Information AboutSimulism |
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| metaphysics | |
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| thought experiments | |
| internalism and externalism | |
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SimulismThe term in the usage in which it appears here seems to have been coined by Ivo Jansch in September 2006. His Simulism Wiki is an exploration of Simulism, which invites contributions, essays, comments and discussions. is a Skeptical Hypothesis concerned with the idea that reality as we perceive it is an Illusion , and the world as we know it could be a Simulation — possibly a Computer Simulation — to a degree indistinguishable from 'true' reality. While this may be dismissed as a , arguably underpins the Mind-Body Dualism of Descartes , and is closely related to Phenomenalism , a stance briefly adopted by Bertrand Russell . It is an important theme in Science Fiction , and recently has become a serious topic of study for Futurology , in particular for Transhumanism through the work of Nick Bostrom . ORIGINS OF SIMULISM In its current form, the Simulation Argument began in 2003 with the publication of a paper by was the central thesis of The Matrix Trilogy (1999-2003). However, many earlier Science Fiction plot lines have incorporated variants this theme and its associated elements such as Artificial Intelligence , and the idea that reality may well be a fiction dates back to the time of Plato , and arguably even earlier. Precedents in Popular Culture ]] The idea that reality is an illusion can be traced back to early Greece, and it can be argued that several of the themes of the Matrix - fate versus choice, the existence of beings external to the world of humans who control and intervene - occur in early Greek literature and drama, particularly in Oedipus and the Iliad respectively. In the 20th Century both drama and film have repeatedly explored alternative realities, such as the Theatre Of The Absurd , and cropping up unexpectedly in films such as It's A Wonderful Life , and the 1960s television series The Prisoner . The blurring of boundaries that has occurred between fiction, reality and alternative realities has led to many different elements within popular culture; Soap Opera s which appear to portray real life, but are in fact fictional, Reality TV shows which claim to feature 'real' people in 'ordinary' situations, and Docudrama s which intermingle fact and fiction. The Truman Show (1998) was a fictional example showing the logical extension of this trend, in which the central character is trapped within a physical simulation. In the past twenty years, the Science Fiction genre has risen to the forefront of popular culture, highlighting themes such as Virtual Reality , Artificial Intelligence and Computer Gaming , all relevant to Simulism. ROLEPLAYING AND WARGAMING , developed by Jacob L. Moreno in the 1920s. Later on in the 20th Century this was termed Play Therapy . Role-play is also an important part of military training. The Prussian term for Live-action Military Training Exercises is "kriegspiel" or Wargames , and are used for training and evaluation purposes. A similar use of Role-playing is an essential feature of the Incident Command System (ICS), widely used by emergency response agencies to manage and evaluate responses to large and/or complex incidents. Battle and other Historical Reenactment s also involve roleplay, and have been practised for millennia, but with entertainment appearing to be the primary purpose, rather than training or system evaluation. The and Play-by-post games both allow for Asynchronous and distance game-playing. A computer version of play by mail ( Yahoo! Role-Playing ) became popular in the 1990s. The s (who are concerned with competition and challenge), Narrativist s (who are concerned with story and theme) and Simulationist s (who are concerned with the gaming experience and exploration). http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/3/ GNS and Other Matters of Role-Playing Theory, Chapter 2] COMPUTER GAMES AND SIMULATIONS
Role-playing video games began in 1975 as an offshoot of early university mainframe computer text RPGs on PDP-10 and Unix-based computers, starting with Dungeon and graphical RPGs on the PLATO System, pedit5 and dnd, themselves inspired by traditional role-playing games. ONLINE GAMING AND VIRTUAL WORLDS
from Jan 2006 to Mar 2007.]] In 1985 the Whole Earth ELectronic Link was founded as a Virtual Community . This was one of the precursors to the Internet . Initially Online Games were primarily text-based; however, in 1994 WebWorlds (later called ActiveWorlds ) was created as the first on-line 3D virtual reality platform. This was quickly followed in 1996 by The Palace , which provided graphical Chat Room s with a flexible Avatar system. The 1980s and 1990s also saw the development of Massively On-Line Role-Playing Games , growing out of initial offerings such as MUD (1978) which were text-based, but then developed through Rogue 1980, and other similar games such as Islands Of Kesmai (1984) to using ASCII graphics. In the 1990s, games such as Neverwinter Nights (1991) and the later Ultima Online (1997) were primarily visual-graphics based. Since 2000, Massive Multiplayer On-line Gaming has developed in various directions. Computer Simulation s such as VATSIM and IVAO offer the user the ability to Fly Virtual Planes in a world wide air traffic control simulation. Virtual Communities such as MySpace (2003) use Social Software to facilitate social interaction and networking. Massively Multiplayer Online Social Games such as The Sims Online (2002), There (2003) and Second Life (2003) which are virtual reality environments where the user is represented by an Avatar have developed from earlier offerings such as Habbo Hotel (2000). These focus on socialization instead of objective-based gameplay. MMORPG s, such as World Of WarCraft (2004) have also become interactive communities but based more on 'fantasy world' rather than 'real world' scenarios. Such communities are sometimes called Metaverse s, a term taken from the 1992 novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson . SCIENCE FICTION THEMES One of the first references to simulations occurred in the 1959 novel '') tells the story of a virtual city developed as a computer simulation for market research purposes, in which the simulated inhabitants possess consciousness; all but one of the inhabitants are unaware of the true nature of their world. ]] Permutation City (1994) by Greg Egan explores Quantum Ontology via the various philosophical aspects of artificial life and simulations of intelligence. Other Egan novels, such as Diaspora (1997) and Schild's Ladder (2002) also involve Simulated Consciousness . Recent feature films whose plot lines have explicitly involved the Simulism Hypothesis:
