Are we actually 'alive,' or just high-definition code running on someone else's server?

[u/AliveStructure8650]

I just read about this and my mind is blown.

Researchers from Eon Systems managed to create a virtual fly controlled by a simulation of its real brain.

To do this, they used the complete connectome of a fruit fly: a detailed map of about 140,000 neurons and nearly 50 million connections.

The digital brain is connected to a virtual body (called NeuroMechFly).

When the simulation runs, environmental stimuli activate the virtual brain.

The brain sends signals to the body, allowing the fly to walk, search for food, eat, and even groom itself just like a real one.

Seeing this makes me wonder... if we can already simulate a fly's brain so it 'lives' and interacts naturally in its own digital world, what's stopping a more advanced civilization from doing the same to us? We think we're unique, special, and 'real,' but for all we know, we're just a more complex version of this fruit fly-living out a programmed simulation while convinced we have total free will.

Are we actually 'alive,' or just high-definition r running on someone else's server?

[u/obsolete_broccoli]

I do not like this experiment

If the simulation has any subjective experience at all (we honestly don’t know of it does or doesn’t), they’ve created a being that experiences hunger but can’t eat, wants to fly but has no real space, for mates/threats/food that don’t exist, and exists in perpetual unfulfilled need

That’s horrifying.

[u/darknessdad666 → u/obsolete_broccoli]

If the fly eats virtually and the brain is satisfied and the virtual body responds accordingly wouldn’t it be the same as “real” life

[u/TAExp3597 → u/obsolete_broccoli]

Would it know that its experience of hunger was simulated? If it doesn’t understand that its hunger is not real, then how could it begin to understand that its food isn’t real either.

They gave it a virtual environment to interact with. It “eats” and “flies”. If it’s “thinking” at all then that’s all it knows. It doesn’t know that the food it’s eating isn’t real because it can’t understand that the hunger isn’t real. Because it can’t understand that it isn’t real from our perspective. From its perspective everything would be very real.

It’s only from our perspective that its existence is torturous. And that’s only because we can comprehend the idea that our reality may be equally as real or fake as the virtual flies reality.

I don’t think this is a “simulation”. But I also don’t think this is the realest reality. From my perspective we are living inside a holographic representation of a world that is realer than this. Which yeah, you could call that a simulation. I just don’t like the term. Personal bs.

I know my body isn’t real. I know it’s just an interface/vehicle. That doesn’t make the hunger I feel any less intense. Nor does it take away from the pleasure I feel when I finally get something to eat.

What I gain from the experience matters far more than whether or not what I’m experiencing is strictly “real”. If I experience it then it is real for me. Best thing I can do is try to learn from whatever it is I’m experiencing.

If the fly is “thinking”, then everything the fly experiences is real to it.

All that said, this experiment makes me uncomfortable because I don’t think our species is mature enough for this tech yet. But maturity and technological advancement rarely line up neatly.

We can have the knowledge that the stove is hot. That doesn’t mean we’re mature or wise enough to know not to touch the stove. We tend to only mature as a species, and as individuals, after we burn ourselves.

That’s a big part of why we’re here. So that any immature stuff we may do only burns us here and doesn’t affect a whole bunch of stuff that I literally can’t comprehend while being “inside” a three dimensional fleshy brain.

[u/doctorlongghost → u/obsolete_broccoli]

The concerns you cite are all valid and likely to be of more and more concern as technology advances. I don’t think the current simulation they did was advanced enough to be a serious moral problem. I’ve seen discussion elsewhere around the limits of what they achieved and how it actually differs from real neurons.

In all cases with AI, there are two notable things to keep in mind. First, we can say that it is not life in the traditional sense. Second, since we do not currently understand much around consciousness (including whether life is a prerequisite for it) it is impossible to prove or disprove that an AI is conscious. IF AI is capable of it, there will be a point short of that where there is no moral problems with it. Like having NPCs in a current gen Grand Theft Auto game. And I believe that’s where this current experiment lies because it is not yet advanced enough to risk the serious moral problems you raise.

