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elfsImagine the following: You're watching ten television screens. Each one of them shows the exact same scene from the exact same show with the exact same actors, but each one is slightly different in some way: different camera angle, or different pitch and timing when lines are read, or so on. It might be ten different takes from the same taping session, but it isn't. Only one of those shows has actually been taped live; the other nine are variants in which the original scene was digitized and revised algorithmically.
Not exactly the stuff of science fiction. This is the art of machinima and while it's hardly automated it's a lot easier to automate parts of it than it was a decade ago, and the decade before that it didn't even exist.
So, let's take it into the realm of speculative fiction, you know, the kind that the laws of physics say can happen, we just haven't figured out how to do it yet. It might be possible someday to do with streams of consciousness what the above scenario does with light and action: be convincing to the viewer. This is the basis of much "upload" SF, from the absolutely terrible Lawnmower Man to the popular Battlestar Galactica and Matrix series, along with the more deeply considerate Diaspora.
So here's the basic argument of simulationism: given that nothing in the laws of physics as we know them says we can't create simulations of consciousness in a medium other than the grey meat between our ears, it is entirely likely that, at some point in the future, there will be more streams of consciousness experiencing customized simulations of our reality than there will be experiencing the reality you and I are currently sharing.
Therefore, if it is likely that you and I are living in a reality that has this capacity (a very high likelihood), it is equally likely that this has already happened and you and I are not living in the original reality.
The alternative is actually harder for me to believe: not only are we living in the Basement Universe, but we are the first species to do so. Ever. Since the beginning of eternity.
Wikipedia calls this the Simulation Argument and puts forth a number of criticisms. Some are valid, but I disagree that what the author puts forth as the "most likely" contrapremise doesn't fly: that no civilization, ever, develops the technology necessary to do a simulation. The technology exists: it works with that quick-and-dirty hack called the brain, dependent upon chemistry to operate correctly. The trick is figuring out how to do it in a more efficient medium.
Not exactly the stuff of science fiction. This is the art of machinima and while it's hardly automated it's a lot easier to automate parts of it than it was a decade ago, and the decade before that it didn't even exist.
So, let's take it into the realm of speculative fiction, you know, the kind that the laws of physics say can happen, we just haven't figured out how to do it yet. It might be possible someday to do with streams of consciousness what the above scenario does with light and action: be convincing to the viewer. This is the basis of much "upload" SF, from the absolutely terrible Lawnmower Man to the popular Battlestar Galactica and Matrix series, along with the more deeply considerate Diaspora.
So here's the basic argument of simulationism: given that nothing in the laws of physics as we know them says we can't create simulations of consciousness in a medium other than the grey meat between our ears, it is entirely likely that, at some point in the future, there will be more streams of consciousness experiencing customized simulations of our reality than there will be experiencing the reality you and I are currently sharing.
Therefore, if it is likely that you and I are living in a reality that has this capacity (a very high likelihood), it is equally likely that this has already happened and you and I are not living in the original reality.
The alternative is actually harder for me to believe: not only are we living in the Basement Universe, but we are the first species to do so. Ever. Since the beginning of eternity.
Wikipedia calls this the Simulation Argument and puts forth a number of criticisms. Some are valid, but I disagree that what the author puts forth as the "most likely" contrapremise doesn't fly: that no civilization, ever, develops the technology necessary to do a simulation. The technology exists: it works with that quick-and-dirty hack called the brain, dependent upon chemistry to operate correctly. The trick is figuring out how to do it in a more efficient medium.
