[extropy-chat] A reflection on the simulation argument

[Diego Caleiro]

This is a paper I did sometime ago about thoughts on the simulation argument,
It looked prettier in the open office than in mail format, but thats not the 
big point about it
 I'm not a phylosopher, I'm not even in university, so there might be some 
phylosophical or logical lacks in this reflection, Still, I'd like to hear 
from some of you what do you think about it.


Diego (Log At) 



Why I think we are probably not living in a computer simulation


Diego Caleiro's reflection on Nick
Bostrom's “Are you living in a 
computer simulation?”
http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html


	In Nick Bostrom's argument upon the possibility of all of us to be living in 
a computer simulation, he argues that one of the following propositions is 
true(1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a 
“posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to 
run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or 
variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer 
simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance 
that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, 
unless we are currently living in a simulation.
	In this paper I'll argue that the second proposition is more probably true 
than the third one.
	

	For any fundamental society ( a society that lives in the real world) 
achieving a posthuman era, it would require some premises that I'll assume:

The first of them is that in the real universe there are physical laws such 
that allow the existence of time, movement and therefore, propension to keep 
existing and propension to disapear. When I say propension to keep existing I 
mean a kind of survival of the fittest aplied to the physical rearrangements 
of the space discontinuity of that universe. As in our universe we have 
something that we call “matter” that stills existing, and some rearrangements 
of it more propense to exist than others, for example, a star is more 
propense to exist than a very small amount of matter togheter, lets say, ten 
atoms in vacuum. This happens because of our gravity force, which makes it 
more probable that matter arranges itself in bigger than   in small amounts. 

	The existence of time, movement and propension to keep existing is necesssary 
since we are assuming some society “becomes” posthuman, and it would also be 
required if we think that it is very improbable that such a thing as time has 
been invented, and, if time exists in our level, it would much probably exist 
in the fundamental level.

The second of them is that, in a survival of the fittest universe, when a 
conscient being become alive, it has more propension to survive if it is 
egoistic, and protects its creation (as darwin said), but, when it comes to 
happen to insurge a very powerfull conscient organism, it is likely to be 
altruistic in order to survive. 
	Let us use in example a room in old USSR were are the president, a cockroach 
and the Red phone, during the missile crisis in Cuba. The cockroach main 
worry must be egoistic, since she has to think how to get out of the 
president view in order not to be crushed, and therefore have a lot of little 
cockroaches a few days later. The Red phone rings, the president answers and 
he is told that, if he doesn't stop the missiles were they are, there will be 
a nuclear war, if he is to have egoistic thoughts, he will keep the missile 
going, and the war would eliminate most, if not all, humans in earth, the 
president concerns must be altruistic, otherwise, his propension to keep 
existing becomes very low. Of course I'm dealing a psicological concept of 
egoistic action, since you could argue that rationally he would be thinking 
in himself, not altruistically. Still, his action is something that commonly 
people would call altruism.

In our actual world, we have a lot of power in the hand of some people, 
technology gave us power enough to end it all but the darwinian evolution has 
given only ( or mostly)  the cockroach kind  of advance in our thinking, we 
achieved power without achieving biological patterns compatible with that 
power. Our evolution, biologically, was not prepared ofr intelligence, since 
intelligence led us to have a lot of power that is not necessary to survive, 
but it is definetely necessary to kill everyone, or most of us. In this 
sense, we must thank ethics and morals that allow people to take some 
non-cockroach decisions, even when their brains did a cockroach destructive 
thinking. 

	If we accord that any society that created posthuman civilization evolved in 
the principles of egoistic darwinism we will have thus that the posthumans it 
created are altruistic, this comes from a deduction as follows:  
if A is egoistic, and wants to create B, therefore B is suposed to do 
something good for A, otherwise A would not have created it, or would have 
destroyed it. At last, it could happen that B gets stronger than A even being 
a mistaken try, takes over the world or something like that, but, if this 
happens, it's rather improbable that B starts creating simulations of worlds 
like our. 

It follows that if there is a fundamental society such that it develops a 
posthumans with simulations universe, it is much more probable that this 
simulations are created by altruist senscient beings, rather than egoistic 
ones. 

What I think that are an altruistic creation implications

	When we think about what to do with a simulation, we think about it in the 
means of purpose, and our purposes are guided by egoistic ethics, therefore, 
we think about simulations based on their efficience in accomplishing tasks 
for us. That is something that a real altruist wouldn't do. A senscient 
altruistic being would think of a simulation as we think of having children, 
it is a creation of ours, and we are supposed to give it a happy life as much 
as we can. An altruistic senscient being would create a simulation in order 
to learn about his history, of course, but, mostly of all, he would create a 
simulation to allow a bigger number, and quality of senscient beings 
happiness, so, mostly, he would create worlds in which people are very happy 
and free, and as far as I'm concerned, our world is much probably not the 
happiest and most free world there can be, and, if it is, we should deeply 
rethink our efforts upon anything at all. 
	So, if the senscient altruist being is going to conceive a considerable 
number of simulations, most of them would not be historical, and, those which 
are, would mostly have few scient beings, since the simulation could run 
equally for senscient or not beings, and therefore its historical value would 
be the same in both cases. I'm declined to beleive that in a simulation where 
a considerable part of the population suffers would not be created unless the 
suffering part of the population were only zombie-kinded non senscient 
beings. This leads us to two possibilities, one of them with another  three 
possibilities inside: 
	The first possibility is that you are a very happy person, therefore you 
could (1)be living in a zombie world, like Truman Burbank, and I'm only an 
unconscious part of a machine, (2) in a part zombie, part senscient world,  
assuming that there are other senscient happy beings in your world, or (3) in 
the real world, and holy damn, you are lucky.  
	The other possibility is that you don't consider yourself so happy and 
satisfied, in this case, you are very probably in the real world.

Why I think we are in the real world

	As Nick Bostrom said, the possibility of us being in a personal world (as he 
says, a me-simulation)  is much smaller than the possibility of us being in a 
complete world, but, as I argued before, it is rather improbable that this 
world is the best conceived by our other level gods, that created us. Some 
philosophers have once defended god existence and goodness based on the idea 
that we coudn't be able to feel it, but this is the best world there may be. 
Most of the people don't think so, and I don't think our posthuman gods would 
create an enviroment like earth, with so many problems for most of us and 
solutions for few.
	The possibility of us being the creation of a egoistic posthuman, whose 
biggest passion is to observe and judge us, is possible, still, it is 
improbable that an egoistic superintelligence would be concerned with that.
	Conclusion: If we are to assume that a darwin based society developed 
post”human” superintelligence, then this superintelligence is probably 
altruistic, and therefore, if we are all senscient beings, we would live in a 
world with less sadness, hunger etc.. than the world we beleive we live in. 
That is why I think this is more probably the real world, the fundamental 
level than a secondary one.   

  

If you have any comments, suggestions, reflections, critics, e-mail me, I'll 
be glad to hear you    diegocaleiro at terra.com.br