In this paper, Bostrom describes his **"Simulation Argument"**. Thi...
Nick Bostrom is a Swedish philosopher at the University of Oxford. ...
Here is an interview with with Nick Bostrom at the Future of Humani...
This subject gained attention recently due to an interview with Elo...
There are mentions to simulated worlds in pop culture that date as ...
*Thinking is a function of man's immortal soul [they say.] God has ...
**Substrate-Independence:** Substrate-Independence is a term used t...
There is a lot of debate about whether we will be able to simulate ...
Ray Kurzweil predicts that by 2029 a personal computer will be 1,00...
The simulation argument is time independent. It does not matter tha...
The author invokes new physical phenomena yet to be discovered and ...
There are $10^{11}$ neurons in a human brain operate by sending el...
In the late 1980s Thomas K. Landauer performed a study in order to ...
We can easily compute this number of oprations.
Let's assume th...
As you go deeper into the simulation and you consider multi-level s...
The author develops a probabilistic consideration of the argument o...
**(1)** $f_p \approx 0 \Rightarrow $ *"The fraction of human-level...
**The Brain in a Vat** thought-experiment is most commonly used to ...
Couldn't you consider the other limiting case with decreasing fract...
We could go extinct trying to reach posthuman stage. Here is a vide...
Running ancestor simulations is either banned by future civilizatio...
Humans experience the world through their senses. What we call "rea...
If we believe that we are in a simulation and that our simulators a...
This is an interesting argument against the multi-level hypothesis....
The author makes a good analogy with religion. **The creators of an...
**The simulation hypothesis cannot be proven or disproven**. It als...
1
AREYOULIVINGINACOMPUTERSIMULATION?
BYNICKBOSTROM
[PublishedinPhilosophicalQuarterly(2003)Vol.53,No.21 1,pp.243‐255.(Firstversion:2001)]
Thispaperarguesthatatleastoneofthefollowingpropositionsistrue:(1)
the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a
“posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely
torunasignificantnumberofsimulationsoftheirevolutionaryhistory(or
variations thereof); (3)
we are almost certainly living in a computer
simulation.It follows thatthebeliefthatthereisa 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
consequencesofthisresultare
alsodiscussed.
I.INTRODUCTION
Manyworksofsciencefictionaswellassomeforecastsbyserioustechnologists
and futurologists predict that enormous amounts of computing power will be
available in the future. Let us suppose for a moment that these predictions are
correct. One thing that later generations might
do with their super‐powerful
computers is run detailed simulations of their forebears or of people like their
forebears.Becausetheircomputerswouldbesopowerful,theycouldrunagreat
many such simulations. Suppose that these simulated people are conscious (as
they would be if the simulations were sufficiently fine
‐grained and if a certain
quite widely accepted position in the philosophy of mind is correct). Then it
could be the casethatthevast majority of minds like ours do not belong tothe
original race but rather to people simulated bythe advanced descendants of an
originalrace.
Itisthenpossibletoarguethat,ifthiswerethecase,wewouldbe
rational to think that we are likely among the simulated minds rather than
among the original biological ones. Therefore, if we don’t think that we are
currentlylivingina computersimulation,wearenotentitled
tobelievethatwe
will have descendants who will run lots of such simulations of their forebears.
Thatisthebasicidea.Therestofthispaperwillspellitoutmorecarefully.
2
Apartformtheinterestthisthesismayholdforthosewhoareengagedin
futuristic speculation, there are also more purely theoretical rewards. The
argument provides a stimulus for formulating some methodological and
metaphysical questions, and it suggests naturalistic analogies to certain
traditional religious conceptions, which some may find
amusing or thought‐
provoking.
Thestructureofthepaperisasfollow s.First,weformulateanassumption
thatweneedtoimportfromthephilosophyofmindinordertogettheargument
started. Second, we consider some empirical reasons for thinking that running
vastly many simulations of human minds
would be within the capability of a
future civilization that has developed many of those technologies that can
already be shown to be compatible with known physical laws and engineering
constraints.Thispartisnotphilosophicallynecessarybutitprovidesanincentive
for paying attention to the rest. Then follows the
core of the argument, which
makes use of some simple probability theory, and a section providing support
foraweak indifference principle thattheargument employs.Lastly, wediscuss
someinterpretationsofthedisjunction,mentionedintheabstract,thatformsthe
conclusionofthesimulationargument.
