Now that I am reading myself again I realize that this is a very chaotic but also quite a fascinating “train of thoughts” so please have a seat, enjoy and try to get to the final destination as it’d be quite worth the trip:
just after washing the Butterfly Effect movie and thinking again about this documentary I saw about time I was thinking:
Sometime after the singularity we (or the artificial species replacing us) will experience time in a very different way. Since (let's use we, it reassures people) we'll be able to live endlessly (even if it still sounds nuts) and since time is another dimension where we'll be able to move as we wish we won't feel the notion of time anymore and it won't affect us, at least no in the same way it still does.
For example, after merging completely form biological to artificial or better said, from carbon to silicon, obviously we won't have to sleep unless we want to be switched off for a while, put “on sleeping mode”!
The very notion of days and nights will have more meaning in the real world since "night" won't be used "to sleep" anymore and if people are still out they will then be at any given moment.
On the other hand it will lose it's signification in the virtual world, where most of people will spend almost their entire time, just as in Matrix, I know…
I don't know though if time travel will be possible in the same way we mere humans imagine it but even if it isn't it will virtually be a no brainer.
You will be able to go back at any given time (from the beginning of "the virtual world creation") to relive past events.
You''ll browse into your real or virtual memories and jump back at any moment to enjoy the scenery again…
Then, If it's about the real world chances are that you'll just be a viewer and maybe simply having the feeling that you are there doing things virtually that won't affect the real world and change the space-time continuum as it does in “the butterfly effect” when the main character has black-outs while reading his diary that bring him back into is younger self for just enough time to “change things” that will drastically modify his present and make him wake up in a different place while life has turn out very differently for him indeed...
So these kind of things obviously won’t happen. But if it is the virtual world that we are talking about then you might also be able to change the whole timeline if the rules/Laws of the program/matrix/world enable it.
I think there will be two main categories of "virtual worlds". The first one is the global one where everybody can interact together and that will be an augmented reality where everything will be possible as long as you don't hurt or disturb anyone else. Can you virtually time travel and change THIS world? Hmm, maybe if you are a hacker… or just “mister anybody”, who knows.
But probably you definitely could depending on which subgroup you are?!
There will be worlds that only you and you friends or anyone that you (both) wish could access and where everybody else, if there are more people, would be avatars created by the program/matrix or yourself.
The other kind of "virtual world" will be the ultimate subgroup from the main global one: It will be "yours".
And that's when things get a little more complicated… You will be able to jump back or maybe also forward in time or remain in the so-called present.
Everything from the "global world" will be part of your "own virtual world" just as "everybody".
From the MM (main matrix) you'll dispose of all the datas of your OM (own matrix) and the most common appearance an behavior of people keeping their avatar as public. So if you want to interact with their Pubatar, PUA or PUB (Public Avatar) you'd be doing it "almost" just as if it really was them, as if you were with their privatar, PIA or PRI (Private avatar).
Pubatars are a "second self" generated by the matrix or maybe only less sophisticatedly by your own internal computing system also called “mind”.
As an example, your own pubatar will be an uploaded copy of yourself, of your brain into the matrix and downloadable to infinity.
Now people download music, videos… but in the future if it will result ethical enough and technically possible people might downloads copy of their friends pubatars or of anyone they want for that matter.
If a complete pubatar takes too much memory or if it’s illegal to download one you might just want a partial one. A simplified version that looks smart enough to make you believe most of the time that it's really he or she.
BTW, If anyone actually read this they might think that I'm joking or anything of the kind or they might really wonder not "if" but "how much" insane I'm turning and I couldn't blame them since I personally think it's the most fucked up idea I probably ever had… But it's also not a very far-fetched one! Yes, that's what I said: Not!
The main problem here is not only to be "using" your friends (their copy) while they are not even aware of it but mainly because the pubatar would actually be just as aware of its existence as the person it is representing!
Now or even in 20 years downloading a brain would take quite a lot of computing memory and power but sometime after the singularity even the supermind of an artificial human will be only a fast download away and does that mean that "a new" super-intelligent self would be created almost instantly and would it accept living in an enclosed virtual reality where it can be used and abused by its owner/user for the simple reason that it’s not "the original copy"? I don't think so…
But we might find some kind of compromise with a more simple download of the main character traits of a person that your matrix or a part of your brain will reproduce as accurately as possible but in this case you'd just have to be aware that "it's not real", that he or she is not really there even if the pubatar could evolve while being aware of past informations and the new ones you would share along with them.
Now people that have imaginary friends can be easily called insane unless they have lived for less than a dozen of years but in the future it will be common practice for your desktop, I mean, your brain, to make imaginary people communicate with yourself. You might even become an expert into letting yourself think that the matrix is full of people that adore you and take your friendship very seriously.
But anyway, either it is a global computer, the matrix, or your own mind making the trick, hellooo, it will not actually be your friend with you and you'd better be aware of that for the next time you see their privatar or real person!
Some people will get confused about what and who's real and for good reasons but his is their problem, not yours! YOU, on the other hand, are not crazy! I repeat: You Are Not Crazy!
Now, to fix that, the only ethical way people could be copied into authentic pubatar sharing 100% of their mind capability and memory with their privatar is if they provide absolute freedom to their virtual clone but encourage them to visit this or that friend that has requested to spend time with them.
But this is still quite amoral and dangerous for a number of reasons:
First, the clone or one of the clones could claim that it is the original copy, the privatar.
Second, if I download a copy of my dad to spend more time with him, I will become more related to the copy and the original will become quite a stranger "even" if all the experiences of the copies can be shared with the originals and vice-versa.
My dad then, seeing that the original me has become too unaccessible, might download a copy of me himself and create new bounds with him while letting him live his life the rest of the time. And then who is whom?
One might have 10 or a 100 different copies of themselves, a little chaotic, isn't it?
Other example; You fall in love with a girl (boy).
One day she dumps you but you love her. The good news is that, as most people, she happens to have a pubatar and even if she didn’t she is kind enough to give you a copy of herself with whom you can be in your OM (own matrix) but not on the MM (main matrix) where only the original , the privatar is publicly allowed and enabled. Sounds a little paradoxical: A “public privatar” but it just means that this is really yourself and should be identified and respected as so. Even though apparently pubatar should also be respected the same way unless they aren’t authentic copy of oneself.
This whole train of thought raises difficult questions to answer right now but it might become part of our daily life soon after computers will successfully pass the turing test so even before the singularity which is the moment when Artificial Intelligence will be so powerful that it will greatly change its environment, including us, for the best or the worst.
At least definitely the best for them, buuuut maybe not for us, oops...
So, do you want to be able to be with your closed ones even when they have no time for you? Or even with this guy or girl that doesn’t care about you for not having a clue about how great of a person you are?
And do you want them to be absolutely real, the tough option, or “looking real” enough? You might not have any choice for this one and for good reasons. Also, if you’ve been able to choose the real one, don’t expect that your hero or favorite superstar would suddenly become found of you, poor thing, unless you’d go on the bad side and hack their mind what could be a main option in an unethical matrix where “copies”, with full consciousness, would be subjects to legal slavery and abuse but that probably won’t happen, at least not after the singularity, when only a far superior form of intelligence will prosper. I have a lot more to right about TIME though because that was what I first planned to talk about...
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