Johnny could write code to tell them about himself, but due to his essential nature (he’s not made of code), they could never “sense” him with their tools at hand (logic gates). None of the Sims could prove that Johnny even exists to the satisfaction of all, though some might believe that he does. Their interpretations of him might vary widely, and some might even invoke his name for the purpose of controlling others and achieving their own ends. It’s pretty much familliar territory in many ways.
At some level, there would be evidence which strongly suggested that the Sim world could not have arisen all by itself. Unless Johnny was some kind of genius or he went around erasing the memories of those Sims who discovered that glitch, then the Johnny Of the Gaps argument would be valid in that case.
What kinda ass backward logic is that? If Johnny can comounicate withe them, then he could send a messasge not just to one Sim, or to a large crow, but to each and every Sim at once. He could then tell them about his existance outside of the computer, and then demonstrate a talent that no Sim can do, such as instantaniously builidng a tall wall around a Sim in full view of outhers. Or he could cause a grove of fruit trees to appear, in his likeness. Com to think about it, couldn’t he also hook-up a web -cam, and use it to translate real-world images into however sims perceive their world?
C’mon. No one god, I mean Johny could visit all the Gap outlets in the world.
I tend to have my doubts that a rationally-designed sim-being will achieve self-awareness before the stochastic models will allow them to evolve, but that’s just a guess.
To stick my neck out further, I’ll hazard a prediction that if and when these evolved “virtual organisms” arise, we’ll learn a great deal about ourselves that we did not previously know. I’m simply not sanguine about our ability to answer the questions this thread poses without more data, and the best data we can ever hope to get is to witness the very thing we’re speculating about. I’m quite prepared to be surprised by what is found, and I hope I live to see it.
Nonsense. Are you telling me that all you require for belief in God is some magic trick in the sky? You’ve heard from God, haven’t you? Otherwise, what the hell are you rejecting?
If you are talking about scientific experiments, then cool. If you are talking about sims however, then I hope not. Do you
**know ** what people do to Sims when they (the people, not the Sims. For now, at least) are bored?!
They:
Create a house full of angry violent sims and watch then fight and cry. Delete the toilet and watch your sims wet themselves. Sit your Sim in a hottub in the rain and see her get electrocuted. Make them fall in love and cheat with another person. Starve them, hide the garbage cans, wake them up in the middle of the night… evil knows no bounds in the Sims. 
I think it is far too much to assume that one could easily communicate with Sim people. Can we communicate with any other animals meaningfully? What would the Sim world have to be like for human language to operate there? How would we communicate… by possessing a Sim?
Sounds like “reality TV”.
I must admit my bias, but I tend to think the researchers observing these emergent intellects would feel bound by ethical standards, as opposed to those who exploit attention whores in “real life”.
Reminds me of the Book of Job 
I have come to your world, err, I mean forum from a planet, I mean forum full of atheist like my self. Looking at the thread that was posted earlier, I discovered that people do argue with Liberal. I am surprised. I will do so now, by asking him to define his terms.
Ahem. Liberal, what do you mean by “heard from her” I have never heard from this lady you call god. Besides, I am not reject anything, for there is nothing to reject. I argue this point in another thread, but will not link to it, for there was much argument, and tiredness with me. And yea, I still define Atheist as being A=without, theist=god belief. It isn’t a matter of me rejecting anything, I just don’t believe that it exists any more than a Invisible Pink Unicorn does.
Now, I am going of to lunch and will see where this discussion goes. I hope that Polerius, the OP doesn’t mind me going along with this arguemant with Libby.
Indeed. And this whole wow-them-with-miracles business reminds me of the whole Bible.
Scott_plaid’s proposal was to do something out of the ordinary, like build an inexplicable wall around a Sim so that everybody could see something miraculous occured. Okay, let’s go with that. One hour after the wall is removed, some portion of the population is questioning whether it even happended at all. The most cynical ones begin expressing doubts, and before long, opinions that the event was dubious are widespread. Recordings of it are explained away with various and sundry rationalizations. Some try to replicate it, but nothing happens, and so the Sims who believe that empricism is the only epistemological resource declare the event to be nothing more than an abberation if indeed it happened at all.
After many generations, though there is record of the event, few even believe it ever happened, most reading it as a parting of the Red Sea story — some metaphor about Waldo being punished and then freed after imprisonment in the wall.
I mean, what is Johnny supposed to do, rain down miracles every moment of the day to convince all the newly born at every instance that he exists? But if he does this, then his simulation has now taken on a new set of rules. Miracles are no longer miraculous but ordinary, and happen all the time. There need not even be a Johnny because the Sim world just behaves weirdly, its occupants rightly reason, and surely would do so with or without a Johnny.
