Category: Philosophy
Sentient World: a simulation of civilization
We are on the verge of being able to simulate every person, thing and activity on the planet, play it, replay it, run it at ultra high speed so that years speed by in seconds, and intervene, God-like, to see how the simulation is effected. A small step from that will be to endow these simulated beings, individually with sentience. We will then run hundreds, no, millions of these simulations for every imaginable reason from war games to marketing research to sheer entertainment.
One might wonder how we could think of running experiments or games with beings, albeit virtual beings, who were experiencing their reality just as we experience ours. As interesting as that question is there”s another, even more interesting one. How do we know we ourselves are not sentient virtual beings in someone else”s simulation?
If considered with dispassionate objectivity I believe the answer to that question is that we almost certainly ARE living in a a virtual simulation. Here”s the argument: if we can do it (almost) then surely other civilizations elsewhere/elsewhen in the multiverse have/had/will have the same ability, probably countless gazillions of them each running gazillions of simulations. That makes it extremely more likely that we are in a simulation than not. Especially when you factor in that simulated beings ought to be able to run their own simulations.
So, we are either all alone in the multiverse (come on, get over yourself) or we are the most technologically advanced (sure we are) or nobody ever runs these simulations (we are about to, why wouldn”t others?). Or, we are overwhelmingly probably a simulation ourselves. Neat.
This argument originates with Nick Bostrum.
“I am” or “I will be”
I just read the preface and introduction of The Physics of Immortality, by Frank Tipler. This is going to be an interesting book. He points out that where the Bible quotes God as referring to himself as “I am that I am” it is really a mistranslation of the Hebrew which actually uses the future tense and should be “I will be that I will be”. Interesting in light of LDS doctrine that eternal life = eternal progression. Even God is in the process of becoming.
Interesting to compare this with a literal and absolute characterization of God as “unchanging” and all that implies for his ability to experience, perceive and feel. It requires that every instance ascribing emotion to God be taken figuratively or that any temporal context be disposed of. The latter is not hard to accept. But God told Moses that it his work and his glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. Does his glory not then increase as he accomplishes his work? Maybe he doesn’t change but his power increases.
That’s an interesting thought. Being omnipotent he can do as he will. But he chooses to restrict his power to allow us our freedom. We thus become a means by which his will/work is accomplished. As our efficacy increases so does his – albeit only due to this self-imposed limitation. So again, he remains unchanged though important characteristics/attributes such as his glory/power do change.