The Main Argument for a Simulated Universe is Self-Destroying

The theory that we live in a simulated universe continues to attract attention, and it seems like a month never goes by without a web site producing a headline such as: Do We Live in a Simulated Universe? But the argument given for such a possibility is basically the same old argument that has been circulating since Nick Bostrom advanced it quite a few years ago.

The argument goes something like this:

1. The universe is billions of years old, and contains billions of galaxies, each containing many millions or billions of stars.
2. It is therefore likely that advanced civilizations arose on many planets long ago.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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. 
   
   
   
   Artistic depiction of a culture living on a moon revolving around an alien planet
   
   

There are a number of problems with such an argument, some of which I mentioned in a previous post entitled Why You Are Not Living in a Computer Simulation. One of the objections I made in that post is that it is very doubtful that any extraterrestrial civilization could produce a simulation matching the reality we observe. Some have estimated that such a simulation could be produced by creating a planet-sized computer. I doubt the feasibility of creating a computer that large. I also think it is very doubtful that even a computer the size of the sun would be enough to produce a simulation of what we observe, given the nearly infinite number of combinations that are possible, assuming that free will is real. 

 

In this post I will discuss a different objection to such an argument for a simulated universe, an objection I did not previously make. The objection I refer to is simply that the basic argument for a simulated universe is an argument that is self-destroying. This is because the argument reaches a conclusion that ends up destroying some of its premises.

To understand the concept of a self-destroying argument, let us consider a much simpler example. Consider the following argument:

1. John was born in the city of San Ansales in the United States.
2. Everyone born in the city of San Ansales looks like a Mexican.
3. People who look like Mexicans must have been born in Mexico.
4. Therefore John must have been born in Mexico.

This is a self-destroying argument, because the conclusion ends up destroying one of the premises used to derive the conclusion. If the conclusion is correct, and John was born in Mexico, then he cannot also have been born in the United States; and if he was not born in the United States, the whole argument falls apart.

The argument for a simulated universe discussed above is also a self-destroying argument. The argument reaches a conclusion that we are probably living in a simulated universe. But if we are living in such a simulated universe, there is no reason to believe in the first three premises of the argument. If we are living in a simulated universe, there is no reason to believe that the universe is billions of years old, no reason to believe that there are many other planets, and no reason to believe that there are other civilizations vastly older than ours.

If you assume that you are living in a simulated universe, what can you conclude about the existence of entities other than yourself? Almost nothing. You cannot conclude that observations of entities outside our planet correspond to an actual reality, because all such observations may simply be part of the fictional simulation. You cannot conclude that there really is a planet Earth, because your observations of our planet may merely be part of the simulation.

Shockingly, if you assume that you are living in a simulated universe, you cannot even assume that the people you observe with your own eyes are real people who exist, either physically or as people who are experiencing a simulation that partially matches the simulation you observe. You may have observations of your mother, but if you assume that you are living in a simulation you cannot assume that your mother really exists, and cannot even assume that your mother is at least experiencing some simulation similar to the simulation you are experiencing. What you perceive as your mother could be just a part of the simulation, like a CGI character in a video game or a movie. Or course, if you are living in a simulation, you also cannot assume that any of the people you see on the street really exist, either in a physical form or even in the minimal form of minds that are actually experiencing consciousness.

There is no reason to think that simulators creating a simulation would follow some “rule of simulation” which says that any human perceived in a simulation must also be experiencing his own simulation. So if you are in a simulation, there is no particularly good reason for believing that anyone else is experiencing the simulation other than yourself.

So once you have assumed that you are living in a simulated universe, you are only entitled to assume two things: that you exist at least as some form of consciousness, and that some unknown external agent exists that is producing the simulation you are experiencing.

Given such a radical situation, in which you can't even assume that anyone else you perceive really exists outside of your mind, it is very clear indeed that once you assume that you are in a simulation there is then no reason to believe that there exist other stars, other planets, and other alien civilizations, nor is there any reason to believe that the universe is old enough to have produced technically advanced civilizations on other planets.

This, then, is why the basic argument for a simulated universe is self-destroying. It starts out with some fairly plausible premises. But once it reaches its conclusion, that conclusion destroys the very premises used to reach that conclusion.

