Why are we in the Matrix?

[G TheGandalf]

Very interesting video on reality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwk-Mlm5l24

For once Sam Harris speaks in favor on consciousness being the ground where everything happens

Couple of theories I could come up with after watching this are-

1. This civilization is not 1.0. It would be 1.0 times X. If we go by the theory that reality is a computer programming. Meaning there could have been multiple version of it before. What I am writing now , could have written earlier many times 

2. There could be multiple simulations running. Parallel world cannot be unlikely.

3. Its up to God to shut pause the video game and restart from where it stopped without us being aware of the time lapse. Cannot be ruled out.

4.When humanity comes  closer to understanding reality , the matrix may be restarted taking us to square 1.

I would like hear more thoughts on the above points  

[G TheGandalf]

Adding to this, I know Bernardo refutes the multiverse theory but somehow I feel it is a possibility.  And also there cannot be free will of the individual mind

[Peter Jones]

On Tuesday, 9 February 2016 09:33:37 UTC, G TheGandalf wrote:

Very interesting video on reality.

Hi Gandalf

 
4.When humanity comes  closer to understanding reality , the matrix may be restarted taking us to square 1.

I think not. With that understanding the matrix would disappear to reveal reality. The understanding would depend utterly on the matrix disappearing to reveal what we are trying to understand. The point of the matrix, after all, is that it is not reality, or not all of it. We would go to square one but nothing would restart. The point would be escape the endless cycle of restarts and rest in the bliss of square one, where the peace would surpass all understanding. .Don't forget that humanity has already, many times so they say, understood reality. Trouble is understanding has to be done one at a time and is never communal.   .

   

[G TheGandalf]

Makes sense Peter, I would think that the reason we are in the Matrix is to improve the quality of our consciousness and once you reach that state you free yourself from the cycle of birth and rebirth . The same has been told in "Bhagvad Gita" by Lord Krishna

On Tuesday, February 9, 2016 at 3:03:37 PM UTC+5:30, G TheGandalf wrote:

[Larry Schultz]

We may or may not be in or part of a computer simulation, but to think so and act as though we are, is simply a high-tech version of playing the 'victim card' - it's just yet a 21st century version of the devil made me do it.   Better to assume responsibility for yourself - and realize that at every moment you have everything you need to fully grasp Reality.

[Larry Schultz]

IOW, there is no system to beat except for obstacles you place before you.

[G TheGandalf]

Regarding the reality being a simulation there is enough indication by the scientists and the philosophers and it cannot be ruled out. The issue is not to blame the devil as that would mean there is no free will. If you can alter your deepest psyche by means of meditation or any other forms of spiritual practice you can have free will is what I believe. As long as we are operating by the realms of our mind we do not have free will.

I'd like to hear Bernardo's comments here.

-Gaurab Dey

On Tuesday, February 9, 2016 at 3:03:37 PM UTC+5:30, G TheGandalf wrote:

[Sciborg]

Well Arvan's theory of free will actually requires us  to be inside a simulation...

[G TheGandalf]

Pardon my lack of understanding to the highly eloquent English words. So does that mean to say that Free Will is limited or not there ? If you can elaborate more it will be very helpful.

thanks very much

[Sciborg]

Arvan's argument is basically that reality is functionally like a game of Halo where there's no central server. Instead the game uses Peer-to-Peer technology to run the game for the collective players.

Thus there is our quantum world which is the simulation, and our free-willed immaterial minds which are the players which engage with the simulation from a higher frame.

The argument he makes is that looking at reality this way explains not just weird quantum phenomena but the presence of a variety of problems that have plagued discussions of philosophy.

Note, however, that while the theory is functionally dualist Arvan does offer the possibility that the higher frame is a single substance that generates the simulation of the lower frame (this lower frame being the material world). A few people have suggested that the world is a simulation in Consciousness.

[RHC]

The Boscom version rests on the hidden assumption that consciousness is generated by a physical substrate and is substrate independent. 

Gates is looking at super-string equations that (as far as I know) amount to mathematical philosophy with no empirical basis.  Though maybe he is a Kripal Author of the Impossible at work.  : ) 

[G TheGandalf]

Bob, this is one interesting angle for sure. One cannot refute that a physical entity dreamt up this world lucidly. In Hinduism it is akin to the same where vishnu is projected lying down in a dream state. It is also believed that Brahma created the universe in his thought. I think Bernardo will cover most of it in his next release "allegory".

[Sciborg]

Oh, here's Arvan's A Unified Explanation of Quantum Phenomena? The Case for the Peer-to-Peer Simulation Hypothesis as an Interdisciplinary Research Program.

A quick excerpt:

"A P2P Simulation just is:

  a. A superposition of different representational states, such that

  b. Any particular measurement within the simulation will result in a determinate measured location on any individual computer taking a measurement.

