The Simulation Argument - Page 5

On June 18 2016 08:32 PIetraxon wrote: They are possibilities, but likely? If they were likely, then I think we must also accept other things as likely as well, such as the question I proposed earlier: Suppose that the creation of human life forms is no more than a matter of chance (freak chance, but still just chance). If the sample size is large enough (really, really large), then trillions upon trillions of iterations of humanity are going to be created, and so if the universe is endlessly large and endlessly old in one way or another, then such a number of iterations of humanity is bound to be created, with many of them probably never even exploring virtual technology, let alone creating a simulation like the one we speak of. Doesn't this make it incredibly likely that we are living in one of those 'real' iterations of humanity?

Let's entertain the beginning assumptions in your argument for a minute:


1. universe is infinite or close to infinitely large

2. because the universe is so large, trillions of iterations of humanity exist in the universe


ok sure, why not (afaik there is no reason either of these are not technically possible)

However, the next part of your argument:


3. as so many iterations exist, many of them will probably never explore virtual technology (and not create simulations)


I have a problem with this.

Why do you suddenly insert the assumption "will probably never even explore virtual technology"?

I can't think of a common reason why humans that would be fundamentally the same as us, would not eventually discover this technology. Why? Because if they are human, they will be similar enough to us that they won't just settle being hunter gatherers or reach a certain amount of technology and then just stop.

I think it'll be quite hard to offer an argument that would make this assumption likely, especially considering in the only sample we have of humans, we are obsessed with such technology.

I could see some extreme cases where this could occur, such as some radical totalitarian culture is developed that takes over the world and limits scientific advancement but these would be the exceptions, not the norm.

Lastly:


4. Doesn't this make it incredibly more likely that we are living in one of those 'real' iterations of humanity? (instead of a simulation)


Answering "yes" to this relies on 3 being accurate, which i do not think it is. Once 3 is no longer accurate, the answer to this will never be close to "yes".

Suppose we keep evolving AI and bio-engineering, isn't it possible that 10 000 years from now we humans (supposing we are the real thing) would send AI out far into space to colonize the world and do some testing; in places where we ourselves can't or don't want to go? These "bio creations" could be extremely similar to humans, but not real humans, and they would not possess the level of insight necessary to figure out that they are not actually humans. We would of course send other living flora and fauna along with the artificial humans so the new "AI-human world" could be fully colonized. It would probably take more time before this could be possible (compared to creating a perfect simulation), but in my mind it is no less or more likely to happen than the simulation. So now I ask two questions: 1) Isn't it more likely that we are living in one such artificial colony than that we are the real human ancestors (who are probably nested somewhere far, far away)? and; 2) Which is more likely - that we are living in a simulation, or that we are an artificial human colony? Would there be more simulations than colonies? I think the colonies would ultimately turn out to be significantly more useful at providing data, so wouldn't they end up shutting down all simulations and expanding the number of colonies? Not to mention that, just like with the simulations, a colony could end up creating its own colonies.

I entertained the last one as it's within the realm of plausible for me but this one is kind of ridiculous. The main problem here is the assumptions setting up the path to a place where many iterations can take place is too unlikely. Mainly the logistics of traveling to other planets that could support human life; such planets are not common and traveling to them takes a long time.

Then that you are tailoring all the variables of this scenario to be a replacement for a simulation when in reality such a scenario is much more likely to take places for the purposes of space exploration, colonizing other planets, etc. And so using fake humans that don't know they are fake becomes very unlikely for me.

Even in the case that your assumptions are correct and we do send out "bio creations" to all corners of the universe that self populate. How does that explain our place in evolution? What are all these bones of our ancestors and evidence millions of years of our evolution doing here?

-

One of the reasons I give Bostrom's argument so much credit is because it's sound and doesn't have these kinds of holes in it. After >13 years of academics reviewing it and nerds like us on internet forums debating it, no one has been able to find some fundamental flaw that brings it all down. Not to say there hasn't been some good arguments against it but nothing sharp enough to cut it up. Time will tell though.

