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Mass_Driver comments on Open Thread June 2010, Part 3 - Less Wrong
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Apologies for posting so much in the June Open Threads. For some reason I'm getting many random ideas lately that don't merit a top-level post, but still lead to interesting discussions. Here's some more.
How to check that you aren't dreaming: make up a random number that's too large for you to factor in your head, factor it with a computer, then check the correctness by pen and paper. If the answer fits, now you know the computing hardware actually exists outside of you.
How to check that you aren't a brain in a vat: inflict some minor brain damage on yourself. If it influences your mind's workings as predicted by neurology, now you know your brain is physically here, not in a vat somewhere.
Of course, both those arguments fall apart if the deception equipment is "unusually clever" at deceiving you. In that case both questions are probably hopeless.
Do you have access to the computer software of your choice in your dreams? That sounds unusually vivid to me, maybe even lucid. I'm lucky if I can find a working pen and a desk that obeys the laws of physics in my dreams.
I know I do. In the last couple of years I have gone from almost never remembering a dream to having dreams that are sometimes even more vivid than my memories of real life. I even had to check my computer one day to see whether or not what I remembered doing was 'real' or not.
Heck, I'm lucky if I can find trousers in my dreams.
Depends on how you define 'lucky' I guess. ;)