[extropy-chat] Simulation Argument critique (wasfermi'sparadox:m/d approach)

[Samantha Atkins]

On Sat, 3 Jan 2004 11:39:17 -0500
"Harvey Newstrom" <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:

> Samantha Atkins wrote,
> > There are many things in science
> > today that were not observed but were posited as "might be" 
> > explanations or even as pure thought experiments.  A "might 
> > be" does not relegate its content to belonging to religion.  
> > I am surprised by the characterization. 
> 
> That doesn't make it science.  If anyone ever develops a scientific theory,
> scientific proof, scientific investigation, scientific explanation or
> anything using the scientific method relating to the Simulation Argument,
> then it might become science.  Right now it is a religious belief, a fantasy
> story or maybe even a philosophical musing.  It seems that most people here
> don't have a good definition for what is science or not.  Arguing that it
> "might be true" or "hasn't been disproved" doesn't make it science any more
> than "Creation Science" is science.  

It is mere assertion to claim the simulation notion is a religious belief.  Currently I consider it an intelliectual curiousity that certain types of (mainly statiscal and future assumptive) arguments lend some possibility to.  I don't know if it can be scientifically tested at some future time or not or if rigourous scientific evidence will ever become available for it.  I certainly don't find the current supporting argument compelling enough to believe it is true.  But I think calling it "religious" is sloppy, prejudicial and uninteresting.

> 
> The simulation argument is almost identical to the creation science
> argument.  Instead of evolving by itself, the universe was created
> mid-stream with history already in place, and an external entity directing
> its actions.  We cannot detect that the history of carbon-dating or old
> light from other stars was simulated by God instead of really coming from
> those stars.  This makes much of the Creation Science universe a simulation.
> The intervention by God sometimes is like tweaking of the simulation.  
> 

Analagous reasoning is supposed to be more firmly "scientific".  Come now.  Why are we wasting our precious time bickering over something so small?   Sure, sure in a sim you can set up whatever you wish within the limits of some level of self-consistency.  But that by itself does not argue we are not in a sim or argue that even considering the possibility of being in a sim is itself "religious".

> I don't see how anybody can believe in the simulation argument without
> believing in most religions.  I don't see how anybody can claim the
> simulation argument is science without including most religions as science.
> 

I will grant you that the simulation argument is the only way I could consider many religious notions as remotely corresponding to reality.  But that doesn't make the simulation idea or considering it itself "religious". 

- samantha