Simulated Reality

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Author	Topic: Simulated Reality
Micawber Agent Member # 2759	written Friday, February 29 2008 11:29 Profile Homepage #25 quote: Originally written by Student of Trinity: There are so many gruesome murder mystery series out now, that today it occurred to me that someone should write a mystery in which some kind of maniac is killing off all the mystery writers. He takes out author after author, in hideous ways inspired by their own books. Did you ever see the film Theatre of Blood. It's not exactly what you describe, but similar sentiment... -------------------- Geneforge 4 stuff. Also, everything I know about Avernum \| Avernum 2 \| Avernum 3 \| Avernum 4 Posts: 1104 \| Registered: Monday, March 10 2003 08:00
Frozen Feet Infiltrator Member # 4248	written Saturday, March 1 2008 04:32 Profile #26 quote: Originally written by Nemesis.: Regarding the original discussion… can you imagine the shock if you found out that you were just a component of someone's computer game? That'd be like coming to the realization that you're actually just a figment of someone's imagination, in their dream. Then as soon as they wake up, you're just gone. Do you feel insignificant yet? :P Nope. In the case I originated in someones imagination, I'm a part of that entity's personality and world-view. The fact that it bothered to make a simulation of me proves I'm of some significance to it. Plus, I won't really be gone even after the dream ends, just like a "real" person doesn't just cease to exist at the point of death; what I was, was perceived to be, and are remembered to have been still affects the entity that created me. -------------------- Life is a neverending carneval where everyone has multiple costumes. I just hope mine are pleasing to the eye. Posts: 617 \| Registered: Tuesday, April 13 2004 07:00
The Mystic Infiltrator Member # 7488	written Saturday, March 1 2008 09:11 Profile #27 quote: Originally written by Diprosopus: Dear Misters Mystic and Xel'Raga: Until you are familiar with the issues, for which Nick Ranger generously provides us background information, then do not burden us with your juvenile, verbal diarrhea. Many thanks. :) I resent that. :mad: My only post in this thread (other than this one, obviously) was just a silly comment, nothing more. What did I ever do to you? :confused: quote: Originally written by Micawber: Did you ever see the film Theatre of Blood. I did. Good flick. [ Saturday, March 01, 2008 09:17: Message edited by: The Mystic ] -------------------- Either I'm crazy, or everybody else is nuts. And I know I'm not crazy because the little man who lives on my shoulder told me so. If people don't think there's something wrong with you, there's something wrong with you. Oh well. Another day, another dementia. Posts: 558 \| Registered: Friday, September 15 2006 07:00
Dikiyoba Councilor Member # 6600	written Sunday, March 2 2008 19:06 Profile Homepage #28 Originally by the Mystic: quote: What did I ever do to you? Diprosopus = troll That should help clear things up, I think. Originally by Student of Trinity: quote: There are so many gruesome murder mystery series out now, that today it occurred to me that someone should write a mystery in which some kind of maniac is killing off all the mystery writers. He takes out author after author, in hideous ways inspired by their own books. But the police finally begin to track him down, and it all builds up towards a climactic capture scene at the Library of Congress. Then you turn over the last page, and it just says, 'Ha! Got another one!' Heh. Another possibility, given that mystery novels tend to become series--which makes sense for detectives but not so much for the regular people who just happen to stumble on murders everywhere they go--we could have a series about a person who recognizes this trend and tries to get away from people, only to have the bodies appear in increasingly outrageous ways. It'll start with a drive-by in a big city, soon come to a body falling out of the sky on a deserted island, and before you know it the protagonist will be coerced into helping solve the murder of an Inthiliiv couple on Europa. Dikiyoba. -------------------- Episode 4: Spiderweb Reloaded Posts: 4346 \| Registered: Friday, December 23 2005 08:00
Student of Trinity Electric Sheep One Member # 3431	written Monday, March 3 2008 04:36 Profile #29 It makes you wonder whether guys like Peter Wimsey were at all safe to know. Maybe these amateur detectives are somehow behind it all, perhaps unconsciously. Descendants of some Zeus-like tryst by Death. This reminds me for some reason of Fritz Leiber's Death, who in the world of Nehwon is responsible (to the otherwise unmentioned 'Lords of Necessity') for ensuring each hour's quota of expirations. Deaths are assigned by profession: so many farmers, so many heroes, so many kings are slated to off-shuffle in each batch. Death has to decide exactly who in each class gets the ick on each occasion, and exactly how. With heroes, in particular, he tries to be artistic. He permits himself any amount of weirdness, but only goes personally ex machina as a last resort. It is casually mentioned that Death himself is mortal. -------------------- Listen carefully because some of your options may have changed. Posts: 3335 \| Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
