Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch


	Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch

mirzania

8-18-2007 1:20 PM

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tags:

science, technology, matrix, research, simulation

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://www.clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/65f7d0cc-35f1-4a9d-b50f-0de371739693/D862F069-D76D-43B2-BB53-984CFEF95EF4/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/science/14tier.html?ei=5090&en=22bfff4070a81187&ex=1344744000&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1187457049-9quM+AmAR0BpDX3ySsWwoA" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/science/14tier.html?ei=5090&en=22bfff4070a81187&ex=1344744000&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1187457049-9quM+AmAR0BpDX3ySsWwoA" style="font-size: 11px;">www.nytimes.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/science/14tier.html?ei=5090&en=22bfff4070a81187&ex=1344744000&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1187457049-9quM+AmAR0BpDX3ySsWwoA"><DIV class="byline">By <A title="More Articles by John Tierney" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/t/john_tierney/index.html?inline=nyt-per">JOHN TIERNEY</A></DIV></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/science/14tier.html?ei=5090&en=22bfff4070a81187&ex=1344744000&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1187457049-9quM+AmAR0BpDX3ySsWwoA">Until I talked to Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at <A title="More articles about Oxford University" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/o/oxford_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org">Oxford University</A>, it never occurred to me that our universe might be somebody else’s hobby. I hadn’t imagined that the omniscient, omnipotent creator of the heavens and earth could be an advanced version of a guy who spends his weekends building model railroads or overseeing video-game worlds like the Sims.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/science/14tier.html?ei=5090&en=22bfff4070a81187&ex=1344744000&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1187457049-9quM+AmAR0BpDX3ySsWwoA">But now it seems quite possible. In fact, if you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom’s, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/science/14tier.html?ei=5090&en=22bfff4070a81187&ex=1344744000&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1187457049-9quM+AmAR0BpDX3ySsWwoA">This simulation would be similar to the one in “The Matrix,”</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/science/14tier.html?ei=5090&en=22bfff4070a81187&ex=1344744000&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1187457049-9quM+AmAR0BpDX3ySsWwoA">But in Dr. Bostrom’s notion of reality, you wouldn’t even have a body made of flesh. Your brain would  exist only as a network of computer circuits.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/science/14tier.html?ei=5090&en=22bfff4070a81187&ex=1344744000&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1187457049-9quM+AmAR0BpDX3ySsWwoA">It’s unsettling to think of the world being run by a futuristic computer geek, although we might at last dispose of that of classic theological question: How could God allow so much evil in the world?</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/D862F069-D76D-43B2-BB53-984CFEF95EF4/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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