Posted on 08/14/2007 8:24:03 PM PDT by Nasty McPhilthy
Is God really just an alien computer programmer for some sort of intergalactic geek squad?
Presumably philosophers are just regular people who happen to have more free time than the rest of us due to the fact they don't date much and there's a university willing to pay them to make wild guesses in a consequence-free environment, but below is a theory that just might hold water — if the programmer(s) were skilled enough to make the cyber pitcher leak-proof. This is a sort of "Fermi's Paradox" for compu-nerds.
From The New York Times:
Until I talked to Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, it never occurred to me that our universe might be somebody else’s hobby. I hadn’t imagined that the omniscient, omnipotent creator of the heavens and earth could be an advanced version of a guy who spends his weekends building model railroads or overseeing video-game worlds like the Sims.
But now it seems quite possible. In fact, if you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom’s, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation. …
…Dr. Bostrom assumes that technological advances could produce a computer with more processing power than all the brains in the world, and that advanced humans, or “posthumans,” could run “ancestor simulations” of their evolutionary history by creating virtual worlds inhabited by virtual people with fully developed virtual nervous systems.
Some computer experts have projected, based on trends in processing power, that we will have such a computer by the middle of this century, but it doesn’t matter for Dr. Bostrom’s argument whether it takes 50 years or 5 million years. If civilization survived long enough to reach that stage, and if the posthumans were to run lots of simulations for research purposes or entertainment, then the number of virtual ancestors they created would be vastly greater than the number of real ancestors. …
…Dr. Bostrom doesn’t pretend to know which of these hypotheses is more likely, but he thinks none of them can be ruled out. “My gut feeling, and it’s nothing more than that,” he says, “is that there’s a 20 percent chance we’re living in a computer simulation.”
Geez. And these are often the same people who consider the Bible's story of creation to be far-fetched.
I think I’ll play some civ 4 now.
I wonder if we’re all part of the research for God’s dissertation.
These guys need to get a life, and I mean a real life.
These guys need to get a life, and I mean a real life.
I'd say that's a virtual certainty
This sounds like “The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”.
This is the premise of NON SERVIAM by Stanislav Lem, a short story in the collection A PERFECT VACUUM ( each story is in the form of a book review of an imaginary book ... get it? )
The story is included with commentary in Hofstadter’s THE MIND’S I.
“I speak of none other than the computer that is to come after me,”
intoned Deep Thought, his voice regaining its accustomed declamatory
tones. “A computer whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy
to calculate - and yet I will design it for you. A computer which can
calculate the Question to the Ultimate Answer, a computer of such
infinite and subtle complexity that organic life itself shall form
part of its operational matrix. And you yourselves shall take on new
forms and go down into the computer to navigate its ten-million-year
program! Yes! I shall design this computer for you. And I shall name
it also unto you. And it shall be called ... The Earth.”
More like The Matrix.
bump 4 l8r
Whatever. I think therefore I am. That is enough for me.
Are we on the holodeck? Arch!
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.
The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.
The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.
Misspelling makes me (sic).
Descartes walks into a restaurant.
The waiter hands him a menu and Descartes studies it briefly before ordering a steak.
The waiter asks “Would you like wine with that? and Descartes replies “I think not”....and then -vanishes-!
It is the height of irony that a computer simulation such as yourself would write those words.
Descartes was only the second greatest french philosopher, his work being greatly superceded by that of Jean-Paul Deshors.
Despite the obvious inferiority of his work, the popular appeal has most professors of philosophy still putting Descartes before Deshors.
*rimshot*
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