How do we know life is real? Is a Matrix theory possible?

[HegemonKhan]

Re: How do we know life is real? Is a Matrix theory possible?

ms...smith....now that would be truly frightening!!!!!

ach.. i'm gona die of laughter....here...

i don't even wanna think what a ms smith would look like....dies... of laughter...dead....R.I.P.

(j/k of course, but it was close)
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i don't even think machines can truly be perfect or "flawless". first of all, in the real world...machines and things that use electricty can be inferred with...another electrical current (like lightning bolt, or a "short circuit")

and also, IMperfection is actually advantageous, for example with life:

the radiation, or mistakes of reproduction that cause the genetic modification that results in diversity and one of those diverse imperfect mistakes, may be the only type of life able to survive a catastrophy.
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and here's a philosophical thing for u guys to think about:

PERFECTION is the only single word oxymoron.

if u don't know what an oxymoron is:

the dry water, the freezing flame-fire, the soft diamond, (dying of laughter again with this one) the smart president Bush (JR. not the dad, he's actually pretty smart), etc...

pure 100% perfection is by it's very definition flawed. there's no such thing as perfection.

hmm.. how to best explain what i mean...

let's take "heaven". imagine "heaven" as PERFECT. u should be seeing-imagining just how awful and boring and dull it would be. those are not descriptions of PERFECTION. hopefully this kinda makes sense..

the "perfection paradox"

 

[krischan]

Re: How do we know life is real? Is a Matrix theory possible?

Well, he never lowered his pants in the movie, and we have a Mistress Sersi here as well, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's really Ms Smith. I will leave my typo uncorrected :smug:

 

[HegemonKhan]

Re: How do we know life is real? Is a Matrix theory possible?

i need to get out of this thread...i keep thinking of ms smith and choking up with laughter.....

 

[Johnny]

Re: How do we know life is real? Is a Matrix theory possible?

Staying in the Matrix has a 0% chance of changing things while escape gives you at least a bit of it and as the Architect said, hope is the greatest strength of humans (but also their greatest weakness). Of course, if you know that the matrix will persist for long enough to give you a pleasant life, it might be fine, but knowing about it might have a severe impact on what you believe to be the meaning of your life. So both knowing and not knowing has severe consequences, no matter whether you take the red or the blue pill.

The machines held their promise because they might have another Ms Smith problem later and if they had betrayed the humans, the price for help might be higher next time or they refuse to cooperate in any way. However, that doesn't mean they won't kill all humans if they can get their energy from elsewhere. The Mr Smith problem just exists because the Matrix has to be imperfect (and thus have unpleasant side effects like Mr Smith) to make people happy and thus have functional energy sources. With no Matrix there would be no imperfections and thus no Mr Smith.

Neo was the imperfection. Not Smith. The matrix had been working in cycles where Zion is destroyed everytime and then a new neo is born. Smith was what broke the whole cycle.

 

[HegemonKhan]

Re: How do we know life is real? Is a Matrix theory possible?

i think the virus-altered smith would-is also an imperfection, but smith was fine..until he met the different neo (from all teh other neos before) and that encounter with the different neo caused him (smith) to become an unstable virus like thing.

would neo's love for trinity, be the thing that caused him to be different from all the other neos before him?

maybe it was love that brought the chaos to the previously orderly system cycle of the matrix in the past.

love is the imperfection/chaos that changed the orderly system of the matrix cycle of zion destroyed and new neos over n over

love the strong human emotion that over-rides or over-powers the physical world's laws and rules. this is quite a very common and popular theme:

with/in love, a man becomes a god and can do anything even the impossible or amazing feats. this is seen everywhere in human literture and stories and ceoncepts and all that.

 

[krischan]

Re: How do we know life is real? Is a Matrix theory possible?

Neo was the imperfection. Not Smith. The matrix had been working in cycles where Zion is destroyed everytime and then a new neo is born. Smith was what broke the whole cycle.

Smith is an agent program which went crazy when meeting Neo. Smith reacted to him in an unexpected way because Neo #6 was different from the Neos before. The regular Neo was intended as such, but Neo #6, as well as Smith were different which had a couple of unintended consequences. Both Neo and Smith broke the cycle.

