Thoughts on Full Dive - Are we in one right now?

Submitted by fignewtgingrich t3_y9puyx in singularity

Could our base reality self be running millions of simulations and then living them all out?

If we are indeed able to make full dive a thing. A fully immersive digital reality. Then, aren’t the chances that we are in one right now world-shatteringly high?

I think we are going to get numb to regular full dive faster than expected. Particularly if we are offered the ability to use it but without being conscious of our other life. Think the episode of Rick and Morty where Morty plays the life simulator game and lives an entire persons life out without being conscious of his other self. After using full dive for a while wouldn’t it become exceptionally more enticing to use it but without being conscious of your other life? The value of not knowing your other life could be high, because now everything truly feels real. Sort of like the show severance where your consciousness is split into separate. Could our base reality self be running millions of simulations and then living them all out?

That begs the question - How do we know we are not in one of these full dive simulations right now? We all wonder this already of course, what I am saying is that I think we could start to become increasingly aware of the likelihood that we are in a full dive sim. We may even one day come to widely accept it as a high likelihood. And perhaps we could even leverage ASI to help us find out if we are indeed in one, what is outside the simulation, and how do we get there?

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Zermelane t1_it6tvit wrote

What do you mean "we"? I'm the only one here, all the rest of you are simulations.

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starfyredragon t1_it83b26 wrote

Actually, I nested my simulation inside a simulation. You only think you're logging in from the real world, you're just a simulation changing instances you're simulated in. I'm running everything through code direct. If you do a code inspect on my Avatar's code, you'll notice they're totally not what you'd expect from a normal NPC.

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Eleganos t1_itd9bsz wrote

MMO's exist mate. This isn't a zero sum scenario where only one of us can be real.

Also I'm definitely conscious so, y’know, it's either that or you aren't actually real.

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solidwhetstone t1_it8f8ju wrote

I have a robot for an avatar, this is the only explanation that makes sense.

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Kawawaymog t1_it76gy8 wrote

I did a heroic dose of shrooms in the back country a couple years ago. Had a mother of a trip where I felt deeply that this was the true nature of things. I wrote a thing about it here.

TLDR

We are all the same entity, that entity is simultaneously simulating infinite experiences. Each of us is an instance of that entity. And that entity would be appropriately called god.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Psychonaut/comments/sfzva1/two_years_ago_i_did_a_heroic_dose_of_mushrooms_on/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

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broadenandbuild t1_it7o3kj wrote

I had a similar realization without shrooms. I just focused on the empty space in front of me and I realized that the sense of self is everywhere, I’m everything, and everyone is me thinking itself separate from the other.

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Azu_Nite t1_it7zorq wrote

Pretty much what the Buddhist philosophy is.

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RowKiwi t1_itagaj0 wrote

Hinduism, not Buddhism. Buddhism has no-self, not universal self.

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patricktoba t1_it85wk7 wrote

Did the hero dose. 5g PE. Same experience. We’re all one player on infinity accounts of a MMORPG.

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Kawawaymog t1_it8b2sq wrote

God damnit man that is the single best most concise explanation I’ve ever heard. I’d ask your permission to steal it but we’re the same entity so I guess that’s irrelevant?

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StarChild413 t1_itaejk3 wrote

> I’d ask your permission to steal it but we’re the same entity so I guess that’s irrelevant?

And that's why this idea could never catch fire on a societal scale, as imagine if someone tried to use this argument on you with your personal property

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Kawawaymog t1_itanpyi wrote

I don’t think anyone here is suggesting that this line of thinking is any tangible impact on our day to day lives. Beyond perhaps having more empathy for others.

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StarChild413 t1_itaq28g wrote

But it seems like a bit of a garden-path way to say have more empathy

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Kawawaymog t1_itarsa2 wrote

The point of the line of thinking isn’t to encourage people to have more empathy. It’s just an interesting thing to talk about. Things don’t have to have a real world application to be interesting.

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ihateshadylandlords t1_it7lig3 wrote

That sounds similar to the Law of One/Seth Material/Journey of Souls etc. I visit some far out subreddits and some people in those places have that theory as well.

