Jun 22, 2016 11:42 PM
(This post was last modified: Jun 22, 2016 11:44 PM by C C.)
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/we-dont...simulation
EXCERPT: [...] Yes, Musk might rebut that in the distant future the “posthumans” may add to their simulation more than just colors on a computer screen. They might add chemical substances with the right smell and taste, chemical structures with the right structure, and so forth. But, in doing so, the very notion of simulation would be defeated because, at the end, one would have a real apple and not a simulation of it.
In believing that games are becoming indistinguishable from reality, Musk is also operating under the notion that games are different from reality. If a simulated or virtual world was different from reality, it should be made of something the physical world does not contain. As mentioned above, it is a misunderstanding deeply rooted since the ancient Greeks. It is the belief that base reality is known through an immaterial level of appearances. Such a level is the immaterial level of our mental life of course. Descartes called it soul or thinking substance. Computer scientists call it software or models or… simulations. Of course, the word software refers to a very concrete collection of things that allow us to control objects and access information.
However, pace many philosophers, there is not a different level of reality that our computers access when they do number crunching. Computers have no mental life. Computers have no inner images. There are no simulated worlds inside computers. Inside computers, sadly, there are no simulated trees, spaceships, explosions, luscious naked bodies, or scary monsters. Inside computers, there are, boringly, just voltage levels that control physical objects called screens that, when viewed by human beings, produce the mistaken-yet-amusing belief that one is watching trees, spaceships, explosions, and the like. Yet—and this is key—to do so, a computer must control another object (commonly a screen) that exploits physical colors.
Consider virtual reality, for example. Next December a stampede of VR headsets will dominate our holiday shopping choices. And everybody assumes that VR worlds are only mental, that they are simulation. They are only virtual worlds; they do not exist in reality. Correct? Wrong. Inside those VR headsets there are small LCD screens that produce physical colors. There are actual moving pictures that change. The connected headphones produce actual sounds that are picked up by players’ ears. And so forth.
The real Virtual Reality (pun intended) is made of physical (albeit tiny) things and physical phenomena. We misinterpret the tiny stereo pictures inside the screens of the VR headset as though they were, say, a giant DOOM imp, but they are not “immaterial”: They are actual physical colors and pixels and LEDs. VR is not an immaterial world; it is rather a physical world we misinterpret. Like when we are appalled by a picture of a yummy Sachertorte that, while physical, is just an inedible surface of pixels. VR is akin to a super-technological magic trick in which beholders believe they see something they don’t really see and that does not really exist.
The key point, of course, is the nature of the mind. In fact, when one dreams there is no computer screen on which colors are physically instantiated. So far, we are not aware of any brain screen on which mental colors are physically instantiated either. This is what Daniel Dennett called “The Cartesian Theater.” But we have no idea whether dreams are like virtual reality simulation. Let us stress again the point: computer simulations are not immaterial. They rely and depend on actual physical properties: sounds from headphones and speakers, colors and lights from screens, movements, pulls from haptic devices. And so forth.
And yet, too often models, thoughts, simulations are taken to be immaterial things—or, to use Musk’s words, to be above the base reality—as though we were still prisoner of the Cartesian division between a physical world (base reality) and a mental/immaterial world (the simulation)....
[...] If a simulated waterfall is not wet, why should a simulated mind think or feel? A mind, unless one believes in disembodied souls, requires a brain, a body, and a world. A mind without a physical world is a myth. And a simulated world is a myth too. The fact is that all minds we know of, human minds and possibly animal minds, are embodied and situated: they have a body and they partake of the physical world. We have never met a disembodied mind. We always meet bodies in the world....
EXCERPT: [...] Yes, Musk might rebut that in the distant future the “posthumans” may add to their simulation more than just colors on a computer screen. They might add chemical substances with the right smell and taste, chemical structures with the right structure, and so forth. But, in doing so, the very notion of simulation would be defeated because, at the end, one would have a real apple and not a simulation of it.
In believing that games are becoming indistinguishable from reality, Musk is also operating under the notion that games are different from reality. If a simulated or virtual world was different from reality, it should be made of something the physical world does not contain. As mentioned above, it is a misunderstanding deeply rooted since the ancient Greeks. It is the belief that base reality is known through an immaterial level of appearances. Such a level is the immaterial level of our mental life of course. Descartes called it soul or thinking substance. Computer scientists call it software or models or… simulations. Of course, the word software refers to a very concrete collection of things that allow us to control objects and access information.
However, pace many philosophers, there is not a different level of reality that our computers access when they do number crunching. Computers have no mental life. Computers have no inner images. There are no simulated worlds inside computers. Inside computers, sadly, there are no simulated trees, spaceships, explosions, luscious naked bodies, or scary monsters. Inside computers, there are, boringly, just voltage levels that control physical objects called screens that, when viewed by human beings, produce the mistaken-yet-amusing belief that one is watching trees, spaceships, explosions, and the like. Yet—and this is key—to do so, a computer must control another object (commonly a screen) that exploits physical colors.
Consider virtual reality, for example. Next December a stampede of VR headsets will dominate our holiday shopping choices. And everybody assumes that VR worlds are only mental, that they are simulation. They are only virtual worlds; they do not exist in reality. Correct? Wrong. Inside those VR headsets there are small LCD screens that produce physical colors. There are actual moving pictures that change. The connected headphones produce actual sounds that are picked up by players’ ears. And so forth.
The real Virtual Reality (pun intended) is made of physical (albeit tiny) things and physical phenomena. We misinterpret the tiny stereo pictures inside the screens of the VR headset as though they were, say, a giant DOOM imp, but they are not “immaterial”: They are actual physical colors and pixels and LEDs. VR is not an immaterial world; it is rather a physical world we misinterpret. Like when we are appalled by a picture of a yummy Sachertorte that, while physical, is just an inedible surface of pixels. VR is akin to a super-technological magic trick in which beholders believe they see something they don’t really see and that does not really exist.
The key point, of course, is the nature of the mind. In fact, when one dreams there is no computer screen on which colors are physically instantiated. So far, we are not aware of any brain screen on which mental colors are physically instantiated either. This is what Daniel Dennett called “The Cartesian Theater.” But we have no idea whether dreams are like virtual reality simulation. Let us stress again the point: computer simulations are not immaterial. They rely and depend on actual physical properties: sounds from headphones and speakers, colors and lights from screens, movements, pulls from haptic devices. And so forth.
And yet, too often models, thoughts, simulations are taken to be immaterial things—or, to use Musk’s words, to be above the base reality—as though we were still prisoner of the Cartesian division between a physical world (base reality) and a mental/immaterial world (the simulation)....
[...] If a simulated waterfall is not wet, why should a simulated mind think or feel? A mind, unless one believes in disembodied souls, requires a brain, a body, and a world. A mind without a physical world is a myth. And a simulated world is a myth too. The fact is that all minds we know of, human minds and possibly animal minds, are embodied and situated: they have a body and they partake of the physical world. We have never met a disembodied mind. We always meet bodies in the world....
