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this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
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In my circles I'm the one with the strage takes. For example I don't believe in free will. I believe we're probably living in a simulation and if we ever create AGI it's most likely going to end us. Also we're probably the only intelligent life in the universe.
Someone I used to work with went through a period where they were overworked and stressed out, but at the same time having some really bad thoughts about free will being an illusion. The theory was something like this:
It sounds kind of plausible to be honest, but there is just no point in entertaining it. If we don't have free will, we'll never know for sure and cannot change it. If it feels like we have free will does it matter? Anyway, my colleague quit a short while later and went on to do other things and seemed much happier, so I guess it was just a weird period in his life.
That's basically my argument aswell. This however doesn't imply fatalism. It's not like you can just sit around and see what happens. Or you can but nothing happens except you'll just get bored and then the desire to do something else appears. Then you get up and go do that all the while thinking you made that choice.
I just chose to downvote your comment /s
Lack of free will doesn't mean choices aren't real. Just that what ever you choose is the only thing you could have chosen. You could not have done otherwise.
That doesnt make sense ๐
If you're standing in line at the grocery store looking at the chocolate bars next to the register you can either grab one or not. These are your choices. If you just ate a huge pizza before you probably don't feel like eating chocolate too but if you're hungry you can't resist it. In both cases you're making a choice but in both cases the choice is influenced by outside factors that you did not choose.
What does it mean when you say that you could have done otherwise? If you're super hungry and can't resist buying the chocolate bar then that's the only thing you could have done. If you go back in time to the same situation and nothing else changes then you're still hungry as fuck and are going to grab the chocolate bar. Something in your circumstances has to change in order for you to act differently but it's still outside force affecting your behaviour.
The problem there is that if you want to compute the behaviour of say 2 electrons, you need a huge computer with avagadro number of particles. Now imagine the number of particles you need to simulate the numbers of particles in the universe we observe. That number is mind bogglingly big. If we had the that much stuff lying around, it would interact with things and we could observe the consequences of these interactions.
Fairly boring simulation then isn't it?
Why so? There's more interesting stuff to explore on earth alone that you couldn't experience it all even in several lifetimes.
I see no reason to expect that who ever created the simulation would add in aliens and disco ball planets just for the fun of it
The free will one and the fear of an AI uprising is understandable, even if I disagree myself, but the other two... What makes you believe that in the entire universe, we're the only planet that managed intelligent life? And the simulation thing is just crazy.
We may not be the only intelligent life in the entire universe but the only ones in our corner of it and that's why there is no signs of alien civilizations anywhere to be seen. I've also heard people much smarter than me give mathematical explanations as to why the evolution of intelligent life is way more unpropable than most people think.
Why I believe in simulation theory is just statistics; eventually we will develop technology that is able to run such simulations and we're going to create thousands of them. From that point on when new consciouss being is born it's unlikely it appears in our world instead of the thousands of simulations we're running. I just think this applies to us aswell. For us to be living in the base reality we'd either have to be extremely lucky or be the first ones to create such simulations.
Have you ever heard of the Dark Forest theory?
Sure, as well as dozen other suggested explanations for the fermi's paradox. This just happens to be the one I'd place my bets on.
In my eyes, if it's extremely unlikely that we're real, it's even more unlikely that another species is not only real, but has significantly better technological advancements than us as well. It's just the same problem with extra steps. But the thing about the simulation thing, is that it's completely unfalsifiable and has no impact on our reality even if it's true. So there isn't really any need to consider it outside of a philosophical conversation.
Yeah I agree. Simulation or not - I wouldn't expect anything to be different. Life is just as precious even if this is not the base reality because for us it effectively is.