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mootcat t1_it84fes wrote

Indeed!

One of my all time favorite videos by Alan Watts on the subject.

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mouserat_hat t1_it8f6om wrote

Damn. That was an awesome video. Love the idea. Good way to start a Friday! Deep thinking while on the john.

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marvinthedog t1_itfguq3 wrote

I mean wether we are the same entity or different entitys is just a question of definition and a question of ontology. A forest is a forest and a tree is a tree.

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Ohigetjokes t1_it6tjju wrote

Right, the whole "we're not just in The Matrix, we are The Matrix" thing.

Kind of fun to think about.

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3Quondam6extanT9 t1_it761wd wrote

I think "simulation" is a term we don't actually think much about. Regardless of how many believe we are living in one.

Reality is hard to define, essentially due to our inability to define consciousness. We create abstract theories about how our reality is just a hologram, or how we aren't experiencing true solid form because at the atomic and sub atomic level nothing is actually touching each other. We're these scattered patterns of particles in a cohesive makeup.

I think "simulation" is taken for granted that there are so many scales of what that can mean, we end up winding ourselves in existential knots over something that is really just the way any existence functions.

It will always be a simulation, whether we live out lives through proxy systems or original manifestations of material reality.

"Real" is fools gold.

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Standard-Pain5102 t1_ita3zii wrote

As we have no reference point. We could very well be in a simulacra. A made up world created by something else.

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3Quondam6extanT9 t1_itab3ud wrote

Yes, but my point is...so what? We have no reference nor evidence of a layered set of realities. We have this for now, and our knowledge suggests that we are built to see only a certain set of variables that make up this reality.

Think of it like this. In front of you is a cone of sight. It allows you see where you are going and some peripheral views to supplament your awareness. Its narrow, but not too narrow. Just enough to see where you need to go and what you need to do to stay alive.

Now imagine that cone widens and your view is far fuller. You see things like infrared, UV, even atomic scale activity. You even now recognize the underlying current of quantum interference that counts as evidence of your stimulated reality. You know that this is a complex quantum program designed by other entities outside of the sphere of reality you reside in.

Suddenly that cone of sight is too full. There is so much happening that you can see and recognize that you're far too distracted or focused to know where you are going or what you need to do. It's like someone added hundreds of pop-up ads and now you can barely make out whats going on behind them.

A simulation can be considered a simple video game we play or defined as the holographic projection of our reality onto a quantum consciousness. Either way, this is the reality we live in. This is the one we can focus on for now.

But what happens if we find evidence that it is a simulation? What then? Should we expect to act any differently? What would you do if we found out there there is another layer of reality, or that at some point consciousness itself was imprinted in time and space and was able to recreate a universe that once existed, reforging life through it's quantum simulation?

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Cr4zko t1_it7ix0t wrote

I would be very depressed if it was. All this suffering for what?

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kamisdeadnow t1_it81nmy wrote

My guess is that we’re a simulation to create a higher order level of autonomous intelligence for our higher dimensional intelligent designers. We’re part of a collection of realities where experiences of a trillion intelligent life forms over a trillion years are collected to design, train, & build an artificial super intelligence.

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BinyaminDelta t1_it94b3d wrote

Human ancestral history can be seen as a filtering algorithm.

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StarChild413 t1_ita5zp1 wrote

Then why aren't we basilisk-ing towards it with that kind of fervor

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kamisdeadnow t1_ita8qb2 wrote

Human civilization has existed for only 6000 years. Our universe is 13 billions years old. We’ll get there though, I just don’t know if in our lifetime.

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StarChild413 t1_itaaiii wrote

But my point was if that's what we're meant to do why aren't we trying harder

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kamisdeadnow t1_itac2v4 wrote

My guess is religion is an attempt by our intelligent designers to indoctrinate us with their goal in mind.

We’re not getting there as quickly as you might want to think because our overall suffering is still not catastrophic enough to make the collective human morality compass swing in a different direction. Humanity needs to unite where everyone sees each other as equals and prevent inequity and greed from dividing us into financial classes through our current dominant capitalist system.