Arancaytar Law Bringer Member # 2984	written Monday, March 3 2008 05:34 Profile Homepage #30 More to the point, I sense that Diprosopus detests silliness, especially that which he considers immature or shallow. He came to this thread intending to deal in philosophy, not jokes, so I can see how he'd be a bit irritable. At least he's not straying into the higher-numbered game forums where he might go postal. -- quote: Death himself is mortal. With strange aeons... --- Also, I am an illusion of the collective imagination of the people I communicate with. An Aran-rep, to paraphrase Stephenson. The mindset is kind of soothing and grants some protection against hubris. Posts: 8752 \| Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Arancaytar Law Bringer Member # 2984	written Monday, March 3 2008 09:32 Profile Homepage #31 quote: Originally written by Student of Trinity: *Kinsey could get into Unix and solve some cybercrimes: .is_for_hidden, ?is_for_wild, is_for_completion, that sort of thing. ~is_for_home. -------------------- The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead. Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.' Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks. Posts: 8752 \| Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00**
Nick Ringer Shock Trooper Member # 6754	written Monday, March 3 2008 09:39 Profile #32 quote: Originally written by Student of Trinity: ... someone should write a mystery in which some kind of maniac is killing off all the mystery writers. I'd buy it, but not read it. -------------------- "Write a wise saying and your name will live forever." - Anonymous Posts: 284 \| Registered: Tuesday, January 31 2006 08:00
The Mystic Infiltrator Member # 7488	written Monday, March 3 2008 13:13 Profile #33 quote: Originally written by Dikiyoba: Originally by the Mystic: quote: What did I ever do to you? Diprosopus = troll That should help clear things up, I think. That explains a lot, yes. Thanks for the warning. quote: Originally written by Student of Trinity: someone should write a mystery in which some kind of maniac is killing off all the mystery writers. He takes out author after author, in hideous ways inspired by their own books. Interesting idea, but no thanks. I much prefer a movie made a while back called Murder by Death. It's a mystery spoof in which a man challenges 5 detectives to solve a murder that hasn't been committed yet, with $1 million going to the one who solves it. [ Monday, March 03, 2008 13:14: Message edited by: The Mystic ] -------------------- Either I'm crazy, or everybody else is nuts. And I know I'm not crazy because the little man who lives on my shoulder told me so. If people don't think there's something wrong with you, there's something wrong with you. Oh well. Another day, another dementia. Posts: 558 \| Registered: Friday, September 15 2006 07:00
Student of Trinity Electric Sheep One Member # 3431	written Monday, March 3 2008 14:34 Profile #34 A real life exercise a bit like that was The Floating Admiral, which was a project of Dorothy L. Sayers. She corralled a dozen or so mystery writers, from Agatha Christie on down, and got them all to write one chapter in a novel, but in sequence. Each author would get to read all the preceding chapters, then write their own contribution, and hand them all on to the next in line. Each author was supposed to 1) figure out from the preceding chapters what was going on, then 2) add a few more clues and developments to move the story as they understood it along. It's an interesting experiment to read, but a lousy book, because (as they all later confessed) none of the authors was able to get the slightest idea what the preceding authors had had in mind. -------------------- Listen carefully because some of your options may have changed. Posts: 3335 \| Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
Zeviz Nuke and Pave Member # 24	written Monday, March 3 2008 15:38 Profile Homepage #35 quote: Originally written by Nick Ringer: ... Let's suppose we wanted to simulate reality. Not like Alorael said - reality with conscious inhabitants, with some degree of free will, advanced enough to mistake for reality. How much computing power would we need to make a simulation - say, a planet? Is it possible to acquire? If so, how long until humanity gets it? We don't yet have artificial intelligence advanced enough to understand human language. (That would be a requirement for good electronic translators, perfect voice dictation software, and several other applications.) We are getting pretty good at separate elements, such as speech recognition and understanding of grammar, but we still have a long way to go. I've seen (rather optimitic) predictions that our computers will reach computational capacity of human brain in an average desktop computer around 2015. If it takes a few more years to develop the necessary algorithms, you can expect real artificial intelligence around 2020. If computers keep doubling in computational capacity every two years, a desktop computer will have the computational capacity of a billion people by 2080. However, other aspects of computer architecture (such as storage bandwidth) haven't been growing as quickly, so storage access might become more of a bottleneck than raw processing power. In summary, by some optimistic predictions I've seen, if current trends in computing continue, we'll be able to create a simulation of the entire human society before the end of this century. -------------------- Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword, For it too has the power to kill. However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword, Can also have the power to heal. Posts: 2649 \| Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00
