January 24, 2022
ALL ROADS LEAD BACK TO HUME:
Reality+ by David J Chalmers review - are we living in a simulation? (PD Smith, 19 Jan 2022, The Guardian)
Indeed, Chalmers argues that we could already be inhabitants of a virtual reality: "We can never prove we're not in a computer simulation because any evidence of ordinary reality could be simulated."This is known as the simulation hypothesis, the scenario that is explored in the recently released Matrix Resurrections. Chalmers points out that humans have already invented games that simulate real life, such as The Sims. These will become more sophisticated over time, with versions of them running on millions of devices. Furthermore, out there in the rest of the universe, "if any aliens have human-level intelligence, they should eventually develop computers and program them. If these alien civilisations survive long enough, they'll likely create simulated universes." Statistically speaking, that means simulated beings probably already vastly outnumber "real" ones. In other words, it's more likely we're living in a simulation than in the original version of our world.If we are indeed living in a simulation, then the creator of it is our god, be that a mad scientist, an alien or a teenage girl who has pressed a button in SimUniverse and set us going. As an atheist, says Chalmers, "the simulation hypothesis has made me take the existence of a god more seriously than I ever had before".
"Here then I find myself absolutely and necessarily determin'd to live, and talk, and act like other people in the common affairs of life. But notwithstanding that my natural propensity, and the course of my animal spirits and passions reduce me to this indolent belief in the general maxims of the world, I still feel such remains of my former disposition, that I am ready to throw all my books and papers into the fire, and resolve never more to renounce the pleasures of life for the sake of reasoning and philosophy."
Posted by Orrin Judd at January 24, 2022 12:00 AM