Comments on: Levels https://habitablezone.com/2014/10/03/levels/ Sun, 19 Apr 2026 21:38:00 -0700 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: DanS https://habitablezone.com/2014/10/03/levels/#comment-31964 DanS Mon, 06 Oct 2014 12:47:29 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=47738#comment-31964 Well, a bit more like the Sherlock Holmes episode of "Star Trek: the Next Generation," where Moriarty figures out the Enterprise's holo-deck and takes over the bridge -- or possibly the "Dyson Sphere" episode, when Geordy finds that, to save themselves, a shipwrecked Captain Montgomery Scott and a colleague had managed to beam themselves into a Mobius loop program, where they remained for nearly 100 years in a dying ship's transporter system. Pretty cool stuff. Well, a bit more like the Sherlock Holmes episode of “Star Trek: the Next Generation,” where Moriarty figures out the Enterprise’s holo-deck and takes over the bridge — or possibly the “Dyson Sphere” episode, when Geordy finds that, to save themselves, a shipwrecked Captain Montgomery Scott and a colleague had managed to beam themselves into a Mobius loop program, where they remained for nearly 100 years in a dying ship’s transporter system.

Pretty cool stuff.

]]> By: ER https://habitablezone.com/2014/10/03/levels/#comment-31959 ER Sun, 05 Oct 2014 06:03:05 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=47738#comment-31959 "What if all this is just a dream?" Or as the Chinese philosopher allegedly said. "Am I a man dreaming he's a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he's a man?" But its more profound than just being unable to definitely distinguish between a hallucination and reality. The real question is whether reality itself really matters. Or which reality. Everything, your entire life, depends on whether Coach will let you start in the big game, or whether Peggy Sue will accept your invitation to the prom, or whether you'll get that new car for your birthday. Then you get home from school and find out Dad has been laid off, or your parents are getting a divorce, or your home is being foreclosed, or your sister died in a car crash that afternoon. You're getting ready to pull off that really big business deal, or you're finishing your final practice for the Master's Golf Tournament next week when your doctor calls you and tells you its cancer. Its not a question of what's real or isn't, its really about what matters or doesn't. We live in many simultaneous realities, and we have some choice in which ones we see as important or not. We create our universe as we go along, and we are the very center of it. What happens to you is really all that matters, but you get to decide what you think is the central narrative of your life. Life is filled with experiences which can rearrange you--going to college, raising a family, fighting in a war, going to prison, being sued, losing a loved one--or falling in love. There are many others. No one undergoes all these experiences, but we all go through some of them. We all experience different universes, not as a silly philosophical puzzle, but really fundamentally different realities. That's the multiverse. The charge/mass ratio of the electron, the value of G or Planck's Constant may be the same for all of us, but it doesn't really matter. If you're talking to a religious fundamentalist, or a political fanatic, listening to Bach, contemplating a Van Gogh, or reading Plato, you are getting a glimpse into one of those alternating realities. And they are all just as real to those people as your career, or your family, or your masterpiece is to you. And beware, something as banal as an unexpected toothache or failure to stop at a red light can suddenly throw you into another one. You don't need a Matrix or some other science fiction scenario to come up with an alternate reality, each of us has one, many of them, and we often change from one to another, as quickly and unexpectedly as we change our clothes. And each of us is at the very precise center of his unique current universe. "We are, by definition, at the very center of the observable region."--Edwin Hubble “What if all this is just a dream?” Or as the Chinese philosopher allegedly said. “Am I a man dreaming he’s a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he’s a man?”

But its more profound than just being unable to definitely distinguish between a hallucination and reality. The real question is whether reality itself really matters. Or which reality.

Everything, your entire life, depends on whether Coach will let you start in the big game, or whether Peggy Sue will accept your invitation to the prom, or whether you’ll get that new car for your birthday. Then you get home from school and find out Dad has been laid off, or your parents are getting a divorce, or your home is being foreclosed, or your sister died in a car crash that afternoon. You’re getting ready to pull off that really big business deal, or you’re finishing your final practice for the Master’s Golf Tournament next week when your doctor calls you and tells you its cancer.