II.THEASSUMPTIONOF
SUBSTRATE‐INDEPENDENCE
A common assumption in the philosophy of mind is that of substrate‐
independence.Theideaisthatmentalstatescansuperveneonanyofabroadclass
of physical substrates. Provided a system implements the right sort of
computational structures and processes, it can be associated with
conscious
experiences. It is not an essential property of consciousness that it is
implemented on carbon‐based biological neural networks inside a cranium:
silicon‐basedprocessorsinsideacomputercouldinprincipledothetrickaswell.
Argumentsfor thisthesishavebeengiven intheliterature,andalthough
itis
notentirelyuncontroversial,weshallheretakeitasagiven.
The argument we shall present does not, however, depend on any very
strong version of functionalism or computationalism. For example,weneednot
assume that the thesis of substrate‐independence is necessarily true (either
analyticallyormetaphysically)–just
that,infact,acomputerrunningasuitable
program would be conscious. Moreover, we need not assume that in order to
createamindon a computer it would be sufficient toprogram it in such away
that it behaves like a human in all situations, including passing the Turing
test
etc.Weneedonlytheweakerassumptionthatitwouldsufficeforthegeneration
ofsubjectiveexperiences that the computational processesof ahumanbrainare
structurally replicated in suitably fine‐grained detail, such as on the level of
3
individual synapses. This attenuated version of substrate‐independenceis quite
widelyaccepted.
Neurotransmitters, nerve growth factors, and other chemicals that are
smallerthanasynapseclearly playa roleinhumancognitionandlearning.The
substrate‐independencethesis isnotthattheeffectsofthese chemicalsaresmall
orirrelevant,
butratherthattheyaffectsubjectiveexperienceonlyviatheirdirect
orindirectinfluenceoncomputationalactivities.Forexample,iftherecanbeno
difference in subjective experience without there also being a difference in
synapticdischarges,thentherequisitedetailofsimulationisatthesynapticlevel
(orhigher).
III.THETECHNOLOGICALLIMITSOFCOMPUTATION
At our current stage of technologicaldevelopment, we have neither sufficiently
powerful hardware nor the requisite software to create conscious minds in
computers. But persuasive arguments have been given to the effect that if
technological progress continues unabated then these shortcomings will
eventually be
overcome. Some authors argue that this stage may be only a few
decades away.
1
Yet present purposes require no assumptions about the time‐
scale. The simulation argument works equally well for those who think that it
will take hundreds of thousands of years to reach a “posthuman” stage of
civilization, where humankind has acquired most of the technological
capabilities that one cancurrently show
tobeconsistentwithphysicallawsand
withmaterialandenergyconstraints.
Suchamaturestageoftechnologicaldevelopmentwillmakeitpossibleto
convert planets and other astronomical resources into enormously powerful
computers. It is currently hard to be confident in any upper bound on the
computing power that may
be available to posthuman civilizations. As we are
still lacking a “theory of everything”, we cannot rule out the possibility that
novel physical phenomena,notallowedforincurrentphysicaltheories,maybe
utilizedtotranscendthoseconstraints
2
thatinourcurrentunderstandingimpose
1
See e.g. K. E. Drexler, Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology, London, Forth
Estate, 1985; N. Bostrom, “How Long Before Superintelligence?” International Journal of Futures
Studies, vol. 2, (1998); R. Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines: When computers exceed human
intelligence,NewYork,VikingPress,1999;H.
Moravec,Robot:MereMachinetoTranscendentMind,
OxfordUniversityPress,1999.
2
Such as the Bremermann‐Bekenstein bound and the black hole limit (H. J. Bremermann,
“Minimumenergyrequirements of information transfer and computing.” InternationalJournalof
TheoreticalPhysics 21: 203‐217(1982);J. D. Bekenstein, “Entropy contentand informationflowin
systemswithlimitedenergy.”PhysicalReviewD30:1669‐1679
(1984);A.Sandberg,“ThePhysics
4
theoretical limits on the information processing attainable in a given lump of
matter. We can with much greater confidence establish lower bounds on
posthuman computation, by assuming only mechani sms that are already
understood.Forexample,EricDrexlerhasoutlinedadesignforasystemthesize
of a sugar cube
(excluding cooling and power supply) that would perform 10
21
instructionspersecond.
