Is this "base reality"? Probably not, say some

[GulliverFoyle]

Sorry, that was mean. I’ll go write I will not abuse ear-worms 100 times on the blackboard.

[anon55609254]

@GulliverFoyle

Another far more speculative possibility is that, if we are in a simulation, the neuron might be a byzantine piece of needlessly complicated machinery that makes a good show but is just as much illusion as the rest of the perceived world.

Wow, that sounds like a big waste of cpu time!

@GulliverFoyle

I think we don’t really understand the distinction between reality and simulation

This is a really interesting point! Given all the quantum stuff reported on over the last 100 years, even if we’re “really here,” it’s a lot weirder than we can comprehend. Yet. If ever.

@GulliverFoyle

I merely can’t refute it, so I remain open to the possibility.

Good sense.

[TobinL]

@anon55609254

it’s a lot weirder than we can comprehend

Douglas Adams already covered this.

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

[nimelennar]

@TrollsOpinion

Heavy stuff.

[anon55609254]

@GulliverFoyle

So far there’s not much evidence that a more simply designed weighted analog switch can’t duplicate its function, but there are various theories that a neuron does things we don’t understand but which are somehow essential to consciousness.

I rethought this and remembered that evolution is awfully conservative, keeping stuff that long ago ceased having a function. Thus the neuron may include all sorts of unneeded or easily simplified stuff. For example, is a complete copy of DNA needed? (If it’s there; don’t know about neurons really, but for example red blood cells don’t have any.) So maybe it can be completely simulated much more simply.

Of course maybe we just don’t don’t know enough. For example, for years the appendix was the prime example of leftover stuff from evolution, yet I’ve recently read that the it might have some function as backup storage of gut bacteria.

[GulliverFoyle]

@anon55609254

I rethought this and remembered that evolution is awfully conservative, keeping stuff that long ago ceased having a function. Thus the neuron may include all sorts of unneeded or easily simplified stuff. For example, is a complete copy of DNA needed? (If it’s there; don’t know about neurons really, but for example red blood cells don’t have any.) So maybe it can be completely simulated much more simply.

Neuroscience is way way outside my wheelhouse, down the street, one town over, just across the border. I was just thinking of things like the mechanical calculators simulated in Minecraft, or the penchant some hobbyists have to finding needlessly complicated but fun ways of building what could and normally are much simpler devices.

As I understand it, biological evolution only loosely follows the principle of parsimony, which says that a more efficient way of accomplishing something has a competitive advantage. Presumably, for example, there are no natural animals with crystalline silicon wafers for brains because there is no evolutionary path from amino acids to that, or if there is, an evolutionary niche has not opened to allow it to evolve.

[peemlives]

What if our dream selves are the base reality and they invented being awake with their simulation called ‘continuity’?

Bunch of post-stelliferians bored with post-singularity lifestyles.

[Ambiguity]

I’d second the recommendation of Good Omens. It’s an enjoyable book.

I’ve read several of Prachett’s books, and they’re enjoyable, but they all tend to melt together in my mind. For a fan they’re probably all easily distinguishable; not so much for a casual reader/observer.

[Ambiguity]

@pixleshifter

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

I prefer the corollary: Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.