Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 3/7/07, *Charles D Hixson* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:
With so many imponderables, the most reasonable thing to do is to just
ignore the possibility, and, after all, that may well be what is
desired
by the simulation. ("What would our ancestors lives have been
like if
Teddy Roosevelt had won the presidential election?")
While it's quite an assumption that we are in a simulation, it's an
even more incredible assumption that we are somehow at the centre of
it. It is analogous to comparing belief in a deistic God to belief in
Jehovah the sky god, who wants us to make sacrifices to him and eat
certain things but not others. The more closely we specify something
of which we can have no knowledge, the more foolish it becomes.
Stathis Papaioannou
Point. But we *could* be. If it's a simulation, perhaps only a "local
area of interest" is simulated. In a good simulation, you couldn't
tell. Can you can't put a boundary around "local area", either. It
could be just the internal workings of your brain (well, of my brain,
since I'm the one active at the moment...but when you are reading, then
you are the one active, so...).
That's sort of the point. If it's a simulation, we can't tell what's
going on, so we (well, I) can't make choices based on that assumption,
even if it were to seem more plausible...UNLESS the argument that made
it seem sufficiently plausible made some small sheaf of scenarios seem
sufficiently most probable. So far this hasn't happened.
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