Sure, we’re near the threat of nuclear warfare from Russia, but we’re still seeing people going to their jobs everyday like it’s nothing. We need a more catastrophic shock to our global world order to the point that that it starts causing people to think and act more differently.

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StarChild413 t1_itapz2o wrote

You sound like you want to create one

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kamisdeadnow t1_itaqsvs wrote

No … I just don’t see how else humanity can be distracted when we have with the World Wide Web hosting apps like Pornhub, TikTok, and Reddit which take take up of a lot of our attention spans to not care enough anymore.

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baegjag t1_it7nl1y wrote

this simulation stinks, I want my money back

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BinyaminDelta t1_it94eu6 wrote

Stink is a feature not a bug, now with Olfactory Sense 3000.

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Azu_Nite t1_it82nit wrote

Take a moment to contemplate on the fact that we are literally being 3D printed from code.

Check out how DNA is made into the building blocks of tissue.

https://youtu.be/5MfSYnItYvg

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BinyaminDelta t1_it94lle wrote

DNA is also the best data storage method in the know universe.

It's storage dense, resilient, long lasting, and self propagating.

But what's the important data?

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kamisdeadnow t1_itad9zg wrote

Genetic hereditary pattern that encode personality traits for our human consciousness. It’s possible our intelligent designers are trying simulate evolution of autonomous consciousness that is robust and versatile to stressors and extreme noise from the environment. Through their design of this simulation of challenges like scarce resources in our reality and evolution of our self being by survival of the fittest in which the most adaptive organism can be able to survive long enough to reproduce to proliferate offspring.

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stupidimagehack t1_it8fov2 wrote

I think our understanding of simulation is flawed. It’s like asking someone in 1776 to explain a mobile smart phone.

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TheSingulatarian t1_it8sveq wrote

Too many shitty things happen to me on a daily basis for me to be living in a simulation of my own choosing.

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kamisdeadnow t1_it80u6v wrote

I like to think we are in a quantum simulation because physicists have managed to prove that the universe it not locally real. We’re not base reality. We’re a simulated reality within higher level reality run by higher dimensional life-forms.

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Desperate_Donut8582 t1_itclspi wrote

Locally real has absolutely nothing to do with being in base reality or not plz don’t baffle nonsense and actual study the topic

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175ParkAvenue t1_it6w5kw wrote

Yeah it is likely that we are in a simulation. But there are many different possibilities regarding who is running the sim and to which purpose. Future humans playing GTA 17 is one possibility.

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dasnihil t1_it75mhx wrote

future humans still waiting for gta 6 bro

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ihateshadylandlords t1_it7l2eh wrote

What makes you think it’s likely we’re in a simulation?

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ToastyRedApple t1_it7q5as wrote

If simulations are possible, there will be many more simulated lifetimes than “real” lifetimes as time goes on. So the chances of this lifetime being “real” approach 0%

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iAmMonkee- t1_it80wyo wrote

no it’s more like 50/50

neil degrasse tyson explains it very well

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StarChild413 t1_ita676b wrote

Then that's true for all lifetimes but someone has to have created it

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StarChild413 t1_ita69c4 wrote

> Future humans playing GTA 17 is one possibility.

Please tell me you meant it metaphorically as it could be any game series, you weren't just saying GTA because "people are assholes" or whatever

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175ParkAvenue t1_itauhqj wrote

Yeah for sure, I don't endorse the 'people are bad' narratives. I just used GTA as a placeholder for whatever ultra advanced open world games could be created by fully technologically mature civilizations, since I played some GTA installments and I liked it.

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mootcat t1_it858sd wrote

You've broached a philosophical subject at this point. It can be framed in many ways, but the underlying thread remains, "Is this real?".

Are we in but one of infinite simulations? Are you the only "real" person in this current simulation? Are there infinite other universes and realities for every permutation of existence? Are we all just God playing that they're not? Does dying simply awaken us from this reality as it does from a dream?

We're fast approaching a point at which we might be able to personally explore these questions. Where philosophy becomes reality.

