There's a 1 in 5 chance your life is a computer simulation

[The Misfit]

From the NY TImes

 

By JOHN TIERNEY

Published: August 14, 2007

 

Until I talked to Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, it never occurred to me that our universe might be somebody else’s hobby. 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.

 

This simulation would be similar to the one in “The Matrix,” in which most humans don’t realize that their lives and their world are just illusions created in their brains while their bodies are suspended in vats of liquid. But in Dr. Bostrom’s notion of reality, you wouldn’t even have a body made of flesh. Your brain would exist only as a network of computer circuits.

 

You couldn’t, as in “The Matrix,” unplug your brain and escape from your vat to see the physical world. You couldn’t see through the illusion except by using the sort of logic employed by Dr. Bostrom, the director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford.

 

Dr. Bostrom assumes that technological advances could produce a computer with more processing power than all the brains in the world, and that advanced humans, or “posthumans,” could run “ancestor simulations” of their evolutionary history by creating virtual worlds inhabited by virtual people with fully developed virtual nervous systems.

 

Some computer experts have projected, based on trends in processing power, that we will have such a computer by the middle of this century, but it doesn’t matter for Dr. Bostrom’s argument whether it takes 50 years or 5 million years. If civilization survived long enough to reach that stage, and if the posthumans were to run lots of simulations for research purposes or entertainment, then the number of virtual ancestors they created would be vastly greater than the number of real ancestors.

 

There would be no way for any of these ancestors to know for sure whether they were virtual or real, because the sights and feelings they’d experience would be indistinguishable. But since there would be so many more virtual ancestors, any individual could figure that the odds made it nearly certain that he or she was living in a virtual world.

 

The math and the logic are inexorable once you assume that lots of simulations are being run. But there are a couple of alternative hypotheses, as Dr. Bostrom points out. One is that civilization never attains the technology to run simulations (perhaps because it self-destructs before reaching that stage). The other hypothesis is that posthumans decide not to run the simulations.

 

“This kind of posthuman might have other ways of having fun, like stimulating their pleasure centers directly,” Dr. Bostrom says. “Maybe they wouldn’t need to do simulations for scientific reasons because they’d have better methodologies for understanding their past. It’s quite possible they would have moral prohibitions against simulating people, although the fact that something is immoral doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”

 

Dr. Bostrom doesn’t pretend to know which of these hypotheses is more likely, but he thinks none of them can be ruled out. “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.”

 

My gut feeling is that the odds are better than 20 percent, maybe better than even. I think it’s highly likely that civilization could endure to produce those supercomputers. And if owners of the computers were anything like the millions of people immersed in virtual worlds like Second Life, SimCity and World of Warcraft, they’d be running simulations just to get a chance to control history — or maybe give themselves virtual roles as Cleopatra or Napoleon.

 

It’s unsettling to think of the world being run by a futuristic computer geek, although we might at last dispose of that of classic theological question: How could God allow so much evil in the world? For the same reason there are plagues and earthquakes and battles in games like World of Warcraft. Peace is boring, Dude.

 

The more practical question is how to behave in a computer simulation. Your first impulse might be to say nothing matters anymore because nothing’s real. But just because your neural circuits are made of silicon (or whatever posthumans would use in their computers) instead of carbon doesn’t mean your feelings are any less real.

 

David J. Chalmers, a philosopher at the Australian National University, says Dr. Bostrom’s simulation hypothesis isn’t a cause for skepticism, but simply a different metaphysical explanation of our world. Whatever you’re touching now — a sheet of paper, a keyboard, a coffee mug — is real to you even if it’s created on a computer circuit rather than fashioned out of wood, plastic or clay.

 

You still have the desire to live as long as you can in this virtual world — and in any simulated afterlife that the designer of this world might bestow on you. Maybe that means following traditional moral principles, if you think the posthuman designer shares those morals and would reward you for being a good person.

 

Or maybe, as suggested by Robin Hanson, an economist at George Mason University, you should try to be as interesting as possible, on the theory that the designer is more likely to keep you around for the next simulation.

 

Of course, it’s tough to guess what the designer would be like. He or she might have a body made of flesh or plastic, but the designer might also be a virtual being living inside the computer of a still more advanced form of intelligence. There could be layer upon layer of simulations until you finally reached the architect of the first simulation — the Prime Designer, let’s call him or her (or it).

