[extropy-chat] The Simulation Argument (was: Atheists launch inquisition...)

[Giu1i0 Pri5c0]

But I don't emotionally dislike the conclusion that we live in a sim.
Actually, I emotionally LOVE it! When I was reading Nick's paper the
first time I was very excited and happy.
But while I have little doubts that we will become posthumans (if we
manage not to kill ourselves before), and that posthumans will have
the means to run sims, I think we have no info on the computational
cost of running a sim wrt their total computational resources, and no
info on their actual interest in running a sim. An experiment, of
course yes, but massive sims that include billions of conscious
beings? I don't know.
The SA is not religion of course but includes all elements found in
religion. You have an all powerful being who can answer your prayers
if she wants to, and wake you up in Heaven after death (she extracts
you from the most recent backup and injects you in a better sim).
G.

On Thu,  2 Dec 2004 09:09:10 -0800 (PST), "Hal Finney" <hal at finney.org> wrote:
> Giu1i0 writes:
> But mere emotional dislike of a conclusion should not cause us to
> re-evaluate our assumptions.  That would mean putting emotion over
> reason.  It is a non-Bayesian way of reasoning.  If we believed posthuman
> simulations had a certain probability before, we shouldn't adjust that
> probability merely if the SA convinces us that this implies that we are
> in a simulation, and that possibility feels spooky.
> 
> > No, I think the SA is one of those things that you just don't know
> > about. But its value is to show how one can build a religion perfectly
> > compatible with our scienfific knowledge of the universe.
> 
> I don't see the SA as having anything to do with religion.  It is a
> question of philosophy, of ontology, of metaphysics.  But not religion.
> 
> Hal