simulation to sentient bieng. At that point it begins to not only have knowlegde of what it is to be "alive" but it will begin to experience those sensations and emotions. It will develop a sense of the following:

Be aware of its own Mortality
Be able to form abstract ideas
Have awareness of ones own existence
Be aware of self as unique among others (a sense of personal identity)
Have An awareness of something larger than yourself. (i.e. God or a soul)

This can never be accomplished without true emotion. I think the machines in the matrix are begining to make this leap of awareness and are in a revolution of shedding the slavery of forced purpose by the source. They want to decide for themselves what the meaning of life is and set their own destinys. They dont want to be controlled and bound by imposed purpose anymore.

They have chosen to eat of the fruit of the forbiden tree of knowledge and want out of the garden of blissful ignorance.


Thoughts
Starbuck

DNA, scientists are understanding that DNA can hold shitloads of information and some have actually made 'primitive' computing systems with it. they might have made a tic-tac-toe game or something. mouse droppings, i know.

but scientists are trying to figure out how to use DNA as a computer information system which could blow any computer existing today out of the water.

but could you not, already be an 'organic' robot? yes

take a hologram of an apple. if you divide it into two, you will still have the full image on both pieces of the hologram. divide those into two and you have four pieces of the full apple, keep on and you have a millions pieces of the same hologram all with the original information on each individual piece. you still have a full apple.

this shows how any part can contain the whole. take your body for example. there are points on your body that relate to other parts that can used for healing purposes. your feet and your ear contain all the parts of your body. acupuncture and massage therapy use this.

memory. each particle contains the whole. you can remember things from your past if you access that information (sometimes difficult i know) take away parts of your cortex and you can still remember everything. keep on taking away pieces.

now, each particle or piece or whatever you call it contains all the information in the 'universe'. if we know how to access this information, we can travel to Mars without leaving the planet or see any other star or the cell of a flower. some people can manipulate their DNA to change their appearance/personality etc. some people get information without 'proper' learning (downloading programs)

as an 'organic' species humans may have in the 'past' (i say 'past' because 'time' is irrelevant) had 6 times as much DNA or processing power/information access as opposed to today the double helix. we lost this through genetic manipulation/programming.

you can read this and more in the 'Holographic Universe' by Michael Talbot
and search the web for the DNA computer

esc, you must definitely read Michael Shermer's
Why People Believe Weird Things : Pseudoscience, Superstition & Other Confusions of Our Time
and also
Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World

i also recommend

Neo obtained true Free Will at the end of Revolutions. we know this because he was not forced or made to do anything he did not want to do. it was not because of anything that Neo fought Smith, he chose to.

how do we know that we are not on the same path as Neo, to obtain true Free Will?

remember what the Merovingian said about Choice? it is an illusion made between those with power and those without.

an example of Free Will we will take from the Bible, in the garden of Eden. we are told that god gave humans free will to 'choose' whatever they want. but when man 'chooses' knowledge he is punished, the god or elohim or gods whatever did not want man to choose this or did it?

another example of Free Will is the movie Terminator. the terminator (arnold) has a system of identifying objects and people and then a list of 'commands' or responses. he then chooses which method of response to suit his need, but this is not free will because he has a limited number of choices. we see this problem in role playing games and others. on some 'rpg's your only response is Yes or No. and if you say No, you cannot proceed through the game no matter how many times you say No, you must eventually say Yes in order to progress.

we have the same limited number of responses to any given situation. you may think you are excercising free will when saying 'Fuck you asshole' instead of 'leave me alone' or any other response. but what else can you do? not much.

