Are We All Living in a Vast Computer Simulation? -A Galaxy Insight

Philosophy is a vital study for the human race - from the ancient Greeks to the modern day, some of the finest thinkers have examined the human condition and produced valuable insights and conclusions on what it means "to be."  Unfortunately much of the other work in the field is dubious, including a recent paper which argues that we're all living in a vast computer simulation.  Yes, it WAS written after the first Matrix film but before the sequels.  Funny that.

Unfortunately this isn't a fanfic: it's a refereed paper published in the Philosophical Quarterly, which must have been hurting for content.  It was written by, Nick Bostrom, the Director of the "Future of Humanity Institute" at Oxford University, the sort of person we'd generally assume to be above such things.  But we suppose that even those pondering the fate of the species need publicity and funding too - probably more than most people, in fact.

Reading the paper (link at the bottom of this article) is a fun game of "Spot the logical flaws" for all the family, with bonus points for every "Warning sign of BS paper" picked out.

The most egregious flaw is the use of a form of the fantastically annoying Bayesian argument: the idea that if we suppose there far more B-type of people  than A, then we're more likely to be born as a B than A.  It's been which has been used to argue everything from the imminent end of the species to this simulation silliness despite:

a) assuming that we're all somehow stacked up waiting to exist like capsule toys in a spiritual vending machine.
b) Statistics Error No 1: confusing probability with actual fact, and arguing that nothing but the most common option should exist.  For example, by the Bayesian argument you and everyone you know is Asian.
c) It's been an equally (in)valid at every stage in human history since we first dropped out of the trees, and was wrong then too.

Other warning signs:

- The "I'm right whatever happens" opener of this paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true:....(1) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (2) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation."

For those of you unwilling to dig through philosophical page-filler, this states "Either a) future people won't run simulations or b) they will".

- The "even if you disagree with this, the methods used are interesting" statement in the introduction.  If you can't even open the paper without admitting it's probably garbage that's a bad sign, and if your methods were that good you wouldn't need to point it out.

- The use of hideously underdeveloped math to make your wordswordswords look more scientific, combined with the "make this number very large" style of extrapolation.  Which works in some situations, which this isn't any of.

The main weakness of the paper is the usual "You can't prove if it isn't" argument, the same one that's been used for religion since forever.  But in cases like this it's not the skeptic's job to logically disprove an argument that has never been logically proved. If we state "The Earth, below a depth of ten miles, is composed entirely of pink candyfloss", you don't have to hire a drilling rig and a rogue team of lovable geologists to venture into the planets core to disprove us.

Likewise, if we say "We are living on Earth" and somebody else says "We (are part of a vast future simulation that goes to enormous trouble to make it seem like we are) living on Earth", you don't exactly need Occam's Razor to cut away the unsupported dross from that statement. Occam's blunt butter knife is more than sufficient.

Posted by Luke McKinney from a remote arm of the Milky Way.

Source:

http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation

Comments

[Dennis]

So, is this simulation just for my benefit, or do some of you actually exist? Did I dream Luke McKinney up, or is he being supplied by the o/s?

[brooks]

you make good points, but beware of an incautious reliance on occam's razor. it is more a general reminder to think parsimoniously, than it is a rigorous rule for discerning best-fit hypotheses; it is not axiomatic.

[Sarah]

This is all a modern re-working of the 'we're only seeing the shadows of the real world' argument and is the thin veil for the cry 'but, but... why!?! what's it all FOR?!?'
I'm working on my truth for that ... get back to you...

[upirons]

"Posted by Luke McKinney from a remote arm of the Milky Way."

- Or a computer simulated Luke McKinney from some remote bit of nougat on the programmer's milky way candy bar.

[opit]

I would think 'The 13th Floor' - a movie based on the 60's novel 'SimulaChron 3' - would make the simulated reality case as well as the Matrix.
Hinduism is only one religion to posit such concepts. Who hasn't heard of the Australian Aboriginals' DreamWorld or of TM and the Astral Plane ?

[Woody]

Philosophy isn't a science. Therefore you can't judge it with the same tools. Any scientific mind is going to cut to pieces a philosophical argument, but they aren't speaking the same language.

