From: Mark Waser (mwaser@cox.net)
Date: Wed Apr 30 2003 - 16:50:14 MDT
Eliezer said to Lee Corbin:
> I mean, you're the *only* person you know who believes it's okay to be simulated.
You can add me to that list. I'm perfectly happy being simulated (especially given the alternative - - does that make me like the mink being raised for it's fur or the cow, sheep, pig or chicken raised for it's meat? . . . :-)
Most of the ills of the world (assuming that they truly exist and are not just something that is being fed to me) seem to be due to shortages of resources (including shortages of control = accidents, shortages of knowledge, and shortages of empathy). There doesn't seem to me to be any sort of cruelty or perversity that is integral to the structure or that is imposed from outside and I'm not at all sure that we could be pulled to whatever is "outside" (Can you imagine bringing a computer algorithm into our world? What could you do short of embedding it into a larger computational structure and then a robot or other form of telepresence? And even then, would the algorithm be aware of it's larger existence or would it simply continue on?).
I prefer to look at it as "we're all building something here" and "it's a process". It may not be the best of all possible worlds but it is a start and it's ours and any simulator may well be constrained in many ways that we don't know and may not be able to understand. We may very well be - - in the simulator's mind or even possibly in reality - - the simulator's children and it is bringing us up in the best way it knows how and is capable of. Who knows - - maybe asking to be let out is somewhat akin to a ten-year-old wanting to drive a car.
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