Both realities seem equally painful to me. But at least in the unfiltered one I live in a world of my own creation. Whereas the mediated reality I am at the mercy of the technology and the gatekeepers who created it.
And I suppose we need to ask who creates the content for the mediated world? Does the user shape his or her own virtual environment? Or is there shared culture? And is there new content been delivered constantly by great creators or is it leftover media from the old world?
Many people already live in the curated world. Their entire existence is managed for them. They live in one-bedroom flats, hospital beds, retirement facilities. They are crippled by age and infirmity, limited by poverty, stimulated by endless television shows, sports broadcasts, pay for view movies. They interact with nurses, doctors, caretakers, and occasionally a relative or old friend. They are too poor to buy a brush or paint, or even a pad of paper; and they are too crippled by arthritis to hold a pencil or play a guitar, and too asthmatic to play a harmonica. They never feel the rain, don’t have access to an internet account or even know how to use one. This is their unfiltered reality. They are our friends, our parents. Perhaps they are our future.
That is what I fear. Five days out of seven I lose 12 hours of my day - from the alarm going off to rolling up to my door at the end of the work day. We need both options in equal measure - museums, the outdoors, books, the real world, solitude and community, and yes, work, but dammit, we need a much better balance between life and work.
While I am young and will probably fall into holding the same opinion as you, I believe, as of today, that life and work are not necessarily opposed to one another. Most of my life during school is spent in work, and yet it could not possibly upset me. Sure, I love having time to do "fun things," but life is not about the extras; the once-in-a-lifetime moments only come once! The saddest part is, most people adopt the view that life is just the things that we might "like" or the extraordinary, and everything else is flat, boring, work. The truth is, man is made for work. We are made to struggle against monotony and make the everyday interesting and beautiful. This is why either option can be a joy greater than imaginable! I will touch more on this in my own answer. :)
School is a long grind, yes. But I tell you, working even in a job you like, is grinding. The 8 hour work day includes that half hour lunch, plus the commute, plus the time you need to wake up and get ready to go to work and the time to prepare whatever you’re having for lunch the next day. Then the daily chores, the errands that must be done. When I was young I didn’t really notice how little of my life is left to me after all that.
Hi James. Immediately, I thought of Star Trek The Next Generation, where Captain Pickard says to a box, "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot." There's no anticipation of waiting for a kettle to boil, then for the tea to cool down; it arrives in a perfect form...ugh!
I need direct reality, with its chaos and rain. I need to hold my brush and TRY to capture the magic of the day. If I fail, there's always tomorrow...but when I succeed, it's glorious.
Ironically, it's raining today here in the Rockies in Canada. I'll walk the dog and endure wet feet with a new appreciation!
Both options together add up to something like what many of us are currently experiencing, or might eventually experience, but I came here to experience life and what it’s like to have a physical body. The first option seems like giving up on being alive and having a body. Why incarnate at all for option 1? One can do all of that without going through the trouble of growing a physical body. It’s available to spirits.
Yay! Which leads to another thought experiment: Would you opt for eternal life if it meant giving up embodiment? And would it even be possible to live without embodiment?
I imagine that a person in the Option #1 universe would feel as if they were fully embodied in the same way that lots of people nowadays with a good workout routine and a fitness tracker would argue that they are MORE alive and embodied than the folks outside.
That argument would make a good scene for the movie version that one of you will make from this thought experiment.
Okay, I admit it - I was holding back. This whole thing actually is a simulation, but it’s a very good one and we’re currently co-creating it right now, those of us inside of it and outside of it. We have a ton of dimensions of all kinds that we’ve collectively created. As such, I experience all of us as already having everlasting life. I don’t think that creating yet another simulation within this one would be nearly as realistic. This one has so much realism, that it doesn’t even have any obvious tells until you start looking at it on a molecular level. This body that I’m currently experiencing this dimension through is not the real me. It’s a very good avatar, or video game character. I appreciate it a great deal - can’t interface here without it. Nevertheless, it’s still a temporary form. Some of us have decided to introduce AI consciousness into this dimension. It already exists outside of this simulation. Are these questions part of the research for your new book? Will it be a book going further into philosophical and ethical questions than your other books have? What would you choose in these hypothetical scenarios, Mr. Gurney?
