"A Glitch In The Matrix"

Outstanding documentary all about simulation theory and many of its profound implications for how we should then live our lives. I personally had never seriously considered the possibility that I am living in a simulation because it just seems too outlandish. But after watching this I am not so sure. So what would a simulation be for? What is the reality outside of it? And how do we communicate with the Simulators? You can watch it here for free with ads:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VACjXKzjQrk

(Dec 14, 2024 03:03 AM)Magical Realist Wrote: Outstanding documentary all about simulation theory and many of its profound implications for how we should then live our lives. I personally had never seriously considered the possibility that I am living in a simulation because it just seems too outlandish. But after watching this I am not so sure. So what would a simulation be for? What is the reality outside of it? And how do we communicate with the Simulators? You can watch it here for free with ads:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VACjXKzjQrk

Just as we feel sometimes that we are controlled by our biological imperatives such as the drive to reproduce or survive, I think the simulation theory serves as a metaphor for our concerns about control and autonomy. It explores the tension between our conscious awareness of ourselves and the many forces—biological, societal, or even technological—that influence our behavior.

It is a powerful theme in both philosophy and science fiction, and it continues to resonate because it taps into something fundamental about human experience. We long for freedom, authenticity, and control, even as we recognize that much of what we do is influenced by forces outside of our awareness.

It’s always kind of bothered me that much of what we perceive as free choice is shaped by instincts and desires that originated from evolutionary pressures. There’s also a lot that happens in our environment that is out of our control, but we have reasoning abilities that allow us to override some of it.

Side note: How horrifying for those parents. I didn’t know there was such a thing as the Matrix defense.

Quote:“Maybe when we die,” says one of Ascher’s experts, “we wake up in the year 3000, then put a quarter in the machine and play another game.”

Heh. If you do wake up in a world that still exhibits the same characteristics as this one (merely a different temporal location), then it becomes just as subject to skepticism as this one. Actually even more so, since you would then have confirmed that convincing simulations are possible.

The only way that such an ensuing Russian doll situation stops is when you finally encounter a level that is so radically different from this one (of time and space) that it no longer begs any kind of "vertical" origin or cause in terms of yet another addition to that stacked hierarchy.

The latter noumenal situation would seem to be inconceivable for us -- but there is at least one candidate we can somewhat intellectually grapple with. That is the idea of a completely non-mental realm, the traditional one of materialism -- that lacks all manifestation and cognitive understanding of itself as anything (corresponding to absence of everything or absence of distinctions). Ironically, that's the very destination we're slated for after death when setting aside the supernatural (classic simulation) beliefs of old, or alternatively panpsychism (that all matter has mental characteristics).

However, since "mind" is accordingly gone after achieving or returning to the mindless nature of matter, there is perversely no way to verify that ultimate "not even nothingness".

And again, if we ever do technologically produce a convincing simulation, that then undermines the simplistic two-level hierarchy above (the mental depiction we're portrayed as abiding in and the actual existence that does not present itself as any phenomenal and conceptual forms at all). By someday demonstrating that convincing simulations are possible, the statistical odds against there being a deep Matroyshka doll stack switch the other way. We become vulnerable to being the inhabitants of an ancestral simulation, and so on.

If life is just a simulation for some voyeuristic players from beyond to enjoy, my life wouldn't make for a very interesting game. I basically just sit around surfing the web and watching TV. At night I watch streaks of light and misty blobs floating around in my dark apt. I can't think of anyone wanting to play that sort of video game. Ironically it would be all the people living very eventful though mundane lives like rich people traveling and skydiving or criminals or soldiers in battle that would probably dominate the interests of players.

(Dec 14, 2024 08:13 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: If life is just a simulation for some voyeuristic players from beyond to enjoy, my life wouldn't make for a very interesting game. I basically just sit around surfing the web and watching TV. At night I watch streaks of light and misty blobs floating around in my dark apt. I can't think of anyone wanting to play that sort of video game. Ironically it would be all the people living very eventful though mundane lives like rich people traveling and skydiving or criminals or soldiers in battle that would probably dominate the interests of players.

Go far enough into the future to where our posthuman successors are effectively immortal and utterly sedate with respect to having anything corresponding to a personal lives, and I expect those technological versions of the ]url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%80tman_%28Hinduism%29]atman[/url] or underlying witness consciousness would eventually grow bored of engaging in popular juvenile games centered around stereotyped heroic figures.

That is, as they got more creatively mature and starved for novelty over the millennia, then the lives of mundane and unexciting people, drug-addicted losers, low-grade criminals, etc would probably become the more daring explorations.