I just don't think the assumptions/premises the Simulation Argument is built on is valid, and by those I mean: A) That we will ever possess the technology to build such a simulation. B) That someone will ever care to make many o them (or even one).

These are not premises or assumptions they are actually included in his 3 propositions. So your objections are already covered.

A) could be true, in which case

1. "The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage (that is, one capable of running high-fidelity ancestor simulations) is very close to zero"

would be true

B) could also be true, in which case

2. "The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero"

would be true

-

People seem to forget (especially those that are not used to thinking probabilistically) that Bostrom's argument doesn't say we live in a simulation, it's just 1 of the 3 possibilities. So when you argue that we'll never have the computational resources to do this you're actually arguing for proposition #1. When you are arguing that the level of interest in these simulations will be so low that very few will be run, you are arguing for proposition #2

The interesting part and the crux of simulation argument for me is the case where #1 or #2 are proven to be not true.

ie. the day that humanity turns on such a simulation and sees that it's actually real - how can we then deny a substantial possibility that we are also living in one?

On June 18 2016 11:38 Skoal wrote: simulation theory is the atheists version of religion bostrom's 'logic' leaves out a myriad of questions as to why, how, and most importantly consciousness thinking about or discussing it is fun but it will ultimately lead you down a dead end

most of your questions including consciousness are covered in the formal version of the argument at - http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

consciousness is one of the interesting parts of this argument that could make it invalid but that's only if we believe consciousness is some special property that we can't eventually program (most people in the relevant fields seem to think thats not the case, also LP's recent thread on AI consciousness seemed to agree)

On June 18 2016 02:57 Baalim wrote: you mean an entire universe simulation to the smallest sub-atomic particle? or a Truman Show simulation

and if we're in a simulation, how do we know the difference?

On June 18 2016 08:32 PIetraxon wrote: @Smuft "In case you didn't automatically extrapolate, the day we turn on one is quickly followed by turning on many many more. " The way I see it it's possible there could only be one such simulation, or a few dozen (barring nested simulations). Just because it could potentially be possible doesn't mean anyone will care. Remember 25 years ago everyone was expecting that we'd have Jetsons-style flying cars by now in most western households, and space scientists were expecting (they were extrapolating based on the scientific progress in space exploration) that by around 2000-2005 we would have a giant self-sufficient space colony capable of housing millions (I think) of people. Both of these are technically possible, but no one cares enough for it to be done (at least so far). Instead, rather than the "cool technology" route we've mostly went the "information sharing" route, something pretty much no one would have expected 30-40 years ago. I just don't think the assumptions/premises the Simulation Argument is built on is valid, and by those I mean: A) That we will ever possess the technology to build such a simulation. B) That someone will ever care to make many o them (or even one). They are possibilities, but likely? If they were likely, then I think we must also accept other things as likely as well, such as the question I proposed earlier: Suppose that the creation of human life forms is no more than a matter of chance (freak chance, but still just chance). If the sample size is large enough (really, really large), then trillions upon trillions of iterations of humanity are going to be created, and so if the universe is endlessly large and endlessly old in one way or another, then such a number of iterations of humanity is bound to be created, with many of them probably never even exploring virtual technology, let alone creating a simulation like the one we speak of. Doesn't this make it incredibly likely that we are living in one of those 'real' iterations of humanity? It's the same type of question to me. It's an interesting argument for sure (otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation), but I don't see the argument standing, and it's no different than many other arguments one could come up with. Here's one I'm making up on the spot (but I'm sure someone has already proposed this sometime): Suppose we keep evolving AI and bio-engineering, isn't it possible that 10 000 years from now we humans (supposing we are the real thing) would send AI out far into space to colonize the world and do some testing; in places where we ourselves can't or don't want to go? These "bio creations" could be extremely similar to humans, but not real humans, and they would not possess the level of insight necessary to figure out that they are not actually humans. We would of course send other living flora and fauna along with the artificial humans so the new "AI-human world" could be fully colonized. It would probably take more time before this could be possible (compared to creating a perfect simulation), but in my mind it is no less or more likely to happen than the simulation. So now I ask two questions: 1) Isn't it more likely that we are living in one such artificial colony than that we are the real human ancestors (who are probably nested somewhere far, far away)? and; 2) Which is more likely - that we are living in a simulation, or that we are an artificial human colony? Would there be more simulations than colonies? I think the colonies would ultimately turn out to be significantly more useful at providing data, so wouldn't they end up shutting down all simulations and expanding the number of colonies? Not to mention that, just like with the simulations, a colony could end up creating its own colonies. I could come up with more similar arguments, some better than other ones, and things would become even more bizarre pretty quickly.

