I don't know if anyone picked up on this, but this to me somehow correlates with Eliezer Yudkowsky's post on Normal Cryonics... if in reverse.

Eliezer was making a passionate case that not choosing cryonics is irrational, and that not choosing it for your children has moral implications. It's made me examine my thoughts and beliefs about the topic, which were, I admit, ready-made cultural attitudes of derision and distrust.

Once you notice a cultural bias, it's not too hard to change your reasoned opinion... but the bias usually piggy-backs on a deep-seated reptilian reaction. I find changing that reaction to be harder work.

All this to say that in the case of this tale, and of Eliezer's lament, what might be at work is the fallacy of sunk costs (if we have another name for it, and maybe a post to link to, please let me know!).

Knowing that we will suffer, and knowing that we will die, are unbearable thoughts. We invest an enormous amount of energy toward dealing with the certainty of death and of suffering, as individuals, families, social groups, nations. Worlds in which we would not have to die, or not have to suffer, are worlds for which we have no useful skills or tools. Especia... (read more)

If Gamma and Omega are really so mystified by why humans don't jack into the matrix, that implies that they themselves have values that make them want to jack into the matrix. They clearly haven't jacked in, so the question becomes "Why?".

If they haven't jacked in due to their own desire to pursue the "greater good", then surely they could see why humans might prefer the real world.

I can't help but always associate discussions of an experience machine (in whatever form it takes) to television. TV was just the alpha version of the experience machine and I hear it's quite popular.

This is more tongue-in-cheek than a serious argument, but I do think that TV shows that people will trade pleasure or even emotional numbness (lack of pain) for authenticity.

Dear Omega Corporation,

Hello, I and my colleagues are a few of many 3D cross-sections of a 4D branching tree-blob referred to as "Guy Srinivasan". These cross-sections can be modeled as agents with preferences, and those near us along the time-axis of Guy Srinivasan have preferences, abilities, knowledge, etc. very, very correlated to our own.

Each of us agrees that: "So of course I cooperate with them on one-shot cooperation problems like a prisoner's dilemma! Or, more usually, on problems whose solutions are beyond my abilities but not beyond the abilities of several cross-sections working together, like writing this response."

As it happens, we all prefer that cross-sections of Guy Srinivasan not be inside an MBLS. A weird preference, we know, but there it is. We're pretty sure that if we did prefer that cross-sections of Guy Srinivasan were inside an MBLS, we'd have the ability to cause many of them to be inside an MBLS and act on it (free trial!!), so we predict that if other cross-sections (remember, these have abilities correlated closely with our own) preferred it then they'd have the ability and act on it. Obviously this leads to outcomes we don't prefer,... (read more)

I'm not sure why it would be hard to understand that I might care about things outside the simulator.

If I discovered that we were a simulation is a larger universe, I would care about what's happening there. (that is I already care, I just don't know what about.)

I think in the absence of actual experience machines, we're dealing with fictional evidence. Statements about what people would hypothetically do have no consequences other than signalling. Once we create them (as we have on a smaller scale with certain electronic diversions), we can observe the revealed preferences.

It seems to me that the real problem with this kind of "advanced wireheading" is that while everything may be just great inside the simulation, you're still vulnerable to interference from the outside world (eg the simulation being shut down for political or religious reasons, enemies from the outside world trying to get revenge, relatives trying to communicate with you, etc). I don't think you can just assume this problem away, either (at least not in a psychologically convincing way).

Humans evaluate decisions using their current utility function, not their future utility function as a potential consequence of that decision. Using my current utility function, wireheading means I will never accomplish anything again ever, and thus I view it as having very negative utility.

Well, what is the difference between being a deterministic actor in a simulated world and a deterministic actor in the real world?

(How would your preference to not be wire-headed from current reality X into simulated reality Y change if it turned out that (a) X is already a simulation or (b) Y is a simulation just as complex and information-rich as X?)

This in response to people who say that they don't like the idea of wire-heading because they value making a real/objective difference. Perhaps though the issue is that since wire-heading means simulating hedonistic pleasure directly, the experience may be considered too simplistic and one-dimensional.

I wonder if there's something to this line of reasoning (there may not be):

There doesn't seem to be robust personal reasons why someone would not want to be a wirehead, but when reading some of the responses a bit of (poorly understood) Kant flashed through my mind.

While we could say something like 'X' should want to be a wirehead; we can't really say that the entire world should become wireheads as then there would be no one to change the batteries.

We have evolved certain behaviors that tend to express themselves as moral feelings when we feel driven to ... (read more)

Why are these executives and salespeople trying to convince others to go into simulation rather than living their best possible lives in simulation themselves?

This is funny, but I'm not sure of what it's trying to say that hasn't already been discussed.

This sounds a lot like people who strongly urge others to take on a life-changing decision (joining a cult of some kind, having children, whatever) by saying that once you go for it, you will never ever want to go back to the way things were before you took the plunge.

This may be true to whatever extent, and in the story that extent is absolute, but it doesn't make for a very good sales pitch.

Can we get anything out of this analogy? If "once you join the cult, you'll never want to go back to your pre-cult life" is unnapealing because there is something fundamentally wrong with cults, can we look for a similar bug in wireheading, perfect world simulations, and so on?

Typos: "would has not already", "determining if it we can even"; the space character after "Response to:" is linked.

It seems interesting that lately this site has been going through a "question definitions of reality" stage (the ai in a box boxes you., this series). It does seem to follow that going far enough to materialism leads back to something similar to Cartesian questions, but its still surprising.

Isn't this the movie Vanilla Sky?

Once inside the simulation, imagine that another person came to you from Omega Corporation and offered you a second simulation with an even better hedonistic experience. Then what would you do -- would you take a trial to see if it was really better, or would you just sign right up, right away? I think you would take a trial because you wouldn't want to run the risk of decreasing your already incredible pleasure. I think the same argument could be made for non-simulation denizens looking for an on/off feature to any-such equipment. Then, you could also always be available from square-one to buy equipment from different, potentially even more effective companies, and so on.