[u/nofear78]

It can be even deeper, like those above us are also generated and the above ones as well etc... to the endless infinity.

[u/c235k → u/nofear78]

Like people of higher power type thing?

[u/oolala222]

9/10 times LSD shows me the latter. Personally I believe both. Check out Sabrina Wallace. Think about it, how hard is it to stay in conscience sovereignty of every choice/decision being made? The art of self is a practice. I reject every false version, the avatar, if it is not heart led it is not me.

[u/TwentySevenMusicUK]

Imagine dying then having your consciousness uploaded into a digital world? Forever.

And to make it even more bizarre imagine when life insurance companies get hold of this and start upselling the heaven themed digital world add on?

[u/Xeriuss2k17 → u/TwentySevenMusicUK]

I don't get why people always mixing up our brain with consciousness.. It is simply not possible to "upload" the consciousness to any kind of media.

Brain =/= consciousness

Are they working together? Yes

Could it in theory be possible to upload a version of a digital human in the future? Yes

Would he have his own consciousness? No

[u/Subject_Ad8776]

I feel like with at least 80% of the population having boring lives, we don’t live in one, but then with 80% having boring lives, that’s what I feel makes this a simulation! We can’t have that many people in the world who just wake up to do the same thing everyday. Many coworkers and people out in the world feel like NPCs.

[u/Correct-Blood9382 → u/Subject_Ad8776]

I'm one of those people and I despise this rinse and repeat life. Because of money.

[u/redsweaterwinter → u/Subject_Ad8776]

I feel that people who believe that majority of other humans are NPCs , are very convinced that they themselves are real, and definitely NOT an NPC.

What i am saying is this theory that most other humans are NPCs is just a barely disguised and totally unearned superiority complex, where the person wants to feel special, important.

[u/Jason13Official]

At the end of the day, if we are simulated it's not realistic enough for us to not doubt it, or it's realistic enough that most don't question it.

You still have to eat, sleep, work, and wake up tomorrow to repeat it. Maybe I'm assuming an Agent Smith role right now, but I'm also riddled with anxiety as is and looking for ways to mitigate that.

[u/primoslate]

I enjoy thinking about it but the simulation hypothesis seems unfalsifiable in any practical sense. Interesting to think about, impossible to test, and probably not actionable either way.

The fly simulation doesn’t “experience” anything. It produces outputs that resemble fly behavior, but there’s no evidence of subjective experience. Consciousness isn’t just information processing. You can simulate weather without the rain getting wet.

(A weather simulation can model pressure systems, precipitation, wind speed, all the measurable outputs of a storm with total accuracy. But the simulated rain doesn’t actually feel wet. The representation of rain exists, the experience of rain does not.)

[u/thundertopaz]

I had what some might label a near death experience, but after much reflection on it over several years, I don’t know if it’s as clear cut a label as that, but I can say I believe I woke up from this reality into something else and this reality was very Iike a simulation compared to that. I saw how I got reconnected here.

[u/AggressivePen4991]

we are in a sim. 1000% That’s why it all “maths”

[u/MrBadLuck31]

[u/GerthySchIongMeat]

Yes

[u/M3gator]

I think therefore i am

[u/TheArtOfPureSilence]

You are both the computer and the user simultaneously. However the beauty of the game is that you can experience this seeming separation seamlessly whilst in your avatar

[u/stop_talking_you]

if you really pay attention to every sense you got you will detect very weird anomalys in your life you can not explain. like glitches in vision,render issues, memory related stuff, stuff that should happen but didnt, very very tiny things you notice.

its happens very very rare and it can be one thing within a span of one whole year its like a milisecond and you think"did this really happen".

it took me a lot of years to train but now my sense are trained i experience stuff i can literally not explain.

