Are we all just part of a computer simulation? Scientists are trying to find that out.

[Lion IRC]

http://www.inquisitr.com/437451/our-univ...ew-theory/

Interesting article. Thanks.

I read an interesting thought experiment earlier this year which considered the morality of computer game designers incorporating into their games, if they could, an advanced artificial intelligence such as would make the characters truly sentient.

It was none-too-subtle analogy to God giving human beings sentient awareness of pain. IE. Should the game designer incorporate that program into the game He created? The counter-apologist Op claimed that, (unlike God) the consensus of most human game designers is ''that the designer ought not to incorporate that program - that to do so would to be doing something wrong. The underlying intuition is that to introduce the ability to suffer is wrong.''

The thought experiment is supposed to help lead the mind to the conclusion that;

- since most human game designers arguably would not inflict AI pain awareness (sentience) on Sonic the Hedgehog or car crash victims in Grand Theft Auto because that is immoral,

and/

- the games themselves can be enjoyed by the game users as intended, as they are without the need for the existence of any AI sentience of real suffering by the game characters, so God/game programmer wouldnt include redundant suffering,

and/

- unlike programmed games, the real world has actual human sentient experience of pain,

Therefore - The pain sentience of characters in real life must have derived from some other explanation - an impersonal cause - NOT a deliberate program designer. (AKA - teleology.)


Of course it overlooks heaps of other theodicy arguments answering the so-called problem of pain, but otherwise it sounds persuasive, right?

WRONG.

Heres why. Are we really supposed to believe that game ''sentience'' programmers wouldnt be lining up to claim a Nobel Prize for this breakthrough in "artificial intelligence"?

If creating ''characters'' with the sentient ability to feel pain is immoral, why do we willingly take part in the game called parenthood?