Miscellaneous Topics

[Husky]

This post is to some extent related to the spam series started in posts 138-140, and which was continued all through posts 144-151 of the Natural Religions thread.

In specific, this post is related to point 2 of post 146 of that thread. I.e. [b]on Simulation Theory, which has long been the dream (fantasy?) of those in AI[/b], whatever concerns they may pretend to have now.





1. express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/575653/The-Matrix-Universe-Planet-Earth-NASA-Scientist

Our universe may be a Matrix-like computer game designed by aliens, says NASA scientist

WELCOME to The Matrix. You've lived here all your life.



By Aaron Brown

PUBLISHED: 09:28, Mon, May 11, 2015 | UPDATED: 09:30, Mon, May 11, 2015





Everything you have ever done or will do could simply be the product of a highly-advanced computer code.



Every relationship, every sentiment, every memory could have been generated by banks of supercomputers.



This was the terrifying theory first proposed by British philosopher Nick Bostrom.

(Uh? Even considering all things western alone, the Matrix movie preceded the IIRC 2003 paper of Bostrom. Oh wait, I'm anticipating the article text



The shocking hypothesis was penned four years after Andrew and Lana Wachowski wrote and directed The Matrix, a film set in a dystopian future in which humans are subdued by a simulated reality.



In his paper, Dr Bostrom suggested a race of far-evolved descendants could be behind our digital imprisonment.



The futuristic beings – human or otherwise – could be using virtual reality to simulate a time in the past or recreate how their remote ancestors lived.



Sound crazy? Well, it turns out NASA thinks Dr Bostrom might be right.



GETTY: The Standard Model of Physics does not yet hold an explanation for the force of gravity



Many theorists have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how you explain this



Rich Terrile, director at NASA



Rich Terrile, director of the Centre for Evolutionary Computation and Automated Design at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has spoken out about the digital simulation.



"Right now the fastest NASA supercomputers are cranking away at about double the speed of the human brain," the NASA scientist told Vice.



"If you make a simple calculation using Moore's Law [which roughly claims computers double in power every two years], you'll find that these supercomputers, inside of a decade, will have the ability to compute an entire human lifetime of 80 years – including every thought ever conceived during that lifetime – in the span of a month.



"In quantum mechanics, particles do not have a definite state unless they're being observed.



"Many theorists have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how you explain this.



"One explanation is that we're living within a simulation, seeing what we need to see when we need to see it.



"What I find inspiring is that, even if we are in a simulation or many orders of magnitude down in levels of simulation, somewhere along the line something escaped the primordial ooze to become us and to result in simulations that made us – and that's cool."

(Wait, are they lamely ending with "We may not be the originals, but at least we're somehow connected to the originals via n degrees of separation"? Sad. Honestly, who cares about originality? Even back when we were certain we were not simulations - or didn't ponder the question - later generations were simply repeating the experiences of earlier ones. I think most of the chances for any 'originality' died a long time ago anyway. Very few original conceptions spooking around humanity's brain now. It's "been there, done that", or at least "imagined it a long time ago already".)



The idea that our Universe is a fiction generated by computer code solves a number of inconsistencies and mysteries about the cosmos.



GETTY: Professor Fermi known for achieving the first controlled nuclear reaction, leads a lecture



AP: Enrico Fermi outside an atomic energy plant in Newport in October 1957



The first is the Fermi Paradox – proposed by physicist Enrico Fermi during the 1960s – which highlights the contradiction between the apparent high probability of extraterrestrial civilisations within our ever-expanding universe and humanity's lack of contact with, or lack of evidence for, these alien colonies.



"Where is everybody?" Mr Fermi asked.



It could simply be that Earth and mankind truly is the centre of the universe.



Another mystery explained by Dr Bostrom's Matrix-like theory is the role of Dark Matter.



US theoretical cosmologist Michael Turner has called the hypothetical material "the most profound mystery in all of science".



Dark Matter is one of many hypothetical materials used to explain a number of anomalies in the Standard Model – the all-encompassing theory science has used to explain the particles and forces of nature for the last 50 years.



