Elon Musk makes the argument that we're living in a simulation
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captaincranky
Posts: 19,684 +8,825
As opposed to listening to some con man / windbag speculate on "what we are, and what we might become", I'd much rather listen to someone who truly was a visionary and story teller, sci-fi author Isaac Asimov, take on the topic. Mr. Asimov wrote, "The Last Question", way back before you were even thought of, in 1956. The story was adapted for showing in planetariums, and was fairly moving and enigmatic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Question It also tackles the religious issue that some have injected into this discussion.. My point here is, Musk is merely running his mouth in sync with so much others have done to envision the future, and our place in it.
Well, if your priorities are as trivial as comparing Musk to Beiber, you should be over on YouTube posting rude comments under his videos. I have the good sense and good taste to completely ignore him, and the "entertainment news programs" which promote his antics. Musk, on the other hand, is someone pocketing billions of dollars of taxpayer money, on products and businesses which either don't exist yet, or don't turn a profit. Yet he himself, is filthy rich, with an endless supply of imbeciles/acolytes, who think he's god.
And BTW, "I'm simply too cranky", where did you come up with that clever and insightful adjective for me, Ctrl "C"?
And........, we have another pop/amateur psychologist on the loose here at "Psych-Spot". To tell the truth junior, I go to therapy just to analyze the therapists. You'd be amazed at my findings.
In conclusion, Elon Musk is a camera w***e, at least on a par with the "reverend" Al Sharpton, or the "reverend" Jesse Jackson.These are people who actually do annoy the crap out of me, not some over privileged little punk-a$$ pop singer who seems quite ready, willing, and able, to get your goat.
Good chat. (y)
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Interested to read that so many people like ''stories''. They are ''stories'', not real, they are made up stuff, where one line is devised to lead into the next and all the characters are pre-set to interact in accordance with the pretend action, and pretend dialogue is invented to try to help the pretend seam real. It works very well for childish minds, unfortunately many adults suffer from it too.
captaincranky
Posts: 19,684 +8,825
Oh gosh, I don't know oil, Sequoia sempervirens for lawn furniture? The trouble is, at least in the case of oil, you'd waste more energy coming here to get it, than you could extract from it. It's the same dilemma the universe has with solar fusion. Once you fuse to iron, it takes more energy to fuse to a heavier element than you get back, and the star collapses and explodes.
Oh, I just love rookies trying to sound clever and condescending. Unfortunately, at least for your developmentally challenged take on reality, adults actually know stories are stories. In fact, we have bedrooms and bibles full of them, simply waiting to baffle and amaze still forming minds. I especially liked the one where "Goldilocks" talked to "The Three Bears", out of a "burning bush", and handed them stone tablets inscribed with the "10 commandments" for wiping your a$$, along with complimentary 24 roll packs of "Charmin" bathroom tissue.
Do have a nice day.
(You are aware I'm not going to let up you, in spite of the "like" you gave me, aren't you? It's a character flaw, sorry. I'm just loaded with them. Ask anyone here).
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EEatGDL
Posts: 770 +501
He wasn't speculating, not even doing a "visionary" exercise; someone in the audience was trying to corner him with a direct answer about the "Matrix" theory and our reality. He made it clear that the idea wasn't completely impossible but also a remote one, the title here seems like click-bait.
Wow, this isn't the first time I hear the "to analyze the therapists" argument, don't go condescending on me. Do you feel satisfied pointing at others believing you're the utter s**t? And not just that, but trying to prove why you're so superior. Come on, bringing Asimov is the easy card; I would have loved learning something new in your feedback about visionaries.
The main point to my reply: you went ahead attacking someone just by reading the title, rather than judging the story itself, because I guess you made a bunch of assumptions by just the title and the article, that doesn't even tell what actually happened in the video [as if the writer of the article didn't watch it either].
And yeah, Musk gets to your nerves enough to do like 4 replies to an article talking about him, by just mere assumptions. I haven't dedicated a single written word in anything related to JB because I don't give as much of a s**t as you do with Musk. I'm sure you can show us all how to beat this guy in his own game; he's not a good talker, by far -it is actually annoying to hear him talk-, but I'm sure you have more insight and a superior intellect, but life neglected you the oportunnities this guy had and took. I can assure you, that in the future, the mere word Musk being mentioned in an article, not even its title, will be enough to bring us more of your delightful comments.
It is really great talking to you, a shame our first interaction is under this circumstances and on the wrong foot. But well, you can express yourself as much as you want while you want to prevent that on others [not saying names because you can get an hernia].
captaincranky
Posts: 19,684 +8,825
And I said as much, twice! I think my best effort was at, "post #42".
So, if I have this right, you're going to repeat things I said long ago in this thread and claim "original" on them? I mean, I call myself "cranky", and then you call me "cranky". Hardly original.
The "easy card", how so? I just pointed out Asimov "claimed" we'd be living in a simulation eventually, 60 years ago. The tag "visionary", has been applied and misapplied countless times over the centuries, from Asimov, to Aristotle, to Alexander the Great. (I mean, just because you want to own the known world, rape all the boys, men, girls, and women in it, hardly qualifies as "visionary").
I feel I no longer need to watch, read, or listen to anything the man has to say. Enough of his bulls**t. If his mouth is moving, he's working on the long con. He needs to STFU, deliver the new inexpensive Tesla, and turn a profit with that company, or get hauled in front of the FTC. Let him explain there how, "it's possible we're living in a simulation". He can wear his imaginary Martian spacesuit to the hearing. (Which by the way, he gave a press conference about, around the same time the "earnings report" came in for Tesla, which was a quarterly loss in excess of $200,000,000.00....
).I admit it, I can't out lie the son of a bi*ch, and I don't have the same lust for other people's money as he does. I suppose that is a character flaw.