Its not a question of what’s real or isn’t, its really about what matters or doesn’t. We live in many simultaneous realities, and we have some choice in which ones we see as important or not. We create our universe as we go along, and we are the very center of it. What happens to you is really all that matters, but you get to decide what you think is the central narrative of your life.

Life is filled with experiences which can rearrange you–going to college, raising a family, fighting in a war, going to prison, being sued, losing a loved one–or falling in love. There are many others. No one undergoes all these experiences, but we all go through some of them. We all experience different universes, not as a silly philosophical puzzle, but really fundamentally different realities. That’s the multiverse. The charge/mass ratio of the electron, the value of G or Planck’s Constant may be the same for all of us, but it doesn’t really matter. If you’re talking to a religious fundamentalist, or a political fanatic, listening to Bach, contemplating a Van Gogh, or reading Plato, you are getting a glimpse into one of those alternating realities. And they are all just as real to those people as your career, or your family, or your masterpiece is to you. And beware, something as banal as an unexpected toothache or failure to stop at a red light can suddenly throw you into another one.

You don’t need a Matrix or some other science fiction scenario to come up with an alternate reality, each of us has one, many of them, and we often change from one to another, as quickly and unexpectedly as we change our clothes. And each of us is at the very precise center of his unique current universe.

“We are, by definition, at the very center of the observable region.”–Edwin Hubble

]]> By: SDG https://habitablezone.com/2014/10/03/levels/#comment-31955 SDG Sat, 04 Oct 2014 23:45:39 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=47738#comment-31955 I still remember the day a simple thought experiment held me captive. I was 6 years old. I should have been at kindergarten, but I faked being sick, so I wouldn't have to go. I faked being sick a lot and either my mom was really gullible or she played along for reasons of her own. I was thinking about a conveyor belt, such as was on my grandpa's treadmill. Then I imagined a projector screen in front and then also to the sides. Then I imagined a treadmill that could move in any direction , and next I imagined I was in a box on such a treadmill, but the treadmill became earth and the projectors imitated the scenery so perfectly that it was impossible for me to tell the difference. At that point I realized I might be in such a box and I might be the only real person. Or that I was in the box, and there were other people outside of the box watching me live my life in the box. The thought scared the hell out of me and I decided to go find something else to do, rather than the think about it anymore. Touch or the ability to grasp objects never occurred to me as a way to disprove the simulation at the time. This would have been 1980 or 1981, before holodecks on Star Trek TNG. Well before the Matrix of course. But as each of these different iterations of the simulation came into existence via popular sci-fi it reminded me of the day a simple thought experiment had me staring into the abyss, and the abyss stared back. I still remember the day a simple thought experiment held me captive. I was 6 years old. I should have been at kindergarten, but I faked being sick, so I wouldn’t have to go. I faked being sick a lot and either my mom was really gullible or she played along for reasons of her own.

I was thinking about a conveyor belt, such as was on my grandpa’s treadmill. Then I imagined a projector screen in front and then also to the sides. Then I imagined a treadmill that could move in any direction , and next I imagined I was in a box on such a treadmill, but the treadmill became earth and the projectors imitated the scenery so perfectly that it was impossible for me to tell the difference.

At that point I realized I might be in such a box and I might be the only real person. Or that I was in the box, and there were other people outside of the box watching me live my life in the box. The thought scared the hell out of me and I decided to go find something else to do, rather than the think about it anymore.

Touch or the ability to grasp objects never occurred to me as a way to disprove the simulation at the time. This would have been 1980 or 1981, before holodecks on Star Trek TNG. Well before the Matrix of course. But as each of these different iterations of the simulation came into existence via popular sci-fi it reminded me of the day a simple thought experiment had me staring into the abyss, and the abyss stared back.

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