The Simulation Argument
From Simulism
- Article title: The Simulation Argument (or 'Are you living in a computer simulation?')
- Author: Nick Bostrom
- Date: July 2002
- Article Website: http://www.simulation-argument.com
- Article text: http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html
- Author Website: http://www.nickbostrom.com
[edit] Abstract
"This paper argues that at least 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. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed."
[edit] Discussion
The argument in the article is basically that if one day we develop super computers that can run complex simulations of human society, then there's a significant chance that we ourselves are living in such a simulation. (A matter of odds; a reality that can run simulations is likely to run a significantly large number of simulations.)