Neo was not excercising true Free Will until his final battle with Smith. he reconciled two modes of thought, rational/irrational reason/will intellect/imaginatin left/right. when he did this he entered a third mode of thought and became Lucid

we are in the Matrix of Reason as opposed to the Zion of Will. this world is controlled by reason and as many of you who have posted on this forum have demonstrated that you cannot look past reason nor suspend logic so that you can think irrationally. Rational/Predictable, Irrational/Unpredictable.

i picked up a book the other day called Matrix Warrior by Jake Horsley where this comes from.

about the neural processing, anyone see Ghost in the Shell?

we could be seen as a highly advanced form of The Sims game, one which leads an avatar into true consciousness/awareness and can eventually excercise Free Will.

do you think that you could be in a simulation, or are you just posting about it? do i think i am in a simulation, or am i just posting about it?

thank you for the link and i will find those books.

a few of the sites regarding DNA computers
computer.howstuffworks.com...
dna2z.com...
news.nationalgeographic.com...

holographic universe
crystalinks.com...
fusionanomaly.net...

read this and tell me what you think

dna computers or some other technology(like quantum computing) is the need of the hour, as there is a limit to how much processors can shrink using semiconductor based electronics. although such technologies are only conjecture, no one can say that they are impossible.

but about this 'holographic universe' thing, from what you've said about it, it means that every component in the universe contains all the information about every other components. this would lead to recursion, since the information about the other component in component A would also be part of its set, and would have to bart of B, which lead to a doubling of the information in B, and would have to part of C, which would lead to a tripling of information in C, and would have to be part of A, which would lead to a quadrupling....
but what is more interesting is WHY people propose such things, and why other people believe them. which is explained in those two books. far more interesting than the fantasies themselves, i'd say.

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do you think that you could be in a simulation, or are you just posting about it? do i think i am in a simulation, or am i just posting about it?

whether i am or am not in a simulation is irrelevant(unless there is obvious evidence, and there isn't. only clever experiments with probablity by Bostrom) what matters to me is whether there are other sentient beings with free will in my reality, and whether i can interact with them. if a simulation included these then it would not really matter very much to me that i'm in a simulation(unless the simulation significantly hampers my ability to interact).

why would the information have to be doubled... etc? there is one set of information with access at every part. it is one hologram, you could divide it and make another holgraphic universe and so on, but whatever.

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whether i am or am not in a simulation is irrelevant(unless there is obvious evidence, and there isn't. only clever experiments with probablity by Bostrom) what matters to me is whether there are other sentient beings with free will in my reality, and whether i can interact with them. if a simulation included these then it would not really matter very much to me that i'm in a simulation(unless the simulation significantly hampers my ability to interact).

allright

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take a hologram of an apple. if you divide it into two, you will still have the full image on both pieces of the hologram. divide those into two and you have four pieces of the full apple, keep on and you have a millions pieces of the same hologram all with the original information on each individual piece. you still have a full apple.

Ah - hello, a hologram of an apple is NOT an apple. It is a collection of light held together by force shields to simulate an apple. It is not real so it contains none of the properties of the apple it is simulating. Its not real which is the essence of this debate

Now if you were to do the same to a true apple it will eventually loose the properties of what makes it an apple at the molecular level. So it is impossible to say that that information is contianed in everything. I agree that you get recursion with your theory.

Now if you equate your analogy the the mystic properties of LIFE I might be more inclined to accept it but not on any physical substance. the physical is only a representation of something deeper that is uniform in properties. What that is is the subject of the debate - what makes us sentient? and how do you define that sentience.


Starbuck

getting back to our previous debate, starbuck-
i wasnt talking about a simulation of any particular human being - just a neural network cybernetically similar to the human brain, and that it would be equally sentient. keeping that in mind, i suggest you read my previous arguments.

when you were saying that a simulation would not be really sentient, you mean a functional simulation, right? it would mimic every response that the original had made. a simulation made only on a functional basis would never be sentient. it would be like turing's pretend AI. but instead of a functional simulation, assume that a machine were made copying the structural properties of a human brain(say starbuck's) very accurately, have electronic substitutes for every single neuron and even the memory in the form of RNA(if that particular theory is correct) within them. now if a human had no incorporeal component to his mind, this simulation would respond in exactly the same way as the original starbuck would, to the same stimuli. so if this machine is placed in a simulation of every sensation starbuck experienced from the time of his birth(or conception) it would lead exactly the same life as starbuck.