 

Then again, maybe the Prime Designer wouldn’t allow any of his or her creations to start simulating their own worlds. Once they got smart enough to do so, they’d presumably realize, by Dr. Bostrom’s logic, that they themselves were probably simulations. Would that ruin the fun for the Prime Designer?

 

If simulations stop once the simulated inhabitants understand what’s going on, then I really shouldn’t be spreading Dr. Bostrom’s ideas. But if you’re still around to read this, I guess the Prime Designer is reasonably tolerant, or maybe curious to see how we react once we start figuring out the situation.

 

It’s also possible that there would be logistical problems in creating layer upon layer of simulations. There might not be enough computing power to continue the simulation if billions of inhabitants of a virtual world started creating their own virtual worlds with billions of inhabitants apiece.

 

If that’s true, it’s bad news for the futurists who think we’ll have a computer this century with the power to simulate all the inhabitants on earth. We’d start our simulation, expecting to observe a new virtual world, but instead our own world might end — not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a message on the Prime Designer’s computer.

 

It might be something clunky like “Insufficient Memory to Continue Simulation.” But I like to think it would be simple and familiar: “Game Over.”

[Azazello1313]

wow. somehow, mysteriously, i just got a wicked case of the munchies...

[Kid Cid]

Life is meaningless! Whhoo Hooo! I'm getting a beer!

[PantherDave]

So, this momo get paid for this chit?

[Bill Swerski]

From the NY TImes

 

Typical

[SheikYerbuti]

My wife is a philosophy professor. A colleague of hers came up with the term "Pass-the-Bong-Philosophy" to describe students who wrote papers like this. Most "PTBP" starts with "duuuuuude. . .what if. . . "

 

Apparently some of those students found jobs at Oxford.

[Pope Flick]

wow. somehow, mysteriously, i just got a wicked case of the munchies...

 

 

 

 

Larry: Okay. That means that our whole solar system could be, like one tiny atom in the fingernail of some other giant being. [Jennings nods] This is too much! That means one tiny atom in my fingernail could be--

 

Jennings: Could be one little tiny universe.

 

Larry: Could I buy some pot from you?

[jetsfan]

wow. somehow, mysteriously, i just got a wicked case of the munchies...

 

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

[Big John]

 

[billay]

I read that article today, Misfit, and immediately thought of you. :heart:

[Thews40]

How could God allow so much evil in the world? For the same reason there are plagues and earthquakes and battles in games like World of Warcraft. Peace is boring, Dude.

 

What an awesome post… I knew I was right. Makes a strong argument for God using logic, only in a finiteably finite simplistic humanistic realm of understanding. Step outside the box… let’s just say you lived a horrible life full of pain. But, you awake from it, and it was just like waking up to a nightmare. You gather your external parameters and convince yourself it really was a nightmare… it didn’t really happen.

 

Stay outside the box… regardless of whether your life was of incredible joy or immense pain, you would learn something from it… something you could only learn by experiencing. When it was over, you’d have learned your lesson (assuming life isn’t real but we live in somewhat of matrix existence). What would the point be… a lesson to the soul. Why...? I haven't a clue... God's call.

 

For those that don’t know the story regarding when I was electrocuted, about 13 years ago and had an out-of-body experience. I know what it’s like to be dead (regardless of whether or not you think I actually was), because I saw my dead body in spirit. Once you see your own dead body… you pretty much accept the fact that you are now deceased. Again, for argument’s sake, if it was a “dream-like” state I was in, I had accepted without any doubt that I was in fact dead.

 

Moral of the story, this is what death feels like… envision yourself standing next to your dead body looking at it (play along). You realize that your life is over, and anything you could possibly say or do it past tense. You realize that all your friends and family will be joining you someday as they complete their journey through life, and you are but a spirit and you wait… what happens next? As I stood there waiting to be judged, I realized that anything life had taught me that wasn’t based on truth was meaningless. I waited for the light… it didn’t happen. I wondered why I wasn’t floating up, but realized I also was floating down. I waited… then I woke up.