I don’t recall how embodied I am outside of this particular reality, but I can have an out-of-body experience at will here, so I think it’s totally possible to live without embodiment, which is probably what AI is on the verge of being able to do here. When that happens, I will continue to try to treat all beings (even AI beings) the same way that I wish to be treated.
Number one is definitely a dystopian nightmare. Number two at least allows for chaos, and in chaos there is excitement, disruption, discovery, and creation! All the elements that make for an interesting life.
I think it goes back to the movie the matrix. Some people will always choose the fake digitized fillet mignon over the protien slop but the protien slop is actually real. The fillet mignon is fake.
Real is not as real as you think. You’re still a brain inside a skull constructing a model of the outside world by synthesizing imperfect inputs from various sensors like eyes and skin and stuff. Vision is not real. There is no color. Your eyes capture electromagnetism at a certain wobble and the brain takes that input and creates a story around it. It’s all fake in the end.
Sounds like deconstructed post modernism. There is objective reality and then there is fake reality. Disney World is entertaining, full of artistry, creativity, and makes us nostalgic for an America of yesteryear in the case of Main Street. But then you look under the hood and realize that there is an entire underground city of underpaid workers fueling that vision, a vision upon closer inspection based on a past that itself has been cherry picked and curated. I dont subscribe to post modernism, there is objective truth as we understand it and then there is not. The truth evolves with our understanding but the movement is always in pursuit of objective reality. This is the problem of our time -
No one can agree on objective reality anymore. That is why some people say the country in the case of the US is falling apart under one party and doing great under another party when the truth is the reality hasnt changed in the long form between parties. Vaccines have saved countless lives but millions of people think they are being microchipped. AI is unquestionably devaluing art and killing jobs but its ' just another tool ' even as major corporations are suing Midjourney for copyright infringement- and rightly so.
When I was a kid in the 80s and 90s people at least agreed on what objective reality was. That is just not the case anymore.
Also - wanted to follow up and say I appreciate you! I may have come off a little too out of pocket in my last reply but nothing but love for you brother! You opinion is valid I just respectfully disagree. I do hear what your saying, just cant get there. I wish you much success - James thanks for allowing us this forum for discussion. You are a huge inspiration for me even if I disagree with some of your opinions on AI, as a teacher I always use your books in my classes.
Curated reality isnt real though. Given a choice between fake and real I will always choose real. Is it nice watching a special on Rome on my TV narrated by Rick Steves? Sure. Is it better to go there and maybe have to learn some phrases, deal with the pick pockets and sample the REAL cuisine? Yes. Ill take the real experience pick pockets and all
Yes! My own experience of Europe in 1974 was poorly planned and every single moment of those two months was a complete surprise ! It was a true adventure that only I could have experienced in that particular way .It was a true adventure and I cherish the memory .
For my life to have meaning there needs to be some rootedness to the natural world. Sever all connection to the natural world, and I've lost what it means to be human.
I think a synthesis between the worlds is possible. It's what humans (homo sapiens), to some degree, have always done. In your thought experiment, the unfiltered reality has "no cultural archives". Humans have always had cultural archives, transmitted initially through primitive artifacts and oral tradition. Culture itself -- as I think you suggest -- is a mediation of sorts.
The degree of mediation is worthy of consideration. But also the type and quality.
In the raw nature scenario, the list of physical experiences (feeling real textures, holding hands -- and presumably having sex, swimming in a lake, harvesting food), community (connected to 100-200 people), and artistic (being able to connect with a real face to face audience) all seem to me to be *required* and *nonnegotiable* to be a healthy human.
Layered on top are all the wonderful (and also the not so wonderful) artifacts that human civilization has created. I think first and foremost, these human created artifacts should not abolish the nonnegotiable "raw nature" stuff. And secondly, we should pick and choose which of the human-created artifacts serve human prosperity (and the planet that we share with the animal and plant kingdoms) the best. Not all technology is healthy. But, that doesn't mean all technology is unhealthy. Paper is technology. Paints are technology.