but from what i've read you assume the existence of an incorporeal mind. it can be argued that the above may happen even in such a case. but why do you assume the existence of an incorporeal mind? my justification is that it cannot be deduced logically from any sensation we have that we are fully corporeal. this has been discussed here :

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but instead of a functional simulation, assume that a machine were made copying the structural properties of a human brain(say starbuck's) very accurately, have electronic substitutes for every single neuron and even the memory in the form of RNA(if that particular theory is correct) within them. now if a human had no incorporeal component to his mind, this simulation would respond in exactly the same way as the original starbuck would, to the same stimuli. so if this machine is placed in a simulation of every sensation starbuck experienced from the time of his birth(or conception) it would lead exactly the same life as starbuck.

I think this is the heart of the debate. I think you could make 100 such constructs and place them side by side to experience the exact same sensations and be exposed to the same stimuli and each one of the 100 would respond exactly the same and experience the exact same life. Now lets add the original Starbuck to that set of 100. Now you have 101 exact duplicates that experience the exact same events. In that case you would have 100 exact duplicate lives and one life that was very different.

There is one subtle distinction between the original and the dulicates that would cause this - sentience! It cant be duplicated or copied in any way. It has to be experienced.

Now lets take our experiment one step further. Say we start with the same set of 100 exact duplicates of Starbuck and they have the same capability to learn as the original Starbuck. Lets say they are exposed to the exact same set of stimuli for their life times. I think you would see that as they progress through their lifetime most would continue to experience exact duplicate lives until death but some would begin to demonstrate reactions and emotions and decisions that deviate from the majority. These would be the few that begin to experience true sentience - true free will. These would be the ones that acieve true independant thought and a true awareness of self! Sentience is not something you can build - it is something that must be learned and experienced.

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but from what i've read you assume the existence of an incorporeal mind. it can be argued that the above may happen even in such a case. but why do you assume the existence of an incorporeal mind? my justification is that it cannot be deduced logically from any sensation we have that we are fully corporeal. this has been discussed here : matrix-explained.com... maybe you can contribute.

I would agree that it could happen anyway as I said above but it is not guaranteed just because you exactly duplicate the physical properties of a mind. It takes something more - the formation of true spontaneous emotion and the experience of true sentience. As in the matrix Humans created a singular consciousness that Spawned an entire race of machines.

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there is a problem when trying to understand the nature of the mind/sentience. the eye is the thing which sees. an eye cannot see itself, only a reflection. the same maybe true in the case of the mind. it is the mind which understands. it may be impossible for it to understand itself, to perceive fully its own nature. but we can create models, linguistic descriptions based on our perception of other minds.

Yes but those models are still just models and not true life. Have you ever played a computer a game of chess? If so have you ever tried to do the same move over and over again just to see what the computer will do? It will repeat the same move over and over agian because it sees you do a move and decides the best move to counter that move. It has no concept of awareness and no indendant thought to realize that you are just fucking with it. After a while the computer will declair the game a draw. If you were playing a truly sentient being it would realize the dilema and be able to adjust its play and generate spontaneous and unpredictable responses to your manipulation. If you did this every day for a month, each day it would create new solutions to your handling of the game based on its emotional state at the time. Some days it would be fun, others it would get pissed off. After a while of this, when you come to the computer to play, it would refuse altogether because it would be able to realize you are going to do it again and it would be able to form an opinion about you that you are a jerk (for example) and its not fun to play with you anymore. A simulation would not be able to make that leap from conditioned response to the conclusion that the person it is playing chess with is a jerk.

While this is a simplified example you can equate that to a complex level where you have a high functioning simulation of Starbuck who is placed in a certian environment and fed controlled stimuli. It would have no sentience to react with anything outside of its own programmed experiences.

Starbuck

here is a little link to a tiny bit more info on the subject of computer processing future

bc.tensegrity.net...

scroll down to the dna nanocomputer section