 

[Rancors]

Re: How do we know life is real? Is a Matrix theory possible?

i like how this becomes more of a movie discussion thread.

 

[Dondrei]

Re: How do we know life is real? Is a Matrix theory possible?

Urgh, this is worse than discussing plot points in the new Star Wars movies.

Except maybe the cartoon pilot. That would be worse.

 

[BlueDogAnchorite]

Re: How do we know life is real? Is a Matrix theory possible?

The "brain in a vat" theory used in the matrix gives the human the ability to feel every single human emotion, scent, sight, and touch just through the mind. If I remember correctly from my psychology class this is from direct stimulus to the brain stem and the different parts of your brain that triggers these sensations. Meaning that there is no need for a body, skull or face. Isn't is scary to think that this world might just be one big illusion and in reality we're just brains floating in a tub of liquid.

I believe it is entirely possible. The "simulation argument" makes the assumption that the ongoing development of computers and increasing computing power could potentially increase to the point where perfectly life-like historical simulations of the past are possible. Based on this assumption it then poses three conflicting hypothesis for the future - one of which MUST be correct...

1. That mankind will become extinct before it has the chance to build computers powerful enough to perfectly simulate the real-world and run 'historical simulations'

2. That mankind WILL survive long enough to develop computers powerful enough to run these simulations but won't actually, for whatever reason, create and run the simulations

3. That mankind WILL survive long to develop the simulations and WILL choose to create and run them.

If hypothesis 1 or 2 are correct then we have nothing to worry about. However if hypothesis 3 IS correct then it is entirely possible, and actually quite probable, that we are all already living in one of these historical simulations without realizing it.

Worth doing more research on if you are interested. Mind-bending stuff.

Hey OP I always liked that article! Heres the rest of it.. http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.

 

[HegemonKhan]

Re: How do we know life is real? Is a Matrix theory possible?

humans have stopped evolving.

the only possible explanation so far is due to low birth rates. less babies. less diversity of genes. less mutation. less, and in the case of humans, NO evolution.

maybe this zero evolution is why we are making robots and machines. it's a way for us to substitute or go around our halt of evolution. since we aren't evolving, we make the new "species" inorganic mechanic robots and machines. it's the new wave or direction of "life". "the rise of the machines"-to quote the T3 movie title. life is obsolete and going extinct. it's out of date. and machines and robots are the future. organic life forms are things of the past. the future is all about inorganic robots and machines.

 

[s4nder]

Re: How do we know life is real? Is a Matrix theory possible?

the only possible explanation so far is due to low birth rates. less babies.

How does this explain the exploding human population? What was it, eight billion before 2040?

 

[HegemonKhan]

Re: How do we know life is real? Is a Matrix theory possible?

population size and mutation-evolution are two different things.

also, if humanity right now were to have only 2 babies each and let's say there's currently 7 billion humans and let's say all 7 billion humans are mature (able to have kids) just to do this exmaple:

7 billion + (3.5 billion couples x 2 babies) = 14 billion humans. so even with only having 2 babies because our population is already so large, we'll increase our population significantly.

but by having less and less babies from ~10 in earlier history to less and less until we hit the ~2 babies of industrialized societies, this offers the only theory as to why evolution has stoppped completely in humans.

 

[Nazdakka]

Re: How do we know life is real? Is a Matrix theory possible?

humans have stopped evolving.

the only possible explanation so far is due to low birth rates. less babies. less diversity of genes. less mutation. less, and in the case of humans, NO evolution.

Oh yes we are. So long as people with certain genetic characteristics have more babies than people without them, evolution continues. If I were to have 20 kids, the genes I have would have much more impact on the gene pool than someone who had 1. It's nothing you'll perceive over the course of a human lifetime, but that doesn't mean that it's not there.

 

[HegemonKhan]

Re: How do we know life is real? Is a Matrix theory possible?

humans have existed for 14,000 years (12,000 bc + 2000 ad) and remain unchanged.

also, if u take the different types of humans, they aren't really that different, as compared to different types of other life forms.

our human DNA is for all intensive purposes is pretty much a single dna. the difference in my dna from your dna is so....small...it is negligible. there is NO genetic change in humans. there is no mutation-altering of dna. there is NO evolution occuring in humans. we are a dead end species. that is unless, our robots and machines succeed us and u allow that to be called "evolution".

