09-01-2016, 04:18 PM
Bostrom's argument is good, and Anders Sandberg has written extensively on the idea too.
Here's OA's article on Simulationism
http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4a48a48238f01
If advanced civilisations exist and can make detailed simulations, then there seems to be no reason why they could not make detailed reconstructions of the past. We may all exist in a simulation run by OA's archailects or their real-world equivalent.
It is possible to take the argument further, of course; these advanced civilisations might be capable of creating new universes for the purposes of calculation, much like OA archailects can; this would increase their processing power considerably, allowing them to model our world in even greater detail. They may mot even be limited to physics that we are familiar with- add a few extra dimensions and computation becomes considerably easier.
An interesting extension of the simulation argument is Tegmark's mathematical universe; all possible mathematical structures exist implicitly, and we inhabit just one tiny fragment of that mathematical space. The OA article on that concept is here
http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/55b39757b0748
Here's OA's article on Simulationism
http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4a48a48238f01
If advanced civilisations exist and can make detailed simulations, then there seems to be no reason why they could not make detailed reconstructions of the past. We may all exist in a simulation run by OA's archailects or their real-world equivalent.
It is possible to take the argument further, of course; these advanced civilisations might be capable of creating new universes for the purposes of calculation, much like OA archailects can; this would increase their processing power considerably, allowing them to model our world in even greater detail. They may mot even be limited to physics that we are familiar with- add a few extra dimensions and computation becomes considerably easier.
An interesting extension of the simulation argument is Tegmark's mathematical universe; all possible mathematical structures exist implicitly, and we inhabit just one tiny fragment of that mathematical space. The OA article on that concept is here
http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/55b39757b0748