Yes, I admit that the last blog was a little discombobulated, but that's what happens to you when you read the book, But What If We Are Wrong, by Chuck Klusterman. In his book he admits to being one of the few people to be able to make a living, and a good one, writing about rock stars - really, how the heck does one get that gig? - and maybe he hangs with them a bit too much at concert after-parties. Sometimes it seems so, with no real coordination between one thing or another, except that all these things are somewhat strange, even unexpected. What I am going to highlight now may not be totally unexpected, but the author's take on it is, or at least I think it is.
It has to do with simulated reality, and how WE might be only simulations. Yes, yes, this is the kind of talk that one would expect in a Colorado weed bar, similar to the discussion with the wacky professor in the movie "Animal House" : "What if we were only dirt under God's fingernail?...." etc, etc. But Klosterman enrolls a high-ranking egg-head, Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom, to lend this argument some weight. For instance, what are the odds that we are computer simulations? 20%, according to the good professor. How he arrives at this exact number is not said, although it's pretty darned high, considering the enormous implications. But we do have his reasoning, summed up in three logical possibilities: 1) We have computers, and these computers keep getting better. 2) We can already create reality simulations on these computers, and every new generation of these simulations dramatically improves. And 3) There is no reason to believe that these two things will stop being true. Then there are the three corollaries: that either we will kill each other off before we reach a certain necessary stage; that we will reach that stage and consider such simulations unethical; or that we will do them. The probabilities are in the corollaries, it seems, and that might be frightening in itself (what are the probabilities that we will someday kill off our culture of high science, if not most of humanity? Pretty high, if history is our guide), but let's look at what he's really saying - that the depth of our being is so shallow that it can be simulated by other beings who think at least something like us (for instance, if we are simulations, our makers do not have to be human, but must understand from the inside enough to make us THINK we are free beings; actually, they must understand all that we are, and then some).
Now, what is the scariest thing about this possibility? For the atheist, on the surface there should be no fear at all. From nothing we come, from a random curve at that, and to nothing we go. But would we? Might not our simulators create heaven and hell? It could not be any more difficult than creating the world we have now, and it would make the game a lot more fun. For the religious person, it would seem that all his high-fallootin' theology is nothing but a computer program, but why would the simulators make this game up in the first place? Could they be god-stuff after all, being for all intents and purposes real god-like creators? Wouldn't we still be forced to ask the same questions: why were our creators made, and what made them make us, and for what reason(s)?
While this last might seem a side-bar, I believe it is anything but. To be able to devise a program that delivers awe, intimations of immortality, transcendent art, and full-blown god experience, the game-makers would have to be far more than a bunch of nerds clicking out a real-cool game in someone's garage. They would have to understand all that we can experience and create and more - in effect, as I said before, they would have to be god-stuff.
Would the difference, then, make any difference? Wouldn't the same game that religions postulate for us still be in play - that life has a moral basis (for the makers have made us make rules), and that there is MUCH MORE to reality than we generally think?
What all this seems to be about is a current fascination with computers, and a playing with the possibilities, but it all comes out looking oddly like religious truth; that is, that we commonly live in a shallow reality behind which is a greater one, and that we can find that reality, not by taking the red pill (as in The Matrix), but by performing various rites and fasting and so on, so that we might transcend ourselves - to lightly grasp, or perhaps even merge with, our creator - or as the Buddhists might say, our ground, or the IS. That we can have and do have such experiences certainly means that our simulators are god-stuff. Looked at from this perspective, there would be no important distinction between the organic god and the computer god - and, in fact, the simulation's final function, given everything, would most probably be for us to reach full Realization - as the simulators already must have. So, the simulation must mirror, and eventually merge with, reality, to the delight of whatever form the sub-gods or God might sometimes take.
So I do not worry about being a computer image. I already am one, in a way, and am commanded to transcend that superficiality one way or another, to reach, really, the same final truth. I have little fear that if I do, I will come face to face not with God, but with Bill Gates. Nor do I fear that I am bacteria under God's fingernails, for it STILL means the same thing in the end. We must grow beyond what we think we are to what IS, no matter what it is that we think we are, or might appear to be by some cosmic peeping Tom. Are you listening, oh great and high Nerd?
