From: Louis Newstrom (louisnews@comcast.net)
Date: Wed Jun 26 2002 - 06:53:57 MDT
----- Original Message -----
From: "John K Clark" <jonkc@att.net>
> I am not claiming that there is proof or even evidence that you have
already
> been uploaded, in fact I am claiming the very opposite. There is no proof
> and never will be any because it doesn't make the slightest subjective
> difference if it has happened or not so you will never be able to devise
an
> experiment to make the differentiation.
If it happened "last night", then I am sure that I could check something
that happened a while ago. For example, I could travel to where I spent my
honeymoon (years ago) and see if the rooms looked the same, even down to a
specific scratch on a specific table.
If you want to claim that the aliens would fake that scratch, then you must
either claim that there are only three possibilities:
1) They have been watching me for my entire life. If aliens have been
planning this for my entire life, they could have done it when I was a baby,
and I'd never know. (This goes outside of the "last night" claim.)
2) They have a probe on earth to relay information about any place I go.
In which case, they are doing a remote-feed of the real world, which isn't
quite the same as a simulation. (This could be happening, but I would argue
that a remote-feed of real information is NOT a siumulation.)
3) They are altering my memories so I don't notice changes. In which case,
they could just edit my memory every time I noticed a change. (Then I'd
have no hope of noticing, but that's because they control my mind.)
In any case, I don't see how it could be "impossible" unless option 1) is
true. I might not notice in the remote case that aliens have been working
on this experiment longer than my memory goes back.
> There is no reason to think it has
> happened, there is no reason to think it has not happened, and there is no
> reason to give a damn.
Of course there's a reason to give a damn. If I'm in a real universe, then
certain things cannot be changed. The mere precense of aliens with higher
technology means that REAL things could be changed even if they are beyond
our technology. In this case, if I'm in a simulation, then ANYTHING could
be changed even if it violates the laws of physics. Changing the
possibilities of what can be, definitely is a reason to give a damn.
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