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Simulation hypothesis: Difference between revisions
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Spoiler: ''[[a priori]]'' arguments are conjuring tricks. They are fun and entertaining. but don’t try them at home. This one is practically impossible to try at home, of course, which is, perhaps, why apparently intelligent people who ought to know better, like Neil deGrasse-Tyson, are sucked in by it. | Spoiler: ''[[a priori]]'' arguments are conjuring tricks. They are fun and entertaining. but don’t try them at home. This one is practically impossible to try at home, of course, which is, perhaps, why apparently intelligent people who ought to know better, like Neil deGrasse-Tyson, are sucked in by it. | ||
===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 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. | |||
#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=== | ||