hi whamm, i know that's you in there...

Hi Smuft,

Why do you suddenly insert the assumption "will probably never even explore virtual technology"?

A few reasons (assumptions rather):

1) The way we pursue technology is I think a completely random event. I do not believe that if we were to "start" 100 000 human civilizations from the "stone age", so to speak, that they would all go the same route. We just so happened to go the "computer" way, but I'm sure there are billions of other routes humanity could have evolved. I don't think that every iteration of humanity would have pursued the same "route of advancement" if that makes sense. Maybe it is the "only way" and that all roads lead to roam, so to speak. However judging by the amount of variety in nature, my hunch is that there should be many other ways we could have evolved as a society.

2) Extinction. I would guess that a huge number of those iterations of humanity that we're speaking of would just die out long, long before they ever reached the mindbogglingly advanced stage where such a simulation could be created.

3) Need vs. resources. My guess is that even in those iterations of humanity that would manage to develop the necessary technology to start a simulation, there would be a significant number where the need vs resource ratio would not be in favor of starting it, ever. For instance, running such a simulation could potentially require so much energy and computing power that even if we were to harness the energy from a million stars, it could still be not possible to run it (and given the complexity this proposed simulation of the entire universe is likely to have, I don't even think I'm exaggerating).

Again though, none of this is said to imply that a simulation would not be created in any of these iterations; just that I consider it likely that there would be many iterations in which the technology is never developed.

especially considering in the only sample we have of humans, we are obsessed with such technology.

Humanity as a whole is notoriously bad at predicting the future based on current trends, imo. As such I find that a complete lack of sample is pretty much the same as the tiny sample that we do have, in my opinion. In other words, "the "sample" that we have is to me non-existent. If you look back at all the technological predictions made in the past as to what will happen in 40-50 years time, I think you should find that the huge majority of them were absolutely out of line with what really happened. How can we then try to make educated "guesses" as to what will happen 5000 or 20000 years from now? In my mind, it's completely impossible.

Answering "yes" to this relies on 3 being accurate, which i do not think it is. Once 3 is no longer accurate, the answer to this will never be close to "yes".

Hope that my points above somewhat make "3" more plausible to you, because they are all I have in this regard.

Mainly the logistics of traveling to other planets that could support human life; such planets are not common and traveling to them takes a long time.

Okay, but why would we say that the logistics for setting this up are a problem, but then readily accept the logistics for creating the simulated world are achievable? As far as things stand right now, both of them are pretty much equally impossible and out of our reach. It's not like the simulator is only a matter of the right software; you would also need GINORMOUS amounts of energy. Basically an amount of energy to simulate the whole world... (consider for a moment that rendering, just rendering alone, of a 2 hour cartoon like Shrek will cost anywhere from a few to a few dozen million USD of computing power - which is a minuscule drop in the ocean compared to the power it would take to accurately 'simulate' just my bedroom and my own visual view of the different objects in it from all the available angles of directing my eyesight, including breaking these objects up into an infinite number of pieces and observing each one separately). If we can harness this much energy, I think hypothetical concepts like warping and wormholes become equally within our grasp. I cannot accept a scenario where a simulation of this magnitude is possible, but interstellar travel isn't. It's either both or none to me.