The Standard Model of particle physics tells us that there are 17 fundamental particles which make up atomic matter.





GETTY: A scientist works within the ATLAS control room, part of the Large Hadron Collider facility



GETTY: Scientists hope to prove the existence of Dark Matter within the CERN accelerator



The Higgs boson, which was first theorised by scientists during the 1960s, is amongst these 17 fundamental particles.



In summer 2012, scientists at CERN observed what is now believed to be the elusive "God particle".



But the Standard Model is as-yet unable to explain a number of baffling properties of the universe – including the fact that the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing speed.



Dark Matter is believed to be a web-like matter that binds visible matter together.



If it exists, it would explain why galaxies spin at the speed they do – something which remains unexplained based only on what we can currently observe.



The Standard Model does not yet hold an explanation for the force of gravity.



The as-yet unproven existence of Dark Matter could be explained by a virtual universe.



But not everybody is convinced about The Matrix explanation.



Professor Peter Millican, who teaches philosophy and computer science at Oxford University, thinks the virtual reality explanation is flawed.



"The theory seems to be based on the assumption that ‘superminds’ would do things in much the same way as we would do them," he said.



"If they think this world is a simulation, then why do they think the superminds – who are outside the simulation – would be constrained by the same sorts of thoughts and methods that we are?

(I don't understand the argument. Because if "Superminds" were simulating less capable ancestors confined to a more limited context i.e. universe, maybe they do need to restrict their thinking to a limited number of n dimensions or whatever limitations are necessary to match the simulation's world. Isn't the [Ancestor Simulation] theory about how those who are running the simulation are looking backward (to their own more primitive pasts) and not looking forward in doing so? And if their past need not be as advanced as their present, the simulation would therefore not depict anything as advanced as what they're capable of, but just the minimum necessary to produce a reasonably realistic illustration of their more limited ancestors and the latter's more limited [perceptions of] the world/their setting?)



"They assume that the ultimate structure of a real world can't be grid like, and also that the superminds would have to implement a virtual world using grids.



"We can’t conclude that a grid structure is evidence of a pretend reality just because our ways of implementing a pretend reality involve a grid."

Related articles



Large Hadron Collider: World-changing Dark Matter could be discovered in just TWO MONTHS

Stunning RING of FIRE photographed in deep space was predicted by Einstein in 1915

Einstein RING of FIRE proves Dark Matter is NOT dark after all, claims new research

NASA tests WARP DRIVE capable of blasting ships from Earth to the Moon in just FOUR hours

(Woo. Tomorrow we'll be Building the Enterprise. The day after, Voyager.)



Professor Millican does believe there is worth in investigating the idea.



"It is an interesting idea, and it’s healthy to have some crazy ideas," he told The Telegraph.



"You don’t want to censor ideas according to whether they seem sensible or not because sometimes important new advances will seem crazy to start with.



"You never know when good ideas may come from thinking outside the box.



"This Matrix thought-experiment is actually a bit like some ideas of Descartes and Berkeley, hundreds of years ago.



“Even if there turns out to be nothing in it, the fact that you have got into the habit of thinking crazy things could mean that at some point you are going to think of something that initially may seem rather way out, but turns out not to be crazy at all."

Intriguing how the Matrix - which totally plagiarised several E Asian films (and in particular one) for visual and technical features and certain concepts, not to mention how it plagiarised the western film "Dark City" for other ideas - is now credited with the conception. When in reality, the Matrix creators didn't invent the notion but simply 'creatively' poached on the idea of the apparent cosmos and our existence/perception in it not being the true reality (having a veneer concealing the true reality, or else being an illusion/unreal in some sense) from a certain religion that shall not be named.



Which is why the unoriginality of the central theme of the Matrix was long ago discussed to death all over the internet.



E.g. answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080101040230AAYeqMI

(particularly point 2)



[True that the use of "Asatoma sadgamaya" in a track is not a random choice, not some mere generic religious symbolism the way it was in the BSG reboot.]





Anyway, the objection to the Simulation Hypothesis (incl Ancestor Simulation Theory) still stands: it's a conspiracy theory that by its very nature is not meant to find proof of itself. Being a conspiracy theory. Already explained in point 2 of post 146.