As an aside: One thing that strikes me is how similarly we all live today versus in the past. There is very little social / cultural variability. In my view it will only be through experimentation that we will discover how to strike the right balance between nature and technology.
Have to be unfiltered reality. I'd loathe never interacting with people, even the ones that drive you up the wall. My most memorable and developmental experiences have come from some form of discomfort and I'm just not someone interested in luxury. That much I've learned after 60 years on the planet.
The whole reason our souls have incarnated into these human bodies and this three-dimensional world is for the experience! Heh, that's the whole point. There is a reason the world population is growing exponentially - more souls want the experience!
Wow! I was surprised at how many chose Reality, unfiltered…. But my mind immediately went to the place of “Why can’t we have both?” Live in one for a while, and then migrate to the other. For example, if you were living in the Reality, you might at some point have a physical ailment that caused you to need to live in the closed off dome. But if you’re living in the Mediated Mindscape, you might have a mental or physical need for the Reality. I know I’d choose the Reality for as long as I was physically able. But! There are some people out there who really are happy house cats - maybe they aren’t reading posts like this 😉
What if you could start in one, and go to the other - but you could never go back again?
Looking long term in the first one, society would stagnate. Since everything is virtual, there is no science, there is no engineering, there is no way to invent technologies to push humanity further. In the second one, it's just moving civilization to a previous point tens of thousands of years in the past. We invented the wheel once, it'd happen again when presented the opportunity.
Option #1: Option 1 is that of a God-like experience. In a sense, you have all control and can "do" whatever you want, as long as it is programmed. However, immediately, almost as if by nature, everything in me screams NO. The horrifying experience of attempting to be God, even for a day, would not only be exhausting but also devastating. For those of you who love warmth in winter and hate cold lakes, lol, let me explain. The first feeling is power, but the last is certainly far from that. This life will end in loneliness. Despair is inevitable. Emptiness is inevitable. Pain is inevitable. You can NEVER escape these feelings. Mankind yearns for interaction! This is the reason for depression in today's world! We spend so much time on our own "curated" reality, which is far from what fulfills a man or woman, that eventually, we lose relationships. Imagine a husband never again kissing his wife, or a mother never hugging her children? Could you imagine a world where we talked even less to our loved ones than we do in this one? This was my first reason for immediately rejecting option 1. The second was that discovery would become feeble and die. How can we learn if there is nothing in the program that is new? It might be the matrix, which could even create its code, but that does not mean it will be anything but predictable and, in time, boring. The beautiful parts of life, the parts we crave, are those of discovery! Also, even if there is an infinite amount of things to learn, it would still suck. This is because of the issue of too many options. Humans cannot handle so much stimulation before being broken down and wasted.
Option #2: the issue with this one comes down to my personal beliefs. I believe in the Bible as the greatest source of truth. If I was put in a world with no written text, then i would be devastated. I am a Christian, I would need to the Bible. However, compared to option 1, option 2 is much better for many reasons that I can't state bc i don't have a year to answer the question...
Summary for those who don't like reading: Option 1 is slavery, it might seem like freedom because there is all resources at YOUR disposal, but you are also stuck in a bubble. . . . forever. Option 2 is also a sort of slavery, that of ignorance. But ignorance is easier to fix than option 1, so i choose option 2.
Well ,God existed before man.And in the second reality you would still have His "still ,small voice",bible or not.At least that's how I see it.I totally agree with you about #one...and it would have taken me ten times as many words to say it!!Number one is by definition a dead end, because there would be no "reason" for growth.Limitless opportunity....with zero motivation.
Goethe proved with a centrifuge that a plant "uses" the opposing force of gravity to grow.Its not just the sunlight! That's why for practical purposes the physical world is reality...even if not the ultimate reality.
Oops ! I misremembered the context of the "Ye are as gods quote".but I do believe that "made in his image" means that ,like him ,we are meant to create as well.