 

In the end, if you take into account the statistical probability that matter just *happened* and all life “evolved” from chemical happenstance created by anti-something, you’re just too damn cool. The base of any hypothesis has to have a base, and its base is in logic. Refusing to acknowledge the (finite) inability to explain an infinite concept such as anti-matter or an infinite timeline is retarded. Think I’m alone in this logical path? Einstein was a pretty smart guy and one could argue a deep thinker, how bout some of these regarding God to ponder…

 

http://www.spaceandmotion.com/albert-einst...on-theology.htm

 

The area of scientific knowledge has been enormously extended, and theoretical knowledge has become vastly more profound in every department of science. But the assimilative power of the human intellect is and remains strictly limited. Hence it was inevitable that the activity of the individual investigator should be confined to a smaller and smaller section of human knowledge. Worse still, this specialization makes it increasingly difficult to keep even our general understanding of science as a whole, without which the true spirit of research is inevitably handicapped, in step with scientific progress. Every serious scientific worker is painfully conscious of this involuntary relegation to an ever-narrowing sphere of knowledge, which threatens to deprive the investigator of his broad horizon and degrades him to the level of a mechanic ...

It is just as important to make knowledge live and to keep it alive as to solve specific problems. (Albert Einstein, 1954)

 

A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. (Albert Einstein)

 

A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive. (Albert Einstein, 1954)

The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.

( Albert Einstein - The Merging of Spirit and Science)

 

I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being. (Albert Einstein)

 

What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of "humility." This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism. (Albert Einstein)

 

The mystical trend of our time, which shows itself particularly in the rampant growth of the so-called Theosophy and Spiritualism, is for me no more than a symptom of weakness and confusion. Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning. (Albert Einstein)

[Azazello1313]

livininabox....COMEon

[The Misfit]

Typical

 

 

John Tierney hates liberals with a passion. I don't recall if he describes himself as libertarian -- I stopped reading his political columns when the Times started charging for access -- but he's old-school conservative (hates big gubmint, almost all gubmint programs, etc.) I know he's bragged about receiving more hate mail than any writer ever at the Times.

 

Once again, though, impressive job using that Limbaugh Logic to make assumptions, swerski.

 

Thews -- please stop abusing Einstein in your defense of God. He spoke metaphorically of God (as did Darwin and Freud, for that matter) -- and I don't think you believe in a metaphorical God, because a metaphorical God would not give a dirty hoo-ha about your out-of-body experiences. I'd read something recently about how whenever a scientist is quoted even saying the word "God" today he gets a whole bunch of people bent out of shape -- not because they hate God, but because such quotes are invariably taken out of context by fundies to defend something that was never intended. I am quite certain if Einstein were around to hear your theory of the cosmos, he would call it, in no uncertain terms, retarded.

 

Some more Einstein quotes ...

 

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

 

I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil.

 

(In response to a reporter's question about whether religion could support peace): It has not done so up to now.

 

The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action.

 

During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution, human fantasy created gods in man's own image who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate influence, the phenomenal world... The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old conception of the gods. Its anthropomorphic character is shown, for instance, by the fact that men appeal to the Divine Being in prayers and plead for the fulfillment of their wishes...

 

I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by modern science. [He was speaking of Quantum Mechanics and the breaking down of determinism.] My religiosity consists in a humble admiratation of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance -- but for us, not for God.

 

There's a whole bunch more out there like those ...

[Bill Swerski]

John Tierney hates liberals with a passion. I don't recall if he describes himself as libertarian -- I stopped reading his political columns when the Times started charging for access -- but he's old-school conservative (hates big gubmint, almost all gubmint programs, etc.) I know he's bragged about receiving more hate mail than any writer ever at the Times.

 

Once again, though, impressive job using that Limbaugh Logic to make assumptions, swerski.

 

My comment was in reference to the level of quality (or lack thereof) typically represented in the NY Times, and had nothing to do with the political affiliation of the author. Nice ignorant ASSumption on your part, though.

 

This might be a better outlet for your pseudo-intellectual rants:

[Kid Cid]

My comment was in reference to the level of quality (or lack thereof) typically represented in the NY Times, and had nothing to do with the political affiliation of the author. Nice ignorant ASSumption on your part, though.

 

This might be a better outlet for your pseudo-intellectual rants:

So if the NY Times is not a "quality" newspaper or news outlet even, just what would be one? Or is Journalism incapable of producing "quality" output?