Even in the case that your assumptions are correct and we do send out "bio creations" to all corners of the universe that self populate. How does that explain our place in evolution?

But if we are accepting that we could be in a simulation, we must also accept that many things around us could be "fake" and not what we think they are. In other words, if it's a simulation, then there is absolutely no reason to believe that we are right about what evolution, or anything else is; all of it could be fabricated for the purposes of the simulation, whatever these may be. In light of this i find your question inadequate. For all we know a guy in charge of the simulation told his programmers "guys, let's insert some giant lizard bones and see what happens". We can't take anything around us for "real", and so questions about "why is X here" become meaningless. Heck, we might not even be in a simulation that's been created for scientific purposes and might actually be living in utter bizarro world compared to the real thing.

Not to say there hasn't been some good arguments against it but nothing sharp enough to cut it up.

I agree, and that's what makes it an interesting conversation topic. However, the fact that we have absolutely no signs of us living in a simulation, and only assumptions as to why it's possible, makes it difficult for me to treat it as anything beyond an interesting philosophical concept. It can't be disproved, just like God's existence can't be disproved. It makes it interesting, but not much beyond that (to me).

ie. the day that humanity turns on such a simulation and sees that it's actually real - how can we then deny a substantial possibility that we are also living in one?

My point is that there are so many other potential possibilities (different iterations of humanity that never achieve the technology required or don't care to start a simulation; 'artificial' human civilizations, and probably a gazillion other things that we will not be able to think of right now, just like 200 years ago no one would have ever been able to anticipate a Simulation because we didn't know the technology that would allow us to even imagine such a possibility), that once you add them all up and combine them with the possibility of us being in a simulation, it dilutes the likelihood of us being in a simulation, even if we manage to create one.

Is it a possibility? Yes sure. But likely? I still see absolutely no reason to think it is.

Also, a theoretical question to those with more knowledge of the Simulation Argument (and software / physics in general).

If we are living in a simulation, shouldn't the act of placing two mirrors in front of each other cause the simulation to break down completely? Would this not create an endless loop that would essentially require all of the universe's energy to properly process? Or are we saying that there would not actually be an infinite number of reflections in the two mirrors, because no one can actually observe the infinite reflections, therefore no endless loop to speak of? Wouldn't this mean that the Simulation Argument defies multiple physical laws that we have so far no reason to believe are false? I might be getting ahead of myself here so would like to hear what others think.

lol interesting example with the mirrors. Tho i think the simulation is just meant to make it believable to the people in it, at least that's what Bostrom pictured, so it would not have to show you a complete infinite recursion for you to believe it, just a 100 mirrors or so. Could very well be that when ur not looking the rest of the universe dissappears. So it could just simulate your sensory perceptions around you, like when you play an MMO it will render images around you as you walk thru the environment. Infinite mirrors could very well be a problem that doesn't 'halt' in a turing machine tho?

Is it impossible to find the probabilities?

If the universe is infinite than the amount of civilizations with the potential to reach that advanced technology is infinite?

If they reach the level of technology to create ancestor simulations they would eventually create the technology to reach other civilizations. Would they go extinct or lose interest before that point?

How do we predict the chances of a civilization going extinct + the chances of a civilization losing interest?

On first watch, I agree with the Simulation Argument and Simulation Hypothesis.

I would like to see Nick and Elon show their work.

"less than 50% that we are in a simulation." - Bolstrom

"1 in a billion that this is base reality." - Musk

One thing I just thought of is that guys like Elon and many other drivers of technology would absolutely NOT lose interest (which may be why he forgot about that part of the argument in that video?). A fascinating probability or story would be x, y, z company or whoever devises the technology for simulation and there are many powers for and against.

What is the right thing to do?