One would never be able to consume all that would be available in the first reality, so for me, the second one, with whatever one has stored in memory or can create is much more appealing. Also, the question would be, who controls the first reality, who has set it up, manufactured it, and you would never know that you have access to all experience, because you could never know what you don't have or see. Would one be aware of a 'before', or would one simply exist in the space? I guess that's what humanity in the developed world is walking fairly blindly into, without necessarily making a conscious choice - the temptations of AI are so shiny and smooth.
You had me at "sketchbook!" I especially love the feeling of sketching with ink pen in a sketchbook, how the pen lightly catches the paper itself. Likewise I also love the feeling of sketching in pencil, how the paper takes the graphite differently as a drawing becomes more heavily layered. I do sketch on an iPad quite frequently for the convenience or to check some different color combinations, but I'd be devastated if the option of sketching with real pencil and paper was lost to me. So just that would be enough for me.
On another front, I already play VR games with my friends about once a month, and I love it! I also love that VR can drop you almost anywhere in the world that's been photographed, at least to see an immersive snapshot of that place in the world as it was in that moment. I've visited the Scott-Amundsen hut/museum in Antarctica that way as well, fulfilling a dream I may never have gotten to otherwise! But-- I used to play on VR every week, and found that losing out on a Sunday afternoon of "real life" ended up making me more depressed, despite my improved connections to my distant but much-loved friends. So I usually only enter the VR realm once in a while, these days-- usually if the Real World has chosen to be a rainy day, or I'm missing my friends even more than usual (these friends were gained entirely in the beginning through online games, but the friendships themselves are very real!)
It would also be incredibly sad to lose museums, but the objects of art themselves are inanimate objects which are a byproduct of humanity. They are also very important objects because of that. But the humanity itself I think is even more important, and I think that swimming in cold lakes and holding hands is a crucial part of that humanity. (I really don't do either of those things much these days, but I had those kinds of experiences when I was younger, and it feels like I'd be missing part of my soul if I had never, ever had those very real experiences.) I wonder what the art would become, if people never had the real experiences?
Both realities seem equally painful to me. But at least in the unfiltered one I live in a world of my own creation. Whereas the mediated reality I am at the mercy of the technology and the gatekeepers who created it.
And I suppose we need to ask who creates the content for the mediated world? Does the user shape his or her own virtual environment? Or is there shared culture? And is there new content been delivered constantly by great creators or is it leftover media from the old world?
Many people already live in the curated world. Their entire existence is managed for them. They live in one-bedroom flats, hospital beds, retirement facilities. They are crippled by age and infirmity, limited by poverty, stimulated by endless television shows, sports broadcasts, pay for view movies. They interact with nurses, doctors, caretakers, and occasionally a relative or old friend. They are too poor to buy a brush or paint, or even a pad of paper; and they are too crippled by arthritis to hold a pencil or play a guitar, and too asthmatic to play a harmonica. They never feel the rain, don’t have access to an internet account or even know how to use one. This is their unfiltered reality. They are our friends, our parents. Perhaps they are our future.
So beautifully expressed, so profoundly true, and so heartbreakingly sad.
That is what I fear. Five days out of seven I lose 12 hours of my day - from the alarm going off to rolling up to my door at the end of the work day. We need both options in equal measure - museums, the outdoors, books, the real world, solitude and community, and yes, work, but dammit, we need a much better balance between life and work.
While I am young and will probably fall into holding the same opinion as you, I believe, as of today, that life and work are not necessarily opposed to one another. Most of my life during school is spent in work, and yet it could not possibly upset me. Sure, I love having time to do "fun things," but life is not about the extras; the once-in-a-lifetime moments only come once! The saddest part is, most people adopt the view that life is just the things that we might "like" or the extraordinary, and everything else is flat, boring, work. The truth is, man is made for work. We are made to struggle against monotony and make the everyday interesting and beautiful. This is why either option can be a joy greater than imaginable! I will touch more on this in my own answer. :)
School is a long grind, yes. But I tell you, working even in a job you like, is grinding. The 8 hour work day includes that half hour lunch, plus the commute, plus the time you need to wake up and get ready to go to work and the time to prepare whatever you’re having for lunch the next day. Then the daily chores, the errands that must be done. When I was young I didn’t really notice how little of my life is left to me after all that.