CELLULAR AUTOMATA AND DIGITAL PHYSICS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE & VIRTUAL REALITY Although the idea of an Automaton has been in existence since the time of the Ancient Greeks , both in fact and fiction, the first use of the term Robot was in 1921, derived from the title of a play by Karel Capek called R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) . While Capek's creatures have intelligence, they are biological rather than mechanical, similar to the Replicants in Blade Runner . TYPES OF REALITY SIMULATION Simulation of reality is currently a simulation, the consciousness is external to the simulation, whereas in an Intrinsic simulation the consciousness is entirely contained within it and has no presence in the external reality. EXTRINSIC CONSCIOUSNESS SIMULATIONS Physical Simulation Here, the body and functions of participants remain intact, entering into a simulation and participating using their normal physical body. Examples range from episode The Menagerie , participant's minds were convinced not only of a simulated reality, but also that their physical bodies had been transformed. Brain-computer interface teaches Neo inside a small simulated reality]] In a , which describes the supposed passage of a Soul from an earthly body to an Afterlife . While inside the simulation, the participant can be represented by an Avatar , which could look very different from the participant's actual appearance. The Cyberpunk genre of fiction contains many examples of brain-computer interface simulated reality; most notably, this type of simulation was featured in The Matrix trilogy. Brain-in-a-Vat A variant of the brain-computer-interface simulation is the Brain-in-a-vat . This is often used in Philosophy as part of Thought Experiments to draw attention to particular issues, notably the idea of Solipsism , a philosophical position claiming that knowledge of anything outside the mind cannot be determined. In this simulation variant a disembodied brain is connected to the real world by a series of wires, and the simulated reality is fed to the brain. There is a large number of references to Brains In Vats in popular science fiction. Emigration In an emigration simulation, the participant would enter the simulation from an outer reality, via a brain-computer interface, but to a much greater degree. On entry, the participant is subject to Mind Transfer which temporarily ''relocates'' their mental processing into a virtual-person which holds their consciousness. Their outside-world presence remains in Stasis during the simulation. After the simulation is over, the participant's mind is transferred back into their outer-reality body, along with all new memories and experiences gained. Mind transfer is portrayed in Science Fiction novels such as ''Mindswap'' (1966) by Robert Sheckley and the TV series Quantum Leap ; most notably, Mind Transfer was the primary mechanism by which Consciousness was transferred in The Thirteenth Floor (1999). INTRINSIC CONSCIOUSNESS SIMULATIONS Virtual World Simulation In a virtual world simulation, every inhabitant is a native of the simulated world. They do not have a 'real' body in the 'outside' reality. Rather, each is a fully simulated entity, possessing an appropriate level of consciousness that is implemented using the simulation's own logic (i.e. using its own physics). Typical of such a simulation at one extreme with no level of consciousness would be an Artificial Life simulation such as The Sims computer game. In many computer games, inhabitants lacking consciousness are referred to as NPC s (''Non-Player Characters''), or Bots (see also Philosophical Zombies ). Where virtual entities achieve the level of Artificial Consciousness , they could be downloaded from one simulation to another, or even archived and resurrected at a later date. It is also possible that a simulated entity could be moved out of the simulation entirely by means of Mind Transfer into a synthetic body. ''Ancestor simulations'' as described by Nick Bostrom would fall into this category. Virtual Solipsistic Simulation In this type of simulation, an in existence, and is the sole focus of the simulation; in the second, there are multiple conscious entities, but each receives a separate but globally consistent version of the simulation . This scenario is a counterpart of Social Constructivism which concerns the ways in which groups participate in the creation of their perceived reality. INTERMINGLED SIMULATIONS An intermingled simulation would support both extrinsic and intrinsic types of consciousness: beings from an outer reality visiting or emigrating, and virtual-people who are natives of the simulation both , who are sovereign software programs indigenous to the computed realm, and NPC s. PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND The idea that the world is an illusory computer simulation, is on the surface a modern example of a as a logically Possible World , which, according to the Modal Realism of David Lewis would be as valid as this world. Chalmers, in ''The Matrix as Metaphysics'' agrees that this is not a website. . Chalmers goes on to identify three separate hypotheses, which, when combined gives what he terms the '' Matrix Hypothesis ''; the notion that reality is but a computer simulation:
Historical precedents The roots of Skepticism can be traced back to the early 5th Century BC, in Parmenides ' work ''The Way of Truth'', in which he argued that the every-day perception of reality of the physical world is mistaken, and that the reality of the world is an unchanging, ungenerated, indestructible whole. Parminedes' ''Way of Truth'': The First Enquiry in Being Zeno Zeno Of Elea , (c. 490 BC ) put forward three Paradoxes concerning the nature of motion, and questioning the reality of what we see around us. In the final ''Paradox of the Arrow'', he suggests: |
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