Brings a smile, xorcist :) "The great unknowable" experiencing itself, through itself, by imposing arbitrary restrictions upon spliters of itself."
Which conception gives rise to a fundamental existential question: "To what extent am I puppeteered/ pre-ordained, and to what extent (if at all) am I able to exercise 'free will'?" On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 03:02:34AM -0000, [email protected] wrote: > Too cerebral. > > It's interesting to me that the simulation hypothesis has so much in > common with Buddhist philosophy. In fact, Buddhism already answers this > sort of thing. > > Alan Watts, as a Zen Buddhist, presented the view that life is essentially > a game played out at the cosmic level. All life is essentially the > ultimate > source of consciousness, God, the Atman.. whatever you want to call it. > God desired to experience life as Alan Watts, and Richard Nixon, and dogs, > and lions and gazelle in order to expand its experience, its awareness, of > itself. > > Put another way, intelligent life is the part of the universe that > endeavors to understand itself. We're the Universe's subconscious. We are > the dreams of the ultimate mind. > > So, the equivalent Buddhist question would be - why would an incredibly > advanced mind dream of us? Well, the answer to that is why do you dream > the things you dream? It's a statement of desire, or of dread - because > fundamentally life is a bit boring, and its much better if you're banging > supermodels or running from zombies. So those things come up in dreams. > Likewise, its incredibly boring being God. Imagine it. Never being > surprised, needing nothing, all goals can be met without the slightest > effort, and so on. It would be an incredible drag. > > Casting this notion into the framework of a simulation, one might say that > this advanced civilization is simply bored. Imagine Star-Trek type > technology, where you just hit a button and get a perfect steak. The SAME > steak, every time. There is no need to cook, because you'll never beat the > machine, and yet in the end.. it all ends up tasting plastic. > > Even with our meager technology, a great many people enjoy "roughing it" > in the woods, camping and going low-tech. They enjoy getting away from TVs > and phones and nonsense, and getting back to a more basic existence. > > No need for existential crisis. Just a desire for life to be flavorful. > > > So many people have proposed we're simulated... > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis > > > > Now why would such an extremely advanced civilization / collective > > want to simulate us? Is this an unanswered question? > > > > Certainly they have long since > > - solved biology, live forever, down/up load their brains against trauma > > - solved life and mobility throughout their universe > > - lost and forgotten their prehistory > > - etc > > > > They could sim anything they want. So why sim us? > > > > Because something happened to them, something very big, something > > serious and existentially threatening. And now they're *desperately* > > trying to learn about death, life, humanity, the individual... something > > they lost but is still encoded in them just enough to let them think of > > making the sim... > > >
