scheidegger, I agree with you. I think more or less the same about this topic, we could also be nothing else than a computer simulation.

Visit our homepage: www.rarebyte.de.st

GA

quote:

---

Original post by ga

scheidegger, I agree with you. I think more or less the same about this topic, we could also be nothing else than a computer simulation.

GA

---

But more than that, it makes no difference if we are a computer simulation or not. We can still live our lives, taste a great steak or be desperately in love. The point is that everything we do is based on our perception of things. And this perception exists, be it precise or not.

Coming back to the subject of A-Life, this raises some interesting questions that unfortunately, if anything I wrote makes sense, will have no answer: What do A-Life creatures perceive? How do they do it? For us it is computer processing, but for them, who do not have a clue about it?

On the other hand, it is easier to think that we will be able someday to create something that resembles actual life in some extent.

Electron, did you think of maybe implementing more powerful elements in your matrix processing? Maybe indirect addressing, for example. It would allow for some interesting A-Life decisions, I think..

Well, starting to get long again.. Time to quit

Carlos Eduardo Scheidegger
Computer Science Student
UFRGS

"If the world didn''t suck, we''d all fall off"

quote:

---

But more than that, it makes no difference if we are a computer simulation or not. We can still live our lives, taste a great steak or be desperately in love. The point is that everything we do is based on our perception of things. And this perception exists, be it precise or not.

---

I know, until the program crashes *g*.

Visit our homepage: www.rarebyte.de.st

GA

quote:

---

Original post by ga

I know, until the program crashes *g*.

GA

---

If you really think about it, even then it makes no difference. If the world simply ceased to exist instantly and some time later it came back (also instantly), there would be no difference for us inside the ''program''. Everything we can perceive is inside of it, and the crashing of the machine that runs the show is something external to us. And, if someone changes some parameter without stopping the simulation, it also makes no difference for you, because you are inside and have no access to the external..

In the initial subject, I think it would be a great idea to try and emerge a food chain out an environment, with maybe five or six different species, each with different characteristics, and letting the virtual world go about its business for some time. Also interesting would be mating (and if it is done, it would certainly increase a lot the rate in which a species evolve). Now, it is really unlikely, but it would be GREAT to see something as different sexes emerge naturally out of an evolving world.. What would you guys/gals think is needed for these things to happen?

Carlos Eduardo Scheidegger
Computer Science Student
UFRGS

"If the world didn''t suck, we''d all fall off"

quote:

---

If you really think about it, even then it makes no difference. If the world simply ceased to exist instantly and some time later it came back (also instantly), there would be no difference for us inside the ''program''. Everything we can perceive is inside of it, and the crashing of the machine that runs the show is something external to us. And, if someone changes some parameter without stopping the simulation, it also makes no difference for you, because you are inside and have no access to the external..

---

I thought if the program crashes and they restart it and we (some humans) wouldn''t exist any longer, but we wouldn''t ''feel'' anything of it. Maybe they save the world status every few years - then the history since the last save is deleted (for the people outside, I know), we wouldn''t realize anything. But if someone outside would change some parameters, e.g. G (constant of gravity), we would realize it (we won''t know why we''re suddenly heavier if someone increases G but we would realize it).

Visit our homepage: www.rarebyte.de.st

GA

We can see. Computers can''t, and can never, because they aren''t alive.
They can evaluate a picture. They can generate information. They can rotate it, flip it, tile it, turn it into a portrait of Yoko Ono (don''t ask), but they cannot see it. Ever. At all. In the least.
Understand this. Got it? Good. Now go up a few lines, and read it again. Okay? Got it? Read it again. Now, if any part of this seems a bit fuzzy or strange in any way, read it again. And again. Still doesn''t make sense? Post it. Then email me.

Okay, in summary:
Computers cannot see. Refer to the top of this post.

Are we clear here?

Sorry about the redancy of this post, but after rewording the same post about seven times, and still no one gets it, a dude gets pretty agitated.

Now if ANYONE posts that doesn''t understand the above, I ain''t gonna repeat it. Okay? Thanks.

The_Minister
1C3-D3M0N Interactive

I wonder what you mean by "see". Ok let me read your post again. Hmmm... nope still don''t get it. What do you mean by see? Doesn''t an image flip upside down through our lens in our eye onto the back of our retina? Hmmm... I guess I should have taken philosophy in school then I would maybe get a good definition of see. Help me Minister! One more time!

Let me try to explain what he means by "see". He is right, computers cannot see, but we are adressing a completely different problem here.

"See" means expirience the image, being aware that we rotate the image, flip it, whatever. Computer just follows the algorithm of rotating it, we rotate it, and at the same time we are aware of the fact that we rotate it, we are aware of the fact that we "see" the image.

But this is a completely different topic. We''re talking about counsiosness and self-awareness. Some professors believe that we cannot spawn self-aware, countious computers because of something that comes out of quantum theory of phisics(I''m not sure what it is). Now, I don''t know if we can create computers that are self-aware, but it''s not the goal of game developers.

For game developers the goal is to create a ROBOT that would be really smart. That''s all. We can use genetic algorithms, but I wouldn''t expect self-aware behavior if I were you.

The bottom line is, no matter how smart the robot gets(and you can create something really smart through emerging genetic algorithms), it will still be a computer, that''s simply performing an algorithm, it''s gonna be a really fast calculator.

Personally I don''t believe that we can give souls to computers(which is the only way to make them self-aware). I may be wrong, but in this case it doesn''t matter. There is nothing wrong with creating a robot, in fact, that''s what we need.

Whether you can see or not is a moot point.
Blind people do exist. If an CE(Computer Entity), existed on a PC, it''s irrelevant what the means it has to detect it''s eviroment is. Bat''s have echolocation to see, a venus fly trap has touch.
A CE would live in one of two enviroments. Our so called reality and virtual reality. Robots that use camera''s to detect items in our real world, have to obey the laws of physics. A fake robot in a virtual world, with simultated physics (or new/non real physics) could detect by any means the creator gave it. It could detect by elecromagnetic pulses, warps in gravity, or just ''sensing the force'' to use a Star Wars type.

What it boils down to is this:
Simple enviroments will create simple virtual creatures.
Complex enviroments can create simple or complex creations and behaviors.

With a large enough enviroment, it would be possible to create electronic creatures that think they are real. (They must be inteligent enough to relise this. Quite a monsterous programming challenge.)

Thier perceived reality is different than ours, but to them it might seem no less real. (They do not know about us, or perhaps if they do, we are their gods.)

The qualities of life are things like "Does it eat? Does it Die?, Does it reproduce?"
A virtual reality creature could do all those things.
But is it alive? Not with our curent way of thinking.

So everything boils down to a few items.
1) We do not have hardware that could support such an elaborate simulated enviroment.
2) We do not have the knowledge even if the hardware is there. Programming intelligence is a new field. We have at best achieved, simulated cock roaches, that operate in "our world" via robotics.
3) Perhaps we are missing something even bigger. E.g. is it a soul that gives us the edge?

Just for fun, here''s my ending thought for the moment:
What if sleep is really just down time, while God''s PC updates our individual stats! Dreams are the weird results, of our data changing!

KILL you got it!

Please note that you can replace see with any of the other four senses if you change the examples.

Computers will never think that they are alive. The ''goodness'' of an act should be determened by how happy he is so many turns later, and happiness should be a combination of things like life.
This will indirectly stop them from doing actions that harm them, which will indirectly make them appear afraid of running out of life. But they will never truly be alive, because THEN THEY''D BE ABLE TO SEE.

Sorry I had to get that out, this board reads what it feels like reading .

The_Minister
1C3-D3M0N Interactive