I don’t play No Man’s Sky (yet?), the pictures here were taken by my friend Extropia DaSilva who is busy exploring the simulated universe. Perhaps I will follow, but perhaps not: I am sure I would love No Man’s Sky and find it addictive, but I prefer to develop visions of hope for everyone to visit, one day, the big No Man’s Sky out there. However, No Man’s Sky is the richest simulation that we have developed so far, and an impressive technological feat.
Tag Archives: Simulation
Consciousness, Reality, and The Simulation Hypothesis
Yesterday a post in the Turing Church Facebook group (h/t Martin C.) mentioned a Skeptico interview with filmmaker Kent Forbes, the creator of “The Simulation Hypothesis,” a recent film about the reality-as-a-sim concept, consciousness and quantum physics. Review and related thoughts below.
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Sir Martin Rees on super-advanced post-biological civilizations
In an article on The Telegraph, Royal Astronomer Sir Martin Rees writes on post-biological evolution, immortality, the Singularity, vast oceans of yet unknown science, and synthetic realities created by super-advanced civilizations.
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My MTA 2013 talk: Life and The Computational Problem of Evil
I gave a talk on “The Computational Problem of Evil” at the 2013 Conference of the Mormon Transhumanist Association. I argued that the Problem of Evil has a simple solution when examined with a rigorous approach based on the physics of computation and I used animations featuring Joe Glider, an inhabitant of Conway’s Game of Life, to illustrate my argument.
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The physics of miracles and the problem of evil
We may be bots in a reality-wide simulation, and perhaps the player(s) from above can violate our simulated physics when they want. In a more popular formulation of the same concept, called Religion, the player(s), called God(s), created our reality and can perform miracles. The two formulations are equivalent for all practical purposes. Many religions assume that Gods are omnipotent and benevolent, but then we have the problem of evil: how can omnipotent and benevolent Gods permit evil and suffering?
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