Someone mentioned the Matrix earlier
and I got my mate umming, ahhing and chin-stroking over this one.

At some point in the near future, artificial intelligence will reach the point where a computer could simulate true sentience. Inevitably, scientists will then build a rudimentary version of The Sims. Except it would be most realistic rather than a game whereby you have to struggle to have your character get enough sleep, wake up, carry out their ablutions, cook breakfast and eat it all in time to leave for work.

Anyway, this version of The Sims with true self-awareness will be developed and scaled up until they have a room of supercomputers running a worldwide version, in essence a computer model of the planet Earth and every living thing on it, all interacting in nigh on infinite permutations.

A simulation of people going about their day to day mundanities, finding jobs, relationships, spending time on the internet posting on a website about conspiracy theories, or anecdotes about their workmates or sexual misadventures.

This level of development in computer modelling and AI inevitable. It could have already happened. We could be in that simulation running decades from what we think is the present day. Running in a completely different future to what we are heading towards. We could be in a simulation whereby some men in a lab somewhere have entered the parameters to see what happens if George Bush beats Al Gore in the US elections.

Are there holes in this idea or is it a water-tight theory?
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Fri 28 Aug 2009, 19:12, 18 replies)

If it is...
You broke the system and have probably already been replaced by a new simulation of yourself that thinks you posted this without believing it.
(Scritty Bakerman., Fri 28 Aug 2009, 19:16, closed)

"Are their holes in this idea or is it a water-tight theory?"
It's 'there', their is possessive as in:
"their horse attacked my unicorn"
Apologies if it's a typo, it's a pet peeve.
(Evilweevil is covered in bees, Fri 28 Aug 2009, 19:34, closed)

I'm the same
I don't know what got into me.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Fri 28 Aug 2009, 19:37, closed)

Have you come across Nick Bostrom?
He's a philosopher at Oxford who thinks that it's overwhelmingly tolerably likely that the world we inhabit is a computer simulation.

See www.simulation-argument.com/ for more.

Edited for apeloverage's sake. He's such a nice boy.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 28 Aug 2009, 20:42, closed)

You
never cease to amaze me with the thingss you know.
(misskitty reeks of sex and turpentine; laudanum afternoons, Fri 28 Aug 2009, 23:52, closed)

:)
Why, thank you, miss!
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Sat 29 Aug 2009, 15:07, closed)

No he doesn't.
www.simulation-argument.com/faq.html

"Personally, I assign less than 50% probability to the simulation hypothesis – rather something like 20%."
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sat 29 Aug 2009, 2:12, closed)

Yeah - OK
Long time since I read it.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Sat 29 Aug 2009, 15:06, closed)

Assuming that it is possible for a society to survive long enough to produce such a simulation (and that, once one is produced, others can be made), it is more likely that we are inside one than that we are in the original universe.
However when you start looking at odds for things like this, it also becomes rather likely that your conciousness with all your memories etc only in fact exists for a tiny fraction of a second due to the vacuum fluctuations allowed by the uncertainty principle (the Boltzmann Brain paradox)
( Tedium Alduce me to interlow myself., Fri 28 Aug 2009, 21:39, closed)

spend more time working on interesting things

(Evilweevil is covered in bees, Fri 28 Aug 2009, 21:54, closed)

That's
what *they* would want you to say.
(dchurch bah, Fri 28 Aug 2009, 22:09, closed)

'sif get out more.
Bloody fun theory.
(Scritty Bakerman., Sat 29 Aug 2009, 13:55, closed)

THEORY OR FACT
"Some men in a lab" are not men but a totally different species.
(SBCkittencure, Sat 29 Aug 2009, 4:53, closed)

It's been done.
It's called the Thirteenth Floor: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Floor
(FleetlordVT, Sat 29 Aug 2009, 7:49, closed)

Dunno.
Maybe you should ask the white mice...
( Shazzoir Old enough to know better young enough not to care, Sat 29 Aug 2009, 12:44, closed)

Al Gore or AI Gore?
(or to look at it differently, AL GORE or AI GORE?)
( eXOBeX, Mon 31 Aug 2009, 19:46, closed)

Let's just hope
No one makes a 'There is no spoon' reference.
(ParaSitius is an Optimistic Pessimist, Wed 2 Sep 2009, 15:01, closed)