Red pill. When immersed in virtuality, I would not erase my memory of reality. Unless, of course, it is assumed that “we are from a true simple and boring universe” cannot play games either. Well, don’t you think that there is too much suffering in the world? Although the very idea of a simpler universe is interesting.
I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to say. Do you think Morpheus may be lying, and/or that this world is so bad that a boring one is better? In that case you’re free to go see the real world, but you’re free to come back to this world (or another simulated world that you like better) at any time. It’s more exciting if you think that the blue/red pill decision is one-in-a-lifetime, but more realistically it’d be set up so that you can go in and out as you please (with the obvious caveats of “you don’t remember the real world”, like in dreams), with the same role as a movie or a game.
Okay, let me flesh it out a bit more: There isn’t much to do or discover or fix or protect. Everything is pretty much done. All universal truths are in a 500-page book, which you first read in full at age 15, and understood completely at age 19. Any societal change/revolution would demonstrably bring forth more suffering than happiness. History is 200 years old, and not much has happened since year 157, when we finished mapping the human brain. Some of the first humans are still alive and can tell you what happened just like I can tell you what I had for lunch (or you can experience it yourself in you want). You can understand another human being in full after a 10-minute session of mind-sharing, and the differences between human minds are subjectively of about 10% at most. You can have sex with whoever you want to (after mind-sharing, of course), but natural sex is about as pleasurable as a chocolate cookie. A Friendly AI was built, and it decided to shut itself down because helping us would only deplete the last reserves of fun in the universe, and it didn’t want to make us dumber or orgasmium. In short, any goal that you can think of, is either provably undesirable, or it can be accomplished in one day at most. More intelligence doesn’t help. We were the Singularity. To us, the world is a medium-dificulty Minesweeper board, that has already been solved. The game wasn’t difficulty-scaled to the player, but this time it went into the “too easy” direction (like that one Eliezer short story, but for everything).
What do you even do all day in such a world? What everyone does is superstimulate their brain in various ways. And if you put all those superstimuli together, you get the most popular experience: Earth. Full of dangers, pleasures and mysteries. Kill or be killed. Amass wealth or starve to death. Overthrow cruel governments, or live a life of oppression. Mind-blowing sex awaits you, but you will need to seduce these impossibly sexy people… by using only your words! Take the craziness up to 11 with drugs! Discover profoundly weird science. Explore this vast, unknown universe that you can never visit in full. What’s behind the horizon? Who knows! Let’s find out! The clock is running! You have 80 years.
I don’t seem to quite understand what you’re trying to say either. Are you suggesting that my ideas about my values are not correct, and in fact, in the outside world, what best satisfies the values of the outer me is immersion in the Earth with complete oblivion? If so, then it is not clear what the question of choosing between the red and blue pill is, because since I am here, I have already chosen the blue one.
P.S. I have a feeling that you’re assuming the same fallacy here as the theists (forgot the name) when you assume that our world is the maximum optimization for human values, which is the best we could have. Although it is not. And if it is optimized for the values of the people of the outside world, and not ours, then how can we draw conclusions with our values. (I’m not trying to use some kind of manipulative technique, I’m just expressing how I feel)
(Sorry for taking so long between replies—my account logs out automatically and I never remember to log back in)
Yes, that’s close to what I’m saying. When watching a movie, we have the ability to “almost-forget” the real world to become immersed in it. In red-pill world, you can do this but cranked up to 11, you literally forget everything so that it all feels way more exciting, whether good or bad. You retain all memories afterwards. And yes, outer-you already chose, but I consider inner-you to be a different person, so the question is still meaningful for me (both will merge if you redpill, like when you wake up from a dream, so it’s not suicide either).
But yeah, it’s less of a serious question that needs an answer, and more of an existential horror story. It conveys the idea of the world not being balanced like a videogame, but in an unusual direction. We usually struggle with the endlessness of the obstacles that are in the way of our goals; but imagining that all the obstacles suddenly end and all the goals are trivially reachable, like activating god-mode in a game, is a different kind of terrifying.
