10. Are You Living In A Computer Simulation? (2003)

By Nick Bostrom




By Nick Bostrom.

Abstract:
This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor‐simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.

Read the full paper:
https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.pdf

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