We can have no basis for assuming that there really are highly advanced extraterrestrial civilizations capable of simulating our experience unless we believe that we live in a real, material, non-simulated universe. But if we believe that, we cannot possibly use the likelihood of such civilizations as a basis for assuming that we live in a simulation.

3 Ways We Are Financing Our Own Ruin

The United Nations is out with a new report emphasizing the future perils from global warming. The report mentions problems being created right now by global warming: increased wildfires in North America, decreased food production in South America, and increased risk of diseases in Africa. The report highlights the many risks we will face in the future because of global warming. Among those risks are the risks that droughts will cause a huge portion of the United States to become a dry “dust bowl” before the end of the century, like the Dust Bowl of the 1930's.

Rusting silos in a Kansas "Dust Bowl" of 2085 A.D.

Secretary of State John Kerry made a statement emphasizing the dangers discussed in the report. "There are those who say we can't afford to act. But waiting is truly unaffordable. The costs of inaction are catastrophic," Kerry said.

Sounds like our government is going to seriously tackle the global warming problem, right? No. The truth is that in three huge ways our government is helping to finance our own environmental ruin. Let me list these ways.

Way Number 1: The Subsidizing of Heavy Auto Use

A significant fraction of global warming is caused by auto pollution, and the government exacerbates that type of pollution by heavily subsidizing auto use, as if it wanted us all to drive more.

Norman Myers and Jennifer Kent are the authors of the book Perverse Subsidies: How Tax Dollars Can Undercut the Environment and the Economy. They say that “the US car culture is supported by myriad direct subsidies,” and start out by listing various subsidies amounting to about 15 billion dollars a year. Then the authors considers the cost of road-building, road maintenance, bridge building, and bridge maintenance. This has a cost as high as 135 billion dollars a year. A part of this is directly paid by auto owners, in the form of highway tolls and bridge tolls; but most of it is paid by general taxes paid even by people who don't drive.

The authors also consider the cost of the roughly 3.5 million auto injuries and 40,000 auto fatalities that occur each year. The cost of that ranges between 33 billion and 360 billion, a large fraction of which is paid even by non-drivers. This is because a huge fraction of the people who are injured in auto accidents are covered by tax-funded health insurance programs such as Medicaid and Medicare (or other health insurance programs partially supported by tax dollars). There are also many thousands of people who get respiratory diseases from auto pollution, and many of them have their treatment covered by government healthcare programs.

Adding up the total cost of all subsidies for the US car culture, Myers and Kent reach an estimate of about 695 billion dollars per year.

Way Number 2: The Subsidizing of Meat Eating

A huge fraction of global warming is caused by all the agricultural overhead needed to support meat eating. A recent report estimates that by 2050 half of all agricultural emissions of global warming pollution will be due to the raising of beef and lamb – even though such food will amount to only 3 percent of human calorie intake. Cattle also make a huge contribution to global warming by emitting methane, which is a global warming pollutant much worse than carbon dioxide.

In the United States, meat eating is heavily subsidized. You do not pay the real cost of meat when you go to McDonald's and shell out a few dollars for a Big Mac. Of the roughly 200 billion dollars spent to subsidize agriculture between 1995 and 2010, two thirds of it went to crops used for animal feed or tobacco or cotton. Only 50 billion dollars went to support the growing of crops directly eaten by humans.

We also subsidize meat eating indirectly, by means of government funding of health insurance that very often goes to pay for diseases that are worsened by meat eating, diseases such as coronary heart disease and diabetes.

Way Number 3: The Subsidizing of Extravagant Houses

A significant fraction of global warming is caused by people who live large, and buy and maintain large houses. Newly built large houses have an extremely high environmental cost. Even when you buy a large house from someone else, you end up committing yourself to high energy expenditures for heating and cooling.

Our government worsens the environmental cost of living large by continuing policies that encourage people to buy big houses. The main example is the mortgage tax deduction, which encourages many people to buy bigger houses than they would normally buy.

A Tax Policy for Minimizing Global Warming Pollution

How could we reverse these policies, and adopt a tax policy that would encourage people to live in a way that helps preserve the environment? The answer is simple: end the subsidies, and make people pay the true cost of habits that are putting our planet in peril.

