From: Ken Kahn <kahn@csli.stanford.edu>
Subject: Re: PHIL: VR--Are we really the first?
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 08:23:58 PDT



From an earlier post, a corrected version...

Subject: Re: PHIL: VR--Are we really the first?
Organization: Stanford University CSLI
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1992 17:03:20 GMT

The obvious next question is: Is there any scientific or philosophical
reason to think that we are not *in* such a simulation *now*??

Or, considered another way, if we will soon be able to create a
convincing artificial reality, and the entities within that reality do
so as well, etc., recursively, isn't it more *likely* that we're *not*
the "base" case?

Finally, a couple of skeptical questions to close:

  (1) Is this conjecture scientifically verifiable in any way?
  (2) If this conjecture is true, are there any practical
      ramifications for us?

I once heard a story that John McCarthy, Ed Fredkin, and maybe others
were having dinner in the 1960s and these questions came up.  McCarthy
at one point said "look for round-off errors".  Fredkin thought that
quantum mechanics may be such.  This discussion lead to lots of
interesting research on computation and meta-physics at MIT while I
was there (1970s).  I recently saw an annoucement for a conference
that gave me the impression that this sort of research is still
active.

There were two "Star Trek - The Next Generation" episodes on the
Holodeck where simulated characters became aware of the fact that they
were simulations (I think in both instances due to malfunctions/bugs).

 -ken