I speculate that in the future, when consciousness is understood, that people who can afford it can have their consciousness stored in a computer and live on in simulated reality. Heavens will be custom made for the buyers. Hells might be created as punishment for criminals, i.e. straighten up and fly right or we will literally send you to hell. The hells would be tailored for each person just like the heavens. What are your thoughts about this as a possibility?
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An eternity where some douschebag with a bag dictates my fate. no thanks - i'll off myself before that happens
That is a fearful thing, yes, that someone else has the power to torture us beyond the life of our body. I sadly see evil people abusing this power. But there's the wonder of a real paradise made possible via technology. But questions come up such as wouldn't an enternity of existence be torture in itself, even in a heaven. I think human ego makes it inevitable that such an experiment would at least be tried, perhaps tested on some lab animal first, which could constitute torture for the poor creature.
yea i gave that a lot of thought and before going there one should first consider the baby steps.
I think it is quite possible that in our life we could live in a virtual reality instead of just our lives in the real world.
Thus we could do both.
Many reasons
Resources are cheaper in the virtual world
People don't get killed in the virtual world
Unpunished crime is virtually impossible
Corruption is virtually impossible since it is based on scarcity and there is none of it.
Most of your dreams would be possible, yes even teleporting.
Mainly our own lives would be better off if we were invulnerable and in a JUST controlled virtual system that the privacy recordings are accessed only when a crime or dispute is in question.
Not like the matrix where the people do not know that they are in one, but people knowingly decide to live in one.
Imagine the advances in technology if all the bright minds are allowed to research their ideas without the restraints of money/resources/corruption/power/bias/etc...
Even health and life would be extended since if your body is being taken care of in a hospital like place and just wake up for exercise everyday your health would be monitored and improved drastically.
No bad diets, no junk food, no strains, less diseases, if you have cancer or anything it will be discovered much sooner, etc....
This life would be a paradise in itself.
The important thing is that one could go back to the real world anytime and apply in reality the things that worked in the virtual one.
This won't happen until we discover how to harness unlimited energy and understand better how the universe works, right now we are missing some fundamental axioms which makes a virtual world like the matrix impossible without them.
The discovery of the universal theory of matter is one such axiom.
This is a possible answer to the Fermi paradox. If civilizations become advanced enough to create virtual worlds, they might retreat into them and say fuck off to the rest of us. There's nothing to prevent us from doing the same since our desires come first. Kind of a technological version of What Dreams May Come. I know I would do it - goodbye suicidal thoughts, hello paradise. I guess I could "commit suicide" and then get on with my life because death is just something to experience, lol. Life is but a dream.
I think we are touching on the whole reason that there is a 'God'. I don't agree with the established, so-called religions, but I know that there are supreme beings out there.
Think waaayyy back at the beginning of time where the first beings began dying. Maybe something was there in the afterlife?... some good and some in pain? Maybe just maybe they realized that something had to be done.?
yea experience suicide is a bit hard lol
A simulation is built on things we know, so since we don't know what happens after we die, that cannot be simulated perfectly.
Same goes for science in the simulation.
If you are working with wrong axioms, science will not work in the simulation.
We are still missing a fundamental axiom of a universal theory.
(a theory that combines the small with the big things we see)
I'd let my body wither away like a raisin if I could keep my brain plugged into a virtual world, and right before death I'd feel like I was entering heaven.
I also imagine believers creating the gods of their mythologies. Or creating some "greater" god, perhaps by combining the collective intellect of several human brains. The god delusion is so great I really think believers would create something to worship.
I'm probably just a luddite, but if it wasn't for my overactive and bored mind, I'd rather just be a nature dweller who studied zen aphoirsms
A wise choice.