• DocBlaze@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    doesn’t really have to be a sadist. consider the theory were all just temporary beings in a experimental universe, observed by the supreme scientists that created us, almost like a child playing the sims. an ecological researcher observing a lion eating a deer isn’t supposed to interfere in natural selection for the deer’s sake if they want their study to have any merit.

      • DocBlaze@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        true, but perhaps if we are created beings, could it be considered just a complication of the model? for example, consider a simulated universe like our own, where a being might get hit by a car. with AI evolved suffient enough, that AI would feel pain and perhaps suffer horrible injuries, even if the intention of creating the independent systems of automobile mechanics, and the laws of physics, and the evolution of the human nervous system wasn’t to induce a state of suffering.

        more specifically, on the biology of the nervous system, it’s interesting how fear/pain/suffering itself was just a byproduct of natural selection meant to help us by telling our dumb humanoid ancestors the things we should avoid - things that cause physical damage to our flesh or our mental state, or make it harder to survive. so these things are meant to help us, or we wouldn’t have evolved it at all.

    • Thelsim@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      I love what-if scenarios :)

      I think you could go one step further with this theory and say that humans are not that important at all. I mean, why would we think we are? Because god told us so? Maybe he just said that to account for some variable and left it at that. Hasn’t looked back at what we were up to since.
      In some distant corner of the universe is a much nicer planet where everyone is living in harmony and peace. We’re just the control group :)

      • DocBlaze@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        yes. once I listened to Neil Tyson describe how big the known universe actually is, it’s enough for the mathematical probability that we are the biggest influencers on it that exist to approach zero