For autos, we could add a large tax on each gallon of gasoline (along with some corresponding measure to cover electric car users). So that drivers end up paying the real cost of driving, you might see a price of 7 dollars a gallon or 10 dollars a gallon at the gas pump, with most of that being a tax that would pay for all the costs of car culture. In regard to meat eating, besides ending subsidies for the growing of animal feed, we should have a federal meat tax that makes people pay the true environmental price of eating meat. In regard to house buying, we should end the mortgage tax deduction, and also enact a federal tax on house sales that discourages extravagant living. Such a tax could be based on family size. For example, a family of 4 might pay no federal house-buying tax if they were buying a house for $325,000 in Vermont, but they might pay a significant tax if they bought a house for $500,000.

If such taxes placed an unfair burden on the lower and middle classes, they should be matched by raising other taxes on the rich. 

 
No doubt many will react very negatively to such ideas. Yesterday we had a very well-reasoned post on a major site, one entitled The Economic Case for Taxing Meat. The comments on the post were almost all extremely negative. Everybody's attitude seems to be: What? You want ME to sacrifice a little? God forbid!

If people in this country had taken that attitude during World War II, there would now be Nazi swastikas flying over all of our post offices.

The Cloud of Victory: A Science Fiction Story

In the year 2040 when our little nation was attacked by the mighty superpower, the superpower wrapped itself in a cloak of good intentions. The superpower told the world that it had invaded our small country to bring greater prosperity to our citizens. But we knew the real truth. We had been invaded so that the superpower could grab our resources, resources that were all the more important in a world troubled by energy and mineral shortages.

I was the leader of the nation, so I met with the Defense Secretary to discuss how we would try to defend ourselves against the attack.

“Their divisions have stormed the border, and are heading towards this city,” I said. “Have we been able to maintain a decent defense line?”

“No,” said the Defense Secretary with an odd smile. “Not at all.”

“You don't seem too concerned about the situation,” I said, “but I am. What is the ratio of our forces and theirs?”

“The superpower has invaded us with twice as many soldiers as we have in our army,” said the Defense Secretary. “But don't worry, everything will be fine.”

Near our border the enemy divisions routed our small defense forces. Soon the enemy's divisions approached the nation's capital. I called an urgent meaning with the Defense Secretary.

“We're on track to lose this war, and lose this country to the enemy,” I said. “Isn't there something we can do, some last gamble?”

“There is,” said the Defense Secretary, smiling. “Come with me, and I'll show it you.”

The Defense Secretary arranged for us to travel to a huge factory ten miles away. When we got out of our vehicle, the Defense Secretary pointed to the building.

“There it is,” said the Defense Secretary. “This is going to win us this war.”

“A factory?” I said skeptically. “Our troops have been devastated. It's too late to get them some new weapon.”

“It's almost time for the moment of release,” said the Defense Secretary. “This is going to be a moment you'll never forget.”

And so it was. A short time later, I saw a stream of flying objects coming out of the factory. The objects formed into what looked like a dark cloud. The cloud kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Before long the cloud seemed to fill the whole sky, making it look like a summer sky that was about to erupt in a downpour.

“There it is,” said the Defense Secretary. “The Cloud of Victory. The cloud that will save us from the invaders.”

The giant dark cloud broke up into four smaller clouds, and each flew away into different directions, one to the east, one to the west, one to the north, and one to the south.

Later I learned the technical details. Each object in the cloud was a small flying drone, only about as long as a man's foot – a device called a mini-drone. Each mini-drone contained a power source, a metal detector, a motion detector, and an explosive. The original "Cloud of Victory" contained 30,000 small drones.

Each mini-drone had some simple programming. Each mini-drone was programmed to look for moving metal. When it detected a large piece of moving metal, the mini-drone would descend from the sky, crashing into the moving metal.

Almost all of the tanks of the invaders were destroyed from the sky by the mini-drones. The small mini-drones made little noise, and were hardly even visible in the sky, so it was all but impossible for a tank driver to know if a mini-drone was in the sky above him. One minute a tank driver might be driving along, thinking that there was no trouble anywhere near. The next minute a small mini-drone would descend from the sky, crashing into the tank and blowing it up.

