Nick Bostrom is back at it
again, once again pitching his theory that we live in a universe
simulated by extraterrestrials. The
argument for this idea goes something like this:
- The universe is billions of years old, and contains billions of galaxies, each containing many millions or billions of stars.
- It is therefore likely that advanced civilizations arose on many planets long ago.
- Such advanced civilizations would have fantastically advanced computing powers, including the ability to create incredibly complicated simulations so realistic they would be indistinguishable from reality.
- Even if only a small fraction of such civilizations created such simulations, the total number of simulations they would create would be incredibly high, probably many times higher than the total number of planets containing civilizations similar to ours.
- We therefore should conclude that we are probably living in such a simulation, rather than living on a real planet in a non-simulated universe.
This reasoning is not
convincing. We have not the slightest evidence that any civilization
could be capable of simulating human experience in a way that would
result in a being who would actually have a flow of consciousness in
the way that you and I have a flow of consciousness. There is every
reason to suspect that producing such a simulation would be so
difficult that it could not even be accomplished by planet-sized
computers, particularly given the nearly infinite number of variations that are
available in the lives of people such as us who appear to have almost
unlimited choices.
We do not understand at
all our consciousness, and it seems all too plausible that our
experience and consciousness involve some mysterious X factor that
cannot be accounted for by mere brain activity. Since it is quite
dubious that any technology can produce anything like human
experience as a human experiences it, it is very premature to be
speculating about some technology that could not only create
something like experience as we experience it, but also accomplish
the gigantically greater task of producing such a thing within a
simulation that tricked you into believing that there was an external
physical universe corresponding to what your senses perceive.
Bostrom's speculation about a simulated universe is rather like
making a speculation about traveling to other stars before anyone has
shown that you can even build a rocket.
A person advancing the
idea of a simulated universe will try to kind of “keep the monster
in the box,” by presenting a scenario that doesn't scrap too much
of our basic assumptions about reality. The thinker may describe the
simulation as being produced by advanced extraterrestrials like those
we have imagined in our science fiction shows. The thinker will also
probably suggest that under this simulated universe we can still
believe in the reality of other humans that we see with our eyes, and
still believe that the human past has happened pretty much as we
imagine. The idea is kind of that your life is part of a simulation,
and that your neighbor's life is also part of the same simulation ---
so your neighbor has experience just like you have, and he's real in
the same sense you are.
But once you introduce the
idea of a simulated universe, you can't keep the monster in the box.
Once you introduce the idea of a simulated universe, all bets are
off, and there is no solid
rock of reality on which you can stand.
For one thing, if you
believe in a simulated universe you can't conclude one blessed thing
about those who have created the simulation. You can't reason that
they are super-advanced extraterrestrials living on some planet,
because there is no particular reason why universe simulators would
create a simulated universe similar to their own universe (rather
than imaginatively making up something totally different from their
universe). So the creators of the simulated universe could be
trillion-mile long purple dragons floating in a nonsimulated
cotton-candy universe, or any of a million crazy alternate reality
ideas you might think of. With such a range of possibilities,
science pretty much disappears, and we're in the realm of “anything
goes” fantasy and speculation.
For another thing, if you
believe in a simulated universe, you can make no conclusion about how
long humans have really existed or how long you have existed. For it
might be that the computerized simulation of our experience really
started, say, two days ago, and that the simulation makers merely
uploaded the memories of your past experiences, and that you never
really had such experiences.
For another thing, if you
believe in a simulated universe, you may well end up in a sick little
place that I might call monohumanism. To explain the idea of
monohumanism, I may first explain the concept of solipsism. Solipsism
(in its most radical form) is the idea that all that exists is the
self. A solipsist may say to himself, “I exist, but everyone else
is just some image or perception in my mind.” A solipsist may
think that he is the only one that exists in the universe.
Monohumanism is a rather
similar position, but not exactly the same. A monohumanist is one who
believes that he himself is living in a computer simulation created
by one or more unknown simulation agents. Using a kind of principle
of parsimony, a monohumanist is one who assumes that there is no need
to assume that any other human beings exist other than himself. The
monohumanist may say to himself, “I exist, in the sense of having
the experiences I experience; but there is no need for me to assume
that those I see with my eyes or hear with my ears are also people
having actual experiences like I have --- they probably only exist as
perceptions in my mind, perceptions provided as part of the computer
simulation I am experiencing.” So a monohumanist doesn't believe
that he is the only mind in the universe. He simply thinks that he
is only mind corresponding to a person living on planet Earth.
Once you start believing
in a simulated universe, monohumanism seems all too possible. For it
is not at all obvious that if a universe simulator was providing you
a simulated reality, that such a simulated reality would also be
provided to anyone else you saw with your eyes. If you are living in
a computer simulation, it could be that when you hear your neighbor
talking, his words were chosen not by an external mind corresponding
to your neighbor, but instead were chosen by the same computer that
is providing the overall universe simulation.
What are the moral
consequences of monohumanism? They are absolutely poisonous. Once you
get someone believing that the people he sees with his eyes are not
really people experiencing pain and pleasure, but are merely “parts
of the computer simulation,” then the door to every form of
wickedness has been opened. A monohumanist will always feel free to
act in any way that pleases him, on the grounds that no matter what
he does, he isn't really causing pain or suffering for any other
human, since such humans are merely “part of the simulation” not
corresponding to individuals who actually suffer.
Speculation may lead you to a weird, distorted view of your fellow humans
This is where speculations
about a simulated universe may lead you – to a dark, twisted place
in which you have used some fancy speculative reasoning to give
yourself a green light for any evil. Ignore such nonsense, which is
a big waste of time, and a step on the road to insanity. There is
not the slightest evidence that we live in a simulated universe.
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