Simulation Argument

The Simulation argument is an argument for the simulation hypothesis, the concept was popularized in 2003 by Nick Bostrom's paper "Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?" where he argues that one of 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.

References

• Bostrom, Nick (2001,2003) Are You Living in a Computer Simulation Philosophical Quarterly (2003) Vol. 53, No. 211, pp. 243‐255.

• Bostrom, Nick (2011) A Patch for the Simulation Argument Analysis, Vol. 71, No. 1 (2011): 54-61

External links

• Nick Bostrom's Simulation Argument Resource page

See also

• Simulation hypothesis
• Nonperson predicate