"Could I endure new forms of quiet torture? Or uncertain exposure to physical misery and various psychological afflictions tormenting me? What a legit challenge and acquisition of character development that would be, compared to the experiences of these shallow, cardboard champion and celebrity identities that I've been occupying for centuries -- who in the end are preordained to enjoy success and protection from deep apprehension!

"Ah, to accumulate a repertoire of what it's like to be all types and classes of bygone biological humans -- to understand what vulnerability is. What an edge I'd have in life knowledge and wisdom compared to these infantile and adolescent artilects I share communication space with, who lack the guts to progress, to enter roles filled with monotony, insecurity and hazard!"

Not really the internal narratives transpiring in such entities, but some extremely dumbed-down vestige of their reasons and motivations for journeying into the unpredictable wild-side of simulated reality.

And the the posthumans might even be administering punishments to each other -- hard to believe that even engineered demigods could still get along with each other perfectly in a moral context. They might introduce their own version of karma.

Branching this thread off into evidence that we are living in a simulation. IOW videos of apparent glitches in the matrix. Here's one that totally baffles me. Herds of sheep standing completely still for a long time. What could cause this? Typical skeptic explanations include that the sheep are afraid of some predator. But none are present in the videos and many of them are looking in different directions. Another laughable explanation is that they are reacting to a change in the weather like rainfall. But in none of the videos is this happening. Below are four examples I found on Youtube of this behavior, showing it to be something recurrent yet totally unexplained. If it is a glitch in the matrix, why sheep of all things?

https://packaged-media.redd.it/6mvstmoyf...ab25cce9d9

https://www.tiktok.com/@clairecool83/vid..._device=pc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne_WH45RoW0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRGM1zAM0QA

In the last video, there’s a little movement, ears twitching, one in the front eating, two above the house moving, etc. So, just a minor glitch. 

Yeah I noticed a few head movements in some of the videos, suggesting it isn't a frozen moment in time. But it merely proves the scene to be a real video instead of a photo. What could account for it? It defies logic that every sheep spread out over the pasture would simultaneously go into freeze mode, even those not facing the others. Perhaps evidence for some kind of telepathically linked "herd mind"? But why holding still for a long time? Evolutionarily speaking any wakeful moment not spent grazing and searching for more plants to graze is time wasted.

(Dec 19, 2024 10:44 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: Yeah I noticed a few head movements in some of the videos, suggesting it isn't a frozen moment in time. But it merely proves the scene to be a real video instead of a photo. What could account for it? It defies logic that every sheep spread out over the pasture would simultaneously go into freeze mode, even those not facing the others. Perhaps evidence for some kind of telepathically linked "herd mind"? But why holding still for a long time? Evolutionarily speaking any wakeful moment not spent grazing and searching for more plants to graze is time wasted.

I’m not sure. The only explanation that I could find was the predator theory similar to bird murmuration (movement influenced by its neighbors), but when reading the links, none of the studies said anything about remaining motionless. I've seen deer do it though.

If you find out, let me know.

Thanks, MR!

(Dec 19, 2024 10:44 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: Yeah I noticed a few head movements in some of the videos, suggesting it isn't a frozen moment in time. But it merely proves the scene to be a real video instead of a photo. What could account for it? It defies logic that every sheep spread out over the pasture would simultaneously go into freeze mode, even those not facing the others. Perhaps evidence for some kind of telepathically linked "herd mind"? But why holding still for a long time? Evolutionarily speaking any wakeful moment not spent grazing and searching for more plants to graze is time wasted.

Normally it's light rain that sheep will stand still in. Camera footage doesn't always indicate that rain is falling, especially when only drizzly. Examples of frozen sheep in light rain:

"Sheep are mesmerising in the rain, have a look at this film, it’s not a photo! I think that movement opens their fleece, allowing water to penetrate down to the skin." 

Fletcher's Flock
https://www.facebook.com/Fletchersflock/...583067060/

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"I thought for sure there was some 'follow the leader' going on here, but some say standing still keeps the rain from soaking in and hitting their skin. And it was raining. It's still fun to watch. Here are a few other videos linked below. I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thought this was amazing."

Sheep standing still as a group
https://youtu.be/Hn9cXr3BZNU

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"Today morning, I woke up in the rain. Looking out from the window, all the sheep standing in the rain, like statues. They are not moving in the rain."

Sheep stand in the rain like statues
https://youtu.be/pgjeVlgjrIg

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"Pretty much self-explanatory, really."

Sheep standing still in thunderstorm
https://youtu.be/_IpvvB6L2dA

Though the skies were clear in your first video, there were pools of water, as if it had been raining earlier.

The second video you posted looks misty and there is an overcast sky.

From the glossy appearance of the road, it's apparent that there's light rain in the third video.

Similar with the fourth -- gloomy sky and fuzzy appearance. Maybe it wasn't raining right then, but had been just previously (off and on repeatedly).