XPost: uk.politics.misc, uk.legal, alt.psychology   
   XPost: alt.politics.liberalism   
   From: andrewrichardwainwright@hotmail.co.uk   
      
   On 09/04/2013 19:24, Handsome Jack wrote:   
   > Andy Wainwright  posted   
   >> The writings of Darwin supplanted Genesis in contemporary academic   
   >> culture. I'd say The Matrix supplanted Darwin. So what if it was a   
   >> fictional film, the guts of the story to me seem incredibly plausable-   
   >> and the idea of a scientific model is to represent the world around us   
   >> with a theory, and the Virtual Reality one makes more sense.   
   >>   
   >> You might laugh, so did people at Galilio.   
   >   
   > They laughed at Coco the Clown too. They were right.   
   >   
   >> "The world is just a form of videogame" makes no less sense to me than   
   >> "The world is round". Of course, you might disagree, but can you   
   >> disprove it conclusively. I'd say not.   
   >   
   > They are different kinds of propositions. The former is not susceptible   
   > to empirical testing. The latter is.   
   >   
      
   Ok I see what you mean here. But you are assuming this is the "top   
   level" of reality, which I doubt.   
      
   The reason is one of the Hermetic laws (in the philosophical rather than   
   physical point of view). As above, see below.   
      
   If I can play another character in another world, what is to say that   
   some higher power is not playing on a higher plane "playing" me.   
      
   A particular point to note is that in virtual reality the viewpoint can   
   be changed, from first person to third person, so for instance I could   
   get out of the cockpit of my racing car and see it from behind. In fact,   
   the secret to success is essential to be able to do this in the physical   
   world.   
      
   I know I have a mind as I am able to think. That's all I know about   
   reality for certain. Let's say in the future world of bionics you could   
   interface reliably and directly the human brain to electronic equipment,   
   maybe supporting it on a life support system.   
      
   You could for instance, put the still living brain of someone whose body   
   has died from cancer etc into a robot body of something. But what if you   
   directly connected that brain to Minecraft, Second Life or something. If   
   bionic technology improves as far as it did the last century, it should   
   be possible to do this within the next hundred years, hardly radical sci-fi.   
      
   For the brain, life would be little different than if they were real.   
   Instead of seing a monitor, video signals would be directly encoded into   
   the optic nerve and the person would see, and could focus and turn their   
   heads just as they would if they were connected to eyes and muscles.   
      
   So we know we have a brain of some sort, but we don't know if it's wired   
   into a real body, or just a simulator.   
      
   I don't know this is true, and you can't prove it isn't either. It's   
   like no-one can say for sure whether their is a God or not.   
      
   There is an important connection between the physical sciences- i.e.   
   physics, chemistry, biology and the metaphysical ones, such as   
   philosophy. The former as you say can be measured objectively and   
   emperically. The latter can't, but that's not to say it doesn't exist.   
   The reality is not everything can be measured. What metaphysical   
   "sciences" can do and it's important to do just that is as followed.   
   Physics, Chemistry, Biology are like drawing a map, Philosophy by   
   contrast represents the compass. A map of any kind is no use unless you   
   know which way up to hold the map. This is where the philospher has an   
   important role.   
      
   I'm no great physicist, being qualified only to A-Level. However a lot   
   of very capable physical scientists by contrast are severely limited in   
   their knowledge of philosophy.   
      
   One of my experiments involved playing the opposite sex online for a   
   year. A real chance to explore the whole concept of gender. One of the   
   interesting facets of this was to explore attractiveness to the male   
   sex. . A great little game that, because as the particular game was all   
   animation and text, it's even more effective than having a sex change   
   which would still leave some details male, perhaps a deeper voice,   
   adam's apple, big hands etc. A lot of people would think that going for   
   the so called "classical beauty" would get the best dates, by no means   
   the case, for instance brown skin is actually a pretty effective   
   jerk-repellent spray and so forth.   
      
   One of the great scientific achievers of the last century was Prof?   
   James Watson, who helped discover DNA. An incredibly clever man. His   
   comments about the attractiveness of women showed an emotional/sexual   
   maturity considerably behind my own. He's a specialist in his field, but   
   a fish out of water when it comes to mine, with an understanding of   
   metaphysics not much better than my scant knowledge of microbiology.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)