3
Anotherauthorgivesaroughestimateof10
42
operations
per second for a computerwitha mass on order of alarge planet.
4
(If wecould
createquantumcompu ters,orlearntobuildcomputersoutofnuclearmatteror
plasma, we could push closer to the theoretical limits. Seth Lloyd calculates an
upperboundfora1kg computerof5*10
50
logi cal operations persecondcarried
out on ~10
31
bits.
5
However, it suffices for our purposes to use the more
conservativeestimatethatpresupposesonlycurrentlyknowndesign‐principles.)
The amount of computing power needed to emulate a human mind can
likewise be roughly estimated. One estimate, based on how computationally
expensive it is to replicate the functionality of a
piece of nervous tissuethatwe
have already understood and whose functionality has been replicated in silico,
contrastenhancementintheretina,yieldsafigureof~10
14
operationspersecond
for the entire human brain.
6
An alternative estimate, based the number of
synapses in the brain and their firing frequency, gives a figure of ~10
16
‐10
17
operationspersecond.
7
Conceivably,evenmorecouldberequiredifwewantto
simulate in detail the internal workings of synapses and dendritic trees.
However,itislikelythatthehumancentralnervoussystemhasahighdegreeof
redundancy on the mircoscale to compensate forthe unreliability and noisiness
ofits neuronal
components.Onewouldtherefore expect a substantialefficiency
gainwhenusingmorereliableandversatilenon‐biologicalprocessors.
Memory seems to be a no more stringent constraint than processing
power.
8
Moreover,sincethemaximumhumansensorybandwidthis~10
8
bitsper
second, simulating all sensory events incurs a negligible cost compared to
simulating the cortical activity. We can therefore use the processing power
of Information Processing Superobjects: The Daily Life among the Jupiter Brains.” Journal of
EvolutionandTechnology,vol.5(1999)).
3
K. E. Drexler, Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation, New York,
JohnWiley&Sons,Inc.,1992.
4
R. J. Bradbury, “Matrioshka Brains.” Working manuscript (2002),
http://www.aeiveos.com/~bradbury/MatrioshkaBrains/MatrioshkaBrains.html.
5
S.Lloyd,“Ultimatephysicallimitstocomputation.”Nature406(31August):1047‐1054(2000).
6
H.Moravec,MindChildren,HarvardUniversityPress(1989).
7
Bostrom(1998),op.cit.
8
Seereferencesinforegoingfootnotes.
5
required to simulate the central nervous system as an estimate of the total
computationalcostofsimulatingahumanmind.
If the environment is included in the simulation, this will require
additionalcomputingpower–howmuchdependsonthescopeandgranularity
of the simulation. Simulating the entire universe
down to the quantum level is
obviouslyinfeasible, unless radically new physics is discovered. But in order to
get a realistic simulation of human experience, much less is needed – only
whateverisrequiredtoensurethatthesimulatedhumans,interactinginnormal
human ways with their simulated environment, don’t
notice any irregularities.
ThemicroscopicstructureoftheinsideoftheEarthcanbesafelyomitted.Distant
astronomicalobjectscanhavehighlycompressedrepresentations:verisimilitude
need extend to the narrow band of properties that we can observe from our
planetorsolarsystemspacecraft.OnthesurfaceofEarth,macroscopicobjects
in
inhabited areas may need to be continuously simulated, but microscopic
phenomena could likely be filled in ad hoc. What you see through an electron
microscope needs to look unsuspicious, but you usually have no way of
confirming its coherence with unobserved parts of the microscopic world.
Exceptions arise when
we deliberately design systems to harness unobserved
microscopicphenomenathatoperateinaccordancewithknownprinciplestoget
resultsthatweareabletoindependentlyverify.Theparadigmaticcaseofthisis
a computer. The simulation may therefore need to include a continuous
representationofcomputersdowntothelevel
ofindividuallogicelements.This
presents no problem, since our current computing power is negligible by
posthumanstandards.
Moreover,aposthumansimulatorwouldhaveenough computing power
to keep track of the detailed belief‐states in all human brains at all times.
Therefore, when it saw that a human was about
to make an observation of the
microscopic world, it could fill in sufficient detail in the simulation in the
appropriatedomainon an as‐needed basis.Should anyerror occur, thedirector
couldeasilyeditthestates ofanybrainsthathavebecomeawareofananomaly
before it spoils
the simulation. Alternatively,the director could skip back a few
secondsandrerunthesimulationinawaythatavoidstheproblem.