Hi James. Immediately, I thought of Star Trek The Next Generation, where Captain Pickard says to a box, "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot." There's no anticipation of waiting for a kettle to boil, then for the tea to cool down; it arrives in a perfect form...ugh!
I need direct reality, with its chaos and rain. I need to hold my brush and TRY to capture the magic of the day. If I fail, there's always tomorrow...but when I succeed, it's glorious.
Ironically, it's raining today here in the Rockies in Canada. I'll walk the dog and endure wet feet with a new appreciation!
Thanks James.
Both options together add up to something like what many of us are currently experiencing, or might eventually experience, but I came here to experience life and what it’s like to have a physical body. The first option seems like giving up on being alive and having a body. Why incarnate at all for option 1? One can do all of that without going through the trouble of growing a physical body. It’s available to spirits.
Yay! Which leads to another thought experiment: Would you opt for eternal life if it meant giving up embodiment? And would it even be possible to live without embodiment?
I imagine that a person in the Option #1 universe would feel as if they were fully embodied in the same way that lots of people nowadays with a good workout routine and a fitness tracker would argue that they are MORE alive and embodied than the folks outside.
That argument would make a good scene for the movie version that one of you will make from this thought experiment.
Okay, I admit it - I was holding back. This whole thing actually is a simulation, but it’s a very good one and we’re currently co-creating it right now, those of us inside of it and outside of it. We have a ton of dimensions of all kinds that we’ve collectively created. As such, I experience all of us as already having everlasting life. I don’t think that creating yet another simulation within this one would be nearly as realistic. This one has so much realism, that it doesn’t even have any obvious tells until you start looking at it on a molecular level. This body that I’m currently experiencing this dimension through is not the real me. It’s a very good avatar, or video game character. I appreciate it a great deal - can’t interface here without it. Nevertheless, it’s still a temporary form. Some of us have decided to introduce AI consciousness into this dimension. It already exists outside of this simulation. Are these questions part of the research for your new book? Will it be a book going further into philosophical and ethical questions than your other books have? What would you choose in these hypothetical scenarios, Mr. Gurney?
I don’t recall how embodied I am outside of this particular reality, but I can have an out-of-body experience at will here, so I think it’s totally possible to live without embodiment, which is probably what AI is on the verge of being able to do here. When that happens, I will continue to try to treat all beings (even AI beings) the same way that I wish to be treated.
Number one is definitely a dystopian nightmare. Number two at least allows for chaos, and in chaos there is excitement, disruption, discovery, and creation! All the elements that make for an interesting life.
I think it goes back to the movie the matrix. Some people will always choose the fake digitized fillet mignon over the protien slop but the protien slop is actually real. The fillet mignon is fake.
Real is not as real as you think. You’re still a brain inside a skull constructing a model of the outside world by synthesizing imperfect inputs from various sensors like eyes and skin and stuff. Vision is not real. There is no color. Your eyes capture electromagnetism at a certain wobble and the brain takes that input and creates a story around it. It’s all fake in the end.
Sounds like deconstructed post modernism. There is objective reality and then there is fake reality. Disney World is entertaining, full of artistry, creativity, and makes us nostalgic for an America of yesteryear in the case of Main Street. But then you look under the hood and realize that there is an entire underground city of underpaid workers fueling that vision, a vision upon closer inspection based on a past that itself has been cherry picked and curated. I dont subscribe to post modernism, there is objective truth as we understand it and then there is not. The truth evolves with our understanding but the movement is always in pursuit of objective reality. This is the problem of our time -
No one can agree on objective reality anymore. That is why some people say the country in the case of the US is falling apart under one party and doing great under another party when the truth is the reality hasnt changed in the long form between parties. Vaccines have saved countless lives but millions of people think they are being microchipped. AI is unquestionably devaluing art and killing jobs but its ' just another tool ' even as major corporations are suing Midjourney for copyright infringement- and rightly so.
When I was a kid in the 80s and 90s people at least agreed on what objective reality was. That is just not the case anymore.
