• MagicShel@lemmy.zip
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    1 day ago

    It wouldn’t change anything because this is the reality we have. I wouldn’t suddenly become immoral because there are still consequences and even if some people or even everyone but me is not real, they will still react as though they have emotions. If I hurt my wife, she would still cry. If I did something bad enough, she might divorce me. Take half my stuff. Lose some access to my kids. Those are all real consequences even if the people are simulated.

    Maybe I’d be less concerned for people not immediately around me because any good simulation wouldn’t actually sim everything out of range, so there wouldn’t e.g. be Palestinians starving to death if no one “real” was there.

    I suppose it would re-open the question of existence beyond death, but I don’t think I would ultimately come to a different conclusion—there is no reason to think this experience would continue past my own death, and if I were memory-wiped and re-inserted it wouldn’t really be the same me anyway, right?

    If it were matrix-style there is a reality out there to experience if I can leave the simulation, I’d have some hard thinking to do about whether that would be likely to be a better existence than the one I’m having here.

    • oceanA
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      1 day ago

      Great point! I never find this line of questioning interesting for this reason. It doesn’t change anything

  • tal@lemmy.today
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    18 hours ago

    I think that two items would be pretty prominent for humanity:

    • First, if we know not just that it is a simulation but that this brings some knowledge of how the simulation’s physics work that differs from our previous non-simulation understanding, how to make use of those properties.

    • Second, figuring out how to “break out”, how to influence the world in which the simulation is being run.

  • weeeeum@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Nothing changes does it?

    Also I’m not sure if I’d me more or less scared of death. If this is a simulation, to escape reality, I can’t imagine how terrible reality would really be.

  • frezik@midwest.social
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    24 hours ago

    Remember that I’m a nihilist and shrug my shoulders.

    Then start to think about how everyone else is going to react and how I’ll need to plan for that.

    • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      Then start to think about how everyone else is going to react and how I’ll need to plan for that.

      yeah that’s an interesting consideration.

  • 5in1k@lemm.ee
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    5 hours ago

    I would just keep living my life, it’s not actionable information for me.

    • JohnnyEnzyme@lemm.ee
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      4 hours ago

      Agree. It’s a lot like the ‘free will’ exercise to me-- an interesting thought experiment that AFAIK doesn’t help too much in the actual living of a life.

      Also, I propose that we arguably already know that we’re living in a simulation, and it makes no real difference. I.e., we’ve identified the wave-vs-particle effect, the four forces of the universe, a bunch of physical and chemical laws, and are continually refining our understanding of it all, via science, and possibly even metaphysics.

      But far as we know, it’s all just building blocks, dimensions, and laws so to speak. A super-amazing simulation as it were. What’s wrong with that?

  • treadful@lemmy.zip
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    22 hours ago

    Simulation meaning the universe and everything in it is simulated, including myself? Or like I’m jacked into a simulation Matrix-style?

    The former means there’s nothing to do about it. The latter means what I do here is largely irrelevant.

    Big difference in response.

  • Asafum@feddit.nl
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    1 day ago

    I’d give the sky the finger and then spend too much time wondering what perspective we’re even being viewed from.

    I’d also probably start a diary, except every entry would be: “Fuck you people for creating a world like this. Do you enjoy the suffering of countless people? Turns out God really is a prick.”

  • IronKrill@lemmy.ca
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    16 hours ago

    Wouldn’t make a difference. The only part that could change my actions would be what hapoens obce it ends. But simulation or no I’m stuck here for however many years and have to make the best of it.

  • zxqwas@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    Does it mean anything in itself to be in a simulation?

    I don’t really see how that would change anything in my day to day life.

    • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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      21 hours ago

      Being in a simulation would increase the viability of an afterlife. Your program could just be migrated to another “game”

  • sunbrrnslapper@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Is there an option to leave the simulation? And could I come back if I didn’t like reality?

    If I couldn’t come back, I would probably just stay here.