It thus seems plausible that the main computational cost in creating
simulations that are indistinguishable from physicalreality for human minds in
thesimulationresidesinsimulatingorganic
brainsdowntotheneuronalorsub‐
neuronallevel.
9
Whileitisnotpossibletogetaveryexactestimateofthecostofa
realistic simulation of human history, we can use ~10
33
‐10
36
operations as a
9
As webuild moreand faster computers,thecostofsimulating ourmachinesmighteventually
cometodominatethecostofsimulatingnervoussystems.
6
roughestimate
10
.Aswe gain moreexperience with virtual reality,we will get a
better grasp of the computational requirements for making such worlds appear
realistic to their visitors. But in any case, even if our estimate is off by several
ordersofmagnitude,thisdoesnotmattermuchforourargument.
Wenotedthat
a rough approximation of the computational power of a planetary‐mass
computer is 10
42
operations per second, and that assumes only already known
nanotechnologicaldesigns,whichareprobablyfarfromoptimal.Asinglesucha
computer could simulate the entire mental history of humankind (call this an
ancestor‐simulation) by using less than one millionth of its processing power for
one second. A posthuman
civilization may eventually build an astronomical
numberofsuchcomputers.Wecanconcludethatthecomputingpoweravailable
to a posthuman civilization is sufficient to run a huge number of ancestor‐
simulations even it allocates only a minute fraction of its resources to that
purpose.Wecandrawthisconc lusioneven
whileleavingasubstantialmarginof
errorinallourestimates.
Posthuman civilizations would have enough computing power to run
hugelymanyancestor‐simulationsevenwhileusingonlyatinyfractionof
theirresourcesforthatpurpose.
IV.THECOREOFTHESIMULATIONARGUMENT
Thebasicideaof
thispapercanbeexpressedroughlyasfollows:Iftherewerea
substantialchancethat ourcivilizationwillevergettotheposthumanstageand
run many ancestor‐simulations, then how come you are not living in such a
simulation?
Weshalldevelopthisideaintoarigorousargument.Let
usintroducethe
followingnotation:
P
f
: Fraction of all human‐leveltechnological civilizations that survive to
reachaposthumanstage
N
: Average number of ancestor‐simulations run by a posthuman
civilization
H
:Averagenumberofindividualsthathavelivedinacivilizationbefore
itreachesaposthumanstage
10
100 billion humans
50 years/human
30 million secs/year
[10
14
, 10
17
] operations in each
humanbrainpersecond
[10
33
,10
36
]operations.
7
The actual fraction of all observers with human‐type experiences that live in
simulationsisthen
HHNf
HNf
f
P
P
sim
)(
Writing
I
f for the fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in
running ancestor‐simulations (or that contain at leastsome individuals whoare
interested in that and have sufficient resources to run a significant number of
such simulations), and
I
N for the average number of ancestor‐simulations run
bysuchinterestedcivilizations,wehave
II
NfN
andthus:
1)(
IIP
IIP
sim
Nff
Nff
f
(*)
Because of the immense computing power of posthuman civilizations,
I
N is
extremelylarge,aswesawintheprevioussection.Byinspecting(*)wecanthen
seethatatleastoneofthefollowingthreepropositionsmustbetrue:
(1)
0
P
f
(2)
0
I
f
(3)
1
sim
f
V.ABLANDINDIFFERENCEPRINCIPLE
Wecantakeafurtherstepandconcludethatconditionalonthetruthof(3),one’s
credence in the hypothesis that one is in a simulation should be close to unity.
More generally, if we knew that a fraction x of all observers with human
‐type
experiencesliveinsimulations,andwedon’thaveanyinformationthatindicate
that our own particular expe riences are any more or less likely than other
human‐type experiences to have been implemented in vivo rather than in
machina,thenourcredencethatweareinasimulationshouldequal
x:
8
xxfSIMCr
sim
)|(
(#)
This stepis sanctioned bya veryweakindifference principle.Letusdistinguish
twocases.Thefirstcase,whichistheeasiest,iswhereallthemindsinquestion
are like your own in the sense that they are exactly qualitatively identical to
yours:theyhaveexactlythesame
informationandthesameexperiencesthatyou
have.Thesecondcaseiswherethemindsare“like”eachotheronlyintheloose
senseofbeingthesortofmindsthataretypicalofhumancreatures,but theyare
qualitativelydistinctfromoneanotherandeachhasadistinctset
ofexperiences.