Red pill. When immersed in virtuality, I would not erase my memory of reality. Unless, of course, it is assumed that “we are from a true simple and boring universe” cannot play games either. Well, don’t you think that there is too much suffering in the world? Although the very idea of a simpler universe is interesting.
I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to say. Do you think Morpheus may be lying, and/or that this world is so bad that a boring one is better? In that case you’re free to go see the real world, but you’re free to come back to this world (or another simulated world that you like better) at any time. It’s more exciting if you think that the blue/red pill decision is one-in-a-lifetime, but more realistically it’d be set up so that you can go in and out as you please (with the obvious caveats of “you don’t remember the real world”, like in dreams), with the same role as a movie or a game.
Okay, let me flesh it out a bit more: There isn’t much to do or discover or fix or protect. Everything is pretty much done. All universal truths are in a 500-page book, which you first read in full at age 15, and understood completely at age 19. Any societal change/revolution would demonstrably bring forth more suffering than happiness. History is 200 years old, and not much has happened since year 157, when we finished mapping the human brain. Some of the first humans are still alive and can tell you what happened just like I can tell you what I had for lunch (or you can experience it yourself in you want). You can understand another human being in full after a 10-minute session of mind-sharing, and the differences between human minds are subjectively of about 10% at most. You can have sex with whoever you want to (after mind-sharing, of course), but natural sex is about as pleasurable as a chocolate cookie. A Friendly AI was built, and it decided to shut itself down because helping us would only deplete the last reserves of fun in the universe, and it didn’t want to make us dumber or orgasmium. In short, any goal that you can think of, is either provably undesirable, or it can be accomplished in one day at most. More intelligence doesn’t help. We were the Singularity. To us, the world is a medium-dificulty Minesweeper board, that has already been solved. The game wasn’t difficulty-scaled to the player, but this time it went into the “too easy” direction (like that one Eliezer short story, but for everything).
What do you even do all day in such a world? What everyone does is superstimulate their brain in various ways. And if you put all those superstimuli together, you get the most popular experience: Earth. Full of dangers, pleasures and mysteries. Kill or be killed. Amass wealth or starve to death. Overthrow cruel governments, or live a life of oppression. Mind-blowing sex awaits you, but you will need to seduce these impossibly sexy people… by using only your words! Take the craziness up to 11 with drugs! Discover profoundly weird science. Explore this vast, unknown universe that you can never visit in full. What’s behind the horizon? Who knows! Let’s find out! The clock is running! You have 80 years.
I don’t seem to quite understand what you’re trying to say either. Are you suggesting that my ideas about my values are not correct, and in fact, in the outside world, what best satisfies the values of the outer me is immersion in the Earth with complete oblivion? If so, then it is not clear what the question of choosing between the red and blue pill is, because since I am here, I have already chosen the blue one. P.S. I have a feeling that you’re assuming the same fallacy here as the theists (forgot the name) when you assume that our world is the maximum optimization for human values, which is the best we could have. Although it is not. And if it is optimized for the values of the people of the outside world, and not ours, then how can we draw conclusions with our values. (I’m not trying to use some kind of manipulative technique, I’m just expressing how I feel)
(Sorry for taking so long between replies—my account logs out automatically and I never remember to log back in)
Yes, that’s close to what I’m saying. When watching a movie, we have the ability to “almost-forget” the real world to become immersed in it. In red-pill world, you can do this but cranked up to 11, you literally forget everything so that it all feels way more exciting, whether good or bad. You retain all memories afterwards. And yes, outer-you already chose, but I consider inner-you to be a different person, so the question is still meaningful for me (both will merge if you redpill, like when you wake up from a dream, so it’s not suicide either).
But yeah, it’s less of a serious question that needs an answer, and more of an existential horror story. It conveys the idea of the world not being balanced like a videogame, but in an unusual direction. We usually struggle with the endlessness of the obstacles that are in the way of our goals; but imagining that all the obstacles suddenly end and all the goals are trivially reachable, like activating god-mode in a game, is a different kind of terrifying.