Reality has all but disappeared, according to post-modernists. — Nemo2124

While Baudrillard seems to come closest to suggesting that reality has "disappeared," he argues that what we experience now are simulations, representations that replace direct, unmediated reality. In contrast, Derrida doesn't claim reality disappears but insists that it’s never stable to begin with. For him, it seems that reality is always mediated by language and our perception, meaning that our understanding is inherently fragmented and in flux. Did you have something different in mind?

So what has replaced it is a computer generated simulation that we interact with via technology. — Nemo2124

Why would you think this? Do you have some arguments or evidence? Are you thinking Donald Hoffman?

What is reality? In referring to this, we are positing some fixed external reference frame, an objectively existing material Universe.

In contrast, Derrida doesn't claim reality disappears but insists that it’s never stable to begin with. For him, it seems that reality is always mediated by language and our perception, meaning that our understanding is inherently fragmented and in flux. — Tom Storm

According to post-modernists, the way that humans relate to this 'reality' is mediated through simulation, language, ideology and so-forth. We generate meanings that we communicate to one another to provide explanation, but do we ever have a direct experience of some sort of objective reality? Our senses should provide this, but ultimately what we derive from them is again coded through symbolic language. In other words, we sense there is a reality, but we are perhaps once-removed from its direct experience.

In other words, we sense there is a reality, but we are perhaps once-removed from its direct experience. — Nemo2124

I've often thought that the notion of 'reality' is what some of us chase in lieu of God, and it's probably every bit as chimeric. Reality is simply the space we inhabit and navigate each day. Whether that reality is a simulation or an act of constructivism makes no real difference to the experience. So, for me, the question doesn’t really matter. My intuition tells me that in creating reality humans devise contingent descriptions that prove useful within a given time and community, and are always subject to revision.

I've often thought that the notion of 'reality' is what some of us chase in lieu of God, and it's probably every bit as chimeric. Reality is simply the space we inhabit and navigate each day. Whether that reality is a simulation or an act of constructivism makes no real difference to the experience. So, for me, the question doesn’t really matter. My intuition tells me that in creating reality humans devise contingent descriptions that prove useful within a given time and community, and are always subject to revision. — Tom Storm

That’s my problem with you - you’re always downplaying your philosophical aptitude. You seem to want to come off as a down home, down beat, Aussi schlub, but then you write stuff like this.

This is quite a can of worms. You'll have one camp laughing at the question because "use your eyes". Another camp (the one i'm in) wants to say "No, obviously not. None of sensations are generated by the world, but instead are generated by our minds" which is physically true.

but ultimately what we derive from them is again coded through symbolic language — Nemo2124

I don't quite think tihs is true. I think the PoMos get this totally wrong. The symbolisms are overlaid, not constitutive, other than of our internal world. Symbols themselves obviously constitute parts of the world but these are also internally generated and effigized for lack of a better word.

So, for me, the question doesn’t really matter. — Tom Storm

This is quite a can of worms. — AmadeusD

At a certain stage, when discussing machine philosophy, it may be necessary to invoke the idea of the Singularity. This represents the moment when technology becomes so advanced that machines can replace human beings. It is like a Deus ex Machina moment, one that may have already passed.

I have no idea if machines can replace humans, or what that even means. Replace in what way?

But setting AI or simulation theory aside, the original post could be pointing toward a range of philosophical questions that have been asked for centuries; like Descartes’ infamous idea of a fake reality created by an evil demon. Later, this was updated into the “brain in a vat” scenario imagined by modern philosophers, or even the kind of simulated world depicted in your aforementioned film.

In essence, you're asking whether our senses are reliable; a question as old as philosophy. The answer? Does it make much difference? I've never had a day in my life where my senses were unreliable, and if they are in a foundational sense, that we're living in a simulation, what difference does it make? What actually changes?

You could even argue, from a Christian perspective, that God’s creation resembles a kind of simulation, a world designed, fabricated and set in motion to run the program of human existence and see what unfolds.

You could even argue, from a Christian perspective, that God’s creation resembles a kind of simulation, a world designed, fabricated and set in motion to run the program of human existence and see what unfolds. — Tom Storm

Yes, this analogy is made very clear in David Chalmers' book about all this, Reality +. What is the difference between a creation and a simulation?

[If] we're living in a simulation, what difference does it make? What actually changes? — Tom Storm

You'd think the answer would be "Nothing," but we feel it makes a huge difference. Especially if the simulation is the one called divine creation. Are we wrong to feel this way? I say no. That it may make no practical difference is not the same as saying it makes no intellectual difference. Knowledge for its own sake is highly prized, though perhaps it shouldn't be, on the grounds that that makes no difference. I can't think of a single thing that would change for me if I had never heard of the diplodocus, yet I find myself very glad I have. Similarly, if it could be shown for certain that we live in a (non-divinely-created) simulation, I'm positive I wouldn't react with indifference.

Interesting question is, how would I react? :smile:

You'd think the answer would be "Nothing," but we feel it makes a huge difference. — J

I think it matters more to those folk who fester quietly over the 'really real'. I'm not one of those, so there is no feeling I get from this. I guess idealism is the other companion to this idea. We live in a world of mentation and the physical is simply how consciousness appears when viewed from a certain perspective. (Kastrup)

Yes, this analogy is made very clear in David Chalmers' book about all this, Reality +. What is the difference between a creation and a simulation? — J

Cool. I haven't heard anyone else making this point and it's such an obvious one, so there you go.

You can imagine a sci-fi version of the Old Testament where God becomes the Great Cosmic Scientist... It would certainly align with contemporary thinking better than clumps of clay and 'let there be light...'