I maintain that even in the latter case, where the minds are qualitatively
different, the simulation argument still works, provided that you have no
information that bears on the question of which of the various minds are
simulatedandwhichareimplementedbiologically.
Adetaileddefenseofa
strongerprinciple,whichimpliestheabovestance
forbothcasesastrivialspecialinstances,hasbeengivenintheliterature.
11
Space
doesnotpermita recapitulationofthatdefensehere,but wecanbringoutoneof
the underlying intuitions by bringing to our attentionto an analogous situation
ofamorefamiliarkind.Supposethatx%ofthepopulationhasacertaingenetic
sequence Swithinthe partof
theirDNAcommonlydesignatedas“junkDNA”.
Suppose,further,thattherearenomanifestationsofS(shortofwhatwouldturn
up in a gene assay) and that there areno knowncorrelations between having S
andanyobservablecharacteristic.Then,quiteclearly, unlessyouhavehadyour
DNA sequenced,
it is rational to assign a credence of x% to the hypothesis that
youhaveS.Andthisissoquiteirrespectiveofthefactthatthepeoplewhohave
Shavequalitativelydifferentmindsandexperiencesfromthepeoplewhodon’t
haveS.(Theyaredifferentsimplybecause
allhumanshavedifferentexperiences
from one another, not because of any known link between S and what kind of
experiencesonehas.)
The same reasoning holds if S is not the property of having a certain
genetic sequence but instead the property of being in a simulation, assuming
only that
we have no information that enables us to predict any differences
betweentheexperiences ofsimulatedminds andthoseof the originalbiological
minds.
Itshouldbestressedthattheblandindifferenceprincipleexpressedby(#)
prescribes indifference only between hypotheses aboutwhich observer you are,
when you have no
informationabout which of these observers you are. It does
11
Ine.g.N.Bostrom,“TheDoomsdayargument,Adam&Eve,UN
++
,andQuantumJoe.”Synthese
127(3): 359‐387 (2001); and most fully in my book Anthropic Bias: Observation Selection Effects in
ScienceandPhilosophy,Routledge,NewYork,2002.
9
notingeneralprescribeindifferencebetweenhypotheseswhenyoulackspecific
informationabout whichofthehypothesesistrue.Incontrast to Laplacean and
other more ambitious principles of indifference, it is therefore immune to
Bertrand’s paradox and similar predicaments that tend to plague indifference
principlesofunrestrictedscope.
Readers familiar
with the Doomsday argument
12
may worry that the
bland principle of indifference invoked here is the same assumption that is
responsible for getting the Doomsday argument off the ground, and that the
counterintuitivenessofsomeoftheimplicationsofthelatterincriminatesorcasts
doubtonthevalidityoftheformer.Thisisnot
so.TheDoomsdayargumentrests
on a much stronger and more controversial premiss, namely that one should
reasonas ifone werea randomsample from the set of allpeoplewhowill ever
havelived(past,present,andfuture)eventhoughweknowthatwearelivinginthe
early
twenty‐first century rather than at some point in the distant past or the
future.Theblandindifferenceprinciple,bycontrast,a ppliesonlytocaseswhere
wehavenoinformati onaboutwhichgroupofpeoplewebelongto.
If betting odds provide some guidance to rational belief, it may also
be
worthto ponder that if everybody wereto placea bet on whether they are in a
simulation or not, then if people use the bland principle of indifference, and
consequentlyplacetheirmoneyonbeinginasimulationiftheyknowthatthat’s
wherealmostallpeopleare,then
almosteveryonewillwintheirbets.Iftheybet
onnotbeinginasimulation,thenalmosteveryonewilllose.Itseemsbetterthat
theblandindifferenceprinciplebeheeded.
Further, one can consider a sequence of possible situations in which an
increasing fraction of all people live in simulations:
98%, 99%, 99.9%, 99.9999%,
and so on. As one approaches the limiting case in which everybody is in a
simulation (from which one can deductively infer that one is in a simulation
oneself), it is plausible to require that the credence one assigns to being in a
simulation gradually approach the
limiting case of complete certainty in a
matchingmanner.