(I seem to always bring it back to ethics)

Nice thread. Bringing me back to why I love LP. I can definitely use some food for thought every now and again. Have to keep the brain satiated and happy. One love. One heart. Let's get together and feel alright.

lol interesting example with the mirrors. Tho i think the simulation is just meant to make it believable to the people in it, at least that's what Bostrom pictured, so it would not have to show you a complete infinite recursion for you to believe it, just a 100 mirrors or so.

Yes that would make sense, but then we do have a problem with the argument. Because as far as I understand, the argument is considered plausible because it does not clash with any of the physical rules we have. But this would make it clash, or wouldn't it? Essentially it would mean that the only way the argument is true is if we disregard certain things that we think of as "laws of nature", which in my mind significantly weakens the plausibility of the hypothesis (or even shatters it completely for the time being), because now anyone "for" the hypothesis would also need to prove that there are actually no endless reflections in the mirrors. Unless, like you say, this would not break the simulation either way, then it doesn't matter.

On June 18 2016 12:21 lucky331 wrote: Show nested quote + On June 18 2016 02:57 Baalim wrote: you mean an entire universe simulation to the smallest sub-atomic particle? or a Truman Show simulation and if we're in a simulation, how do we know the difference?

We wouldnt know, but there are difference about motives, like why would you create a Truman show simulation with painful existence?, a full universe simulation wouldnt necessarily have that moral issue since it could simply be unintended result of a bigger than us simulation

The simulation argument, unlike god, doesn't necessarily have any painful existence though. Could be that all those suffering people are just included as one of the easiest ways of improving simulation experience - your own situation seems much better compared to those. Nobody is actually programmed to live a shitty simulation experience - all the suffering people are just figments of my simulation.

That is if all the simulations are individual and not interactive. I guess a fully interactive universe-simulation wouldn't work this way, but I'd also feel that this is less likely, somehow?

On June 20 2016 09:35 Liquid`Drone wrote: The simulation argument, unlike god, doesn't necessarily have any painful existence though. Could be that all those suffering people are just included as one of the easiest ways of improving simulation experience - your own situation seems much better compared to those. Nobody is actually programmed to live a shitty simulation experience - all the suffering people are just figments of my simulation. That is if all the simulations are individual and not interactive. I guess a fully interactive universe-simulation wouldn't work this way, but I'd also feel that this is less likely, somehow?

So you are arguing that others suffering makes us happier, it could be, but then why not make it more obvious, why not be kings in the world of medieval conditions if this is true, I mean, what would be the point of an isolated simulation if not happiness of the subject? and if it isnt happiness who would subject itself to such a long agony and for what purpose?


I cant think of many reasons why isolated simulations would be like this, full universe simulations sound more reasonable as to the existence of painful conditions but it is astronomically less likely that such a thing can even be computed

maybe the period just slightly before the breakthrough of simulation period is the one they are most capable of reproducing. and I mean, I think that my own life is pretty swell, and it has been. But it hasn't been completely free of unpleasantness either - I think there's been a pretty nice balance between negative experiences that enable me to appreciate the positive experiences etc. I'm not actually sure medieval kings (or persian god-kings to go even further) actually represent the apex of 'happiness', perhaps the apex of indulgence and hedonism, but I think happiness is different.. my idea is that if these were all isolated simulations, then everyone's life would be comparable to how my simulation in terms of how happy people are, nobody actually runs an agonizing simulation, and people claiming to have agonizing lives are not actually real people or real simulations, they just exist to make me feel better about my own situation. (And while I think that actual, real suffering will create real unhappiness, pretty much always, I think that in general, 'contentness with ones own situation' is an extremely relative feeling - but that's another topic, one I find interesting though. )

I do think you touch upon something really important and something that the pro-simulation argument followers kinda aren't factoring in to their equation though. like, 'the likelihood of people with simulation technology creating a simulation that looks just like our world, and not an improved simulation is close to 0' to put it in their terms.

