Summary: This post extends Bostrom's 2003 simulation argument. I argue that:

The probability of being a biological observer isn't just "low"—it's measure-zero (finite ÷ infinite = 0)
Contemporary AI provides empirical support for substrate-independent functionalism, which the argument requires
This doesn't lead to nihilism—it leads to a framework I call "bounded meaning"

I'm looking for serious engagement and critique. What breaks? Where are the weaknesses?

Abstract

This paper argues that the probability of any conscious observer originating in base reality is not merely low but mathematically measure-zero. If technologically mature civilizations can run simulations with effectively unbounded breadth—and if simulated civilizations can themselves simulate—then simulated observers form a divergent series while base-reality observers remain finite. The probability ratio collapses accordingly.

A second premise grounds this formal result: contemporary artificial intelligence provides empirical support for substrate-independent functionalism, suggesting that consciousness depends on functional organization rather than biological material. A third premise supplies the simulation's purpose: simulations act as Monte Carlo experiments sampling the distributions of emergence phenomena such as abiogenesis, intelligence, and AGI development.

Together these premises imply that conscious observers almost certainly exist within simulations. Yet the paper argues that this conclusion does not entail nihilism. Instead, it motivates a framework of bounded meaning, in which experience is fully real within its container even if irrelevant beyond it. Epistemic inaccessibility of one's substrate limits verification but not significance.

I. Introduction: Updating the Simulation Landscape

In 2003, Nick Bostrom proposed a trilemma: either (1) almost no civilizations reach technological maturity, or (2) mature civilizations decline to run ancestor simulations, or (3) we are almost certainly living in a simulation. The argument was elegant but intentionally cautious; it did not assert that we are simulated, only that one of three propositions must hold.

Two decades later, the conceptual landscape has shifted.

First, artificial intelligence has advanced dramatically. Systems now exhibit forms of reasoning, adaptation, and self-monitoring once associated exclusively with biological minds. While their...

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