OldWorldRevival t1_j51ecmq wrote
Reply to comment by sticky_symbols in Instead of escaping to virtual realities, what if we just made our reality as good as any virtual reality could be? by [deleted]
I don't want to live in Inception, thank you very much.
While our world might be a simulation, we do not know that it is, or on what level it is a simulation. At worst, it is closest to the realest world, if there even is such a thing.
If this world's pleasures cannot satisfy you, why do you think the VR worlds' will? By altering your basic circuits?
What do you think is the nature of being and consciousness?
There are all these assumptions and unknowns that people on this sub just take for granted. There's a sort of arrogance to it as well, as if one is somehow enlightened and advanced for having a few basic conceptual understandings about questions like "are we in the matrix" or consciousness, without really having probed these topics specifically or in depth.
sticky_symbols t1_j51fc8p wrote
You didn't respond to my points in the tiniest, so I'm not going to respond to yours.
I have probed these topics specifically and in depth, but you're not getting that insight if you choose to ignore me and repeat yourself.
OldWorldRevival t1_j51nm6x wrote
What points? Limited resources? What limits will we have in the real world with fusion reactors and AI all over the place?
Get my drift?
Or do you mean to deprive me of the right to live in the real world out of some sort of abstract utilitarianism.
Perhaps I glossed over this because I thought it was so incredibly basic that it was patently obvious, like pointing out the sky is blue, but I guess not...
sticky_symbols t1_j5229zk wrote
The other point of view is you depriving trillions of people from living delightful lives so that you can live in base reality.
Even though you couldn't tell the difference in some simulations. You can simulate in arbitrarily high definitions, and simulate full ecosystems and everything else you want.
It sounds like you haven't thought this through thoroughly yet. I hope this discussion is useful.
leechmeem t1_j54dxh6 wrote
You can't tell the difference, but you know it's not the objective reality? Would it really make anyone content with their lives?
Like the other guy said, we don't know if we are in a simulation or not. I believe that's why we even bother to subconsciously assign meaning to anything at all. Will we only delude ourselves to give meaning to something that doesn't fundamentally matter, just to cater to our escapism? People in games like VRChat can have any body they want, anime, some movie character, whatever. But, when you take the VR headset off, you realize that it wasn't objectively you, and it will never objectively be you.
There are people out there that struggle with differentiating fantasy from reality, so will this really be a good thing?
I am not very particularly enlightened on this subject, so I will continue to read what other people think about the whole thing. I just wanted to throw this out there.
sticky_symbols t1_j556zz2 wrote
One point people make is about internal consistency. That's a big part of what we call reality. If you could work to build things and make friends, and random chance frequently came along and changed everything, you wouldn't feel like that work was worth doing. I think we care more about whether our current reality is reliable than whether it happens to be base reality.
leechmeem t1_j56dhud wrote
I think it's fine if you want to give your personalized reality meaning, it's just you shouldn't put it on a higher pedestal over the base reality. You play an MMO, you spend lots of time grinding in the game and you are satisfied, but it doesn't affect the reality you were born into. When the game shuts off, you go on with your day realizing that it never really had an impact on anything at all. If you decide to live most of your life in a virtual reality, what then if the game breaks or corrupts? Is it more reliable still?
If our internal feelings are only positive when we live in a virtual world and remain negative in the base reality, isn't that how addiction starts? Isn't that why we get addicted to meth, heroin, pcp? We'd only be lowering our desire to live in our base reality and change ourselves for the better for the favor of something you or someone else has created to live in. But on the other hand, our virtual realities can affect our base reality and make us better people in the base reality? It's very hard to say, and this question can't really be answered yet.
My belief is, you can play the game and have fun, but if you take the game too seriously, it'll leave you angry and disappointed.
sticky_symbols t1_j56iyym wrote
That's all true of VR now. We were originally discussing VR in a post-singularity and presumably post-scarcity world. That type of VR could be a lot better, and not necessitate leaving for base reality at all. I'd eventually like to have my mind uploaded and backed up, rather than dependent on a physical body.
Thiccboifentalin t1_j54bti4 wrote
I know that this steak is not real, my mind is telling me that it is juicy and delicious, and you know what I realized? Ignorance is bliss!
Standard-Pain5102 t1_j5325ee wrote
How do you know we’re not already? Do you always know you’re dreaming? I’m not trying to be argumentative. But if the technology works so well we don’t know the difference then there’s no difference.
OldWorldRevival t1_j53lk9a wrote
I already addressed this in my post! Heh.
We don't know - and moreover, we don't even know that there is a physical reality outside of us in the first place. All external things may be virtual, and reality itself may be only made up of consciousness.
Just a fun little flip for you.
That said, we certainly need not assume that we're in a sort of matrix. Or, if we are, wouldn't it be better to use AI to jailbreak our own matrix?
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