Similarly, if it could be shown for certain that we live in a (non-divinely-created) simulation, I'm positive I wouldn't react with indifference. — J

Yes, if it were demonstrated, I’m not sure how much it would change my view, though perhaps it would. I tend to think I’d simply adapt my current practice, which isn’t really attached to any particular metaphysics.

Yes, if it were demonstrated, I’m not sure how much it would change my view, though perhaps it would. — Tom Storm

This puts an interesting light on it. Because how would it be demonstrated, exactly? One of the reasons people give for finding this whole line of speculation irrelevant is that we have nothing to compare "reality" to, since we're inside of the only reality we know. But if a demonstration necessarily showed there was another reality, we would now have a meaningful point of comparison. We could think about "us here" versus "the simulator people out there." I bet that would be part of the big difference such a demonstration would make -- the comparison is no longer a vacuous one.

Chalmers also goes into this, if memory serves. It's an excellent book.

Agree - I left it at demonstrated because who knows what this would look like?

We live in a world of mentation and the physical is simply how consciousness appears when viewed from a certain perspective. (Kastrup) — Tom Storm

Kastrup wants to have it both ways. He says the physical world is just how consciousness looks 'from the outside'—but if everything is mind, then this supposed 'outside view' is just another mental experience. If idealism is true, then what we call the physical world isn’t really 'physical' at all—it's just how the cosmic mind dreams things up. That’s not a perspective shift—it’s a full-blown collapse of physical reality into narrative illusion.

Regarding the OP, simulation theory only makes sense if you think your conscious experiences can be reduced to a bunch of electric switches turning off and on in a certain way. To me, that sounds implausible.

That’s not a perspective shift—it’s a full-blown collapse of physical reality into narrative illusion. — RogueAI

Well yes, idealism is the ‘collapse’ of physical reality. I’m not an idealist but the case can be made and Kastrup seems to do a better job than most. One needs to read him closely - he’s easy to misconstrue. But this is for one of the idealism threads where this stuff has been given a thorough work out.

I think that the Cartesian procedure as described in the Meditations is very apt in this case. You start by doubting commonplace reality and end-up affirming one thing that you know to be true. From this certainty, the Cogito in Descartes' case, you can then derive once again the rationally-ordered world.

So, I think that going through this cycle of doubting everything, then finding an affirmation that forms the cornerstone of a new coherent understanding of the world, is a process that has to be repeated, fine-tuned until you reach the truth or some sort of realisation of the way things really are.

Is the Matrix real? Reality has all but disappeared, according to post-modernists. So what has replaced it is a computer generated simulation that we interact with via technology. This fiction is called 'the Matrix' and we are called upon, as philosophers, to interpret it and speculate as to its existence. What we are left with is the 'Desert of the Real', a world destroyed, where the real has escaped us and we function merely as automaton to perpetuate the existence of this formation of today's late-capitalism.
Is the Matrix real?
Yes, I'll take the red pill
No, it's the blue pill for me — Nemo2124

Since I don't know if the Matrix exists or not, I take the red pill as an experiment. When I wake up in a "new reality", how do I know it is the true reality and not just another [part of the] program? How do the "Masters" know if their reality is a simulation or not?

The idea creates an infinite regress, and I don't think the "Masters" would create a simulation that creates its own simulations, or a simulation that includes so much time doing nothing - like waiting two hours in a waiting room in the doctor's or department of motor vehicles' office. What would be the point?

Since I don't know if the Matrix exists or not, I take the red pill as an experiment. When I wake up in a "new reality", how do I know it is the true reality and not just another [part of the] program? How do the "Masters" know if their reality is a simulation or not? — Harry Hindu

Yes, very good. The "maybe I'm in a simulation" thought experiment can never deliver us out of it.

I don't think the "Masters" would . . . — Harry Hindu

This is where the whole thing gets too vague for me. Who knows what the hell such beings would or wouldn't consider worthwhile?

Is the Matrix real? — Nemo2124

No. But the Matrix movie serves as a metaphor for the Information Age*1, in which computers do a lot of our thinking for us. A few centuries ago, humans began to off-load some of their memory to mechanical language processors (printing press). Now we are off-loading & up-loading some of our thinking tasks to large-language models (AI).

Both of those technical advances increased the scope & range of our thinking and communicating. But, as far as I can tell, they have changed Reality only in our perception and conception of what's real : "is it real, or is it AI?" A generation ago, audio recording technology resulted in the memorable advertising phrase : "is it real, or is it Memorex?"

The more technical-things expand our reach, the more human Reality stays the same : jello-like brain, in a temporary flesh & blood body. It's our Ideality (worldview) that changes in adaptation to the tech. Did taming Fire change reality, or our power-relation to Reality? :smile:


*1. The Information Age, also known as the Digital Age or Computer Age, is a period characterized by the rapid development and widespread use of information technology, particularly computers and the internet. It represents a shift from traditional industries to an economy centered on information and its manipulation. This era, which began in the mid-20th century, has dramatically changed how people access, share, and utilize information.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=information+age

Since I don't know if the Matrix exists or not, I take the red pill as an experiment. — Harry Hindu

Human experience is technologically-mediated, but the ultimate reality is still the physically real world, that derived from the laws of nature. There's a problem only when the technology is subordinated by an outside-agency, for example, an autonomous AI supercomputer that serves the interest of an elite cabal.

No. — Gnomon

If it's not real, then there is no giant conspiracy to confine the human subject with technological know-how. I think in the end, we have to wrest control of the knowledge, become independent selves with enough self-autonomy and awareness to define our existence. I think philosophy is a part of that.