If you learned that we were in fact in a simulations, would you feel that you were not real? Would you have an overwhelming desire to escape, in order to become real?
Cogito ergo sum. If I am learning or feeling anything, I do actually exist (though my perceptions and beliefs may be false). It is impossible for me to not be real in the sense of not presently existing, however it is that the alleged simulation works.
“Inside a simulation” means several things. A brain in a vat, plugged into Second Life 2.0, is “inside a simulation”. But you want the brain itself to be a simulation too, yes? I certainly don’t believe that every simulation of a brain is conscious. A sign with a smiley face on it is a crude “simulation of happiness”, but I think we will agree there’s no actual happiness around in that situation. There is a continuum of possibilities between a smiley face and a happy person, and at some point on that continuum you get the real thing, but certainly not everywhere on the continuum.
If you learned that we were in fact in a simulations, would you feel that you were not real? Would you have an overwhelming desire to escape, in order to become real?
Cogito ergo sum. If I am learning or feeling anything, I do actually exist (though my perceptions and beliefs may be false). It is impossible for me to not be real in the sense of not presently existing, however it is that the alleged simulation works.
Do you agree that it would be possible to feel real inside a simulation (whether the simulation is of one mind or a whole universe)?
“Inside a simulation” means several things. A brain in a vat, plugged into Second Life 2.0, is “inside a simulation”. But you want the brain itself to be a simulation too, yes? I certainly don’t believe that every simulation of a brain is conscious. A sign with a smiley face on it is a crude “simulation of happiness”, but I think we will agree there’s no actual happiness around in that situation. There is a continuum of possibilities between a smiley face and a happy person, and at some point on that continuum you get the real thing, but certainly not everywhere on the continuum.