The Simulated Ego: Part One
A sequence of essays describing my perspective of reality, brought to you in part by psychedelic experiences
Nick Bostrom’s premise:
Many works of science fiction as well as some forecasts by serious technologists and futurologists predict that enormous amounts of computing power will be available in the future. Let us suppose for a moment that these predictions are correct. One thing that later generations might do with their super-powerful computers is run detailed simulations of their forebears or of people like their forebears. Because their computers would be so powerful, they could run a great many such simulations. Suppose that these simulated people are conscious (as they would be if the simulations were sufficiently fine-grained and if a certain quite widely accepted position in the philosophy of mind is correct). Then it could be the case that the vast majority of minds like ours do not belong to the original race but rather to people simulated by the advanced descendants of an original race.
Nick Bostrom’s conclusion:
Nick Bostrom in 2014
It is then possible to argue that, if this were the case, we would be rational to think that we are likely among the simulated minds rather than among the original biological ones. Therefore, if we don’t think that we are currently living in a computer simulation, we are not entitled to believe that we will have descendants who will run lots of such simulations of their forebears.
- Nick Bostrom, Are you living in a computer simulation?, 2003
In the following Series of articles, you will be provided some elements of science and philosophy to paint a picture of a kind of simulation theory that doesn’t rely on probability, but instead very fundamental and scientifically established behaviors exhibited within the universe, such as self organization, Emergence and feedback loops. Philosophy and analogies will be utilized to catalyze a true understanding within you, that reality as we know it, is not fundamental, it is procedurally generated by a fundamental nature. As well, experience is an integral component that not only stems from the same fundamental nature, but by it’s very own nature, facilitates the illusion of individuality. Experience is effectively a trance or dream-like state. Finally, I will attempt to convincingly convey the idea that the self truly is an illusion and there is a quantifiable boundary or area really, where experience and comprehension fade into ignorance and this finite area is the medium with which the self is given form.
To begin, you should do away with this idea that there must be some most fundamental unit of reality or in other words, that the most fundamental thing or things are units. Instead, I’m going to focus on what I view is more like a fundamental genome or formula by which what we refer to as “reality” and “experience” are procedurally generated.
So, let’s ask some questions.
- What is consciousness?
- What is reality?
- What does it mean to be an observer?
- What does it mean to have an experience?
- Is there such a thing as freewill?
