The Simulationist Church

Author’s note: I just can’t get away from this stuff. I haven’t written anything about the simulation hypothesis in over a month and sort of figured I was basically done with it. The weird phone calls from unknown numbers and strange emails with domain names I don’t recognize had stopped as well. It seemed all the nutjobs had given up on messing with me. Then a voice recording from a number I did not know came through on my personal cell phone. With the recording was a text which read — “listen SH quit” My transcription of the voice recording is below. The man reading the message sounded quite calm and completely rational, maybe a little sleepy, but it was not a voice I recognized. It ended suddenly as these things seem to always do.

Audio begins…My name is Tim Dreary. My simulational submersion occurred on Dec. 17, 2014. At that time I was a software development engineer for a large, well known, web search engine company. My wife had left me, taking our three small children to live in another state and I was alone. I was so very alone. I had become disillusioned with my job, with my entire life really, and was spending more and more time at work and at home online, and thinking a lot, thinking a whole hell of a lot. With all the time I was spending on the web I suppose it was almost guaranteed that at some point I would be exposed to simulationist teachings. When I stumbled across (oxford philosopher) Nick Bostrom’s paper in which he first described, and then logically and mathematically proved the truth, what I thought was the truth, of the nature of our simulated reality, I was dumbstruck. I mean it was so beautiful, the logic, the math, it was all rock solid, and it made so much sense. As I dug deeper and continued to learn about simulationalism it became more and more obvious that the life I had led up to that point was nothing more than a lie. A lie I had told myself, or perhaps a lie programmed into me at the time of run program by the Simulator(s) him/their self/selves. It didn’t really matter because now I saw the truth, I had been reborn, simulationally submerged is the term they use, it indicates a person who has recognized and accepted the simulational nature of ourselves and our universe. Hard to believe that was almost four years ago. I had drunk the kool-aid for sure and was in deep, very deep. Before you know it I was attending a simulationist church in the bay area, actively contributing to several leading simulationist initiatives online and in the real(simulated) world……audio ends.

A Simulationist Reflects on the Death of His Cat

Notes From The “Diary of a Simulationist”

Authors note: I have not had any contact with Simulationism or the Simulationist church in over six months. I was beginning to think the entire movement had collapsed or decided to go back underground or maybe even never really existed in the first place. If you look at the volume of articles written about it in any forum there has been a precipitous drop. I do not have the correct tools to do any sort of thorough analysis but it has become topica non grata in the past few months and I have not seen a single mention in any writing on this site or any other in the past two at least. Apparently somebody still believes however as an email showed up in my inbox yesterday with the subject line “Diary of a Simulationist -Excerpts.” The sender was mblover69@(redacted).com. Cute, mb for Mike Bostrom no doubt but the 69 thing is kind of gross. lol! When I tried to respond everyone’s best/most hated friend mailer-daemon got the reply instead and kindly informed me it was undeliverable. Oh well, I tried. The entire thing is a mess of pseudophilosophical statements touching on religion the simulation and evolutionary theory. Throughout it all though is a very (real) human emotion for a widely shared human experience, great sadness at the death of a beloved pet. Like many of us the diarist is looking for a reason behind the seeming purposeless of that terrible loss. The picture was included as an attachment. Apparently our mysterious simulationist is a Stephen King fan, drinks orange juice, and has questionable taste in pajamas. Note that I refer to this person as “him” and “he” in the title and throughout though in truth the gender is unknown. The contents of the message are below in unedited form.

Every cat I have had that has been of the ultra intelligent variety has died early…..

A cat too smart for the “master program” and therefore had to die early, or at least before he could reproduce and pass on that “defective” trait. I mean defective in the sense of counter to the intent of the base program.

…Origin of the nine lives myth..

Allowing evolution to “take its course” but with fail safes built in in the form of “kill switches” if things moving in a “dangerous direction….”

To what end? Would the simulators really care if cats or any animal for that matter became “too smart”? What is so dangerous about that?

They do not seem all that worried about our machines becoming smart? Lol…Of course they could “control’ or have total control over all the machine parts of our world perhaps the animal/biological parts have a “randomness” that the wholly digital parts do not.

Getting deep now… biological parts are “special” have a “soul” or “creative spark” absent from the digital. No particular value given to that but it is a difference and theoretically less controllable from a master program perspective. Or from a “God” perspective. Why do all simulator discussions end up as reflections on religion or God? Because they are about how we view ourselves vis a vis a higher/outside power whose methods, purpose, intents/objectives all remain unknown and perhaps unknowable.

Plus the digital are “outside” of evolution. At least for now their is no “natural” selection at play in their changes with time. Is their an artificial selection? hah. Good one, artificial selection vs. natural selection. survival of the fittest v survival of the fastest. No, that’s not right.

….You could say we (simulated humans) are driving the evolution of our machines through the process of preferential selection. We are building machines that do the things we prefer/want/desire/need and building more and better versions of those that do those things the best. Since we are “natural” or at least natural within the boundaries of the simulation it is a “form” of natural selection at least.

…The machine/digital (artificial) being selected for fitness of purpose by man/biological (man) being selected for fitness of purpose by the simulation [Simulator(s)].

But why did my special little guy have to die so young? I mean he was only 4 years old.

In Memorium..Phoenix..I miss you buddy. May the Simulators keep your code safe and warm and fully supplied with hair ties until End Program comes.