Thread: Atheist zealots a heavy cross to bear
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Old 09-19-2010, 07:41 PM   #51
WT Sharpe
Bah, humbug!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PKFFW View Post
As an interesting side note, I once read an article by a scientist specialising in artificial intelligence. He hypothesized that we were all no more than simulations in a super computer.

Basically his theory went like this....

We already have computer games like the sims that simulate life. Our computing power is getting better and better as well. Extrapolating that out into the future he saw a day when every child would have a computer of such power that they could simulate the creation of whole universes in which the life-forms would, at least within the simulation, be self aware and sentient beings.

This left him with two possibilities. 1: We live in the "real universe" or 2: We are a computer simulation.

Now, with the possibility of an infinite number of simulations but only one true physical universe, the law of probabilities would logically make it far more probable we are living in one of the simulations rather than the real physical world.

The benefit of this theory is that it would conceivably eventually be possible to prove it.

I just thought it was interesting.

Cheers,
PKFFW
You're probably referring to the work of Nick Bostrom. I quoted an excerpt from his paper and supplied a link to the entire paper in the Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines thread back in July.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...89&#post998789
Last edited by WT Sharpe; 09-19-2010 at 07:46 PM.
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