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===The argument=== | ===The argument=== | ||
#If you accept a materialist perspective,<ref>i.e., that there is no God, or that our consciousness is not some manifestation of a non-material “spirituality” of some kind.</ref> and you have a sufficiently powerful computer, you can emulate human consciousness. | #If you accept a materialist perspective,<ref>i.e., that there is no God, or that our consciousness is not some manifestation of a non-material “spirituality” of some kind.</ref> and you have a sufficiently powerful computer, you can emulate human consciousness. | ||
# | #If you can emulate human consciousness, you can simulate the existence of people like your forebears.<ref>It’s not clear why they need to be forebears but, okay let’s run with it. We suppose “forebears” to be wider than “ancestors” so will refer to any human beings who have actually existed, whether or not in a matrilineal line with the person running the simulation.</ref> | ||
#A sufficiently fine-grained, conscious, simulated human would be unable to tell itself apart from an actual biological human, and vice versa.<ref>There’s a God paradox thing here though: is a computer so powerful it can create such consciousness also so stupid it can’t ''tell'' is it a computer running a simulation? Can it be so clever it can fool itself, ''and'' so gullible it can be fooled by itself?</ref> | #A sufficiently fine-grained, conscious, simulated human would be unable to tell itself apart from an actual biological human, and vice versa.<ref>There’s a God paradox thing here though: is a computer so powerful it can create such consciousness also so stupid it can’t ''tell'' is it a computer running a simulation? Can it be so clever it can fool itself, ''and'' so gullible it can be fooled by itself?</ref> | ||
# | #If your computers are powerful enough you can run a great many emulations of your forebears. | ||
# | #If you ran enough emulations, simulated humans would vastly outnumber actual humans. | ||
# | #If simulated humans vastly outnumbered biological ones and one could not tell whether one was biological or simulated, a rational human should assume itself to be simulated. | ||
To help Professor Degrasse-Tyson, here are some strong arguments against the simulation hypothesis: | To help Professor Degrasse-Tyson, here are some strong arguments against the simulation hypothesis: | ||
===We are the dead=== | ===We are the dead=== | ||
To take the simulation hypothesis to its logical conclusion — a ''[[reductio ad | To take the simulation hypothesis to its logical conclusion — a ''[[reductio ad absurdum]]'' — you needn’t travel very far. If you conclude intelligent life ''is not'' capable of creating a Matrix we are, therefore, dead — or at any rate well on the way to being dead. | ||
If you conclude intelligent life ''is'' capable of creating a Matrix then, making the enormous assumption that computation power scales almost infinitely, there are likely to be countless simulations, only one of the real thing, so the odds are so close as to being certain you are a simulation, so you aren’t biologically alive either. This is a neat trick: it is not to say that your existence being material is impossible, but | |||
If a Matrix isn’t possible, then — clearly — you ''can’t'' be in a Matrix, but you must also be incapable of developing a difference engine that could create a Matrix, so you wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place. | |||
Our materialist philosophy of mind tells us our conscious machines — brains — are purely physical; our laws of thermodynamics tell us no energy is gained or lost in our physical systems that would indicate spiritual intervention. There seems to be nothing about the carbon substrate that is makes it uniquely capable of generating consciousness. | |||
A [[René Descartes|Cartesian]] slight of hand: We aren’t dead, so we must therefore be in a Matrix. | |||
===Deep Thought successor redux=== | ===Deep Thought successor redux=== | ||
But, problem: unless intelligent life becomes capable of simulating itself — that is, creating a Matrix — ''there can be no Matrix''. The definition of a Matrix is that it is a simulation of intelligent life. If there is no intelligent life to simulate, then, whatever a Matrix is, it can’t be a simulation. Matrices are clever, but they can’t bootstrap themselves into existence — not if you want to stick with your materialist assumptions we made earlier.<ref>i.e., if a Matrix can bootstrap itself into existence, then surely ''God'' can?</ref> If there is a Matrix, there must be intelligent biological life to have invented it. | But, problem: unless intelligent life becomes capable of simulating itself — that is, creating a Matrix — ''there can be no Matrix''. The definition of a Matrix is that it is a simulation of intelligent life. If there is no intelligent life to simulate, then, whatever a Matrix is, it can’t be a simulation. Matrices are clever, but they can’t bootstrap themselves into existence — not if you want to stick with your materialist assumptions we made earlier.<ref>i.e., if a Matrix can bootstrap itself into existence, then surely ''God'' can?</ref> If there is a Matrix, there must be intelligent biological life to have invented it. | ||
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But wait: could the Matrix be — ''the real thing''? Like, could the Universe itself be some kind of super computer? | But wait: could the Matrix be — ''the real thing''? Like, could the Universe itself be some kind of super computer? | ||
We call this the “Douglas Adams objection”: once we get hip to [[ | We call this the “Douglas Adams objection”: once we get hip to [[substrate]] neutrality, isn’t the universe ''itself'' a giant computer? If so, what need of a simulation? Doesn’t a copy of the universe, doing what the universe is already doing by itself, fall rather foul of [[Occam’s razor]]? Have we just proved that life exists? If so, then I have some news, fellows: someone beat you to this splendid a priori idea by 400 years: [[Rene Descartes]]. Is not the simulation hypothesis another way of saying, “[[cogito, ergo sum]]”? | ||
{{quote|When the JC was a lad his Dad, Old Grumpy Contrarian, went snorkelling off a boat in the Ionian Sea. After a while the old man emerged, declaring triumphantly he had found an ancient anchor on the sea bed: a relic, no doubt of Siege of Troy, or the Odyssey. The whole Contrarian family was very excited. T“here is a warp tied to it!” Grumpy exclaimed, excitedly disappearing below the waves with another colossal splash. Bravely he followed the anchor warp for twenty yards across the sea floor, until it rose up, into the warm upper waters, broke the surface and revealed itself to be — ''attached to the runner over the prow of his own boat''.}} | {{quote|When the JC was a lad his Dad, Old Grumpy Contrarian, went snorkelling off a boat in the Ionian Sea. After a while the old man emerged, declaring triumphantly he had found an ancient anchor on the sea bed: a relic, no doubt of Siege of Troy, or the Odyssey. The whole Contrarian family was very excited. T“here is a warp tied to it!” Grumpy exclaimed, excitedly disappearing below the waves with another colossal splash. Bravely he followed the anchor warp for twenty yards across the sea floor, until it rose up, into the warm upper waters, broke the surface and revealed itself to be — ''attached to the runner over the prow of his own boat''.}} | ||