[extropy-chat] Proposed outline for a transhumanist novel (SA/SH)

[Rick Woolley]

Proposed outline for a transhumanist novel:

    There exists a small community of vastly advanced transhuman
entities. They tend to suffer from boredom. Their main mission,
their reason to "get out of bed in the morning" is to continue to
refine and test their theories as to their own origins: the origin
of each of their personal first and seminal characters or
personalities. Running simulations is one tool which they employ to
this end. Their only source of recreation and entertainment also
comes from running simulations -- for sport. They set up semi
out-of-control and random sims on which to attempt to make
predictions and then enjoy making friendly wagers. But the favorite
activity for most is the completely veiled total emersion sim in
which a "universe" just for one (or in some cases a few) is created
and then the godlike transhuman entity transfers all his
consciousness to the main character in the sim, effectively
rendering the god temporarily mortal and appropriately ignorant.
Such sims can be set to run for entire life spans of the simulated
character, or can be set to terminate early, or have paranormal,
"miraculous", or any other sort of scheduled "interventions." Often
these sorts of sims actually begin at mid lifespan complete with a
completely convincing set of memories of life up to that moment. The
point of these sims, the thing that makes them so addictive, is that
they give the entity the chance to experience novelty and adventure,
and to feel "real" pleasures and "real" pains -- to face real death,
and experience in new ways the thrill of fighting to survive, and to
struggle to find happiness. The novel would be divided into several
sections each focusing on a different sim, or this could be a grand
series of novels and novellas.

    I have found this universe and all the people and things in it
to be so very strange as to lack credibility at times. The
simulation Hypothesis could be an explanation for things being just
too weird. Ya, I know, you all think I'm weird too.
    When i think of the possibility of my life being a sim, and not
"real", I generally do not imagine that the sim actually extends to
include all the people and things in my universe that i perceive and
believe to exist. I instead imagine that most, if not all the other
persons and things I encounter are comparatively shallow objects
that generally only "run" while i perceive them directly. Just
because I seem to be a complex and somewhat self-aware sentient
object is in and of itself no evidence that those that i perceive
are similar to myself. Some could very well be, but I seriously
doubt that any transhuman entity would run a sim so vast as to
simultaneously simulate everything in a large section of space. Is
that not what you folks are referring to when you talk about "we"
being in a simulated universe?