The theory that we might all be living in a computer simulation has gotten so popular among Silicon Valley’s tech elites that two billionaires are now apparently pouring money into breaking us out of the simulation.

That’s according to a new profile in The New Yorker about Y Combinator’s Sam Altman. The story delves into Altman’s life and successes at the helm of the famous boot-camp and investment fund for tech startups, and doesn’t shy away from the quirkier aspects of Altman’s character.

In the piece, Altman discusses his theories about being controlled by technology and delves into the simulation theory, which is the idea that human beings are unwittingly just the characters in someone else’s computer simulation.

The simulation idea has gained popularity among Silicon Valley’s elite — it’s so popular that even Elon Musk is tired of talking about it. But now, a few of the tech industry’s billionaires might be doing something about it.

...Elon Musk...

The theory stupid pie in the sky fantasy that we might all be living in a computer simulation has gotten so popular among Silicon Valley’s tech elites that two billionaires are now apparently pouring money into breaking us out of the simulation although there is no evidence or rational reason to conclude there is any such thing.

Sendraks wrote:

The theory stupid pie in the sky fantasy that we might all be living in a computer simulation has gotten so popular among Silicon Valley’s tech elites that two billionaires are now apparently pouring money into breaking us out of the simulation although there is no evidence or rational reason to conclude there is any such thing.

F.I.F.Y

Fucking stupidity.

Mike_L wrote:

...Elon Musk...

Neo L. Musk is going to free us from the Matrix! :jump:





The sooner, the better! :nod:

Mike_L wrote:...
Chuang Tse (around 300BC):
"Who knows when the end is reached? Death may be the beginning of life. How do I know that love of life is not a delusion after all? How do I know that he who dreads to die is as a child who has lost the way and cannot find his way home? How do I know that the dead repent of having previously clung to life?"

And there's author Nathaniel Hawthorne:
"We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death."

What these ideas have in common with the theistic view of a "soul" is the unsubstantiated belief in a "something else".
But if the neuroscience model is sufficient to describe our experience of reality then these additional "layers" become superfluous.
I do like the fact that these questions are being explored in science... but until there's sufficient weight of evidence to suggest a "something else", the materialistic notion that consciousness arises in the wetware of the brain is the one that seems most parsimonious (Occam's razor) and therefore the most credible.