- Scientists and Philosophers meet at the cutting edge of technology of simulation theory.
- Because the question is so vast, many experts approach it from very different angles.
- The weighted Bayesian calculation has many assumptions.
If real life in 2020 just seems overkill, take comfort with the latest news: Scientists say odds are still that we live in a simulation. The draw largely depends on what science we might discover in the near future, they say.
?? The world is f # @! – ing weird. Let’s explore it together.
The 50/50 probability is rounded from a calculation that results in the result more like 50.22222 to 49.77778. American scientist quotes the historical document of 2003 “Are we living in a computer simulation? “ by philosopher Nick Bostrom. It’s worth reading Bostrom’s brief summary in its entirety:
“I contend that at least one of the following statements is true: (1) the human species is very likely to become extinct before reaching a ‘posthuman’ stage; (2) any post-human civilization is extremely unlikely to perform a significant number of simulations of its evolutionary history (or its variations); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will someday become posthumans who perform ancestor simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. I discuss some consequences of this result.
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American scientist points out this The matrix and its aftermath did much to advance simulation theory, but philosophers have speculated in this direction for thousands of years. There are also many theories that flirt with simulation under the guise of radical solipsism and skepticism.
But Bostrom’s simulation theory is based in particular on computing power. They don’t have to be supercomputers as we imagine them today – think of proposed galaxy-scale superstructures like Dyson’s spheres, or even the imagination of Dyson. Star Trek writers. If there was a computer that could hold our entire universe inside, we probably wouldn’t recognize how it worked.
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Bostrom’s claim is both philosophically and probabilistically bold, with thoughtful results he placed almost on a pure binary. This led Columbia University astronomer David Kipping to run his own numbers using Bostrom’s argument as a guide.
Kipping started with Bayesian analysis, which allows the calculator to include assumptions as a way to help with modeling. And since Bostrom’s first two criteria both postulate that there is no simulation, he condensed them into a single criterion. Then, American scientist Explain, Kipping assigned “the indifference principle,” which is the most unspecific and unassumed “prior probability” you can use.
The next part requires a little deep breath.
“Kipping then showed that even under the simulation hypothesis, most of the simulated realities would be nulliparous”, American scientistWrites Anil Ananthaswamy, which means that simulations cannot generate their own additional simulations. He keeps on:
“Indeed, as simulations generate more and more simulations, the computing resources available for each subsequent generation decrease to the point where the vast majority of realities will be those which do not have the computing power necessary to simulate realities. offspring capable of harboring conscious beings. . “
It’s a mouthful, but it’s easy to understand if you think of a decidedly man-made simulation: the virtual machine. If you have an Apple MacBook and want to run a PC program, you can use a wrapper like Wine to install the program in a standalone computer which on its own is a real computer. But you’re not giving the VM your entire hard drive, you still need it to keep running the rest of your software and scrolling to Twitter. Like Russian nesting dolls, each creation should fit in fully and not encompass the parent.
Thus, this idea, according to which the simulations themselves are unlikely to generate other simulations, shifts the Bayesian “indifferent” calculation of a nuance towards Team Reality. But there are at least two pitfalls. The first is that Bostrom himself thinks it was fanciful to assign the indifference principle to begin with, to consolidate two parts into one part, and so on. He thinks this somewhat artificially weighted the results.
And second, if the programmers here on simulated Earth themselves create a simulated reality that includes conscious beings – which could take the form of a closed system of sentient artificial intelligences, for example – all of Kipping’s computation is nullified. .
But for now, on the shy side of 2001 Where Her, we still have some time in the Matrix.
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