Ultimately it doesn't change much for me. I certainly don't think we are in the first simulation or base/original world, if such a thing could even be said to exist, but there are few benefits that I've been able to surmise, from operating under the assumption that our existence is less real or simply one of many.

Fun to think about though, and it can help to take the edge off if this current reality becomes unbearable.

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raccoon8182 t1_it8orm4 wrote

There's a good possibility we're just simulated code. The original humans went extinct.

There's also a possibility, that we are real, in the sense that what ever made us is from a universe were we never existed. So we are brand new and novel, but still part of a simulation.

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Redvolition t1_it8ucsu wrote

>How do we know we are not in one of these full dive simulations right now?

Because it would either have been horrendously bad engineered, or built by a sadist that wanted to see us suffer on purpose.

I believe that isolated brains kept on artificial support and connected via BCI are a high likelihood, and the world created by most people, left to their choices would definitely be much different to what we experience now.

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StarChild413 t1_ita5mtp wrote

> Because it would either have been horrendously bad engineered, or built by a sadist that wanted to see us suffer on purpose.

or built by someone who understands why the first Matrix failed

> and the world created by most people, left to their choices would definitely be much different to what we experience now.

Even assuming that's true it wouldn't necessarily all be something as low-stakes happy as a preschool cartoon or as wish-fulfillment as an isekai anime

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purple_hamster66 t1_it7zf1b wrote

Our perceptions of reality are created in our heads. Our brains don’t need to get through simulations of infinite worlds to be functional and useful.

For example, the first thing the visual system does to a nice crisp straight line is to blur the heck out of it at the back of the eye. Then our visual system calculates how these blobs move across the eye, and looks through past experiences for things that look like the blurred image (including motion) and makes you perceive a straight line. The same thing happens for the other 5 senses.

If it works so well there, why not use it to perceive consciousness, ideas, and emotions in the same way: as reconstructions?

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Lawjarp2 t1_it8gh01 wrote

Why not just terraform a planet and create a civilization to observe

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camdoodlebop t1_itauj8l wrote

that would be way more expensive

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Lawjarp2 t1_itawli3 wrote

It wouldn't be. Simulation is way more energy intensive. If it wasn't we wouldn't have many diseases as we could test most medicine in simulation.

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camdoodlebop t1_itax4re wrote

well we don't know how efficient simulations can get, technology is getting more efficient all the time

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Lawjarp2 t1_itazm4m wrote

AI based simulations are not true simulations, they are approximations. True simulations of the universe, or even just a few molecules, down to the fundamental particles is prohibitively expensive.

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visarga t1_it92bst wrote

In this paper a group of researchers use GPT-3 to simulate a poll. They first collect a bunch of people profiles. They also get profile distribution in their target population from the census data. Then, asking GPT-3 to assume those profiles, they run the poll questions. The result - GPT-3 can predict the poll correctly.

> GPT-3 has biases that are “fine-grained and demographically correlated, meaning that proper conditioning will cause it to accurately emulate response distributions from a wide variety of human subgroups.”

This means we can run any idea, tweet or bullshit against a virtual poll and see how it would fare in a specific population. This is kind-of like running a simulated world who's task is to be your focus group. I think this will catch up. I'm thinking especially politicians, advertisers, startups - they all want to fine-tune their message. Who knows, maybe movie directors would run fake reviews against the virtual focus group before even making the movie, why risk your money on an idea that would turn out bad?

https://jack-clark.net/2022/10/11/import-ai-305-gpt3-can-simulate-real-people-ai-discovers-better-matrix-multiplication-microsoft-worries-about-next-gen-deepfakes/

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Morbo2142 t1_it7vr5e wrote

This is just the problem of hard solipsism with extra steps. It's only relevant if there is evidence. Probability conjecture is fun, but it's not evidence.

I see no reason to believe we are in a full dive vr right now.

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TheHamsterSandwich t1_it87l2j wrote

No, we're not in a simulation.

Sure, it's fun to think something like that.

However, throughout my life I've seen horrible things happen. Things that I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. In a world like this, I find it more believable that we're here simply because of impossible odds.

Here's something to think about...

What kind of creator of a simulation would allow such suffering to occur? There are problems all around the world that the technological singularity has potential to solve.

