re: The odds that we live in a simulation are close to 1

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I have to get inside Zion,

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It's definitely more likely that we're in a simulation than not. If I'm fortunate to live another 40 years, I fully expect that a simulation should be possible that feels like life feels today.

If you 'die' in this life and suddenly wake up in another body (that is old and barely clinging to life), would you decide to pull the plug and find out if there is a true afterlife? Or just pick another simulation that allows you to be born in a specific year and go through the game again?

I don't think an AGI would need to be conscious to trigger the singularity. All that's required is better learning mechanisms and hardware/computing power.

As to a soul, it seems neurons should be fully capable of producing consciousness. But yeah we still don't fully understand it yet.

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So..do I have free will in these simulations

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You don't have free will even if it isn't a simulation.

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I don't think an AGI would need to be conscious to trigger the singularity. All that's required is better learning mechanisms and hardware/computing power.

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I disagree. We only learn new things because we have the creativity to wonder about the world. And we are creative because we are conscious. We can develop new ML techniques, but it will still only "learn" what we tell it to learn. We have more than enough total computing power to simulate a single human brain, we just don't have a clue about how to program consciousness.

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As to a soul, it seems neurons should be fully capable of producing consciousness. But yeah we still don't fully understand it yet.

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I don't know why it would seem that neurons should be capable of producing consciousness on their own. Most animals have neurons, but few are self-aware. We can't even be sure that any animals are self-aware besides us.

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Given how quickly our technology is advancing

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No hoverboards or flying cars yet.

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I don't know why it would seem that neurons should be capable of producing consciousness on their own. Most animals have neurons, but few are self-aware. We can't even be sure that any animals are self-aware besides us.

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Well I think consciousness and self-awareness are different things. A quote from a Scientific American blog says that "Consciousness is awareness of one's body and one's environment; self-awareness is recognition of that consciousness." An animal can be conscious without being fully self-aware. Mirror tests and other studies have shown that some animals are self-aware, though.

As to neurons, there is zero evidence that anything else is going on, so therefore neurons provide consciousness. I know it's not that simple, but supernatural explanations for consciousness are impossible to prove and should be discarded. I was recently listening to a podcast with a neuroscientist, and nothing so far indicates some other process going on. Here's that podcast if you're interested: Lex Fridman and Jeff Hawkins

Actually I have no idea, just my opinion based on the odds and how quickly technology is expected to increase over the next few decades.

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Well I think consciousness and self-awareness are different things. A quote from a Scientific American blog says that "Consciousness is awareness of one's body and one's environment; self-awareness is recognition of that consciousness." An animal can be conscious without being fully self-aware. Mirror tests and other studies have shown that some animals are self-aware, though.

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Well if that's the case, then we are even further from creating AI.

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As to neurons, there is zero evidence that anything else is going on, so therefore neurons provide consciousness. I know it's not that simple, but supernatural explanations for consciousness are impossible to prove and should be discarded. I was recently listening to a podcast with a neuroscientist, and nothing so far indicates some other process going on. Here's that podcast if you're interested: Lex Fridman and Jeff Hawkins

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Higher dimensions should not necessarily imply something "supernatural". Rather, it could very well be true that higher dimensions exist, but we are just not capable of detecting or understanding them. As far as we have been able to gather, we live in a 4 dimensional universe, 3 spatial plus time. But why? Why are we able to move through 3 dimensions as we please, but we are only able to move through time in one direction, and at a pace governed by the universe itself? If there were 5 dimensional beings that perceived time as a 4th spatial dimension, through which they could move as effortlessly as we move through our 3 spatial dimensions, then we would have no hope of understanding how that works, what it would look like, or what the hell the 5th dimension is. What if the expansion of our universe is how we perceive that 5th dimension here in 4 dimensions?

So we might call it "supernatural", but it could very well be natural but we just can't comprehend it.

I think you don't understand how odds and probability work.