Are we living in somebody's computer simulation?
Hi Everybody,
Check out John Tierney's article in yesterday's New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/science/14tier.html?ei=5070&en=258a5f406ca9d607&ex=1187755200&emc=eta1&pagewanted=all) on the possibility that we are all the products of someone's computer simulation. It's hard to take him seriously when he says such a possibility had never occurred to him, when this idea (in various other forms) has been around for so long, not only in philosophy but in fiction as well. To write this and not cite Jorge Luis Borges' "The Circular Ruins," for one, is inexcusable... Well, take a look and let me know what you think of the argument posed by Dr. Bostrom. Is the scenario he envisages really possible?
2 comments:
Hello,
I can't believe a philosopher would say 'my gut feeling' as some sort of backing for an argument.
Why, as simulations, would we think that a true real ultimate reality would have anything in common with what we experience? we would have no access at all to it. it is just speculation based on our own knowledge of our simulation (and would that even be 'knowledge'?) 'whereof we cannot speak...' ha.
:)
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