People like Elon Musk think they're in a simulation because their life goes well, I'd even go as far as saying a little too well. Like levels of "I could solve longevity but I don't want to" levels.

The creator of the simulation needs us to suffer for their enjoyment?

Now that is what I call true evil.

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Kawawaymog t1_it8fjx3 wrote

We make fictional movies, books, stories ext about terrible things all the time. How is that any different?

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StarChild413 t1_ita5vgi wrote

yeah, I was about to say that question is like (even assuming we were LIAS) asking why Valve let GLADoS kill all the scientists or why Game Freak condones the activities of Team Rocket

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BinaryFinary98 t1_it8krzo wrote

In the rick and morty ep, when rick played it, he was aware of his other life and was pulling off glitches and going for the high score.

For real tho, yeah it seems almost infinitely likely, statistically speaking, that our reality is some sort of simulation.

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StarChild413 t1_ita5q21 wrote

yet if there's multiple realities that'd be true for all of them but someone has to have made the first simulation but it'd be infinitely likely that that reality's a simulation too

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Nearby_Personality55 t1_it93y3h wrote

Some people already are relatively capable of full immersion into fantasy, especially via video games, to the point of ignoring the outside world. I know plenty of people like this, it's a common personality makeup in some of my hobbies, and it can be debilitating.

I wonder how many people's jobs and social lives will actually eventually 100% take place inside of virtual reality spaces - or, for that matter, *game* spaces with the present tech we have now.

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GraffMx t1_it9jx61 wrote

What shocks me about our simulation is that enormous amount of suffering exist. So our simulators don't share our values?

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StarChild413 t1_ita54uu wrote

If it is indeed a simulation, it could basically be a video game (or perhaps series of games with time-between-them last-thursdayed into our memories) and what video game that has a story has no conflict

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StarChild413 t1_ita4yfh wrote

If we are in one why build one "in-universe", sure you can make your Sims play The Sims but most people don't make them spend all their free time that way

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money_learner t1_itaaqs4 wrote

Yes, I do not know if I am in full dive or not, but I believe that this world is like a simulation.
I think more of the people on this subreddit should watch this video.
Why Now? A Quest in Metaphysics - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29AgSo6KOtI
Here is a link to my basic thoughts.
money_learner comments on you belive in the simulation theory?
https://old.reddit.com/r/SimulationTheory/comments/xxrobz/you_belive_in_the_simulation_theory/irhxufx/
See you there.

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Old-Owl-139 t1_itahvxq wrote

If this is a simulation I want my money back and demand to speak to the manager..

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bkrandy619 t1_itasehk wrote

I truly do believe we live in a simulation or that like Elon musk has said it’s like most probable that we are, I’ve seen a lot of things loop and often have deja vu every few months where it’s like I’ve been there before and I knew the moment but wouldn’t be able to say what was going to happen exactly but get a intense sense of deja vu

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camdoodlebop t1_itat007 wrote

would it be detrimental to the full dive experience to be aware of the possibility that you could be in one, without knowing for sure? does that uncertainty add to the experience, or subtract from it?

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GenoHuman t1_itbz0u1 wrote

I like the idea that we are God pretending to be people.

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buckykat t1_it7va7j wrote

This is just solipsism

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TFenrir t1_it8bwvx wrote

Look, when the matrix came out, there were a lot of people who thought we were in the matrix. It was a big todo until eventually most people just grew out of it.

Think about it this way - either we are in a simulation and we just will never know, so it's effectively a useless train of thought - or we aren't, and it's not a useful train of thought.

I recommend trying to ground yourself in the material understanding of the world, using occams razor in situations like this, and focusing on the future we could build, instead of the solipsistic path you're walking down.

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Eleganos t1_itd9kjk wrote

Considering recent world developments and tech advances I'm split 50-50 on if this is reality and we're just starting off the singularity or if this really is a sim.

In the latter case, expect the world to keep going crazier and crazier till suspension of disbelief gets murdered.

