Alleged murderers claim they are living in The Matrix as their defense

OK, let’s say she is right and we live in a simulation. Like most simulations, there are rules. One of those rules is Murder is bad, mmmkay? Another is that if you get caught murdering, you get locked up. Her assumption could be right but that only means her punishment is also simulation and that doesn’t excuse her for breaking the simulation rules.

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I’d throw it out there that being thrown into an institution for the criminally insane for treatment can be a harsher punishment than normal violent person prison, with the possibility of no release. Plato’s cave can be a dark place, but it’s probably better than giant alien spiders trying to kill you.

Commit the simulated crime, do the simulated time.

It could be delusional disorder, which is actually very rarely studied because the individual actually believes in it and would not be likely to look for help. The CBC had a recent podcast on The Current about delusional disorder whereby a well known CBC reported discussed her strange childhood, where her mother would uproot the family repeatedly and move across the country without explanation.

And more pointedly Radiolab did an episode on someone who’s brain surgery spurred him to watch child porn and even went to jail because of it. The issue of blame and responsibility is a fine line.

If you say so! But I’d say that “God” is essentially an emergent AI property of the Universal Turing Machine, and we are its subroutines. The double slit experiment to my mind shows that consciousness is a core part of how our universe works. Most of the key figures in quantum physics were utterly mind-blown by it… We’ve somehow gone way objectivist-materialist as of late, and that’s a shame, and one I don’t think is borne out by the evidence. shrug Silly humans will figure it out some day. :slight_smile:

I’ll add, I do think we are the programmers of this realm, and that our consciousness is not inherently human. Again, I’m not really trying to convince anyone actively, but I also feel fine about putting my beliefs out there. They basically reconcile physics and philosophy, and are shared by A LOT of other people, even if their expressions of this perspective take other forms. I’ve never done it, but my sense is a heavy DMT trip is a quick pathway to being exposed to other layers of the protocol. I’m a nondualist – everything exists in the infine qubit dataset (“Akashic Record”). Just my way of saying, you and your perspective are as valid as mine, and I love you, because All is One. Even Dr. Bronner knew wassup. :wink:

One last thing. :slight_smile: Just because I believe that programmers (conscious entities) exist outside of our reality, doesn’t mean I think their consciousness is anything like our own. That would be like comparing our consciousness to animals’, and even plants’.

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C3P0 vs Spock, HA

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I sleep better knowing that the “real me” is beamed in from the Worldwide Deadly Communist Gangster Computer God’s secret brainbanks on the dark side of the moon.

(OTT paranoid lunacy with offensive bits)

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You’re sharper than the average theistic-ish philosopher (and yeah, plenty of atheist dingbats too, don’t mean that as dig exclusively against theists). I’d genuinely love to give this debate the attention it deserves, but for now I can’t. If I have time to down the road, I’ll make a thread for it and tag you into it in case your interested.

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trump?

@kpkpkp and @SheiffFatman I was thinking Orphan Black.

Right now, as you read this, I am your programmer. I hope you’ve enjoyed the show?

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The industry term is, “Data Center as a Service”.

(No, I’m not making this up, although it sounds like I’m making fun of techies.)

Yes, the consensus is that it is a very weak defence, since the punishment will happen within the same game, sim, what have you as the crime itself was committed in. Suck it up and ride it out, kiddies.

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We all hope we’re players, but that niggling doubt that we’re just NPC’s…

Still not a reason to murder.
(Hint: There is NO reason to murder; there are no cheat codes nor loopholes.)

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Giant alien spiders trying to make you their lunch probably have it coming… That being said, running away, and finding help is usually a better option.

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