But this is, functionally speaking, precisely what quantum superposition and wave-function collapse are in our world. Objects in our world exist in superposition, except that whenever they are measured, the measurement will result in a single determinate value. The P2P Hypothesis thus explains quantum superposition and wave-function collapse."

[Sciborg]

Idealist take on the Matrix:

http://cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/408/672

" In his book QED Feynman discusses the situation of photons being partially transmitted and partially reflected by a sheet of glass: reflection amounting to four percent. In other words one out of every 25 photons will be reflected on average, and this holds true even for a "one at a time" flux. The four percent cannot be explained by statistical differences of the photons (they are identical) nor by random variations in the glass. Something is "telling" every 25th photon on average that it should be reflected back instead of being transmitted. Other quantum experiments lead to similar paradoxes. To explain how a single photon in the two-slit experiment can "know" whether there is one slit or two, Hawking and Mlodonow write: 

"In the double-slit experiment Feynman's ideas mean the particles take paths that thread through the first slit, back out though the second slit, and then through the first again; paths that visit the restaurant that serves that great curried shrimp, and then circle Jupiter a few times before heading home; even paths that go across the universe and back. This, in Feynman's view, explains how the particle acquires the information about which slits are open."

It is hard to imagine a more absurd physical explanation. We can think of no way to hardwire the behavior of photons in the glass reflection or the two-slit experiments into a physical law. On the other hand, writing a software algorithm that would yield the desired result is really simple. A digital reality whose laws are software is an idea that has started to gain traction in large part thanks to an influential paper in Philosophical Quarterly by Oxford professor Nick Bostrom. "

[RHC]

This is interesting..

http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2014/12/artificial-intelligence-the-worms-are-rising-up/

What they did was create the most detailed and accurate map of neural connections ever, and they then recreated those connections inside a computer.  After which they connected that simulated nematode brain to a robot (which happened to be made of Lego for ease of use) that contained sensors which were analogous to the sensory stimulus of which the worm’s brain would already have been familiar.  Then they watched.
Amazingly, without receiving any programming input, the simulated brain began causing the robot to move, and not only that, it responded to environmental stimulus with appropriate action.  It would stop short of bumping into objects, and reverse.  It responded to food stimulus (simulated), and danger stimulus

[Sciborg]

I once wrote a complicated program in school on paper because I was really sick and couldn't stand to look at the screen.

Typed it up when I felt better and with a few minor bugs it worked.

I don't see how that's much different than what the article talks about?

[David Bailey]

On Tuesday, February 16, 2016 at 3:26:06 PM UTC, RHC wrote:

This is interesting..

http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2014/12/artificial-intelligence-the-worms-are-rising-up/

What they did was create the most detailed and accurate map of neural connections ever, and they then recreated those connections inside a computer.  After which they connected that simulated nematode brain to a robot (which happened to be made of Lego for ease of use) that contained sensors which were analogous to the sensory stimulus of which the worm’s brain would already have been familiar.  Then they watched.
Amazingly, without receiving any programming input, the simulated brain began causing the robot to move, and not only that, it responded to environmental stimulus with appropriate action.  It would stop short of bumping into objects, and reverse.  It responded to food stimulus (simulated), and danger stimulus

I guess I have become very cynical about some scientific research - particularly when it is accompanied with a big dollop of hype. I mean, to the best of my knowledge C. Elegans doesn't have a wheeled undercarriage, so just exactly which simulated neurons did they attach to the wheels? My guess is that they simply searched the neuron map for neural connections that happened to perform the right operation - respond to one input (the nose sensor) with two outputs that drove the wheels in reverse and turned the steering motor.

Wouldn't it have been much more impressive if they had simulated the musculature of the actual worm and shown that in conjunction with the simulated neural net, it could do everything that the worm could do? Done that way, they could not cheat - every motor neuron would be connected to its proper destination.

If that experiment actually worked to everyone's satisfaction, it would also imply that, at least in the worm, none of the processing was going on at the micro-tubule level.

However, it might be worth contemplating just how much a single cell that isn't a neuron actually possesses:
http://www.basic.northwestern.edu/g-buehler/FRAME.HTM

[Sciborg]

David - I'm with you. AI is such a crock of hype designed to continue getting funding.

It's honestly one of the biggest jokes IMO, where tiny successes are claimed to be major milestones.

[tjssailor]

They never say anything about Consciousness.  Is the nematode Conscious?  Is mind at large using it as an alter?  Is it using the lego robot as a alter?  If we ask the nematode "Hey since you exist in the lego robot now can we blenderize you?  Would the lego robot agree?

I have toys that do what this lego robot does.

[RHC]

good points David.