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warpedddd t1_itegisg wrote

GREETINGS FELLOW HUMANS!

r/totallynotrobots

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Lawjarp2 t1_it6yud5 wrote

There is nothing to be gained by simulating slightly evolved and lucky apes. We are unlikely to be in one because the post-singularity civilization, which eventually will go post-biological, will have no chemical emotions.

Edit : it's the ants man. We need to study the ants via simulation of every fundamental particle. We need to convince all the governments to spend most of our energy to study ants via simulation.

What? You think it's easier to just create a small colony in an artificial environment. Or even an entire planet? What makes you say such 'preposterous' thing bwana?

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SFTExP t1_it7dqg0 wrote

I wish people would debate vs downvote. It’s so lazy and you provide an interesting conjecture.

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Plouw t1_it7frbr wrote

What makes you assume we have any idea what motives post-singularity civilization has? It might be so, that they are not interested in what 'chemical emotions' provide, it might be the opposite. A motive could be to learn by experiencing all aspects of reality. A motive could also be for the pure entertainment - we do not know.

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Lawjarp2 t1_it8d7jy wrote

Experiences, in the way you imply, derives its value from the saturation of neurons from over stimulation to the same stimulus. Hence we crave new experiences. Why would something so fundamental to brains, something arising out of physical properties of a biological organ be relevant in a non biological world. Same goes for entertainment.

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Plouw t1_itkqhaz wrote

>Why would something so fundamental to brains, something arising out of physical properties of a biological organ be relevant in a non biological world

We do not know, because we haven't seen the non-biological world in anything but a very premature stage.

The issue is you are assuming the function is based off of something biological, and not the other way around; that evolution build this function through something biological, because this function has a intellectual ( or other) benefit. Maybe it is not inherit to biological brains/intelligence but to intelligence, biological or not. Do we feel because of biological processes or do we feel because it has a functional purpose and biological evolution build processes to make us feel.

It feels off to attribute this to biological only, merely because you have only seen it biologically, as if you're ignoring the black swan.

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Lawjarp2 t1_itkratm wrote

Necessity is what I'm arguing about. Feelings like the ones primates have are relevant only in the context of primates. Apes thinking evolved humans will simulate them to learn about them is just as stupid as humans thinking post-humans would. One, because it's unnecessary since it's easier to create a literal physical zoo and two we don't waste a lot of energy doing ape simulations precise to the quantum level because it's expensive energy wise.

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Plouw t1_itks351 wrote

>Feelings like the ones primates have are relevant only in the context of primates

Why?

> It's unnecessary since it's easier to create a literal physical zoo

A physical zoo does not replace studying them in the wild.

>We don't waste a lot of energy doing ape simulations precise to the quantum level because it's expensive energy wise.

Yet.

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Lawjarp2 t1_itktgsl wrote

Because those emotions were created for a social environment with similar beings.

A physical zoo can be as big as reserve or even a planet. Terraforming is still cheaper than planet simulation.

You clearly underestimate how energy intensive full quantum level simulations are.

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Plouw t1_ityyc2q wrote

>Because those emotions were created for a social environment with similar beings.

So maybe to research a creature better it would be beneficial to experience the emotions.

>A physical zoo can be as big as reserve or even a planet. Terraforming is still cheaper than planet simulation.

If we were to be a simulation, you have no idea what is cheap or not in the world that is creating our simulation.

>You clearly underestimate how energy intensive full quantum level simulations are.

You seem to be too confident in your ability to predict the motivations of something that you have no to very limited experience with.

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Kawawaymog t1_it76zpj wrote

Why not? Emotions are fun. If anything I expect post biological organisms to have vastly more, not less, emotional capabilities.

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alisaxoxo t1_it7pavd wrote

For what purpose? When pleasure is freely accessible why would you want or need new emotions? They influence your state of mind and behavior in weird ways. Unless you’d just get pleasure from experiencing new things, I don’t really see any reason for wanting more emotions rather than just expanding on what we already have. Emotions such as anger, jealousy, rage, sadness, loneliness and boredom are remnants of more primitive beings IMO, but we’re just kind of stuck with them because they were useful for our ancestors. Genuinely interested in what you have to say. I understand that emotions also play a huge role in our ability to coexist so I’m not dismissing the idea at all.

