The Simulation Argument

Interview for the Philosophy Bites podcast.

David Chalmers, a philosopher at ANU, talks about the simulation argument and assigns 20% probability to being in a simulation.

There is a powerful logical argument that they [simulators who constructed the reality we experience] could very possibly be science fact.

Article in NY Times

Another popularization. (Has been translated into Spanish, Russian.)

A very brief, popular synopsis. But please read the original paper (above) instead if you can.

Yet another popularization, for Matrix-aficionados.

Answers to 16 common questions.

If you might be living in a simulation then all else equal you should care less about others, live more for today, make your world look more likely to become rich, expect to and try more to participate in pivotal events, be more entertaining and praiseworthy, and keep the famous people around you happier and more interested in you.

On several Brains-in-vats and Matrix-like scenarios. Argues in support of what is also my contention, that the simulation-hypothesis is not a radical skeptical hypothesis.

Those who believe suitably programmed computers could enjoy conscious experience of the sort we enjoy must accept the possibility that their own experience is being generated as part of a computerized simulation. It would be a mistake to dismiss this is just one more radical sceptical possibility: for as Bostrom has recently noted, if advances in computer technology were to continue at close to present rates, there would be a strong probability that we are each living in a computer simulation. The first part of this paper is devoted to broadening the scope of the argument: even if computers cannot sustain consciousness (as many dualists and materialists believe), there may still be a strong likelihood that we are living simulated lives. The implications of this result are the focus of the second part of the paper. The topics discussed include: the Doomsday argument, scepticism, the different modes of virtual life, transcendental idealism, the Problem of Evil, and simulation ethics.

Weatherson is prepared to accept the Simulation Argument up to, but not including, the final step, in which I use the Bland Principle of Indifference. In this paper, he examines four different ways to understand this principle and argues that none of them serves the purpose. (For my reply, see the paper below.) Note that Weatherson accepts the third disjunct in the conclusion of the Simulation Argument - i.e. that there are many more simulated human-like persons than non-simulated ones. By contrast, I do not accept this: I think we currently lack grounds for eliminating either of the three disjuncts.

We explain why, if we live in a simulated reality, we might expect to see occasional glitches and small drifts in the supposed constants and laws of Nature over time.

My reply to Weatherson's paper (above). I argue he has misinterpreted the relevant indifference principle and that he has not provided any sound argument against the correct interpretation, nor has he addressed the arguments for this principle that I gave in the original paper. There also a few words on the difference between the Simulation Argument and traditional brain-in-a-vat arguments, and on so-called epistemological externalism.

Covers many related issues, but may be hard to understand without the oral presentation that is meant to go with these 79 slides.

Short article by Brueckner in which he proffers "a new way of thinking about Bostrom's argument". (See below for my reply.)

My response to Brueckner (above), in which I argue that he has misconstrued the simulation argument. I also argue that he is mistaken in his critique of the idea that simulated beings may themselves create ancestor-simulations.

A future society will very likely have the technological ability and the motivation to create large numbers of completely realistic historical simulations and be able to overcome any ethical and legal obstacles to doing so. It is thus highly probable that we are a form of artificial intelligence inhabiting one of these simulations. To avoid stacking (i.e. simulations within simulations), the termination of these simulations is likely to be the point in history when the technology to create them first became widely available, (estimated to be 2050). Long range planning beyond this date would therefore be futile.

An MIT computer science grad student theologizes.

Nick Bostrom’s Simulation Argument (SA) has many intriguing theological implications. We work out some of them here. We show how the SA can be used to develop novel versions of the Cosmological and Design Arguments. We then develop some of the affinities between Bostrom’s naturalistic theogony and more traditional theological topics. We look at the resurrection of the body and at theodicy. We conclude with some reflections on the relations between the SA and Neoplatonism (friendly) and between the SA and theism (less friendly).

A student's MA thesis

This article reports on a newly discovered bug in the original simulation argument. Two different ways of patching the argument are proposed, each of which preserves the original conclusion.

Some theists maintain that they need not answer the threat posed to theistic belief by natural evil; they have reason enough to believe that God exists and it renders impotent any threat that natural evil poses to theism. Explicating how God and natural evil co-exist is not necessary since they already know both exist. I will argue that, even granting theists the knowledge they claim, this does not leave them in an agreeable position. It commits the theist to a very unpalatable position: our universe was not designed by God and is instead, most likely, a computer simulation.

A low-level physics simulation using the simplest simulation methods, which simulated our universe on a grid with finite resolution, would result in some potentially observable distortions of the simulated physics because of the rotational symmertry breaking effects of the simulation lattice. I would think that even the earlist simulations of systems sufficiently complex to contain observers would make use of powerful computational shortcuts that would eliminate the opportunity to observe any such discrepancies (mostly the simulation would take place at a much higher level of abstraction in order to reduce the computational demands).

Develops an objection similar to the one discussed under question 4 in the Q&A.

A critical discussion in the context of the doomsday argument.

Analyzes some analogies and disanalogies between the doomsday argument and the simulation argument, and concludes that the former fails whille the latter succeeds.