From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Tue Apr 30 2002 - 19:16:17 MDT
On Tuesday, April 30, 2002, at 04:14 pm, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> This almost exactly duplicates Descartes' infamous musing. If you were
> uploaded into a VR that *perfectly* replicated your current reality, in
> a way that you did not remember the upload, then no, it would not
> matter: by definition, there would be no difference to you. The nagging
> suspicion that it might matter comes from the insistence on perfection
> here: we intuitively know that, no matter what we may rationalize,
> replications (at least from non-digital states like "reality as we now
> know it") are actually rarely perfect, even if done by very clever
> people assisted by the best of modern technology (and thus, one suspects
> despite all rationalization, replications made by even very advanced SIs
> would suffer from the same limitation in practice), that one state can
> often be told from another...and in that difference, is what matters.
Isn't this the same as asking if you lie to people and they never find
out, does it matter? Remember the Truman Show? The guy was kept in a
lie his entire life. Wouldn't you be mad if you found out? What about
all the suffering around us. What if that could have been prevented,
but was simulated just for realism. What if our lives could have been
so much better, but our boring lives were maintained just to maintain
the lie.
I sure would be mad, and think it matters to me. The question of how
could it matter if I don't know, simply means what I don't know won't
hurt me. People can act unethically and deceitfully as long as they
don't get caught. I don't believe that. The deceived person is being
deprived of larger possibilities through fraud. If they were free to
explore and get out into the larger universe, to make their own
decision, their lives may be so much better.
-- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP <www.HarveyNewstrom.com> Principal Security Consultant <www.Newstaff.com>
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