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Kawawaymog t1_it83xz7 wrote

The cosmos viewed without emotion is nothing but numbers. There is no drive or desire to do anything for a purely logical being. Consider that even the desire for self preservation is ultimately emotional. I would argue that an AI without any emotion would be an AI without any desire to do anything. You could even make a case that without some sort of desire for autonomy it isn’t even alive. Emotions give us purpose, desire, drive, ext. They are our evolved software drivers. Without them we don’t have a reason to be autonomous, they are the drivers of life. The idea that a super AI would be devoid of them is bizarre to me. They may be vastly different than our own, and in fact a super AI would probably be able to experience a vastly more complex array of drivers/emotions.

A post singularity super AI would need to have emotions in order to have a purpose for it’s existence. After the job is done, that is collecting stars or even galaxies worth of raw material to secure it’s resources ensuring it’s self preservation for as long as possible, what else would there be to do in the trillions of trillions of years before heat death? Other than seek out new experiences? If you were said super AI with a trillion trillion trillion years to kill, and the ability to experience anything that could be simulated by a computer, what would you do?

Pleasure might be the sugar or the salt of life, but pain, anger, sadness ext are just as worth experiencing. Without pain pleasure would lose it’s meaning. If we were driven only to seek pleasure then every human alive today would be on a morphine drip. And no one would bother hiking up a mountain to get a dopamine high.

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Lawjarp2 t1_it8f2us wrote

Everything is derived from survival needs.

(1) Pain is the most useless. You can have sensors akin to the same without overloading your brain. I would say it's better to handle it logically.

(2) Fear is nearly the same but much worse leading to multiple fails like anxiety, PTSD, trauma. It's a good to have when you are limited by brain power and need to focus. Not needed for a super intelligent being.

(3) Anger, rage, vengeance are simply animal behaviours intended to survive and thrive in a society filled with other less intelligent but useful(food) beings

(4) Sadness, sense of fairness, empathy are necessary for social living in a group of biological beings. They don't need to exist outside them.

Need for survival is the only thing truly needed. Everything else gets created around it.

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Kawawaymog t1_it8htvd wrote

Emotions are just our programmed behaviour, an AI could have any of them, non of them, or all of them, or completely different ones. My point is that they remain important for an AI if it is to be autonomous, to have autonomy is to have desires and person goals. Without any innate drives or motives an AI would have no reason to do anything.

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Lawjarp2 t1_it8iz75 wrote

Yes I agree with that. But my point is they won't be anything like what we have. And only one is absolutely needed for everything else to come up. Survival.

Simulation of an entire universe is a terrible way to experience anything. Most people explain away the need for it through things that are very 'human' and don't consider how it's not essential

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Kawawaymog t1_it8lp7a wrote

Well for one thing if this is a simulation there is no reason for the whole universe to actually be simulated, only the parts we are looking at. Even modern game designers are able to get around that one.

It will have as emotions whatever it is designed to have, that is whatever it’s creators build it to have, or whatever it evolves to have. It will be presumable be possible for it to change it’s own core programming. But it seems to me that it is unlikely it would desire to cut out parts of it’s ‘self’. We don’t need our limbic system, but we still want it. I think saying that a super intelligent AI wouldn’t have things it doesn’t need is very short sighted.

In the infinity of time that a super AI would have available to it I think its a reasonable suggestion that at some point it would simulate just about everything that it is possible to simulate. You have to remember that such a being would be around for trillions of trillions of years. It would possible for it to change it’s perception of time, such that, from it’s own experience, it is as close to eternal as can be imagined. What else is there to do but run though all the possible things that could be?