 

[krischan]

Re: How do we know life is real? Is a Matrix theory possible?

That's like having a cake in the oven for a single minute and saying that something is wrong with it because nothing has happened so far.

The small amount of time for which modern humans exist is very short in comparison to the typical lifetime of a species (a few millions of years), that's also the reason while the genetical variation is rather small. All new secies start like that and we are perhaps 1% through that. All humans come from a stock of about 5000 individuals, that's genetically proven and a few tens of thousands of years are simply not enough to cause more diversity than we currently have.

However, humans can travel all over the world with no problems. It needs separation to produce significant genetic differences through selection, else humans will bread among all of themselves all the time and thus be more or less the same, genetically spoken. That doesn't mean that they won't evolve, they just won't get more diverse than they already are.

Another factor is that since about 150 years, humans have access to technology to ensure the survival of humans who would have died at earlier times. That obviously has an influence on the gene pool because it changed the the rules for selection, although the extent might be debatable and it's like that only for a dozen generations.

 

[HegemonKhan]

Re: How do we know life is real? Is a Matrix theory possible?

i'm not really the one to talk about this, but the geneticist scientists and such do, and THEY say that we are NOT evolving at all. i wish i knew/understood more, so i could better discuss it.

evolution does indeed "usually" takes a very very long time (the biggest exception is "dogs", canines. they probably have the fastest ability to change and also able to change in so many drastic ways). however, just because evolution takes a long time, does NOT mean that it just suddenly happens all at once after 3 million years or whatever. even over the human species' life span history, small evolutionary genetic changes would-should be happening, but the scientists have not detected this at all in humans.

 

[krischan]

Re: How do we know life is real? Is a Matrix theory possible?

Humans are rather diverse IMO, having different skin, hair color, sizes, noses, eyes etc. I think a Northern European looks a lot different than e.g. a pygmy. A high percentage of identical genes doesn't mean that there is no diversity. Our genes are nearly 99% identical to those of chimps, for example.

Dogs are so diverse because humans bred them massively.

 

[HegemonKhan]

Re: How do we know life is real? Is a Matrix theory possible?

only dogs could become all those different breeds from our massive breeding. there's something special about canines that allow them to so drastically change in only 2-3 generations of breeding or 10-15 years of breeding. there's something about their DNA that is so versatile. it's really unseen any where else in life.

if u did the same massive breeding with any other type of life form u wouldn't have the same amazing results of diversity that "dogs" (canines) have.

dogs (canines) are like the "stem cell" of living organisms. they can change into almost anything. jsut take a look at the different breeds of dogs...they are so drastically different. we are talking about major differences. the differences among humans is laughable compared to dogs. compared to dogs we are clones. a single type of human. a product line of robotic drones or prototypes.
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and your completely correct about DNA. even the smallest difference has drastic differences.

like u said that 1% of DNA is the difference from a human and a chimp. even smaller % of DNA than 1% is the difference from an european to african to asian. and an even smaller amount is the differences from one european to another european or an african to another african or asian to another asian... and so forth....when we finally get to genetic deseases we are talking about the difference of like 1/4958409854098543 % of DNA difference. really really micro % DNA differences.

 

[stephan]

Re: How do we know life is real? Is a Matrix theory possible?

i'm not really the one to talk about this, but the geneticist scientists and such do, and THEY say that we are NOT evolving at all. i wish i knew/understood more, so i could better discuss it.

'They' don't say that. If you google "humans evolving", the first hit is this.

 

[HegemonKhan]

Re: How do we know life is real? Is a Matrix theory possible?

that's not evolution.....

humans going from our "cavemen" times to modern times might be significant change within our human history, but its not evolution. it's PROGRESS, but not evolution.

evolution has a very specific meaning. don't mistake "evolution" that is used so commonly for anything to actually mean or have anything to do with what evolution really means/is.