From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Thu Dec 12 2002 - 19:28:55 MST
Michael wrote:
> Matter must still exist at the lowest level of implementation. It is
> irrelevant whether we, as observers, are in a simulation that resides
> immediately above that material level, or whether we live in a
> sim embedded
> in another sim embedded within still another sim, unto as many
> iterations as
> one cares to go. It is simply not possible for there to be sims
> all the way
> down. At the lowest level, the bedrock of reality is material.
>
> That is my claim. Why do I make it? Because it seems reasonable to me and
> because it comports with our everyday experience. If that experience is in
> fact merely experience within a simulation, then our sim is
> fortuitously (or
> designedly) emulating the reality that lies however many levels below us.
>
> Can I prove this claim? No. I cannot prove this claim any more than I can
> prove that other minds exist. I am not a solipsist even though disproving
> solipsism is not logically possible.
This seems to me like an excessive, unnecessary leap of faith....
Assuming that other minds exist makes life simpler....
Assuming that apparent physical reality is still going to be here 5 seconds
from now, makes life simpler....
I make these assumptions provisionally, knowing they're provisional and
knowing that I'm making them in order to simplify the universe to the level
that my paltry human mind/brain can deal with it.
But, assuming that if there is a hierarchy of sims, it necessarily bottoms
out in a "physical reality" (rather than never bottoming out, or being
circularly created in some way, for instance) -- how the heck does this make
life any easier? It doesn't, for me. For me, it is a needless assumption.
Maybe this is nothing more than a temperamental difference between us,
though.... To each his own subjectively-constructed illusory solidity, I
suppose... ;-)
-- Ben G
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