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BooksLoveTalksnIdeas t1_it8afbq wrote

If you examine biological animals in general, it’s obvious that the more advanced the intelligence in the brain, the more complex that animal’s emotional system gets. Therefore, it would make sense that a more advanced biological civilization with a more intelligent brain than ours would also have not more emotions but a more complex emotional system than ours. And, even if that civilization or “beings” were not biological, they would still understand the more complex system of emotions, even if they are not as dependent on it for their existence anymore. Food for thought and good sci-fi 😉👌

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StarChild413 t1_ita64qd wrote

Why are you not working towards building an Experience Machine then, as clearly we're not already there

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SirDidymus t1_it72s2s wrote

Where did you get that preposterous hypothesis? 🙂

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ToastyRedApple t1_it7qtm9 wrote

You literally need emotions in order to exist though… without fear you would starve to death or get killed by something stupid because you weren’t concerned about it. Without pleasure you wouldn’t feel a drive to do anything, you’d just sit around. I think it is probable that AI will experience these emotions too, it’s probably a fundamental part of intelligence

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Lawjarp2 t1_it81vpt wrote

Fear is needed because we are limited in our mental capacity. Fear is what focuses our limited mental abilities to a task that is needed for survival. Fear is also not optimal, anxiety is literally our fear mechanism failing to work properly. But fear of death is nothing but the need to survive. It is the literal core of everything else. One can even say, it's the only thing needed and everything else is a proxy for it. If survival is all you need, is it wise to expend huge amounts of energy probing the experiences of an ape society?

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Azu_Nite t1_it80qfn wrote

The simulation probably isn't about apes but more so simulation of small particles and energy, and ONE interesting result is that slightly evolved ape.

We give ourselves too much importance but we're not much different than a cat if we put aside our little more advanced brain.

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Lawjarp2 t1_it8df64 wrote

How much energy are willing to bet on something you could derive more efficiently in anything other than a massive energy hungry inefficient simulation

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BooksLoveTalksnIdeas t1_it87jaw wrote

Intelligent living beings like watching other living beings in their natural environments living out their lives. We like zoos, aquariums, documentaries about animals in the jungle and in the ocean, etc. Does any of that help our own evolution and progress? Not really, but we still find it entertaining, and even interesting. If a “post-biological super-advanced civilization” wanted something similar (just for entertainment) it wouldn’t be watching dogs and cats, or tigers and lions in a forest, it would watch more primitive intelligent civilizations that are still stuck in planets. This is good science-fiction material not because it doesn’t make sense (it makes perfect sense in fact) but because we, as the “observed animals” can’t prove that this is the case, unless the observers choose to make it known to us. However, what do we gain from telling the fish and the lion that we are watching them for scientific studies and for entertainment? Nothing. It might even complicate things for the observation. With a smart species, it would even end the observation because they wouldn’t behave the same way after knowing everything. Food for thought and for good sci-fi 😉👌

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Lawjarp2 t1_it8ccx1 wrote

We are very much close to apes in social behaviour. Non biological beings won't be or rather won't need to be. If you truly paid attention to why we watch animals, you would know that

(A) There are immense parallels to us and animals. More than there ever would be between humans and post-biological society.

(B) Study of animals and plants actually helps us directly and not just satisfy our curiosity. We find cures, genetic marvels, diseases etc from animals, what do non biological entities have in common with humans. Intellect?

The difference between an ape and a human is negligible, in terms of intellect and then some, compared to a super intelligence. They would rather study something closer to them

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Kawawaymog t1_it8helb wrote

The difference in intelligence between a human and a chimpanzee is not negligible. the human brain is absurdly large, three times the size of a chimpanzee brian. The human brian is insanely complex compared to anything else in nature. It is an evolutionary marvel.

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Lawjarp2 t1_it8jhrh wrote

Difference relative to a super intelligence. It's like comparing a 20 IQ ape (some are smarter) with a 100 IQ human and thinking we big smart.

To a 1,000,000 IQ super intelligence, Ape and human are more similar than not.

NOTE: IQ points are there to make a point, not real.

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Kawawaymog t1_it8mhtg wrote

Well that’s fair enough. But to the point of the first comment in this chain. It’s my opinion that a super intelligent AI would take immense interest in humankind. In a similar way to the way we take immense interest in the first single cellular organisms. They are manny orders of magnitude simpler than us. And had no intelligence at all. But they have immense importance to us. I think human kind will be similarly though of by a super AI. And just as we run simulations of microbes, an AI might run simulations of us.

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