Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?

Nick Bostrom is a philosopher at Oxford University, and has convinced John Tierney of the New York Times that we might just be playthings in someone else's version of Second Life.

Tierney writes

"I hadn’t imagined that the omniscient, omnipotent creator of the heavens and earth could be an advanced version of a guy who spends his weekends building model railroads or overseeing video-game worlds like the Sims.

'But now it seems quite possible. In fact, if you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom’s, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation.

“My gut feeling, and it’s nothing more than that,” he says, “is that there’s a 20 percent chance we’re living in a computer simulation.”

Possible? Of course. Deeply disturbing? Even more so.

All the human emotion, impetus to do good, connecting and interacting reduced to the a concept where  we are under the control of others in an abstract place and time discounts the very essence of who we are on a human level.

An interesting idea to think about until I need to do something in the real world. But likely? Pffft; philosophers. I'm not drinking the kool-ade.

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If you're in the mood to be weirded out, read more here   Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch - New York Times

Comments

[Nicholas Butler]

Heres a thought before we worry about how our lives might influenced by such external simulations.

Just how much do we willingly allow our lives to be influenced by each other and by corporate ideas. Some influences are good , some are destructive all are part of how we live.

It was a good article though and one that asks the question.

Is gravity just a mass demand ?[1]

[1] Yes a science joke !

[Susan Reynolds]

I can't buy that either everything or nothing is a simulation either. And it all makes my brain cells get mucky anyhow.

While it's an interesting idea, especially to an artist, more important to me is that the concept also allows me to disown my actions as not *really* being my own. That is a slippery slope to go down.

[Raghav Gupta]

The question is: Does it matter? The supposed entity that is simulating us, what if that entity is itself being simulated? And so on.

Either everything is a simulation, or nothing is.
But, if *everything* is a simulation, then of course, it must be reality, because there is nothing else.

[Radioactive Jam]

Even for an arbitrary number, 20 percent seems high.

[Marti]

I ain't drinkin' the koolaid either. I am a firm believer in free will. It's interesting, but I think they're dealing in fiction.

Thanks for sharing though - it does make for some provocative discussion.