I think if characters in an advanced computer simulation became self-aware and started to investigate and define the laws of their universe, they would first believe that motion, gravity, etc., could be described accurately using fairly simple and elegant physical laws, which could be described by simple equations. Once they started devoting more resources into looking at the world more closely than they could perceive naturally (assuming these simulations are able to create working instruments to enhance their senses) they would see inconsistencies, that the symple physical laws they believed before were not accurate at a very small scale or under certain unusual conditions. They would eventually see that what they thought were solid objects were made of tiny particles that did not move around in a manner that’s intuitive on the macro scale, but instead phased in and out of existence, and that if they kept using more and more powerful microscopes they would discover that there are certain intervals of distance that cannot be broken down into smaller intervals - if one of these simulated beings looked at a moving object very closely in their world they would see that there is a ‘maximum resolution’ that things can be rendered in, and when a particle appeared to be moving smoothly, it in fact was a pixel that was disappearing at one point, and then re-appearing the next pixel over.
In short, I think we already know what advanced Sims characters would discover if they were self-aware.
[interesting hijack]
The memory and computing power required for that would be immense. Take for example a 1 kg block of gold. Each atom of gold has 79 protons, 79 electrons and 117 neutrons for a total of 275 particles per atom. 1 kg (1000g/kg)(1 mol/196.96g)(6.0210^23 atoms/mol)(275 particle/atom)=8.410^26 particles. In order to store even simple on/off information would require 9.78 × 10^16 gigabytes i.e. 9,780,000,000,000,000,000 gb. In words I think that is 9 quintillion 780 quadrillion gigabytes. Thats just for one piece of information now each particle has a charge, momentum, position, and spin (in the case of electrons). In reality the position value itself is nothing more than a probability distribution which requires a huge amount of computing power and data storage to calculate. As you can see even modelling a 1kg block of gold at the atomic level is lightyears beyond our capabilities let alone an entire world. Even if our data storage capabilities achieves the ability to store 9.78*10^16 gbs you run into the problem of running out of particles to store data on
[/interesting hijack]
Basically yes thats all I need depending on what you define as ‘magic trick’. I will also accept a burning bush, loud booming voice or perhaps even an appearance by the big guy himself. What I am rejecting is the tri-omni god on grounds of its physical impossibility. Espicially when the evidence that this god exists is basically nonexistant.
That’s rather surprising, I must say. I would have expected you to require more than even I do, and my requirements are extremely demanding. Heck, David Copperfield can make bushes burn.
Maybe it would help if we only manifested particles when their specific properties were necessary for an interaction…? 
Ok, I’m back from lunch. Now,
treis, how dare you.
How dare you call that a hi-jack, that is. I’m the only hijacker here. You are the one posting statistic relevant to a discussion of computer programs becoming self-aware, and I am the one who is turning it into a, “There is no evidence of Johnny” thread. Don’t try and make me look like the good guy here. :mad:
Libby, you must have skipped past
post 31, for you haven’t answered it.
About your post saying that after a period of time, people would forget about it, well, I suppose so. Given the fact that Johnny would appear to each and every Sim simultaneously however, would make it a historical fact, liable to be written down in different styles describing the same event. This having happened, as opposed to, say, Johnny appearing to just a small group of people who write down just one book, would mean that it would take a long time to be forgotten.
Besides, time in The Sims moves much faster then in the real world. Once people have forgotten about Johnny, he can easily appear again. Then he could make a measure of how long it was between now, and the last time he showed up, and appears before that period of time elapses latter.
The question seems to have evolved into, can the programmer convince the Sims they’re in a program?
It seems to me the task is trivial, and can be done in one of three ways:
- Hardwire it. When you program the AI, program into it an understanding of the program’s existence. Install a safety-feature that regularly checks this understanding for accuracy; if the understanding falls apart, recopy it.
- Demonstrate it regularly and universally. When the sun rises in the morning, have the words appear in the sky, “JUST TO REMIND YOU, YOU EXIST INSIDE A COMPUTER PROGRAM.” Hold regular, “televised” debates with any Sims who doubt your existence in which you speak directly with them; if they’ve come up with any convincing empirical proof that you don’t exist, rewrite the world’s code so that their empirical proof is no longer valid, and so that it’s clear what you just did.
- Add a bit of programming that allows the demonstration to occur whenever a Sim wants. Once a day, a Sim may hold out its hands and say, “I understand that I live inside a program!” and five Simoleans will drop from the air into her hands.
In the face of all this, there may be a few lunatic Sims that doubt the existence of the programmer–but any Sim with the remotest understanding of Occam’s Razor will agree that they live in a program.
The more interesting question is whether a Sim who lives in a program written by a tricksy programmer could ever deduce the programmer’s existence. Certainly a benevolent, honest programmer is immediately obvious.
Daniel
Scott_plaid
Please be advised that my username is Liberal.
Just as you say, Libby.
I still haven’t heard a response, though.