VI.INTERPRETATION
The possibility represented by proposition (1) is fairly straightforward. If (1) is
true, then humankind will almost certainly fail to reach a posthuman level; for
virtually no species at our level of development become posthuman, and it is
hardtoseeany justification for thinkingthat our ownspecies will be especially
privileged or protected from future disasters. Conditional on (1), therefore, we
12
Seee.g.J.Leslie,“IstheEndoftheWorldNigh?”PhilosophicalQuarterly40,158:65‐72(1990).
10
must give a high credence to DOOM, the hypothesis that humankind will go
extinctbeforereachingaposthumanlevel:
1)0|(
P
fDOOMCr
One can imagine hypothetical situations were we have such evidence as
would trump knowledge of
P
f
. For example, if we discovered that we were
about to be hit by a giant meteor, this might suggest that we had been
exceptionally unlucky. We could then assign a credence to DOOM larger than
our expectation of the fraction of human‐level civilizations that fail to reach
posthumanity.In
theactualcase,however,weseemtolackevidenceforthinking
thatwearespecialinthisregard,forbetterorworse.
Proposition(1)doesn’tbyitselfimplythatwearelikelytogoextinctsoon,
only that we are unlikely to reach a posthuman stage. This possibility is
compatible
with us remaining at, or somewhat above, our current level of
technologicaldevelopmentfor alongtimebeforegoingextinct.Anotherwayfor
(1)tobetrueisifitislikelythattechnologicalcivilizationwillcollapse.Primitive
humansocietiesmightthenremainonEarthindefinitely.
There are many ways
in which humanity could become extinct before
reachingposthumanity.Perhapsthemostnaturalinterpretationof(1)isthatwe
are likely to go extinct as a result of the development of some powerful but
dangerous technology.
13
One candidate is molecular nanotechnology, which in
its mature stage would enable the construction of self‐replicating nanobots
capable of feeding on dirt and organic matter – a kind of mechanical bacteria.
Suchnanobots,designedformaliciousends,couldcausetheextinctionofalllife
onourplanet.
14
Thesecondalternativeinthesimulationargument’sconclusionisthat the
fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor‐
simulationisnegligiblysmall.Inorder for (2) tobetrue,theremustbe a strong
convergence among the courses of advanced civilizations. If the number of
ancestor‐simulations
createdbytheinterestedcivilizationsisextremelylarge,the
rarity of such civilizations must be correspondingly extreme. Virtually no
posthuman civilizations decide to use their resources to run large numbers of
ancestor‐simulations. Furthermore, virtually all posthuman civilizations lack
13
Seemypaper“ExistentialRisks:AnalyzingHumanExtinctionScenariosandRelatedHazards.”
Journal of Evolution and Technology, vol. 9 (2001) for a survey and analysis of the present and
anticipatedfuturethreatstohumansurvival.
14
See e.g. Drexler (1985) op cit., and R. A. Freitas Jr., “Some Limits to Global Ecophagy by
Biovorous Nanoreplicators, with Public Policy Recommendations.” Zyvex preprint April (2000),
http://www.foresight.org/NanoRev/Ecophagy.html.
11
individuals who have sufficient resources and interest to run ancestor‐
simulations; or else they have reliably enforced laws that prevent such
individualsfromactingontheirdesires.
What force could bring about such convergence? One can speculate that
advancedcivilizationsalldevelopalongatrajectorythatleadstotherecognition
of an ethical prohibition against running ancestor‐simulations because of the
sufferingthatisinflictedontheinhabitantsofthesimulation.However,fromour
present point of view, it is not clear that creating a human race is immoral. On
the contrary, we tend to view the existence of our race
as constituting a great
ethical value. Moreover, convergence on an ethical view of the immorality of
running ancestor‐simulations is not enough: it must be combined with
convergence on a civilization‐wide social structure that enables activities
consideredimmoraltobeeffectivelybanned.
