would you rather live in a digitally animated simulation of the world, where you have very profound conversations with AI representations of humans, or would you rather live in the real world amidst actual sentient people who are only ever capable of having mundane, empty conversations?
In the AI simulation, you can discover the secrets of existence by merely making conversation with the right people; but you will pay the price of inevitable loneliness.
In the real world, you will be comforted to be around other people who are truly conscious, but you will pay the price of existential boredom.
Your hypothetical only allows for an either/or scenario? Perhaps you could add a few additional options. Both options you’ve already stated are horrific for neither allows the individual who chose either/or an escape from being alone.
If the people in the real world are only capable of having mundane conversations then can they still be considered truly conscious? The existential boredom leads to the inevitability of loneliness, so both are already here in the real world.
My choice would be the real world, always. No matter how disgusting, brutal, decadent, miserable…There is nothing greater than the real…you just have to cross that line, that barrier that has been built into you since birth from being exposed to a society that aims to condition you into a conforming structure. Then you realize you can act upon any kind of impulses and deep feelings, and thoughts you have, no matter what they are…suddenly the world is a great opportunity…
The AI, or better yet, the simulations of human beings are not conscious at all; they just appear to be. They are drones, phantoms. But they appear and behave like real human beings.
This is meant to be an either/or scenario, it’s suppose to be a conundrum.
Ideally, we would want to incorporate both, right? But just for the sake of the hypothetical, it’s either-or.
I lean more towards the simulation. It would still feel like the real world, perhaps even more real, as the conversations and experiences would be more authentic, that is, deep and meaningful. It would be a philosopher’s dream come true.
I believe I would rather have real conversations with fake people, as opposed to having fake conversations with real people.
How can simulation be more real, than real? Authenticity is not based upon intellectual depth, a retard is authentically retarded. The reason why you use words like authentic, or fake is in relation to connectivity, or the lack thereof , on a personal level. I remember Stardusk once said, a big part of being an intelligent man is being on your own, referring more specifically to the mind, then the manifestation of this in reality as alone physically.
I’m using the words “real” and “fake” in a colloquial way. What I mean to say is that one’s experiences would be more profound and awe-inspiring in the simulation.
You would feel more vital, more alive in the simulation.
Indeed, It doesn’t really work for me, unless im super high and then it’s like im inside the game, then the reality around me is negated… i think most gamers actually have that naturally… my mind won’t allow me to just be taken by simulation, it demands something more real…
The simulation would be designed by some sort of higher power (e.g. a god, a genius), who communicates wisdom through the characters.
It wouldn’t be so much one talking to oneself; it would be more like God communicating to man.
Why seek wisdom in a world where only you and God are autonomous characters and everyone else if just a mouthpiece for God? What good does wisdom do you? Wisdom in that case is just skillful interaction in an artificial game where you are the only player.
Why would God create such an artificial world? Why would He not speak to you directly?
If I work hard enough at it, I can have those same profound conversations with REAL people who are truly conscious. I imagine by truly conscious, you mean intelligent knowledgeable “with it” kind of people. Why would I give that up for a simulation?
It seems to me that there is the loneliness and existential boredom in each of your scenarios. That’s the price that one pays for ALSO living in the real world. We find ways to either transcend those moods or transform them into something meaningful and purposeful.
We choose our own company.
By the way, does AL/s world have stars and nature and books and all of those yummy things which keep us from being bored and lonely?
The simulated world would have all the same things as the real one, minus the other “real” people, of course; there would be books, parks, sunny days, ice-cream and all that jazz. It would feel just like the “real” world, like the matrix.
This is just an experiment to see what people would choose.
Why seek wisdom in a world where only you and God are autonomous characters and everyone else if just a mouthpiece for God? What good does wisdom do you? Wisdom in that case is just skillful interaction in an artificial game where you are the only player.