Re:Guy commits his genome to Github, smartass forks and issu...
by wybo on Sunday February 13, 2011 @04:35AM
(#2212429)
There is this professor here at Oxford, Nick Bostrom, who argues that we are currently living in a simulation:
1) Moore's law holds across worlds. 2) People/beings will, for various reasons (historic, sociological, experimenting, play) want to simulate another world (at a social/molecular/submolecular, etc level). 3) If they simulate one, they'll likely do more. 4) Ergo, there will be more simulated worlds than real ones. 5) Therefore we are more likely to live in a simulated world/universe than in a first order one.
http://www.simulation-argument.com/
Think about this when you unplug something in the future...
Re:Guy commits his genome to Github, smartass forks and issu...
by philwelch on Sunday February 13, 2011 @07:03AM
(#2212568)
Close; he doesn't argue that we are living in a simulation, he argues that at least one of the following propositions is true:
- The human species is likely to go extinct before reaching a stage where it can simulate its ancestors.
- Future humanity will have no interest in simulating its ancestors.
- We are almost certainly living in an ancestor simulation now.
MAYBE even with bacteria and viruses to predict and then cure diseases before they even present themselves!
I doubt our understanding of genetics/biology is extensive enough for this yet, not to mention the computing power needed, but it seems quite possible.