Another possible convergence point is that almost
all individual
posthumansinvirtuallyallposthumancivilizationsdevelopinadirectionwhere
theylosetheirdesirestorunancestor‐simulations.Thiswouldrequiresignificant
changes to the motivations driving their human predecessors, for there are
certainlymanyhumanswhowouldliketorunancestor‐simulationsiftheycould
afford
todoso.Butperhapsmanyofourhumandesireswillberegardedassilly
by anyone who becomes a posthuman. Maybe the scientific value of ancestor‐
simulations to a posthuman civilization is negligible (which is not too
implausible given its unfathomable intellectual superiority), and maybe
posthumans regard recreational activities as
merely a very inefficient way of
getting pleasure – which can be obtained much more cheaply by direct
stimulationofthebrain’srewardcenters.Oneconclusionthatfollowsfrom(2)is
that posthuman societies will be very different from human societies: they will
not contain relatively wealthy independent agents who
have the full gamut of
human‐likedesiresandarefreetoactonthem.
The possibility expressed by alternative (3) is the conceptually most
intriguing one. If we are living in a simulation, then the cosmos that we are
observing isjust atinypiece ofthetotalityof
physicalexistence. The physics in
theuniversewherethecomputerissituatedthat is running thesimulationmay
ormay not resemble thephysics of theworldthatweobserve. While the world
weseeisinsomesense“real”,itisnotlocatedatthefundamentallevelofreality.
Itmaybepossi bleforsimulatedcivilizationstobecomeposthuman.They
maythenruntheirownancestor‐simulationsonpowerfulcomputerstheybuild
in their simulated universe. Such computers would be “virtual machines”, a
familiar concept in computer science.(Javascript web‐applets,for instance, run
on a virtual machine –
a simulated computer – inside your desktop.) Virtual
machinescan bestacked: it’s possibleto simulatea machine simulating another
12
machine,andsoon,inarbitrarilymanystepsofiteration.Ifwedogoontocreate
ourownancestor‐simulations,thiswouldbestrongevidenceagainst(1)and(2),
andwewouldthereforehavetoconcludethatweliveinasimulation.Moreover,
we would have to suspect that the
posthumans running our simulation are
themselvessimulated beings; and their creators, in turn, may also be simulated
beings.
Reality may thus contain many levels. Even if it is necessary for the
hierarchy to bottom out at some stage – the metaphysical status of this claim is
somewhat obscure – there
may be room for a large number of levels of reality,
and the number could be increasing over time. (One consideration that counts
against the multi‐level hypothesis is that the computational cost for the
basement‐level simulators would be very great. Simulating eve n a single
posthuman civilization might be
prohibitively expensive. If so, then we should
expect our simulation to be terminated when we are about to become
posthuman.)
Although all the elements of such a system can be naturalistic, even
physical,itispossibletodrawsomelooseanalogieswithreligiousconceptionsof
theworld.Insomeways,
theposthumansrunningasimulationare likegodsin
relation to the people inhabiting the simulation: the posthumans created the
world we see; they are of superior intelligence; they are “omnipotent” in the
sense that they can interfere in the workings of our world even in ways that
violate its physical
laws; and they are “omniscient” in the sense that they can
monitoreverythingthathappens.However,allthedemigodsexceptthoseatthe
fundamental level of reality are subject to sanctions by the morepowerful gods
livingatlowerlevels.
Furtherruminationonthesethemescouldclimaxinanaturalistic
theogony
thatwouldstudythestructureofthishierarchy,andtheconstraintsimposedon
its inhabitants by the possibilitythat their actions on their own level may affect
thetreatmenttheyreceivefromdwellersofdeeperlevels.Forexample,ifnobody
can be sure that they are at the basement‐level,
then everybody would have to
consider the possibility that their actions will be rewarded or punished, based
perhaps on moral criteria, by their simulators. An afterlife would be a real
possibility. Because of this fundamental uncertainty, even the basement
civilization may have a reason to behave ethically. The fact that
it has such a
reason for moral behavior would of course add to everybody else’s reason for
behaving morally, and so on, in truly virtuous circle. One might get a kind of
universal ethical imperative, which it would be in everybody’s self‐interest to
obey,asitwere“fromnowhere”.
In
additionto a ncestor‐simulations,one may alsoconsiderthepossibility
of more selective simulations that include only a small group of humans or a
13
single individual. The rest of humanity would then be zombies or “shadow‐
people” – humans simulated only at a level sufficient for the fully simulated
people not to notice anything suspicious. It is not clear how much cheaper
shadow‐peoplewouldbetosimulatethanrealpeople.Itisnoteven
obviousthat
itispossibleforanentitytobehaveindistinguishablyfromarealhumanandyet
lack conscious experience. Even if there are such selective simulations, you
should not think that you are in one of them unless you think they are much
more numerous than complete simulations. There
would have to be about 100
billion times as many “me‐simulations” (simulations of the life of only a single
mind)asthereareancestor‐simulationsinorderformostsimulatedpersonstobe
inme‐simulations.