And as far as my "delightful comments" go, count on them...(y)
The notion that we live in a 'simulation' falls into the same trap that religions have mired themselves in: if reality has any authentic meaning, if we are to grant our imaginary and pathetically limited conceptual models any power to sanction its worth, we ought first to always remind our lofty conceit that the tendency of any 'chaos' towards order in nature precedes the flowering of intelligence that is defined by a capacity to learn from a state of low knowledge to a higher level of knowledge - a condition that allows information to be stored and refined. Its inherent in the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. It's been abundantly shown over the last half-century of study with complexity theory and self-organization that any platform with a given order configuration ('organized complexity') stems in time from a previous state which is less so. Are we in our lofty conceit to presume that the property we so haughtily presume to be so spectacularly unique - 'intelligence' - cannot accrue from a 'dumb' condition in naked nature to be able to count along a number line? Is that fundamental mathematical order to be regarded as an invention by 'intelligence', or is it a property of existence that doesn't care whether or not any 'intelligence' is aware of it? The claim of 'simulation' requires that an 'Intelligence' is responsible for it. Are we seriously so stupid in our self-aggrandizement that we can't resist conflating intelligence and its artificial contraptions with how natural reality works? Yes, indeed, intelligence reaching a certain threshold will be capable of performing simulations and could in principle eventually be able to concoct a simulation of an entire universe...except, proponents of the idea will have to show how this could be accomplished before intelligence can possibly have emerged. And 'emergence' is the key concept here: unless proponents of simulation can explain how the simulators themselves are not simulations, we fall back to the same *****ic problem that religions refuse to address: what god created god? One would think that Elon Musk and Neil deGrasse Tyson would take a moment to refresh themselves in a field neither of them are expert in before making a claim based on nothing other than unwarranted opinion. What a shame - even as a society of well-informed smart folk dedicated to science, we seem unable to divorce ourselves from the ugly tendency to jump into one bin or another of belief and opinion.
EClyde
Posts: 2,404 +950
Techno Philosophy
captaincranky
Posts: 19,684 +8,825
Fixed!
Yeah well, all that can be explained, (and some of it induced), chemically. So then, it is sequitur to assume "God is a chemist".....
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R
Raoul Duke
Maybe in a few hundred years Planet of the Apes will be our reality
R
Raoul Duke
captaincranky
Posts: 19,684 +8,825
Which as you may already be aware, requires 6 semesters of, "gazing at your own reflection in the door of a microwave oven", for completion of the masters level.
@Raoul Duke Who says scientists don't have a sense of humor? From Wiki:
"There still is controversy, however. Scientists such as Jared Diamond in The Third Chimpanzee, and Morris Goodman[21] of Wayne State University in Detroit suggest that the bonobo and common chimpanzee are so closely related to humans that their genus name also should be classified with the human genus Homo: Homo paniscus, Homo sylvestris, or Homo arboreus. An alternative philosophy suggests that the term Homo sapiens is the misnomer rather, and that humans should be reclassified as Pan sapiens, though this would violate the Principle of Priority, as Homo was named before Pan (1758 for the former, 1816 for the latter). In either case, a name change of the genus would have implications on the taxonomy of extinct species closely related to humans, including Australopithecus. The current line between Homo and non-Homo species is drawn about 2.5 million years ago, and chimpanzee and human ancestry converge only about 7 million years ago, nearly three times longer."
The rest of the page on the Bonobo chimp, is exponentially more entertaining that the entire, "Planet of the Apes" series. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo
EDIT: the common chimp is "Pan troglodytes"
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EEatGDL
Posts: 770 +501
Probably a very late reply, but I let the case rest. I don't know what else I expect from you.
captaincranky
Posts: 19,684 +8,825
Should I take that to mean, "you're above continuing this discussion".
Quite a pity actually. Existential discussions usually only ended when the tetrahydrocannabinol, (THC), wore off.
What I was going to say was, "If a simulated tree fell in a simulated forest, would it make a simulated sound, and no matter what the outcome, would Elon Musk be able to leverage that into federal loans and tax credits, along with getting a camera shoved in his face to talk about it"?
Alas, that's a modern existential discussion, they used to be so much simpler......
Bob Dylan reached an "existential crisis", and penned this gem, "My Back Pages", which basically asks, "am I only a simulation of my former self"?
At any rate, here's a spoonful of sugar, (Georgia Whiting),
Rippleman
Posts: 871 +394
Which of the 4000 claims are you claiming to be "the god". You are competing with A LOT of others. You need to clarify.
Rippleman
Posts: 871 +394
So because you can not see it any other way, this makes it true? Can this logic work for other peoples claims of other beliefs or only yours?
captaincranky
Posts: 19,684 +8,825
Well, I hate to spoil this frolic, but I feel obligated to reveal the "one true God" . Behold, and may all of you may bask in his splendor:.........
Pay particular attention to the fact Elon Musk wasn't mentioned.
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Rippleman
Posts: 871 +394
Thank you for sharing your opinion.
captaincranky
Posts: 19,684 +8,825
I'm of the belief I'm entitled to an opinion...........(wait for it).........., "You're welcome".....
There's a flaw of reasoning it is that our ability to distinguish depends on intelligence, and even though we are improving the undistinguishnableness of games, we are also improving our intelligence to distinguish, and so it may be that eventually the rate of intelligence has to increase faster than the ability to mask indistinguishness.
captaincranky
Posts: 19,684 +8,825
I'm a big fan of big words. However, not so much in your case. If you want to make a case for "our intelligence increasing", at least try to make some effort to use words which actually exist in English to support your theory.
BTW, I think you've been playing too many video games, when you hit the point of, "all video games look alike to me".
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