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Now for Something Completely Different
August 1st, 2008 by Mike
This post has nothing to do with MMOs, but it is a theory I came up with sometime ago and I just wanted to post it and get some thoughts about it.
In a nutshell, I think there#DY#s a greater chance that we are plugged into some sort of computer ala The Matrix then living a real life. Intrigued? Read on.
Most of you have probably heard of the statement that there are more people alive today then all the dead people throughout time. While no one can say for sure if this is true, most likely false, you can admit that the ratio of alive people to dead people is getting closer to one:one.
For instance, lets say that 100 years ago the ratio was 5:1, dead to alive. With modern medicine and the ever increasing life span, perhaps today that ratio is 4:1. Now as medicine gets better and life spans continue to increase the human population will continue to grow at a huge rate. Eventually, some scientists believe that aging will be "cured" altogether. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_de_Grey) Now if aging can be stopped the ratio of dead to alive will not only hit 1:1, but will start to swing in the other direction.
Assuming that we start to populate other planets as the earth cannot support hundreds of billions of people, the ratio will start to get larger and larger. 1:10, 1:1000, 1:1,000,000.
Now fast forward a few thousand years. People live indefinitely and the ratio is so large that 99.9% of all people that have ever been alive are alive right now. The only death people experience at this point is murder or some sort of severe accident. I#DY#m assuming disease and viruses have been wiped out at this time.
So if you#DY#re someone that is immortal and the only way you can die is by physical trama, why live in the real world and take a chance at dying? The longer a person lives, the probability of that person remaining alive continuously goes down, much like your chances of winning the lottery except in reverse. If you play enough and over an extremely long time, you will eventually win by probability. Same for death, if you live long enough, eventually something bad will happen that will kill you. So why risk it?
Computer simulations at this time should match real life, so why not live in a computer simulation where you#DY#re safe? Not only is it safe, but imagine living forever, you#DY#re eventually going to get very bored. So not only would a computer sim be safe and keep you alive, but it would server as entertainment. For instance you can decided you want to live in the 1920s, you live your life oblivious to the fact you#DY#re in a computer sim. When you die you wake up and proceed to live a completely new life of your choice. Spending decades, even centuries in a computer sim might seem crazy today, but if your 15,000 years old, what#DY#s 50 or 100 yrs spent living as an eskimo in Alaska?
Going back to the ratio of dead to alive. If eventually the ratio gets so large that 99.9% of everyone alive is alive at a certain time, then by shear probability, today it is more likely we are attached to some sort of computer then living a real life. OR we are part of that extremely small very unlucky .01% where we did not make it to the time when aging was cured. Or perhaps aging is uncurable and my whole theory goes out the window.
We#DY#ll get back to regular MMO posts after this
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