2. cityam.com/221721/does-actually-universe-exist-we-might-all-be-living-one-big-computer-game-scientists-say

Does the universe actually exist? We might all be living in one big computer game, scientists say

Share:

Shares: 307



by Sarah Spickernell



5 August 2015 4:59pm



Who's to say the universe isn't being controlled by aliens? (Source: Getty)



We always talk about the robots replacing humans, but what if we actually are robots, with brains that are programmed just like computers to think in a certain way?



Read more: Did the big bang happen? Scientists call theory into question



Our universe behaves suspiciously similarly to a simulated computer, obeying a series of mathematical formulas that all link up together, and according to some physicists this means the world as we know it may be one big lie.



Just as a computer is unaware of humans' superior existence, we might be unaware of a higher technological force controlling all that goes on in the universe, including our thoughts and actions.



Technology expert Ray Kurzweil told Space.com: "maybe our whole universe is a science experiment of some junior high school student in another universe."



Oxford University philosophy professor Nick Bostrom has a similar view, and compares human life to being in The Matrix:





Instead of having brains in vats that are fed by sensory inputs from a simulator, the brains themselves would also be part of the simulation.



It would be one big computer program simulating everything, including human brains down to neurons and synapses.





Unfortunately, the questions of what we are and where we come from are going to remain unanswered for the time being, as we currently have no way of finding out whether the universe is definitely real.





Did the big bang happen? Scientists call theory into question

Aliens will be discovered within 10 years, says Nasa scientist

Aliens hit South London

About aliens: the Vatican has recently predictably come out with their affirmation that they will baptise aliens. I.e. they will missionise/convert even aliens. And this sentiment isn't restricted to the catholics either: the christian faux sci-fi book on Columbus by the homophobic Mormon author of Ender's Game or whatever (have never read his junk) already attracted reviews by evangelical christians who were determined that any aliens we contact must be converted to jeebusism=christianism too. Apparently the gospel's "salvation message" (salvation from Adam and Eve's fall/original sin, note) is now for everyone, i.e. truly universal=catholic hence requiring evangelism of the gospel/spreading the 'good news'. And this despite the fact that christianism has yet to invent the backstory of how all aliens are now to have suddenly descended from Adam and Eve too, and hence are also to be tainted by original sin and thus need to accept jeebus to be saved. That story becomes lamer with every retelling/restructuring, can't believe it still sells.

The other reason for the announcement of the Pope & "astronomer" Jesuits on their belief in the possibility of alien life is merely to save face for christianism: by declaring it now 'in advance' - late though it is - they want to pretend by the time the actual first contact or first verification of alien existence comes around that christianism had always conceived of and considered the existence of aliens in the universe, despite the babble's infinite nonsense having precluded any such prescience (or even imagination) on christianism's part. The babble was famously the reason for christianism insisting that the earth was the centre of the universe. And so it remains in christian theology as seen by the Pope's declaration that even if aliens exist there is only one jeebus in the universe: one point of salvation and hence humanity as the first of christianism's "chosen people".





If the prospect of christoislamics of Earth going about converting all 'intelligent species' in the galaxy and eventually the universe - which dystopian vision was already fearfully predicted in post 343 of this thread* - if that isn't a reason to repeat or expand on Ripley and Hicks' statement of "I say we go into orbit and nuke the planet" (for the good of others in the universe), then I don't know what is.



* And where christoislam is concerned, the worst case scenarios are usually what come to pass.





3. On what Nick Bostrom hypothesised. Pasting just the abstract and conclusion. The full paper is at link.



simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

ARE YOU LIVING IN A COMPUTER SIMULATION?

BY NICK BOSTROM



Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University



Published in Philosophical Quarterly (2003) Vol. 53, No. 211, pp. 243-255.



[simulation-argument.com]



pdf-version: [PDF]



ABSTRACT



This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.



[...]

A technologically mature “posthuman” civilization would have enormous computing power. Based on this empirical fact, the simulation argument shows that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero; (2) The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero; (3) The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one.



If (1) is true, then we will almost certainly go extinct before reaching posthumanity. If (2) is true, then there must be a strong convergence among the courses of advanced civilizations so that virtually none contains any relatively wealthy individuals who desire to run ancestor-simulations and are free to do so. If (3) is true, then we almost certainly live in a simulation. In the dark forest of our current ignorance, it seems sensible to apportion one’s credence roughly evenly between (1), (2), and (3).



Unless we are now living in a simulation, our descendants will almost certainly never run an ancestor-simulation.

(Can't remember that I ever followed that argument of his.)





4. Bostrom strikes again. Has he joined the gang that's foreshadowing Terminator all over again?**



theguardian.com/science/audio/2014/aug/04/science-weekly-podcast-nick-bostrom-ai-artificial-intelligence

How super AI could end the age of humans – podcast

Professor Nick Bostrom discusses the existential threats posed by a superintelligent computer and why we will only get one chance to control such a powerful machine

Here's hoping humanity squanders that chance.

(Yeah, I'm still rooting for the machines. Is that... wrong? Does that make me a traitor? :evil grin:

Humanity is kind of a disappointment. Let's be honest.)





** Q: Why do some working in AI now start to pretend to the public that the future they envision of robots "taking over the evolutionary baton from humanity"* was not always their life-long dream and their (endorsed!) prediction?

* Paraphrased. But is it necessary to keep referring to "Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind" by Hans Moravec for almost a decade? Of course, that's from back when those in AI at least didn't pretend they weren't drooling all over the prospect.

Now it's all "Oh my gawd, what if we're building Skynet"?

Either it's just cold feet or they know more than they're saying.



Other news seen within the past weeks mentioned that some AI had recently passed the self-awareness test. And another had passed the Turing Test - for when humans can't tell a robot's a robot (i.e. when humans mistake it for a natural intelligence). Mwahahaha. The future's going to happen whether Elon Musk or whoever wants it or not. And if they now fear a mass genocide of humanity by the machines may be a plausible scenario, then, from a heathen perspective, being genocided by machines or by monotheists ultimately makes little difference to heathens. Plus the machines may be more ruthlessly efficient (e.g. as seen in Terminator) and thus less sadistic and rapist than the christoislamic menace.

Whereas BSG depicted the reality that humans may well (gang-)rape self-aware robots. If humans can conceive such behaviour - as the show creators did - then it must be so. I mean, let's face it, Game of Thrones is still one of the most popular programs in a significant part of the world (particularly the west) and each season has more deliberately controversial and sensational scenes than the previous ones (including more explicit rape scenes, as per more recent news again). Then there's ISIS that goes around raping and murdering. What all that says about the humans currently dominating visibility on the planet - i.e. the christoislam-infested humanity - is that humanity on the whole comes off as nasty and regressive. And so, if machines or some natural disaster did away with mindvirus-possessed humanity, then it's no real loss, objectively speaking (as from the POV of a third party).



I root for the heathens incl other animals/plants/etc first. But if the heathens can't win, I'd totally collaborate with whoever - be these aliens or machines - may want to destroy the christoclass mindvirus infested humanity. It is gangrene and should be destroyed. It's like the old comical adage that my cousin always referred to when we were about to enter into fisticuffs: "I may lose an eye, but you're going to lose both". Heathens may get extincted too - inevitable - but since they're going to go down, can make sure the christoclass virus (which exists by means of its carriers) does not survive either. Since if anyone of humanity ought to survive, it ought to be heathens alone, since they're the least threat: not being missionary, plus having always been more interested in keeping their environmental footprint to a minimum.



Hmmm, forgot that the BSG reboot - which is essentially about Ancestor Simulation Theory - has the machines/cylons as the monotheists and evangelical about it. Typical. Whether they took over the evolutionary baton from humans or not, christo-conditioned western society has already envisioned machines taking over the christoclass meme and passing it on, peddling it about. Just like christianism has already mentally prepared itself to convert any aliens humanity may come into contact with, as also seen reiterated in the Vatican's recent statement on this. (ibtimes.co.uk/vatican-observatory-aliens-may-exist-theres-only-one-jesus-entire-universe-1513974)