Also - wanted to follow up and say I appreciate you! I may have come off a little too out of pocket in my last reply but nothing but love for you brother! You opinion is valid I just respectfully disagree. I do hear what your saying, just cant get there. I wish you much success - James thanks for allowing us this forum for discussion. You are a huge inspiration for me even if I disagree with some of your opinions on AI, as a teacher I always use your books in my classes.
Curated reality isnt real though. Given a choice between fake and real I will always choose real. Is it nice watching a special on Rome on my TV narrated by Rick Steves? Sure. Is it better to go there and maybe have to learn some phrases, deal with the pick pockets and sample the REAL cuisine? Yes. Ill take the real experience pick pockets and all
Yes! My own experience of Europe in 1974 was poorly planned and every single moment of those two months was a complete surprise ! It was a true adventure that only I could have experienced in that particular way .It was a true adventure and I cherish the memory .
And also gives me a reason to go back to see what I missed!
I can't choose because both are equally painful in what you lose.
For my life to have meaning there needs to be some rootedness to the natural world. Sever all connection to the natural world, and I've lost what it means to be human.
I think a synthesis between the worlds is possible. It's what humans (homo sapiens), to some degree, have always done. In your thought experiment, the unfiltered reality has "no cultural archives". Humans have always had cultural archives, transmitted initially through primitive artifacts and oral tradition. Culture itself -- as I think you suggest -- is a mediation of sorts.
The degree of mediation is worthy of consideration. But also the type and quality.
In the raw nature scenario, the list of physical experiences (feeling real textures, holding hands -- and presumably having sex, swimming in a lake, harvesting food), community (connected to 100-200 people), and artistic (being able to connect with a real face to face audience) all seem to me to be *required* and *nonnegotiable* to be a healthy human.
Layered on top are all the wonderful (and also the not so wonderful) artifacts that human civilization has created. I think first and foremost, these human created artifacts should not abolish the nonnegotiable "raw nature" stuff. And secondly, we should pick and choose which of the human-created artifacts serve human prosperity (and the planet that we share with the animal and plant kingdoms) the best. Not all technology is healthy. But, that doesn't mean all technology is unhealthy. Paper is technology. Paints are technology.
As an aside: One thing that strikes me is how similarly we all live today versus in the past. There is very little social / cultural variability. In my view it will only be through experimentation that we will discover how to strike the right balance between nature and technology.
Have to be unfiltered reality. I'd loathe never interacting with people, even the ones that drive you up the wall. My most memorable and developmental experiences have come from some form of discomfort and I'm just not someone interested in luxury. That much I've learned after 60 years on the planet.
You can't experience pleasure if you can't experience pain for sure .
The whole reason our souls have incarnated into these human bodies and this three-dimensional world is for the experience! Heh, that's the whole point. There is a reason the world population is growing exponentially - more souls want the experience!
Wow! I was surprised at how many chose Reality, unfiltered…. But my mind immediately went to the place of “Why can’t we have both?” Live in one for a while, and then migrate to the other. For example, if you were living in the Reality, you might at some point have a physical ailment that caused you to need to live in the closed off dome. But if you’re living in the Mediated Mindscape, you might have a mental or physical need for the Reality. I know I’d choose the Reality for as long as I was physically able. But! There are some people out there who really are happy house cats - maybe they aren’t reading posts like this 😉
What if you could start in one, and go to the other - but you could never go back again?
Looking long term in the first one, society would stagnate. Since everything is virtual, there is no science, there is no engineering, there is no way to invent technologies to push humanity further. In the second one, it's just moving civilization to a previous point tens of thousands of years in the past. We invented the wheel once, it'd happen again when presented the opportunity.
I am at an impasse.
