From: Edward Miller (progressive_1987@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun May 21 2006 - 02:31:39 MDT
As I am sure most of you are aware, Nick Bostrom created the Simulation Argument awhile back.
This seems to be an SL4 concept, and I did not see hardly any discussion of it in the sl4.org archives.
I wrote a critique of the Simulation Argument. I posted it on BetterHumans, but I did not get a big response. I think that the it was too high-level for that site, which tends to be more mainstream. Since I can't expect to reach Bostrom himself with my criticisms, I think this list would have people equally capable of responding to them.
here it is, somewhat modified for this audience:
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The Simulation Argument is a rather intriguing argument made by Nick Bostrom. It states that:
"At least one of the following propositions is true:
(1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage;
(2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof);
(3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.
It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation." (http://www.simulation-argument.com/)
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I had heard this argument awhile back and, at first, thought there was a good deal of sense in it. Now I am looking at it from a more skeptical viewpoint. It seems like the basic premise is a common logical fallacy: a false dichotomy, or trichotomy in this case.
First and foremost, it seems to focus too much on humans. It is very likely that there are countless intelligent species, assuming the Drake equation is accurate. It is also likely that among those species, some would be very strange. So strange in-fact that one cannot make statements about the likelihood of what posthuman/post-ET civilizations would be like. Statement #2 reaks of a Modernist perspective that there is just one course that progress takes. Why does he lump all advanced civilizations into one group?
The nature of the singularity makes the entire premises unknowable or irrelevant. It is possible that some of these post-singularity advanced civilizations progress so quickly that they breeze right through any times at which it might have been useful to create simulations... and continue to progress into some unknowable Omega Point. And others might take a completely different path that requires many simulations.
So we cant say anything about the likelihood of advanced civilizations in relation to creation of simulated worlds. Maybe only one civilization created them, maybe most, maybe none, it is impossible to know with even a shred of accuracy.
It is also impossible to know if you take into consideration the lack of knowledge we have. It is quite possible that there are many different universes/dimensions/whatever that just make this whole notion of the Simulation Argument absurd. It is entirely possible that there is an infinite amount of nested universes/dimensions/simulations that there will always be one more realm that is just beyond our grasp and comprehension.
In these other realms or far-away galaxies, who knows how things work? The most basic principles of time, cause and effect, logic, etc might be radically different. We have been learning that even some of the supposed "universal constants" actually change over time.
This Simulation Argument borders on the metaphysical, and I side whole-heartedly with Wittgenstein in believing that no position at all is the best position on metaphysical matters. Sure, we can speculate and theorize but we should really do it whilst keeping in mind our extremely limited knowledge.
Additionally, the conclusion drawn from the first three can be proven false using basic symbolic logic.
"It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation."
It said at the beginning that "At least one of the following propositions are true." So that means that it is not a necessary conclusion that if one of the three is true, then the other two are false. All can be true, two can be true, or only one can be true according to that criteria.
Therefore, according to the way his argument was phrased, numbers 1 and 3 can both be true.
Let's break the conclusion up into symbols:
x = the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans (who run ancestor-simulations) is false
y = we are currently living in a simulation.
Here are statements 1 and 2 broken into symbols:
(1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; = x
(3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. = y
Both x and y can be true simultaneously, as shown above, yet his conclusion states "x unless y."
Thus, his conclusion is false.
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