Something similar happened to most of the enemy's soldiers. The soldiers were wearing armor, and carrying metal guns. When a small mini-drone in the sky detected the moving metal, the mini-drone would descend from the sky, crashing into the soldier, blowing him to bits.

The day before the Cloud of Victory appeared, the enemy was winning the war. But a few days later, the enemy's invading force was in shattered shambles. Humiliated, the defeated invaders withdrew.

I congratulated the Defense Secretary on his brilliant tactic.

“But what if the enemy comes back in a few years, armed with some defense against the Cloud of Victory?” I asked.

“Don't worry,” the Defense Secretary said. “By then we will have perfected the Annihilation Spray.”

A Precognitive Dream of Flight 370?

I often wake up remembering extremely detailed stories and images from my dreams. Last night, for example, I woke up remembering a very vivid and elaborate dream: a story of a rich man with a huge mansion who had some woman redecorate his mansion in some astonishingly colorful way.

But on about 9:00 AM EST on March 7, 2014 I awoke from a dream with the following strange thought in my mind: 6 Indian women murdered. I didn't remember any story associated with this dream, and couldn't recall any images associated with it. All I remembered was a phrase: 6 Indian women murdered.

After I ate breakfast and turned on my computer, I recorded my dream in a text file in which I occasionally record dreams I have had. I did a Google search to see whether there was any news report of six Indian women having been murdered. I found nothing, so I forgot about the matter for several days.

A few months ago I had started recording my dreams because a certain number of months before the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, I had a dream that the World Trade Center collapsed. In the dream I was an observer in the World Trade Center, and the floor gave way. I and everyone else plunged downward as the whole building collapsed. I then woke up, as I always do whenever I reach a terrifying or horrifying point in any dream I am having.

I mentioned to my wife that I had a dream that the World Trade Center collapsed, but then gave the matter no further thought until the events of September 11, 2001.

As it happens, the day I had the dream about the 6 Indian women murdered was the same day that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 mysteriously disappeared. The jet disappeared on March 8, 2014 local time, but when it disappeared the date in the United States was March 7, 2014. The jet disappeared 17:21 UTC on March 7, about 4 hours after my dream which occurred at about 13:00 UTC on March 7.

When I later realized this coincidence, I did a web search to find out how many Indian people on the jet died. According to this link there were 6 Indian people who died on the plane – 5 Indian nationals, and one Indian person from Canada.

If we assume that Flight 370 was lost because of a deliberate act of terrorism or because of a suicidal pilot, then there would be a fairly close match between my dream and the reality. I had dreamed that 6 Indian people were murdered on the same day that 6 Indian people may well have been murdered.

But I didn't quite get things exactly right – because only three of the Indian people who died were women. But presumably if precognition occurs, it is a rather hazy thing; so we wouldn't necessarily expect it to be 100% accurate.

There has been controversial research suggesting that precognition (knowledge of the future) actually occurs, most notably the “Feeling the Future” experiment done at Cornell University by Daryl Bem. Studies have been done on what is called presentiment, which is the alleged tendency of the human mind and body to start reacting to phenomena an instant before they occur. A recent meta-analysis examined 26 studies of presentiment, and concluded that there was a statistically significant effect that is unexplained (see here for a similar scientific paper). 

Some people think that precognition can occur in dreams. A writer named J. W. Dunne wrote a book called An Experiment With Time, in which he claimed that after he started recording his dreams after waking up, he found that many of them came true. 

One fascinating theory is that when events occur, they create ripples in some cosmic field, rather like the ripples caused when stones are dropped in a pond. Such ripples may travel forward in time or backward in time; and the more significant the event, the larger the ripple. Somehow the human mind might be able to pick up some of these ripples coming from the future. Such a theory could make sense only in a larger philosophical framework with an enlarged concept of the relation between the human mind and nature, one that transcended the reductionist dogmas of naturalistic materialism.

Was my dream an example of precognition, or was it merely a coincidence? I have no idea. I have no proof for the tale I have told here, so you can believe it occurred as I have described it, or you can believe I am just making it up.

I offer my heartfelt condolences to the families of all the people who lost their lives in Flight 370.