It is as useless to argue philosophy using science as it is to argue religion with science.

[jer35mx]

Well, some consider the theoric physics as Phylosofical in the basic terms. We can think that the brain is the mind, but the mind is, well, I tried to pack the mind in my brain and it's always bigger. It's like the matrix glitches thing, you can "auto sugestionate" you to visualize an image in your brain or "in front of your eyes" any sport player can tell you that, Is that phylosophical or physics and science?.

[Luke Stanley]

Actually I think your refutation was very weak.

You didn't actually refute it at all. You just stated your opinion.

Using Bayes doesn't mean "you and everyone you know is Asian".
When did you last use a spam filter?
Bayesian statistics can work pretty well. In fact, for me, Asian email's shouldn't get through much, cause since I can't read a single fancy little character, let alone paragraphs and paragraphs of them, it's probably spam.

[Sam]

Gosh, Mr McKinney! I'm a great DG fan and much appreciate your writing and insights - usually. But this piece seemed less of an insight and more like a wholesale drive-by bloodbath!

You've certainly made me think further about the propositions of Nick Bostrom et al and I may have been more swayed if not for the fact that we now have Craig Hogan and GEO600 somewhere on the horizon. I'd really rather wait for their results before I leap to a conclusion that predisposes to thinking that the cosmos is a thing-in-itself and not the product of some form of simulation.

But thanks for the mental wakeup! Just the ticket in this season of Transubstantiation!

[Lindsay l'Haurault : Australia]

A long time before "matrix" there was a theory and probably still is that we are existing in an sub atomic world,where ther atoms are actually galaxies in this "higher" world and we all are contained in a speck of dust on a policeman's lapel(isn't that like the cops,to be in everything)
Lindsay

[Ray Rand]

For months now Daily Galaxy has been set as my home page. I've told others about it and really think highly of the content in general. Your obvious disdain in this piece for those who might disagree with you on this issue, however, has made me slightly less enthusiastic about this web site. I was actually never a huge fan of the Matrix, being a hard science fiction junkie since I first learned to read (I'm 40). This theory by Dr. Bostrom, though, when I first read it several years ago, struck a chord with me. My suspicion is that you don't fully understand the premise of this theory.

Take the following, entirely plausible scenario, based on current trends in technology and virtual modeling. Humanity develops supercomputers powerful enough to simulate a virual universe, replete with virtual galaxies, stars, planets and AI creatures. The virtual creatures live out their entire lives not knowing they are in fact simulations. If we can imagine that this may one day be possible, who's to say we did not originate in the same manner? I seriously doubt Dr. Bostrom is imagining a nerd deity sitting at a computer made from plastic, silicon and metal, creating the universe using something akin to Microsoft Universe Simulator 9.0. I also seriously doubt that he's implying that we are any less real due to the nature of our existence. And doesn't Superstring Theory (still just a theory, yes I know) posit that the world we experience as three dimensional is really made up of two dimensional vibrating strings? Couldn't you say this is similar to computer code that makes up three dimensional virtual reality?

I tend to lean towards believing that the Cosmos is infinite. I think it's very plausible that as we may one day create universes and creatures of our own, that we may in fact have originated from similar means. And whatever or whomever brought humanity into existence, may have also sprung from something before it that also brought it forth. There is so much we don't know and may never know. I think Dr. Bostrom's theory is as plausible as any I've heard so far regarding the nature of our existence.

[Jojo]

Isn't writing an article on a paper written 8 years ago showing how desperate you are for content yourself?

[richard]

Geez, what's with the hitpiece Luke?

[Jean Valhean]

The Universe simulation theory is as old as the Greeks. It is a worthwhile study hypothesis, and it is despicable to treat it so lightly and with such disdain.
I do not believe in this theory, but I expected a more serious presentation of it

[Nicolò]

"[...] a refereed paper published in the Philosophical Quarterly, which must have been hurting for content."

Why would you say "which must have been hurting for content"? This issue of living in a simulated world (in broader terms, obviously) is one of the most renown in philosophy, from Plato to Descartes and beyond... why wouldn't you publish a paper on that in a philosophy journal? It seems to me pretty standard content. Maybe the fact that the issue was made popular by The Matrix makes you think that philosophers are out of ideas and they start taking topics for their papers from recent movies, while ignoring the fact that it is actually the other way 'round.