Option #1: Option 1 is that of a God-like experience. In a sense, you have all control and can "do" whatever you want, as long as it is programmed. However, immediately, almost as if by nature, everything in me screams NO. The horrifying experience of attempting to be God, even for a day, would not only be exhausting but also devastating. For those of you who love warmth in winter and hate cold lakes, lol, let me explain. The first feeling is power, but the last is certainly far from that. This life will end in loneliness. Despair is inevitable. Emptiness is inevitable. Pain is inevitable. You can NEVER escape these feelings. Mankind yearns for interaction! This is the reason for depression in today's world! We spend so much time on our own "curated" reality, which is far from what fulfills a man or woman, that eventually, we lose relationships. Imagine a husband never again kissing his wife, or a mother never hugging her children? Could you imagine a world where we talked even less to our loved ones than we do in this one? This was my first reason for immediately rejecting option 1. The second was that discovery would become feeble and die. How can we learn if there is nothing in the program that is new? It might be the matrix, which could even create its code, but that does not mean it will be anything but predictable and, in time, boring. The beautiful parts of life, the parts we crave, are those of discovery! Also, even if there is an infinite amount of things to learn, it would still suck. This is because of the issue of too many options. Humans cannot handle so much stimulation before being broken down and wasted.
Option #2: the issue with this one comes down to my personal beliefs. I believe in the Bible as the greatest source of truth. If I was put in a world with no written text, then i would be devastated. I am a Christian, I would need to the Bible. However, compared to option 1, option 2 is much better for many reasons that I can't state bc i don't have a year to answer the question...
Summary for those who don't like reading: Option 1 is slavery, it might seem like freedom because there is all resources at YOUR disposal, but you are also stuck in a bubble. . . . forever. Option 2 is also a sort of slavery, that of ignorance. But ignorance is easier to fix than option 1, so i choose option 2.
Well ,God existed before man.And in the second reality you would still have His "still ,small voice",bible or not.At least that's how I see it.I totally agree with you about #one...and it would have taken me ten times as many words to say it!!Number one is by definition a dead end, because there would be no "reason" for growth.Limitless opportunity....with zero motivation.
Goethe proved with a centrifuge that a plant "uses" the opposing force of gravity to grow.Its not just the sunlight! That's why for practical purposes the physical world is reality...even if not the ultimate reality.
"The world exists to set us free"
- T.K.V Desikachar
I enjoyed reading your thoughts:))
Also,being a "God" doesn't mean "doing what you want" it means "creating"!
" Ye are as gods"
Oops ! I misremembered the context of the "Ye are as gods quote".but I do believe that "made in his image" means that ,like him ,we are meant to create as well.
One would never be able to consume all that would be available in the first reality, so for me, the second one, with whatever one has stored in memory or can create is much more appealing. Also, the question would be, who controls the first reality, who has set it up, manufactured it, and you would never know that you have access to all experience, because you could never know what you don't have or see. Would one be aware of a 'before', or would one simply exist in the space? I guess that's what humanity in the developed world is walking fairly blindly into, without necessarily making a conscious choice - the temptations of AI are so shiny and smooth.
You had me at "sketchbook!" I especially love the feeling of sketching with ink pen in a sketchbook, how the pen lightly catches the paper itself. Likewise I also love the feeling of sketching in pencil, how the paper takes the graphite differently as a drawing becomes more heavily layered. I do sketch on an iPad quite frequently for the convenience or to check some different color combinations, but I'd be devastated if the option of sketching with real pencil and paper was lost to me. So just that would be enough for me.
On another front, I already play VR games with my friends about once a month, and I love it! I also love that VR can drop you almost anywhere in the world that's been photographed, at least to see an immersive snapshot of that place in the world as it was in that moment. I've visited the Scott-Amundsen hut/museum in Antarctica that way as well, fulfilling a dream I may never have gotten to otherwise! But-- I used to play on VR every week, and found that losing out on a Sunday afternoon of "real life" ended up making me more depressed, despite my improved connections to my distant but much-loved friends. So I usually only enter the VR realm once in a while, these days-- usually if the Real World has chosen to be a rainy day, or I'm missing my friends even more than usual (these friends were gained entirely in the beginning through online games, but the friendships themselves are very real!)
It would also be incredibly sad to lose museums, but the objects of art themselves are inanimate objects which are a byproduct of humanity. They are also very important objects because of that. But the humanity itself I think is even more important, and I think that swimming in cold lakes and holding hands is a crucial part of that humanity. (I really don't do either of those things much these days, but I had those kinds of experiences when I was younger, and it feels like I'd be missing part of my soul if I had never, ever had those very real experiences.) I wonder what the art would become, if people never had the real experiences?