From: Ben Heaton (factitious@gmail.com)
Date: Sun May 21 2006 - 11:07:48 MDT
On 5/21/06, Edward Miller <progressive_1987@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> 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."
>
> 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.
That sounds like proposition 2 of the conclusion to me, and therefore
not an objection to the conclusion (which is just that at least one of
those three things is true).
> And others might take a
> completely different path that requires many simulations.
And that's proposition 3.
> 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.
Right, the simulation argument doesn't say anything about which of
those three conclusions is most likely.
> 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.
Why would multiple universes have anything to do with this?
-Ben Heaton
-- No sale, honcho!
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