27-Dec-2011, 01:56 PM
This initiates a discussion on Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom's 2003 publication 'Are we living in a computer simulation?' (Link)
******
Going by the just the title alone, "Are you living in a simulation?", is there any way for participants in the simulation to test it? Plato's Cave analogy seems to suggest that there isn't.
Examining the three candidate propositions on their individual merits, some immediate objections arise. The transition into a 'post-human' condition is going to be as ill-defined as the transition from 'primitivism' to 'civilization', rendering a species-wide narrative with fixed one-shot epochs quite untenable. Our predictions second-guessing the priorities of post-human societies can at most be taken only as seriously as predictions about our society from futurologists 50 years ago can be.
Coming now to the paper itself...
(1) The sheer increase in the quantity of computing power may not guarantee that we realize a non-biological simulation of consciousness. We can't say at this point whether it is only a computing power deficit that stands in the way of simulating subjective states; or even if certain architectures even with existing computing power can be sufficient for enabling subjective states to emerge and to simulate consciousness.
(2) Why would the post-human race necessarily create more simulated ancestors than the actual number of lived ancestors? Perhaps the super-intelligent post-humans evolve an experimental design where their purposes will be served with data from very few simulations!
(3) Does the paper address what maybe called the 'infinite progress' argument? That is, if we humans are most likely to be simulations of post-humans, aren't they too most likely to be simulations of post-post-humans and so forth? Would this eventually require a computer exceeding the 'energy budget of the universe' to orchestrate this nested complexity?
A note on the prior probability assignments of Bostrom's argument can be found here.
******
Going by the just the title alone, "Are you living in a simulation?", is there any way for participants in the simulation to test it? Plato's Cave analogy seems to suggest that there isn't.
Examining the three candidate propositions on their individual merits, some immediate objections arise. The transition into a 'post-human' condition is going to be as ill-defined as the transition from 'primitivism' to 'civilization', rendering a species-wide narrative with fixed one-shot epochs quite untenable. Our predictions second-guessing the priorities of post-human societies can at most be taken only as seriously as predictions about our society from futurologists 50 years ago can be.
Coming now to the paper itself...
(1) The sheer increase in the quantity of computing power may not guarantee that we realize a non-biological simulation of consciousness. We can't say at this point whether it is only a computing power deficit that stands in the way of simulating subjective states; or even if certain architectures even with existing computing power can be sufficient for enabling subjective states to emerge and to simulate consciousness.
(2) Why would the post-human race necessarily create more simulated ancestors than the actual number of lived ancestors? Perhaps the super-intelligent post-humans evolve an experimental design where their purposes will be served with data from very few simulations!
(3) Does the paper address what maybe called the 'infinite progress' argument? That is, if we humans are most likely to be simulations of post-humans, aren't they too most likely to be simulations of post-post-humans and so forth? Would this eventually require a computer exceeding the 'energy budget of the universe' to orchestrate this nested complexity?
A note on the prior probability assignments of Bostrom's argument can be found here.