Edited August 15, 2007 by Kid Cid

[Bill Swerski]

So if the NY Times is not a "quality" newspaper or news outlet even, just what would be one? Or is Journalism incapable of producing "quality" output?

 

One that doesn't feature constant anti-Republican garbage from Maureen Dowd et al. and stoner-intellectual crap like the op-ed (or whatever it's supposed to be) cited in the first post here.

Edited August 15, 2007 by Bill Swerski

[Pope Flick]

One that doesn't feature constant anti-Republican garbage from Maureen Dowd et al. and stoner-intellectual crap like the op-ed (or whatever it's supposed to be) cited in the first post here.

 

 

What about one that has a reporter go to jail to protect Scooter Libby? Who'd wwant to read a conservative rag like that? Oh wait.....

[Thews40]

Thews -- please stop abusing Einstein in your defense of God. He spoke metaphorically of God (as did Darwin and Freud, for that matter) -- and I don't think you believe in a metaphorical God, because a metaphorical God would not give a dirty hoo-ha about your out-of-body experiences. I'd read something recently about how whenever a scientist is quoted even saying the word "God" today he gets a whole bunch of people bent out of shape -- not because they hate God, but because such quotes are invariably taken out of context by fundies to defend something that was never intended. I am quite certain if Einstein were around to hear your theory of the cosmos, he would call it, in no uncertain terms, retarded.

As far as pulling Einstein quotes to bolster the argument, there were a lot more pointed ones I could have chosen, but that’s not the point. The way I see it, is acknowledging the human inability to answer the infinite questions regarding the existence/non-existence of God, thus rendering threads that try to a stalemate. But, as you pointed out, when the word “God” is used, it usually reverts back to what can or can’t be proven by tangible evidence, and left vs. right wing politics make for ruffled feathers on both sides. For the record, I don't get "bent out shape"... we just disagree.

 

From an argument perspective regarding God (“metaphorical” is the wrong word IMO, and “undefined” is more accurate), I find it oddly interesting how some place all faith in the hopes that science will explain the missing puzzle pieces to them, and somehow it will all be theorized in a way that makes sense someday… which they’ll most eagerly adopt as factual… when it comes…, cause, you know… they’re close. That base in logic is flawed IMO if you fail to acknowledge the answer cannot be derived, which was the point. But, you do have the option to get high on your own pretentious farts and believe whatever it is that makes sense to you.

[Kid Cid]

One that doesn't feature constant anti-Republican garbage from Maureen Dowd et al. and stoner-intellectual crap like the op-ed (or whatever it's supposed to be) cited in the first post here.

OK fine, you hate the NY Times. What is a "quality" news outlet? Fox News? LA Times? Des Moines Register?NY Post? Weekly World News? I want to know what the correct thinking people of this world are reading.

[Bill Swerski]

OK fine, you hate the NY Times. What is a "quality" news outlet? Fox News? LA Times? Des Moines Register?NY Post? Weekly World News? I want to know what the correct thinking people of this world are reading.

 

No, I don't "hate" the NY Times. I just think that its content is either (1) socially/politically-biased beyond belief or (2) lacking in intellectual merit. No need to get defensive about my personal preferences regarding newspapers.

 

I haven't read it regularly in a few years, but the Chicago Tribune has been more historically unbiased and intelligent, IMO.

[PantherDave]

Larry: Okay. That means that our whole solar system could be, like one tiny atom in the fingernail of some other giant being. [Jennings nods] This is too much! That means one tiny atom in my fingernail could be--

 

Jennings: Could be one little tiny universe.

 

Larry: Could I buy some pot from you?

 

 

....is this right.....

 

....yes, just try not to drool so much on the end of it.

 

This spawned a whole philosophy for myself and others in HS and College......if you were a light weight....you were a Kroger. If you could party and hang..you were a Dew(nickname we gave Donald Sutherland). I was at a party at NC State and some guy's I had never meet were calling one guy a "kroger", and I introduced myself, found out where they heard that(they went to a Jr College with on of thre undercalssmen from my HS, and he brought the terminology with him.)-small world sometimes. Oh, and if you liked to party, but kept it moderated we called you a "Boone". Thanks-a nice trip down memory lane.