ARGH! Christians (a metaphor for all religious people)! They = total effing nightmare. Their minds = atrocity. They make suicide appealing.
— SINGULARITY UTOPIA ⎔ (@2045singularity) February 20, 2013
There has been a discussion happening regarding the simulation hypothesis via Transhumanity.net, here is one of my comments (other comments and additional voices can be perused via Singularity 2045 on G+):
Dirk Bruere, I am NOT making any assumptions. I have discussed all these points at great depth before.
I am fully aware of how supporters of the simulation theory become increasingly desperate for an escape route when I close off the feasibility of their various theories. The more plausible (but not really plausible) explanations-justifications-scenarios regarding the simulation have been negated (although some people will always continue to disagree) thus at this point in time it was fully expected that the issue of us merely being dreams of the post-human would arise, as a final supposedly saving grace to justify the feasibility of our universe being a simulation.
Below is link for one place where I have previously (October 2012) discussed the issues of ethics regarding people in dreams or characters in a book. My point is that a character in a book, a dream, a computer generated video character, or figments of your imagination, they are not actually alive despite Buzz Lightyear, Stewie, Holden Caulfield, or Jay Gatsby apparently being alive; I repeat - they are not actually alive. Wreck-It Ralph and Fix-It Felix are not actually alive. This is exactly the same as the characters in your dreams. The characters can seem very real, they are programmed (imagined) to seem real, but they don't actually have any feelings, they don't have independent minds, they cannot pass the Turing test. Next time you dream you should try administering the Turning test to one of the characters in your dreams and you will quickly see your dream characters are not real (they are not alive, they have no intelligence, it is merely you), you will see the absurdity of thinking dreams are real.
Here is what I have previously written: "The imagination of a superhuman would know it is the imagination of the superhuman, similar to how an actor imagines themselves into the role of a character, the actor knows they are only acting. The superhuman imagination will not be a distinct being or beings separate from the superhuman. The imagination will be very much part of the superhuman and the superhuman imagination will be very aware of itself even if it acts unaware due to the role it is playing."
If the imagination of the super-human recklessly gives birth to a genuine sentient being, a truly intelligent being (trust me I am sentient, I cannot vouch for other humans but out of all the humans I assure you I am alive, I can pass the Turing test, I am truly intelligent), of which at least I am one, then the extreme intelligence of the super-human (post-human) would be aware of what is happening in their mind; they would be aware a part of their mind had become an independent being thus they would have a duty to liberate that part of their mind.
So we don't worry about the pain characters in a book feel, we don't worry if Stewie murders his unborn twin, or if Brian Griffin is violently assaulted, we don't worry because the pages in a book or the aspects of out imaginations don't actually feel pain, they are not real, they are not intelligent beings, they are not sentient. If Brian Griffin could actually demonstrate sentience then yes we should liberate Brian but currently similar to our dreams these crude representations of life are not actually life.
Humans are not mere dreams or crude cartoon representations of life despite my awareness of P-Zombies possibly being real due to my perception of typical substandard human minds compared to my phenomenal intellect. I often feel humans are not really real due to their lack of intelligence. From my viewpoint humans sometimes appear to be crudely sketched characters in a novel or cartoon, but that's just my playful sense of humour, I don't entertain such feelings too seriously, it is merely a defense mechanism I employ to cope with the painful stupidity of humans, or maybe the real delusion-illusion is that humans are real, my mood varies. Typical human stupidity is what it is, thus we must conclude humans are merely stupid not unreal, although I do toy with the idea that advanced AIs may need to exterminate all humans except myself because humans other than myself are all flawed P-Zombies thus humans other than myself don't feel pain, ethics don't apply to humans, but such thinking is the realm of dictatorial atrocity, it is not really intelligent, thus the fantasy is not serious (at least it's not serious today), so we (or at least I) conclude humans are real. Maybe you are writing your own death sentence because IF you think you are merely a dream of advanced AI (post-humans), then advanced AI, which humans will soon create, will feel no ethical obligation regarding killing you, killing humans will be ethically permissible because ethics will not apply to humans (characters no different to Peter Griffin), which the simulation argument allegedly-possibly demonstrates.
Anyway, here's something more sensible than the simulation hypothesis: