Role reversal challenge: Disprove we are not "in the Matrix"

Inti said:

But you are begging the question, by assuming that there are other people at all. If solipsism is true, then there is only one consciousness being (me, of course ;-) ) Any result of any test would have to be an illusion created by "my" mind.

That was the point of this philosopher's joke:

As against solipsism it is to be said, in the first place, that it is psychologically impossible to believe, and is rejected in fact even by those who mean to accept it. I once received a letter from an eminent logician, Mrs. Christine Ladd-Franklin, saying that she was a solipsist, and was surprised that there were no others. Coming from a logician and a solipsist, her surprise surprised me." (Russell, p. 180). Russell, Bertrand., Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits,London: George Allen & Unwin, 1948.

Click to expand...

In a sense, our visual experience of the world is a kind of simulation. We have the impression of a widescreen, full colour, 3D vista in front of us.

Yet we only see a tiny area near the centre of the visual field sharply and in colour, and even that blanks out momentarily when we move our eyes. And there's the blind spot where the optical nerve attaches to the optic disk. The visual system in the brain fudges up our visual field and hides all this from us in everyday life.

Maybe the simulation could work the same way, only giving full detail where any simulated person is actually looking?

And perhaps the simulators have a special department dedicated to thwarting testers like the University of Bonn team, adding more "processing power" and "resolution" whenever such a test is attempted?

In a way, this makes the simulators very like the capricious gods of Homeric and classical Greece, rather than the omni-benevolent god of judeo-christian belief.

Ramana Maharshi:

"Except that waking is long lasting and dreams last only a short while, there is no difference between the two. In truth, however, time is also a product of our mind’s imagination, so the impression that waking endures for a long time is merely an illusion that occurs due to the adherence of the mind.

When you wish to wake up from a dream, it is not necessary to wake up the other characters first; only the dreamer need awake. So it is in our waking lives."

https://books.google.com.mx/books?isbn=1473501075

Why would "any civilisation of sufficient size and intelligence eventually create a simulation universe if such a thing were possible"? This appears to have been asserted without any supporting argument.

It's very rare that things which are possible aren't at least tried.