Re: Simulation argument in the NY Times

From: Peter Butler (peter.butler@141.com)
Date: Thu Aug 16 2007 - 22:51:31 MDT


> These things can also arise from an enumeration of Turing
> machines. How can
> we assume that the simulation was created by intelligent beings,
> much less
> that they think like us?
>
>
> We can't assume, but we can predict. It is more likely for a
> simulation, whether or not it is part of an enumeration of turing
> machines, to be created by intelligent beings than to spring out of
> nothingness, get etched out of a rock by wind, or be created out of
> twigs and spittle by unintelligent beings.

Can you explain why it is "more likely" for a simulation to have been
created by intelligent beings? I don't understand where the evidence to
support this hypothesis comes from. The fact that intelligence has
arisen under the highly specific conditions that obtain in our universe
is, in my opinion, no basis to assume that it has arisen in the universe
that might be simulating ours. Isn't it just as likely (or perhaps even
more probable) to have arisen from patterns caused by random eddies in
the simulating universe?

Peter



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