So I was reading smbc whose comics I sometimes post here, and...well here is the last one:

With a very appropriate side comic

The concept is of course not new. Would you rather live in a perfect fantasy or in reality with his ups and downs?

I suppose the "standard" argument is, well...parodied here:

I can't help but think that is exactly what would happen. It is difficult to argue with eternal bliss. We could argue that reality is a great journey and far more surprising and amazing than anything imagination can conjure up...but really, can we really deny this would make us more happy? And in the end, does it not make it more worthwhile? Especially if we throw in immortality.

And of course the concept is open to all sorts of questions. If you can create a reality, then nothing prevents you of creating a reality within a reality:

Which kinda begs the question. Do we exist in a simulated reality?

Then there is the concept of time perception, which can be great, as shown in the first comic here. Or terrible. Using it you could create an infinity long punishment.

In Star Trek: Deep Space 9, Hard Time, Chief O'Brien experiences 20 years in jail (along with physical and physiological torture) in a few hours. One of the most emotionally charged episodes of the series, the Chief has to readjust to his life that he abandoned for a few days and deal with the things he "did" to survive during his imprisonment. A far more chilling take on the concept comes from Stephen king's The Jaunt, where teleportation is developed, allowing you to travel between to terminals in a few fractions of a second...however to a conscious mind perception of time is stretched to the point of infinity with dramatic and terrifying results.

Or you could just end up with mixed feelings:

So...discuss.

2220377

I can't help but hear this everytime someone brings up a simulated reality

2220377

I can't help but hear this everytime someone brings up a simulated reality

2220377
The root of the problem (I think) is a much more pressing issue, is happiness the truly most desirable thing?
Is living a life wih no pain really something that should be striven for?

2220377 I guess I'll answer the overarching title of the thread, rather than the ethics and science fiction behind living in a simulated reality of eternal happiness forever.

No, we don't live in a simulated reality. I can make this claim because it's what as known as a metaphysical truth. For metaphysics, there is no "scientific proof" as one would call it for its claims, but they are true nonetheless. Metaphysics is the study of the one substance that necessarily exists and causes/connects the many material things we observe. To make myself sound smarter, I will now quote Aristotle.

The first philosophy (Metaphysics) is universal and is exclusively concerned with primary substance. ... And here we will have the science to study that which is just as that which is, both in its essence and in the properties which, just as a thing that is, it has.
The entire preoccupation of the physicist is with things that contain within themselves a principle of movement and rest. And to seek for this is to seek for the second kind of principle, that from which comes the beginning of the change. (Aristotle, Metaphysics, 340BC)

Here, I'll give you another Truth (aside from not living in a matrix) right now: Nobody on Earth knows what happens after death. Why? Because if you're still alive on this planet, you aren't dead yet. My logic is impeccable.

2220377
Three possibilities exist, according the simulation hypothesis:
1. The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero.
2. The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero.
3. The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one.

There is another possibility, and that is that making a simulated universe is impossible, but that is unlikely. Because of all this, the possibility of our universe being simulated cannot be discarded yet.

Also, if the simulation hypothesis is truly untestable, then it shouldn't matter much whether our universe is simulated or not.
2221017
What exactly would such a substance be? Your "metaphysics" don't prove anything, much less tell us whether reality is simulated.

Give a human everything he wants and he still won't be truly happy. Not even when those things are "love" or "helping people". Humans have a hedonistic set point, a default level of happiness that they will naturally return to eventually regardless of what happens to them.

Does that mean that our quest for happiness is without hope? No, we should be able to engage in biotechnological modification of the human brain to raise our hedonistic set point (voluntarily of course, no TCB nonsense). And if you're doing that then you might as well remain interfaced to some degree with the real world (not to say that simulated reality won't be a useful or entertaining technology - it will - but if we do this we won't retreat into it forever).

Though if you could make people perceive infinite time then that would be useful to do to people on their deathbed until you invent proper immortality.

2220377
As for whether or not I would enter a simulated reality depends on many things, but for now I'm going to say both. What do I mean by this? I mean that I would make a copy of myself (perhaps many copies) to live in a simulated reality, while I (original me) stay in the real world.

2221691 As much as I would like to claim that metaphysics is something of my own creation, I cannot, because it isn't. The meat of your questioned was already answered previously in my initial comment.

What exactly would such a substance be?

. . .

Metaphysics is the study of the one substance that necessarily exists and causes/connects the many material things we observe.

I'll be honest, I don't know how to word this much better than I already have, but I will try: The "substance" can be anything that must exist that causes or connects everything we see in the universe/reality.

Your "metaphysics" don't prove anything, much less tell us whether reality is simulated.

. . .

For metaphysics, there is no "scientific proof" as one would call it for its claims, but they are true nonetheless.

The past is an excellent example of this. How do you know you haven't been alive for 30 minutes in a simulated reality and have been implanted with 20 years worth of memories? You "know", because you simply know. Furthermore, we know that the past must have existed or we wouldn't be in the present.

2225590
I should have made it clearer that I know that metaphysics is not your creation. Never mind the fact that "metaphysics" can be frustratingly difficult to define, but it still does not make a good argument against a simulated universe. So basically, metaphysics has to do with a mysterious primary substance? And it also involves some kind of inherent knowledge that everyone has?

I'll be honest, I don't know how to word this much better than I already have, but I will try: The "substance" can be anything that must exist that causes or connects everything we see in the universe/reality.

That is still a somewhat vague statement. You mean like gravity, or electromagnetism? Or the underlying quantum vacuum?

2225835 Vague? Absolutely. Philosophers don't even have a pinpoint definition on it yet, so I wouldn't argue with that.

That is still a somewhat vague statement. You mean like gravity, or electromagnetism? Or the underlying quantum vacuum?

When I mean everything, I really do mean everything. Whether gravity, electromagnetism, or a quantum vacuum fit the previous definition is another story, but metaphysics is not used to prove those, because there are other proofs for them. This does not mean they can't fit the definition, it's just not needed for them.

Honestly, I might just make an entire thread dedicated to the particular branch of philosophy just to get some scope on it, because it truly is an incredibly deep and intricate topic.