The Simulation Argument

Answers to 19 of the most common questions.

Uses the claim make by Greene (2018) - that spawning simulations would expose the simulating civilization to termination risk - to argue that civilizations have reason not to create simulations, and that therefore they don’t. And hence that the second disjunct in the original simulation argument (i.e. strong convergence towards simulation abstinence) is true. Note however that for this to work the convergence would have to be very strong: if even a tiny fraction of posthuman civilizations value creating simulations more than they value reducing their own termination risk, or if some members of such civilizations occasionally create ancestor simulations despite this going against the interests of their wider civilization, then most people like us could still be simulated.

Argues that there may well exist a normative structure, based on the preferences or concordats of a “cosmic host” - which could include simulators and/or other superbeings. Suggests that we may have moral as well as prudential reason to favor paths that lead with relatively high surety to the creation of superintelligence that becomes a good cosmic citizen – i.e. that conforms to cosmic norms and contributes positively to this wider cosmopolis.

The central thesis of the book is virtual reality is genuine reality. This applies both to full-scale simulated universes, such as the Matrix, and to the more realistic virtual worlds of the coming metaverse.

Argues that a simulation-based solution to the problem of evil avoids several difficulties that beset more traditional subsumption theodicies.

Argues that we ought to refrain from creating ancestor simulations ourselves and from conducting experimental probes to check whether we are in a simulation, as doing either of these things would risk getting our simulation shut down (posing a termination risk): in the one case, to limit resource requirements at the basement level from a potentially indefinite recursion of simulations; and in the other case because the purpose of the simulation may thwarted if we empirically discern whether we are in a simulation or not (as oppose to if we are merely making probabilistic philosophical inferences that are available to simulated and nonsimulated civilizations alike).

One traditional response to the problem of evil is to attribute it to the exercise of human free will, which is said to be such a good that an omnipotent and perfectly benevolent being might create human free will even foreseeing that we will sometimes make bad choices. This leaves the problem of natural evil (earthquakes, malaria, etc.). Might a possible theodicy be that such evils are in fact not natural but the results of the exercise of free will on the part of simulators - who may have been endowed with free will by an omnipotent and perfectly benevolent being for the same reasons humans are traditionally thought to have been thus endowed?

Argues that although there may be more simulated than standard nonsimulated versions of human-like experiences, yet there is an even greater number of such experiences of a third category: those belonging to freak observers aka Boltzmann brains (i.e. spontaneously materializing free-floating conscious brain-states that arise extremely rarely as random thermal fluctuations). Some cosmological models appear to imply that most brains are Boltzmann brains, because the universe can continue to them indefinitely far into the future, long after all planets and spaceships etc. have decayed. Crawford concludes that there must be something wrong with the underlying reasoning pattern. However, an alternative conclusion is that the reasoning pattern is fine but that there is something wrong with the class of cosmological theories that imply that Boltzmann brains dominate. In fact, this is how cosmologists now mostly use the Boltzmann problem: to derive an important theoretical constraint on viable cosmological models.

Develops an objection similar to the one discussed under question 4 in the Q&A.

A critical discussion in the context of the doomsday argument.

Analyzes some analogies and disanalogies between the doomsday argument and the simulation argument, and concludes that the former fails while the latter succeeds.

A low-level physics simulation using the simplest simulation methods, which simulated our universe on a grid with finite resolution, would result in some potentially observable distortions of the simulated physics because of the rotational symmetry breaking effects of the simulation lattice. I would think that even the earliest simulations of systems sufficiently complex to contain observers would make use of powerful computational shortcuts that would eliminate the opportunity to observe any such discrepancies (mostly the simulation would take place at a much higher level of abstraction in order to reduce the computational demands).

This article reports on a newly discovered bug in the original simulation argument. Two different ways of patching the argument are proposed, each of which preserves the original conclusion.

Nick Bostrom’s Simulation Argument (SA) has many intriguing theological implications. We work out some of them here. We show how the SA can be used to develop novel versions of the Cosmological and Design Arguments. We then develop some of the affinities between Bostrom’s naturalistic theogony and more traditional theological topics. We look at the resurrection of the body and at theodicy. We conclude with some reflections on the relations between the SA and Neoplatonism (friendly) and between the SA and theism (less friendly).

My response to Brueckner (above), in which I argue that he has misconstrued the simulation argument. I also argue that he is mistaken in his critique of the idea that simulated beings may themselves create ancestor-simulations.

Short article by Brueckner in which he proffers “a new way of thinking about Bostrom’s argument”. (See below for my reply.)

We explain why, if we live in a simulated reality, we might expect to see occasional glitches and small drifts in the supposed constants and laws of Nature over time.

A future society will very likely have the technological ability and the motivation to create large numbers of completely realistic historical simulations and be able to overcome any ethical and legal obstacles to doing so. It is thus highly probable that we are a form of artificial intelligence inhabiting one of these simulations. To avoid stacking (i.e. simulations within simulations), the termination of these simulations is likely to be the point in history when the technology to create them first became widely available, (estimated to be 2050). Long range planning beyond this date would therefore be futile.

My reply to Weatherson’s paper (above). I argue he has misinterpreted the relevant indifference principle and that he has not provided any sound argument against the correct interpretation, nor has he addressed the arguments for this principle that I gave in the original paper. There are also a few words on the difference between the Simulation Argument and traditional brain-in-a-vat arguments, and on so-called epistemological externalism.

Weatherson is prepared to accept the Simulation Argument up to, but not including, the final step, in which I use the Bland Principle of Indifference. In this paper, he examines four different ways to understand this principle and argues that none of them serves the purpose. (For my reply, see the paper below.) Note that Weatherson accepts the third disjunct in the conclusion of the Simulation Argument - i.e. that there are many more simulated human-like persons than non-simulated ones. By contrast, I do not accept this: I think we currently lack grounds for eliminating either of the three disjuncts.

Those who believe suitably programmed computers could enjoy conscious experience of the sort we enjoy must accept the possibility that their own experience is being generated as part of a computerized simulation. It would be a mistake to dismiss this as just one more radical sceptical possibility: for as Bostrom has recently noted, if advances in computer technology were to continue at close to present rates, there would be a strong probability that we are each living in a computer simulation. The first part of this paper is devoted to broadening the scope of the argument: even if computers cannot sustain consciousness (as many dualists and materialists believe), there may still be a strong likelihood that we are living simulated lives. The implications of this result are the focus of the second part of the paper. The topics discussed include: the Doomsday argument, scepticism, the different modes of virtual life, transcendental idealism, the Problem of Evil, and simulation ethics.

If you might be living in a simulation then all else equal you should care less about others, live more for today, make your world look more likely to become rich, expect to and try more to participate in pivotal events, be more entertaining and praiseworthy, and keep the famous people around you happier and more interested in you.