Simulated Life

Now I know this is probably not necessarily appropriate for this forum, but it's an interesting idea I've been considering for some time now, and I thought it'd be nice to share with people and get some feedback. Let me know if it's just too off the wall for this board.

Now the idea hinges on the development of advanced artificial intelligences (AAI) which could be said to be as smart as a human being, able to deal with abstract concepts, able to adapt to changing environments, circumstances, etc. Now instead of having this A.I run military hardware or putting it into a robot body to serve our every whim, hence producing a Terminator, or I, Robot scenario (where the machines revolt against their human masters) we place the AAI, several million of them in fact, into a simulated environment.

This simulated environment could be anything we so choose it to be. We could even create our own laws of physics in this universe, we could specify a variety of environmental conditions on the world they exist on, temperatures, orbits, etc. And then we watch how these simulated people behave. Now it would be much like a very large game of The Sims, except that the Sims would actually be capable of developing their own technologies and culture, reproducing, and developing ideas on philosophy, science, art, mathematics, etc.

Now my question is what specifically would they come up with, and how would it differ from our own society, given the differences in the specifics of their world? they would have no concept of our existence outside their universe, as the simulated world we've created for them is convincing enough that they believe it. In effect it's like The Matrix, but in reverse. They would be bound to the physical constraints of the 'Sim' and simply worry about their own survival on a day to day basis. Perhaps we could run this simulation in fast time, so that we could watch their evolution over a period of years instead of millenia.

at least while we're waiting to discover life on other worlds and imagine what form it may take, we could at least create our own and watch it's evolution? Thoughts at all?

Moved to the "Extrasolar Life" forum.

gremlin66 wrote:

This simulated environment could be anything we so choose it to be. We could even create our own laws of physics in this universe,

If I'm not mistaken, there's not a lot of room in our current laws of physics to allow for changes that won't completely ruin everything else. I could be wrong though.

no thoughts on the rest of my post at all?
maybe the laws of physics part was a little off the wall and unrealistic. However I still believe it would be important to the experiment if we altered the Sim's reality enough that their outlook were dramatically altered as compared to our own.

p.s. it's gremlin66, not Gramlin66!

gremlin66 wrote:

p.s. it's gremlin66, not Gramlin66!

Ah, I apologize, mistyped it. (fixed it above)

Your post is interesting, but a bit broad vague. I'm not sure there's been much work with simulating life (in a computer at least).

They already do that at some universities.

Some even maid a simple object that replicates itself.
Then they change the environment. Then the object will replicate many types. And the one that survives moves on. Hence artificial evolution.

So the answer, yes, it is being done as we speak (write/read).