Lets assume we develop the capacity to create virtual worlds that are near indistinguishable from the real world. We hook you up into a machine and you now find yourself in what effectively is a paraller reality where you get to be the king of your own universe (if you so desire). Nothing is off limits - everything you’ve ever dreamt of is possible. You can be the only person there, you can populate it with unconscious AI that appears consciouss or you can have other people visit your world and you can visit theirs aswell as spend time in “public worlds” with millions of other real people.
Would you try it and do you think you’d prefer it over real world? Do you see it as a negative from individual perspective if significant part of the population basically spend their entire lives there?
Assumptions:
- Stasis: When i spend months inside VR, my meat prison does not degrade faster than it would have leading my current livestyle. So at least something like the Matrix. Mind Upload would be perfect.
- Variety: The VR is large enough i will not get bored for at least 50 years.
- Control: The VR device is owned and operated by me, without requiring connection to some corporation. My VR life is owned by me. So no Corporate Dystopia. I can end the VR any time i want.
- Immersion: I can choose my avatar, the graphics is good and i can set the amount of pain i want to experience.
- Affordable: I can financially afford to stay in VR for at least 50 years.
Positives:
- Exciting: Every day can be an adventure. The best food can be copy-pasted. Have a house in the woods without having to sacrifice amenities. See the world without pollution. Dive trough oceans without having to catch your breath.
- Much less suffering: No more exercise (unlike my meat prison my avatar does not need exercise). No unwanted pain: Set pain to off if you don’t want to feel exthaustion, stubbing your toes,… No more disease, No worrying about wrecking your body.
- No more physics: Meals will remain fresh and warm even after weeks of hiking/climbing in the snow. Teleportation will be available.
Negatives:
- ?
If such VR is ever achieved, almoset everyone will live in it, and those living in it will look back and ask themselves how humans were ever happy to live like we do today.
Negatives: real world stagnation.
But maybe that’s a positive actually.
I can see the line of reasoning and honestly I would probably be an early adopter.
There is no invention (that i can imagine) i would look forward to if Mind Upload VR was real.
That would mean stagnation, but progress is only good if it reduces suffering. And i just can not see how making faster computers and learning physics can reduce suffering if there is Mind Upload VR, where all pain is optional.
As long as the VR is more like a Matrix where the body still ages and dies, of course i would want research to continue so death does not rip me from my awesome virtual life before i have played it trough. Maybe even multiple times.
I agree that progress will most likely slow down once Matrix VR is real because why waste your precious years lerning physics and biology when there is affordable VR?
Once Mind Upload VR is there i can actually see science progressing much faster, because if you have a processor that can simulate one conciousness and be loaded 10%, you can either put 9 more people on it, or you could speed up time 10x, so the mind that is researching new technology will experience 10x more time than real time and be done with research much faster.
Or you could store yourself on disk and wait 1000 years to have science catch up.
