None of this is real

[Ah Well]

FOXNews.com - Pedophile Playground Discovered in 'Second Life' Virtual World - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News
The top eight corporate sites in Second Life
Reuters/Second Life

All of that stuff is old news - back as far as 2007;

1. There was a case brought against Linden Labs (Philip Linden started SL and I actually know a few folk working with Lindens) re paeodo stuff ((think the case was brought in France) and it failed

2. Re the Corp types - they've fecked off out of SL recently .... thankfully ... it will be better without them

3. Re Reuters .. they fecked off too.. leaving what is actually peculiar in the sense of the commonplace 2D Net (like P.ie) and SL 3D Net .. SL is unique as a 3D world allowing concepts like realtime video/youtube converted to mpeg format play there .. so Reuters still retain their virtual "pad" (and pay a tier fee for same) and play Vids/links to their Site(s) like one gets while watching Youtube ... good riddance to them

Secondlife for all it's faults is by far the most advanced virtual interactive facility on this planet presently

The ESA Satellite Launch which is shortly to ensue.. you can log into SL (as an Account Holder) hop on over to the Sim (actually that should be Region as Regions hold 2 Sims) and directly engage with Scientists on the ESA Mission in question

SL has been a haven for Groups shunned or victimised in RL (real-life) particularly the LGBT Community ... basically a place where they can express be and further themselves

On every hour of every day of every week, there are seminars, discussions, lectures and etc etc being held on virtually endless topics - and most of the stuff is free ... unlike this fecking country where the air is fast becoming the only thing which isn't being taxed

In a nutshell, DON'T make flippant comments re SL without firstly having been there and encountered all of what it offers to then legimately and subsequently be in an educated position to make such a synopsis on it

[Odyessus]

Rene Descartes is sitting at a bar and he orders a glass of wine. A beautiful woman walks in and he offers to be her a glass. So they sit and talk for hours, with Descartes buying buckets of wine for this woman. By closing time Descartes thinks he has a chance with her and invites her back to his place. She declines, telling him she must return to her husband. Descartes turns back to the bar to see the bar man adding up his tab.

"That'll be a hundred Francs, Descartes." says the bar man

"I think not!" says Descartes as he disappears.

I don't want to spoil your joke, but actually if Descartes thinks he does not exist, he still does according to his reasoning.

He reasoned that if he did not exist he could not make the mistake of believing that he did, since a non-existent being could not make a mistake.

Therefore if he believed he existed, he surely did. By the same reasoning, if he believed he did not exist, he did anyway, since a non existent being could not think it did not exist, although an existent being could make a mistake. (i.e. believing it did not exist.)

[JCSkinner]

All of that stuff is old news - back as far as 2007;

And none the less true for it.

Secondlife for all it's faults is by far the most advanced virtual interactive facility on this planet presently

Apart from the planet itself and the universe it exists in, it seems.

In a nutshell, DON'T make flippant comments re SL without firstly having been there and encountered all of what it offers to then legimately and subsequently be in an educated position to make such a synopsis on it

Everything I said was true, I provided evidence of that, and I clarified that my opinion was just that - my personal impression.
Do you want to do the math on how many manhours it would take to 'encounter all' of it? That's a preposterous criterion to demand from people before offering an opinion, and a criterion I suspect you yourself, for all your squandered time there, cannot fulfil.
I'd thank you to stop derailing this discussion by talking about Second Life, please. The departure of the corporates is indicative of where it is headed as a website (because that's what it is, ultimately. Not a community, not an innovative way of existing, not a merging into virtuality, not 'imagineering' or any of the other preposterous claims.
It's just a feckin website, and it's not relevant to this topic, which is the virtuality of our own universe.
If you have a comment to make about the relevance of virtuality theory to contemporary physics, or wish to discuss the philosophical ramifications of our collective non-reality, go ahead, though.

[jady88]

Who knew there were SL evangelists?

[JCSkinner]

Who knew there were SL evangelists?

I know! Jeez.
I was really hoping for some interesting philosophical or scientific discussion about this. Like, if we're virtual, what can be considered 'real'? Or, who or what might be accessing the interface? Or, could it be organically generated or must there be, at some level, a creator?
Instead it's Sims-online advocates getting shirty because other people don't give a crap about their fave website.
Wow.

[jady88]

In defence of SL it does seem like a semi-interesting concept and my friend made some money (very little) teaching Irish on it for a little while. I'm generally in favour of anything that encourages and aids communication and consumption.

Back to the idea of the thread

"We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled.
But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any
particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in
a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events
of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose
meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?

-- Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7
Activity Recorded M.Y. 2302.22467
TERMINATION OF SPECIMEN ADVISED"

[JCSkinner]

I think the general consensus - at least the scientific consensus - is that, given the nature of interaction, and the commonality of perception (football crowds all cheer at once when a goal is scored), if this existence is as some writers have put it, a dream, then it is one we all share.
That undermines the solipsistic argument somewhat, though not entirely.
I like the democracy of the virtuality theory. Unlike the ancients, there is no positing of one real person (the self) and the rest of the people as imaginations. In this theory, we are all equally unreal, as is everything we perceive.
On second reading, it strikes me as almost Buddhist, actually.

[jady88]

I think the general consensus - at least the scientific consensus - is that, given the nature of interaction, and the commonality of perception (football crowds all cheer at once when a goal is scored), if this existence is as some writers have put it, a dream, then it is one we all share.
That undermines the solipsistic argument somewhat, though not entirely.
I like the democracy of the virtuality theory. Unlike the ancients, there is no positing of one real person (the self) and the rest of the people as imaginations. In this theory, we are all equally unreal, as is everything we perceive.
On second reading, it strikes me as almost Buddhist, actually.

But that doesn't change the potential horror of the situation if it were true, and perhaps we are not being lead or directed we could just be for observation all of us. Perhaps like a DSS model they could introduce diseases etc. to see the response and assist in calculations on how best to approach them. Considering the sims it seems that this is inevitable in the long run.

[JCSkinner]

There is another theorem, more philosophical but based on physics, that came to the conclusion that the multiverse (based on multiverse theories obviously) could well be the equivalent of running variant models on a theme, a bit like the cloud computing being done in modelling global warming.
In that case, there can be only one 'real' universe and all the others are variant models. The odds therefore suggest it is very, very likely we are one of the models and therefore virtual and not real.
Then the question arises - what is being modelled, and what is our variant (if any - under this theory, there is a tiny possibility that our universe is the real one) from the real universe?

[jady88]

There is another theorem, more philosophical but based on physics, that came to the conclusion that the multiverse (based on multiverse theories obviously) could well be the equivalent of running variant models on a theme, a bit like the cloud computing being done in modelling global warming.
In that case, there can be only one 'real' universe and all the others are variant models. The odds therefore suggest it is very, very likely we are one of the models and therefore virtual and not real.
Then the question arises - what is being modelled, and what is our variant (if any - under this theory, there is a tiny possibility that our universe is the real one) from the real universe?

My head is going to explode... I actually can't stand these kind of things. Was that Einsteins theory I read about in National Geographic but I forget most of it now.