"Are We Living in a Computer Simulation?" A white-paper from a Yale philosophy professor who's working on a book-length version.
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 transhumanist dogma 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.
I wonder, though (duh). Arguments that we're living in a simulation remind me of arguments about The International Jewish Banking Conspiracy — if there is such a Conspiracy, how come I never got a check? Likewise, if I am a simulation of my pre-post-human self, then why wouldn't I simulate an environment for me that, generally speaking, kicked more ass?
(Thanks, Pamela!)
