Today, I found a short story by Frederic Pohl about the mechanical simulation of life through persona impressions on mechanical constructions for marketing research, "The tunnel under the world" written in the 50's. It remind me of another two short stories, "They" by Robert A. Heinlein and "Time out of joint" by Phillip K. Dick, with similar theme: life as a simulation. I am not sure which one was the first, my bet would be Heinlin's "They" as he is the oldest of the three—I think it is something like: Heinlein 1900s 1907, Pohl 1910s 1919, and Dick 1920s 1928. I would be surprised if They, The Tunnel under the world, and Time out of joint is not the published order of the stories but there's always wikipedia or google to check. I'm lazy to do it now Yes, they short stories came in that order—. Anyway, it seems like the idea of life as a simulation has been recurrent since the early 40s up to our modern era (Matrix, The 13th floor, Abre los ojos, etc.).
Thanks to having so much free time and wikipedia, I've just found that there exist such a thing as a "simulation hypothesis" studied by some philosophers like Nick Bostrom or David Chalmers—funny, both sound very Swedish—. Chalmer's paper sounds less technical as it's embedded in the Matrix phenomenon, while Bostrom's comes right from a philosophy journal.
Well, I leave you those links and works there while I start reading some philosophy to see if I can understand something out of it.
Thanks to having so much free time and wikipedia, I've just found that there exist such a thing as a "simulation hypothesis" studied by some philosophers like Nick Bostrom or David Chalmers—funny, both sound very Swedish—. Chalmer's paper sounds less technical as it's embedded in the Matrix phenomenon, while Bostrom's comes right from a philosophy journal.
Well, I leave you those links and works there while I start reading some philosophy to see if I can understand something out of it.
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