Executor Xel'Raga Shock Trooper Member # 9906	written Monday, March 3 2008 17:28 Profile Homepage #36 quote: quote: quote: What did I ever do Diprosopus = Troll That explains a lot, yes. Thanks for the warning. You live with E.T., you should be ready for a Troll. -------------------- Vivan los Drayks! Viva Khyryk! Vivan los Serviles! Vivan los Travokites! Tastes like Bambi, delicious No matter what name I have, people can call me Xel Pylons! this is what you send to blizzard if they cancel Starcraft 2. Posts: 301 \| Registered: Tuesday, August 21 2007 07:00
Arancaytar Law Bringer Member # 2984	written Monday, March 3 2008 22:57 Profile Homepage #37 Zeviz: We already can, depending on how much detail you put in the model. Simulating a society is not the same as imitating human consciousness, I'd say. -------------------- The Noble and Ancient Order of Polaris - We're Not Yet Dead. Encyclopedia • Blades Forge • Archives • Stats • RSS (This Topic / Forum) • Blog • NaNoWriMo Did-chat thentagoespyet jumund fori is jus, hat onlime gly nertan ne gethen Firyoubbit 'obio.' Decorum deserves a whole line of my signature, and an entry in your bookmarks. Posts: 8752 \| Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
Thuryl ...b10010b... Member # 869	written Monday, March 3 2008 23:14 Profile Homepage #38 quote: Originally written by Zeviz: In summary, by some optimistic predictions I've seen, if current trends in computing continue, we'll be able to create a simulation of the entire human society before the end of this century. There's a flaw in this argument. The behaviour of a society will depend on all of the technologies it has access to. It's impossible for any computer to contain a perfect simulation of its own effect on society, because to do so it'd have to be able to contain a complete description of itself. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 \| Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00
Diprosopus BANNED Member # 13806	written Monday, March 3 2008 23:31 Profile #39 Perhaps what Zeviz meant to say is that, perhaps we might be able to simulate a society before the influence of such high technology. While such a society might inevitably lead us to create such high technology anyway, we could easily imagine that societal engineers might prevent us from advancing technologically until our advances can be facilitated by the simulation. Of course, none of this answers why we'd be deceived in this fashion, but no Cartesian skeptical hypothesis has ever had to. Posts: 134 \| Registered: Sunday, February 3 2008 08:00
Arancaytar Law Bringer Member # 2984	written Tuesday, March 4 2008 02:26 Profile Homepage #40 Simulating a society by simulating the conscious thoughts of every single individual in it is not only overkill, but sounds like it could be counterproductive. Statistics work better with masses than with individuals. Yes, too little detail would mean the simulation cannot predict unlikely edge cases (say, Dintiradan or ET unexpectedly gaining world domination), but too much detail would mean it might predict unlikely edge cases which then wouldn't happen after all. Adding too much detail to the model could actually make it less reliable. Posts: 8752 \| Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00
The Mystic Infiltrator Member # 7488	written Tuesday, March 4 2008 14:04 Profile #41 quote: Originally written by Arancaytar: Dintiradan or ET unexpectedly gaining world domination They'd have to take it from me, and I don't plan on giving it up; I won it years ago, fair and square! (suddenly notices the map of my conquered world is really the board game Risk) Oops. Never mind. -------------------- Either I'm crazy, or everybody else is nuts. And I know I'm not crazy because the little man who lives on my shoulder told me so. If people don't think there's something wrong with you, there's something wrong with you. Oh well. Another day, another dementia. Posts: 558 \| Registered: Friday, September 15 2006 07:00
Diprosopus BANNED Member # 13806	written Friday, March 7 2008 10:45 Profile #42 The simulation doesn't have to be entirely logarithmic. We could imagine some individual(s) overseeing the simulation, interfering whenever they see obvious signs of growth. (It's not too difficult to keep track of leading scientists within given fields occasionally to track their progress.) Posts: 134 \| Registered: Sunday, February 3 2008 08:00