Comment by hliyan

I always thought that the great filter would be the "lotus eater" scenario -- that species always eventually discover that the entirety of their happiness lies in their brains, and once physical dangers are eliminated and base physical needs are met reliably, they can spend their entire lives in either an electronic or chemically induced simulation of a world of their choice, thus ending all exploration. But now I wonder whether they discover that all creativity can be emulated through matrix math, and they simply stop trying to do anything, or lose ability to do anything after a generation of delegating to machines.