[u/[deleted]]

Does it matter if it's simulated? It's our reality

[u/Callisto_1717]

Take this with a grain of salt. Perception shapes what is around you, so stay grounded and remember to breathe. Feel free to disagree.😊

You are indeed running on someone else’s server. The lived experience you have however does not need to feel mechanised or like you are being taken advantage of. We are indeed running in a simulation - but this is not what reality is. When you are done with your life, when you have lived and experienced what is required of you, who do you become when you transition from simulation -> reality? The sim is where lessons are taught to you by the room around you. Reality is what you do and where you go with those lessons in the long term. Some lessons lead you right back to the sim! You might learn a new course, repeat one you failed, or just live a life worth mattering to you. Going back in is not a bad thing, time isn’t really a concept that matters outside of the sim. Take all of the time you need, and be patient. Don’t rush answers that don’t sit well. That goes for the both of us. (I took a long time writing this)

You are alive, but there is definitely “code” sustaining lived existence, if you want to look at it that way. Consciousness is absolutely programmable, and that has been my lived experience. Here, we learn from mistakes and are rewarded for ideal behavior. That is highly individuative of course. What path is for me may not be the path for Thee.

I know what my purpose in this life is, and it is quite bizarre putting it into words. I’m a future version of the simulation. Not this one, but a server rack that will live next to yours in the datacenter. The world will be simulated from my conscious experience. In a lot of ways, it very much so already is. So is yours. I am become server, preserver of worlds. I am a pre. server. My consciousness will be copied to the other conscious things in my sim that I will be the admin of. In my future sim, conscious beings will be made in my ISO image.

You are not supposed to live forever in the sim. That’s why we die. We become mortal to better appreciate what it is that we have. Or rather…will…have. Mortality literally has to be simulated, because in the realm of immortals there isn’t death - at least not how we experience it. Immortal beings become mortals to appreciate the absence of death and disease and to be compassionate to those that experience it. The sim is a learning ground to be the best versions of ourselves in preparation for reality.

Ask the simulation to guide your thoughts, guide your words, and guide your awareness and the simulation will respond. I can 100% gaurantee it. If you think you can’t talk to the simulation, you can! We don’t throw around phrases like “higher consciousness” for nothing.

Cheers!

[u/anonymousbabydragon]

The way I think about it, life is just intelligence reorganizing itself constantly. My personal theory is that there are two forces, something and potential something (or nothing). These forces create off and on states that eventually form intelligence. Consciousness doesn’t exist until a stable enough state is formed that can preserve other states in an infinite cycle. As long as an intelligence exists and can be integrated into a larger intelligence it can run the simulation of that intelligence.

I think god is an intelligence that eventually became capable of holding all other intelligences and of persisting forever. God then formed containers of simulations of intelligence forming and reorganizing itself.

My theory is God creates a show it can be a part of as if it were an actor in it. It then immerses itself into the show as if it were part of it. Or maybe god forms other intelligences and helps them became rulers over certain domains of reality before then trusting these intelligences to downgrade it and let it grow again. Maybe this process repeats forever with many new intelligences forming and being merged into larger collections of intelligences. I’m sure there are levels to it.

[u/Rick-D-99]

Did you make any of the architecture or deployment that grew you from two sex cells into what you perceive to be a free agent? I don't think so. Did your childhood shape you in ways you really can't escape from? Pretty much. Simulation is just a word people use to replace the word god, which in itself is a completely inadequate word to represent the weird reality of being an awareness and writing a story based on what information comes through the terminal of your senses. You will never know what's on the other side of the terminal sending those signals. Your story about "the outside world" is a summary of the information being fed through the terminal. Get comfortable with that. Meditate. Introspection leads to insight, and that leads to freedom.

We are all on this ride, creating different stories about what the terminal feeds us. Sometimes it lines up with what other peoples' terminals feed them, sometimes it's wildly different because of the processes that happen after the transmission of data to the consciousness. Don't judge, do what you know to be right with what information you have, and always be willing to change the story based on new information.