yeah I dont think medieval kings were the epitome of hapiness either, but you got the point

On June 20 2016 01:14 RiKD wrote: I would like to see Nick and Elon show their work.

http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

The math is under section 4 The core of the simulation argument, however he patched it several years later after some flaws were found

http://www.simulation-argument.com/patch.pdf

and so it begins....

http://www.scientificamerican.com/art...rgy-physics/?WT.mc_id=SA_FB_TECH_NEWS

I've wanted to make some more posts about this but haven't been in the mood, I'll make a very short version of the things I wanted to talk about here:

1. misconceptions on the parallels between the god argument and the simulation argument:

a few times throughout this thread people have said something along the lines of "asking others to disprove the simulation argument is like saying god exists because we can't prove he doesn't"

disagree because:

- there is a clear line between us where we currently are and being able to create these simulations ourselves, like if we extrapolate as best as we can from 2016 with our current knowledge and go into the future, it's very likely we will one day create these types of simulations

- this is not the case for the god argument where people believe on more or less "faith" (I know it's not that simple and
I'm sorry if I've offended anyone but if you start a god debate with me I already have "fold to any bet" clicked)

- the simulation argument doesn't say we live in a simulation, it just says there is a % chance that we do

- "the simulation argument" was published in an academic journal 13 years ago and after being peer reviewed and publicly discussed among enthusiastic lamens like us it still stands as a "sound argument"

- the reason why I ask people to find a problem with the core of the argument is because if it is true, it's very hard for a rational thinking person to flat reject that there is some % chance we live in a simulation


2. plexatron's post about mirrors and also similarly, simulations within simulations within simulations - stuff that may require an infinite amount of data to be processed (basically I just think the simulators would program in limits to these types of effects)

3. RiKD post about peoples subjective probabilities that we currently live in a simulation:

Here is what Bostrom said:

2. Do you really believe that we are in a computer simulation? No. I believe that the simulation argument is basically sound. The argument shows only that at least one of three possibilities obtains, but it does not tell us which one(s). One can thus accept the simulation argument and reject the simulation hypothesis (i.e. that we are in a simulation). Personally, I assign less than 50% probability to the simulation hypothesis – rather something like in 20%-region, perhaps, maybe.

I agree with others about Elon Musk saying "billions to 1" is ridiculous with the information we currently have. He really needed to give a better explanation of his position before throwing out that probability. However, if we ever do start running these simulations then "billions to 1 we live in base reality" sounds somewhere in the right ballpark to me. Considering how much time Musk has said he thought about this I'm sure he has a much better explanation for his position but it was beyond the scope of a live QA about random subjects.

Where do people get these numbers? more or less out of their ass. Kind of like in poker, with all the information we have available to us at the moment, what is the % chance this guy has a bluff? Same idea there are just a lot more variables that are much harder to quantify for a subjective guess on the simulation hypothesis.

@Smuft

I suspect those people making the god analogy really just want to say that you need to provide evidence for something instead of asking others to disprove it, which is what you were doing. The god analogy probably comes from epistemologists like bertrand russell who used it to show the irrationality of arguments made by theists, so people associate god with it.

-you argued there was a 2/3 chance of being in a sim

-You far overate the legitimacy of academic journals. The paper was published in a philosophy journal. If you ever take a philosophy class, you will find that almost every philosopher will find flaws in arguments of other philosophers. Philosophers rarely agree on anything. And the good philosophers publish many journal articles admitting that their arguments are very weak.

I remember once a medical student independently discovered calculus recently (they didn't learn it in high school) and they got it published in a peer reviewed medical journal. And there are far worse things that get published in humanities journals-like a lot of post modernism for example.

Personally I also don't see any reason to believe in the sim argument anymore than the existence of god. Both have weak arguments in favor of them

On June 26 2016 21:58 Stroggoz wrote: @Smuft I suspect those people making the god analogy really just want to say that you need to provide evidence for something instead of asking others to disprove it, which is what you were doing. The god analogy probably comes from epistemologists like bertrand russell who used it to show the irrationality of arguments made by theists, so people associate god with it.