Or are you typing this for me at this moment? Does it matter? FK
It has to do with simulated reality, and how WE might be only simulations. Yes, yes, this is the kind of talk that one would expect in a Colorado weed bar, similar to the discussion with the wacky professor in the movie "Animal House" : "What if we were only dirt under God's fingernail?...." etc, etc. But Klosterman enrolls a high-ranking egg-head, Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom, to lend this argument some weight. For instance, what are the odds that we are computer simulations? 20%, according to the good professor. How he arrives at this exact number is not said, although it's pretty darned high, considering the enormous implications. But we do have his reasoning, summed up in three logical possibilities: 1) We have computers, and these computers keep getting better. 2) We can already create reality simulations on these computers, and every new generation of these simulations dramatically improves. And 3) There is no reason to believe that these two things will stop being true. Then there are the three corollaries: that either we will kill each other off before we reach a certain necessary stage; that we will reach that stage and consider such simulations unethical; or that we will do them. The probabilities are in the corollaries, it seems, and that might be frightening in itself (what are the probabilities that we will someday kill off our culture of high science, if not most of humanity? Pretty high, if history is our guide), but let's look at what he's really saying - that the depth of our being is so shallow that it can be simulated by other beings who think at least something like us (for instance, if we are simulations, our makers do not have to be human, but must understand from the inside enough to make us THINK we are free beings; actually, they must understand all that we are, and then some).
Now, what is the scariest thing about this possibility? For the atheist, on the surface there should be no fear at all. From nothing we come, from a random curve at that, and to nothing we go. But would we? Might not our simulators create heaven and hell? It could not be any more difficult than creating the world we have now, and it would make the game a lot more fun. For the religious person, it would seem that all his high-fallootin' theology is nothing but a computer program, but why would the simulators make this game up in the first place? Could they be god-stuff after all, being for all intents and purposes real god-like creators? Wouldn't we still be forced to ask the same questions: why were our creators made, and what made them make us, and for what reason(s)?
While this last might seem a side-bar, I believe it is anything but. To be able to devise a program that delivers awe, intimations of immortality, transcendent art, and full-blown god experience, the game-makers would have to be far more than a bunch of nerds clicking out a real-cool game in someone's garage. They would have to understand all that we can experience and create and more - in effect, as I said before, they would have to be god-stuff.
Would the difference, then, make any difference? Wouldn't the same game that religions postulate for us still be in play - that life has a moral basis (for the makers have made us make rules), and that there is MUCH MORE to reality than we generally think?
What all this seems to be about is a current fascination with computers, and a playing with the possibilities, but it all comes out looking oddly like religious truth; that is, that we commonly live in a shallow reality behind which is a greater one, and that we can find that reality, not by taking the red pill (as in The Matrix), but by performing various rites and fasting and so on, so that we might transcend ourselves - to lightly grasp, or perhaps even merge with, our creator - or as the Buddhists might say, our ground, or the IS. That we can have and do have such experiences certainly means that our simulators are god-stuff. Looked at from this perspective, there would be no important distinction between the organic god and the computer god - and, in fact, the simulation's final function, given everything, would most probably be for us to reach full Realization - as the simulators already must have. So, the simulation must mirror, and eventually merge with, reality, to the delight of whatever form the sub-gods or God might sometimes take.
So I do not worry about being a computer image. I already am one, in a way, and am commanded to transcend that superficiality one way or another, to reach, really, the same final truth. I have little fear that if I do, I will come face to face not with God, but with Bill Gates. Nor do I fear that I am bacteria under God's fingernails, for it STILL means the same thing in the end. We must grow beyond what we think we are to what IS, no matter what it is that we think we are, or might appear to be by some cosmic peeping Tom. Are you listening, oh great and high Nerd?
Or are you typing this for me at this moment? Does it matter? FK
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