From: Rolf Nelson (rolf.h.d.nelson@gmail.com)
Date: Sun Oct 21 2007 - 11:13:07 MDT
Thanks for the link to your paper, Peter. Your paper states that we are
likely to be living in a simulation, and therefore...
> Long range planning beyond... [2050] would therefore be futile.
Did you mean to only say that self-motivated long range planning would be
futile? I would argue that altruistic long-range planning is not necessarily
affected by the analysis. Example:
(Making up figures here, the actual figures don't matter much to the
analysis) Suppose that every non-simulated civilization produces, on
average, self-aware simulations equivalent to 10^100 civilizations, .001% of
which are flawless ancestor simulations. A basic vanilla Simulation Argument
would say that the odds are 10^95 to 1 that you live in a simulation.
However, any decisions you make will affect 10^100 simulated civilizations.
So in basic vanilla utilitarianism, your actions are still dominated by a
factor of 10,000 to 1 by considerations of "what should I do if we do *not*
live in an ancestor simulation?"
Of course there are arguments against basic vanilla utilitarianism, when
large numbers are concerned. But, I would argue that for every valid
argument that "basic utilitarianism shouldn't apply to large numbers because
it produces silly results", there's an equal argument that "the basic
Simulation Argument shouldn't apply to large numbers because it produces
silly results."
(Caveat: I don't believe in the Simulation Argument. For example, if it
comes down to a choice between something like Wei Dai's UDASSA, or believing
I live in a simulation, I consider UDASSA more likely. That said, I consider
the Simulation Argument a deep and noteworthy argument, and UDASSA is the
only model I know of that might allow an escape that I personally find
"satisfactory". I'm still holding out, though, that post-Singularity when we
have centuries to leisurely think about it, we'll be able to come up with a
better model.)
On 10/20/07, Peter S Jenkins <peterjenkins@rogers.com> wrote:
>
> http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=929327
>
> Here is a link to my paper on this issue that was mentioned in the NY
> Times last August -- comments welcome
>
>
>
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