Agree that we cannot ask people to disprove statements like "there is a god" or "we live in a simulation" and if they cannot then it must be true. The burden of proof is on those that put forth such outrageous notions.

However, I'm not asking anyone to disprove a ridiculous notion. I'm asking you to find a problem in what I believe to be a sound argument; The Simulation Argument

An argument that details:

- it will very likely to be within our species capabilities to create these simulations
- if such simulations do exist, math showing the number of simulated experiences vastly outnumbers the nonsimulated
- computational resource assumptions
- consciousness assumptions
- conclusion with 3 propositions that takes everything into account:

"(1) The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero; (2) The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero; (3) The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one."

-you argued there was a 2/3 chance of being in a sim -You far overate the legitimacy of academic journals. The paper was published in a philosophy journal. If you ever take a philosophy class, you will find that almost every philosopher will find flaws in arguments of other philosophers. Philosophers rarely agree on anything. And the good philosophers publish many journal articles admitting that their arguments are very weak.

2/3 is too high IMO, I said 35%. please be careful on the misquotes

just to be clear, this is a very subjective guess that I do not take seriously and could change drastically any day depending on what I learn

I agree about your comments on a lot of academic journals publishing shit papers and a paper being in one doesn't necessarily give it credibility. In this case the paper was published in Philosophy Quarterly which seems to be a top philosophy journal.

More importantly, it was written by a true bad ass IMO, Nick Bostrom, an oxford professor, author of superintelligence, and founder of a group of thinkers at oxford who think about existential risks. He may be one of the most important guys in preventing our whole species from being wiped out by something other people overlook or are completely oblivious to. He still supports the simulation argument and says "I believe it is basically sound".

Personally I also don't see any reason to believe in the sim argument anymore than the existence of god. Both have weak arguments in favor of them

Do you mean "weak" in some kind of formal sense in that it cannot be proven?

What are the specific reasons you think we should reject the simulation argument?

On June 27 2016 01:21 Smuft wrote: An argument that details: - it will very likely to be within our species capabilities to create these simulations - if such simulations do exist, math showing the number of simulated experiences vastly outnumbers the nonsimulated - computational resource assumptions - consciousness assumptions - conclusion with 3 propositions that takes everything into account: "(1) The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero; (2) The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero; (3) The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one."

Your breakdown of the argument is not accurate.
H = consciousness/computational assumptions
1/2/3 = outcomes that Bostroms suggest
P = probability of being a simulation
S = we are simulations

If H then ( 1 or 2 or 3)
If 3 then P
If P then S
Therefore S

I believe the argument is valid but unsound. There are problems with H but the big problem is with P. If I put forward some mathematically theory and it is untestable how can we be sure of its accuracy. Newtons Laws for motion and gravity were used for a long time however those laws predicted a planet in between Mercury and the Sun, Einstien comes along and puts forward a better equation they test it and it predicts Mercury's orbit perfectly. Bostrom cant be sure he has access to all the right information if S is true. Say for example there are some kind of constraints in the origin world that limit the number of simulations, so we are simulations but Bostroms prediction of the probability that we are simulations is wrong. Lets just suppose that we are part of a simulation but not ancestral simulations but a physics simulation. It is likely that the experimenters would change some fundamental variable to see what happens. Since H relies on the physics of this universe we can't really say anything about the number of possible simulations without knowing if H is similar to origin universe. Its also much more likely that we will run physics simulations before we start running ancestral simulations(At the current time we are collecting huge amounts of data about our lives for future historians to go over making pointless to run a historical simulation). So if we include the number of physics simulations where life may not be possible and are empty of people then the probability will be much different. There could be many simulations but only 1 includes life but the number of people that lived in the origin universe is 10 times the number that live in the simulation.