From: Hal Finney
>How would you characterize the individuals in The Matrix who were trapped
in the simulation?<
I distinguish their appearance by saying that they look as if they are asleep or in a coma. From my observation, I can not tell if they know they are being used for batteries - whether they consented to it or not. My visual reaction to their qualities is alarming and even repulsed. Yet I cannot characterize them as being uncomfortable in their pods or that they are unhappy about being used as slave-batteries.
>Are they real people or not?<
Even though they exist as physical entities, their existence does not appear to be an objective independent existence. Yet, we only assume that they don't want to be batteries. We don’t know whether they were tricked by false advertising or whether some AI Guru cajoled them.
Regardless, they are real because they are living, regardless of what reality their consciousness communicates in - whether a Matrix simulation or an ether simulation.
(snip)
>Yet we can stand there and look at them in their pods. Does it make
sense to say that these physical people, lying there and thinking in
front of us, are not real?<
I don't think so.
Natasha
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