We are almost certainly living in a computer simulation
TEDx Conference, Oxford, March 2015.
TEDx Conference in Oxford is all about igniting a discussion between world’s famous philosophers
and brilliant young people, letting them inspire each other. Oxford, with its traditional abundance of
innovative ideas and bright minds, is truly the perfect spot for such an enlightened exchange of
ideas.
Today’s line-up is a big one: “Will humanity’s technological advancements ultimately destroy us?”.
The Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom is going to top the bill on that. Author of the essay “Are we
living in a computer simulation ?”, Bostrom envisioned a future full of human enhancement,
nanotechnology and AI long before it became a front-page topic.
His line of reasoning resemble Swiss army knives: they are crystal clear, bite-sized, with colorful
exteriors and precisely calibrated as a pendulum. Bostrom conjugates in this lecture rationality with
simplicity. One worth remembering quote from his speech says:
It’s a fact that Artificial Intelligence is getting smarter by leaps and bounds. When combined with
the enhancements in virtual reality technologies, one of the following propositions must be arguably
true:
In reality, we don’t have many clues telling us which of the three propositions is clearly ahead of
the others. However, some speculations are possible so let's consider the options one by one.
The first proposition is the scariest one. Why? As a rule, most scientists agree that, in the absence of
a natural disaster, the technological progress will continue forever. If we look closely at
Hollywood’s disaster films collection, there is indeed a vast choice of options that could lead to
Earth’s Armageddon, ranging from nuclear war to a climate disaster or a pandemic virus. Recently,
zombie’s fever has taken hold through mainstream culture as a possible end of humanity.
If we reason in pure astrophysics terms, our planet can survive as long as his star, the Sun, agrees.
In five billion years the Sun will become a red giant and swell to more than two hundred times its
present size, burning our planet to a crisp.
Take heart nonetheless. The chances are that we might have already departed from this planet or
even from a biologic body before the bell tolls for Earth.
The second proposition requires a strong convergence among all organizations, such that all them
decided to ban simulations with sentient beings in toto. One can imagine some possible reasons that
may lead civilizations to opt for this choice, chiefly ethical ones.I am not very much convinced of this option, especially for the “all” factor, which appears an
extreme constraint. I find hard to predict that all our descendants may be swayed by moral
considerations against a simulated Universe; nonetheless, there are also reasons for thinking it
plausible. Thus, we will explore in detail this option in the following chapters.
The third possibility is philosophically the most intriguing one, but it’s a residual option; so we
should obliterate the first two options to consider it valid.
Should we reject the first proposition, then we assume that future technologically advanced
civilizations would have access to a huge computing power before going extinct. So huge, in fact,
that they might be able to implement billions of simulations of their ancestors or whatever kind of
universes they wish to observe.
If we also reject the second proposition, by admitting that at least one madman empowered with a
supercomputer could start a simulation, then we should accept the third statement as it’s not
coherent to reject all three hypotheses.
According to the third proposition, we then believe that one day we could enjoy simulated realities
with conscious minds in it. But wait! There is more to it: with thousands, maybe millions or
simulations around, it is no stretch of the imagination to assume that own experience is likely to be
generated as part of a computer simulation launched by some advanced civilization.
What Copernicus, Einstein, and Planck, to name few, have discovered are the peculiar laws of a
simulated reality. These laws might or might not be similar to those operating in the base reality
where the simulation is being executed (which, in turn, is likely to be itself be a simulation). We
may be living in a sort of nested Russian-doll alike Universe, simulation within simulation within
simulation, etc.
One of the most persuasive arguments against the Simulation Hypothesis can be derived from the
second hypothesis postulated by Bostrom: that is, even if one day we will be so advanced to
simulate a world with sentient beings, it does not imply that we will actually do it. Does it?
TEDx Conference in Oxford is all about igniting a discussion between world’s famous philosophers
and brilliant young people, letting them inspire each other. Oxford, with its traditional abundance of
innovative ideas and bright minds, is truly the perfect spot for such an enlightened exchange of
ideas.
Today’s line-up is a big one: “Will humanity’s technological advancements ultimately destroy us?”.
The Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom is going to top the bill on that. Author of the essay “Are we
living in a computer simulation ?”, Bostrom envisioned a future full of human enhancement,
nanotechnology and AI long before it became a front-page topic.
His line of reasoning resemble Swiss army knives: they are crystal clear, bite-sized, with colorful
exteriors and precisely calibrated as a pendulum. Bostrom conjugates in this lecture rationality with
simplicity. One worth remembering quote from his speech says:
"Machine intelligence is the last invention that humanity will ever need to make."
It’s a fact that Artificial Intelligence is getting smarter by leaps and bounds. When combined with
the enhancements in virtual reality technologies, one of the following propositions must be arguably
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.
In reality, we don’t have many clues telling us which of the three propositions is clearly ahead of
the others. However, some speculations are possible so let's consider the options one by one.
The first proposition is the scariest one. Why? As a rule, most scientists agree that, in the absence of
a natural disaster, the technological progress will continue forever. If we look closely at
Hollywood’s disaster films collection, there is indeed a vast choice of options that could lead to
Earth’s Armageddon, ranging from nuclear war to a climate disaster or a pandemic virus. Recently,
zombie’s fever has taken hold through mainstream culture as a possible end of humanity.
If we reason in pure astrophysics terms, our planet can survive as long as his star, the Sun, agrees.
In five billion years the Sun will become a red giant and swell to more than two hundred times its
present size, burning our planet to a crisp.
Take heart nonetheless. The chances are that we might have already departed from this planet or
even from a biologic body before the bell tolls for Earth.
The second proposition requires a strong convergence among all organizations, such that all them
decided to ban simulations with sentient beings in toto. One can imagine some possible reasons that
may lead civilizations to opt for this choice, chiefly ethical ones.I am not very much convinced of this option, especially for the “all” factor, which appears an
extreme constraint. I find hard to predict that all our descendants may be swayed by moral
considerations against a simulated Universe; nonetheless, there are also reasons for thinking it
plausible. Thus, we will explore in detail this option in the following chapters.
The third possibility is philosophically the most intriguing one, but it’s a residual option; so we
should obliterate the first two options to consider it valid.
Should we reject the first proposition, then we assume that future technologically advanced
civilizations would have access to a huge computing power before going extinct. So huge, in fact,
that they might be able to implement billions of simulations of their ancestors or whatever kind of
universes they wish to observe.
If we also reject the second proposition, by admitting that at least one madman empowered with a
supercomputer could start a simulation, then we should accept the third statement as it’s not
coherent to reject all three hypotheses.
According to the third proposition, we then believe that one day we could enjoy simulated realities
with conscious minds in it. But wait! There is more to it: with thousands, maybe millions or
simulations around, it is no stretch of the imagination to assume that own experience is likely to be
generated as part of a computer simulation launched by some advanced civilization.
What Copernicus, Einstein, and Planck, to name few, have discovered are the peculiar laws of a
simulated reality. These laws might or might not be similar to those operating in the base reality
where the simulation is being executed (which, in turn, is likely to be itself be a simulation). We
may be living in a sort of nested Russian-doll alike Universe, simulation within simulation within
simulation, etc.
One of the most persuasive arguments against the Simulation Hypothesis can be derived from the
second hypothesis postulated by Bostrom: that is, even if one day we will be so advanced to
simulate a world with sentient beings, it does not imply that we will actually do it. Does it?
