Reality

From: SMcClenahan@ATTBI.com
Date: Fri Dec 27 2002 - 13:18:31 MST


Reality is defined by what a being can perceive, nothing more or less. Reality
for me is different than your reality, but we can interact and affect each
other's realities because we can affect each other's perceptions. A common
reality that most of us have senses to perceive are obviously in the time-space
realm. A simulation is simply an artificially created reality that is tailored
towards the sensory perceptions of the inhabitants or test subjects.

If I understand the conversation so far, trying to sense or discover the super-
reality that hosts our current one is an impossible task. Maybe I need to read
those chapters in /Godel, Escher, Bach/ again where the characters are reading
a book about them reading a book about them reading, etc. Coming back up the
reality chain is an impossibility unless you maintain the path to how you got
there.

When creating an "artificial" intelligence, that being has its own reality.
most likely not in our time-space world, but somewhere else that can only be
defined by the computer's I/O devices and peripherals. The goal we are trying
to achieve with artificially creating an intelligence, both general and domain-
specific, is to represent our human (or individual) reality in the machine's
reality, have the machine operate, then make action decisions that translate
back to our reality. There is a mapping of some sort between realities, which
is a skill that programmers develop.

I believe that a meta-reality needs to be defined, from which all realities can
be defined by. This will allow translations between co-realities, and the
Universe will be seen (or perceived) as a whole again. If this happens, I'm
betting we're going to find aliens EVERYWHERE!

cheers,
    Simon

> What's interesting to me about Gordon's claim that "I feel like I am very
> real" is WHAT THE HECK IS THE _DEFINITION_ OF REAL YOU'RE USING???
>
> I've thought about it a bit, and the only definitions of "real" I can come
> up with are defined by reference to a sim: I.e., basically, this world is
> real if there is no other world underlying it (a simulating computer, a
> dreaming mind, etc.). Is there a _positive_ definition of "real" that
> you're thinking of, Gordon?



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