Now, if the paper is of bad quality, that's another issue, but I wouldn't discredit the topic per se, that's what I'm saying.

[alan]

I didn't read the article but it's clearly hogwash if only because of the issue of 'personal consciousness'. Any future programmer would have no way to know that he had created personal consciousness (because we 'look like' we're thinking doesn't demonstrate we are. Look at The Sims for a crude example).

If there's any kind of simulation going on the only one that would make sense is the cliched Me, In A Room Hooked Up To A Sensory Creation Machine to create my personal simulation. But where's the motivation? My life is far too humdrum. If I were writing this as Barack Obama then maybe I'd be having a sudden 'OOOOOOOOHHHH' moment now.

But I'm not.

[Karl Farenheit]

Hum,

Unfortunately for you, the weakness of your arguments in trying to destroy an article that is very well written, shows the low level of your intellect. It clearly shows that you understood very little of what you are trying to dismantle. It also shows that you are a bit full of yourself.

[boondoggle]

Perhaps you would be better suited to write about spaghetti. For example, I enjoy mine with a light, yet spicy marinara.

[claudio]

Nick Bostrom, the Director of the "Future of Humanity Institute" at Oxford University ...needs to weak up....or to try to search less popularity with Bull-shit.

I am sure ,Occam razor or Not ,that if he cuts his face with a razor , in the morning , when shaving....there is Not much simulation around that....and when he will die there will also not be much simulation around.

The uiverse we live into is dramatically real....then Mr.Bostrom can write what he likes...

But when we read such stupid things we loose faith also in those who published him.....including
the 'refereed paper published in the Philosophical Quarterly', All that is JUNK.

Phylosophy that I agree with some commenters 'is Not a science' is though a serious discipline.

Regards to the real world we live into...in spite of the fact that reality could always be better....of what it is nowadays.

[Ridiculous]

The author of the post assumes naturalistic philosophy of truth, i.e. that the environment we can detect is all their is, there is nothing other then what we're able to observe via our senses.

The idea that science and philosophy are seperate is also biggest lie the average person believes today. Science grew out of philosophy and you have generations of philosophers and thinkers who came up with the set of systems that were combined into what we know as science today.

[Television Spy]

interesting theory, but I think therefore I am . ..or should that be I process therefore I am.

[Mark]

Hmmmm. Luke, the general tone and simple typos throughout your write-up suggest a strong personal issue going on here. It would have been far more enlightening to have read about that than the simplistic and school bully-like approach you took to the article in question. It wasn't that long ago that such dismissive attitudes were aimed at what are now everyday realities...the capacity of computers, hell...even cell-phones. A theory is just that...a theory. To dismiss it in the manner you did limits and inhibits progress of thought. Remember the 'Theory' of Relativity...it's premise considered hogwash by many but becoming the 'compost' for immense scientific and philisophical growth. Hell, the multiverse theory is just as unbelievable as the computer simulation idea to many but I'm not tossing it out just yet. Mellow, take a breath, have a bit of fun and don't build walls.

[Mike]

Wow--amazingly lame attempt to refute the old "Brain in a Vat" scenario. It's been around since Plato, no one's been able to lay a scratch on it, and (surprise) you haven't either.

Anyone who's ever gotten enthralled in a good game of Quake realizes that Simulism is about to become a distinct possibility. Or--it already is.

[Jeff]

The author does not understand Bayesian probability and uses an incorrect interpretation. Also, Philosophy isn't a science anyways. Based on these two facts, I am not sure how much value you can give to this article.

[noumuon]

to the writer of this article:

you fail at logical comprehension. nothing in the simulation argument is an argument that we're living in a simulation. the conclusion is that if we are able to develop a simulation of reality, then we're *probably* living in a simulation. one would almost wonder if you didn't even read the actual paper, but then that would merely be device of avoidance to shy away from your complete idiocy, as nothing you say really relates to the arguments presented in the paper.

ps: claiming occam's razor is a proper choice for selection is no different than not understanding probabilities. unless you have total information of a system, occam's razor is just betting on a roulette table.