There is also the possibility of simulators abridging certain parts of the
mental lives
of simulated beings and giving them false memories of the sort of
experiencesthattheywouldtypicallyhavehadduringtheomittedinterval.Ifso,
one can consider the following (farfetched) solution to theproblem of evil: that
thereisnosufferingintheworldandallmemoriesofsuffering
areillusions.Of
course,thishypothesiscanbeseriouslyentertainedonlyatthosetimeswhenyou
arenotcurrentlysuffering.
Supposing we live in a simulation, what are the implications for us
humans? The foregoing remarks notwithstanding, the implications are not all
that radical. Our best guide to how our
posthuman creators have chosen to set
up our world is the standard empirical study of the universe we see. The
revisionstomostpartsofourbeliefnetworkswouldberatherslightandsubtle–
inproportionto our lack of confidence inourability to understand theways of
posthumans.
Properly understood, therefore, the truth of (3) should have no
tendencytomakeus“gocrazy”ortopreventusfromgoingaboutourbusiness
andmakingplansandpredictionsfortomorrow.Thechiefempiricalimportance
of (3) at the current time seems to lie in its role in the
tripartite conclusion
established above.
15
We may hope that (3) is true since that woulddecrease the
probability of (1), although if computational constraints make it likely that
simulators would terminate a simulation before it reaches a posthuman level,
thenoutbesthopewouldbethat(2)istrue.
If we learnmoreabout posthuman
motivations and resource constraints,
maybeasa result of developing towards becoming posthumans ourselves, then
the hypothesis that we are simulated will come to have a much richer set of
empiricalimplications.
15
For some reflections by another author on the consequences of (3), which were sparked by a
privatelycirc ulated earlierversionofthis paper, see R. Hanson, “HowtoLiveina Simulation.”
JournalofEvolutionandTechnology,vol.7(2001).
14
VII.CONCLUSION
A technologically mature “posthuman” civilization would have enormous
computing power. Based on this empirical fact,thesimulation argument shows
that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) The fractionof human‐
level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero; (2) The
fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor‐
simulations is very close to zero; (3) The fraction of all people with our kind of
experiencesthatarelivinginasimulationisveryclosetoone.
If (1) is true, then we will almost certainly go extinct before
reaching
posthumanity.If(2)istrue,thentheremustbea strongconvergenceamongthe
courses of advanced civilizations so that virtually none contains any relatively
wealthyindividualswhodesiretorunancestor‐simulationsandarefreetodoso.
If (3) is true, then we almost certainly live in a
simulation. In the dark forest of
our current ignorance, it seems sensible to apportion one’s credence roughly
evenlybetween(1),(2),and(3).
Unless we are now living in a simulation, our descendants will almost
certainlyneverrunanancestor‐simulation.
Acknowledgements
I’m grateful to many people for comments, and
especially to Amara Angelica,
Robert Bradbury, Milan Cirkovic, Robin Hanson, Hal Finney, Robert A. Freitas
Jr., John Leslie, Mitch Porter, Keith DeRose, Mike Treder, Mark Walker, Eliezer
Yudkowsky,andseveralanonymousreferees.
www.nickbostrom.com www.simulation‐argument.com
Humans experience the world through their senses. What we call "reality" is what we interact with via our senses and our beliefs. There could be a base reality to which we have no direct access that turns out to be a different "reality" than the one we have access to.
Running ancestor simulations is either banned by future civilizations or posthumans might simply lose interest in creating ancestor simulations.
We could go extinct trying to reach posthuman stage. Here is a video where Nick Bostrom goes into more detail about this possibility: [](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LStef_kV6Q "nbi2")
As you go deeper into the simulation and you consider multi-level simulations (simulations within simulations), the cost of simulating the human history becomes marginal to the cost of simulating machines capable of creating simulations.
The author invokes new physical phenomena yet to be discovered and states that we can only put lower bounds on the posthuman computational power. He believes that the computational power required for the simulation hypothesis is within our reach.
We can easily compute this number of oprations.
Let's assume that:
- H = 107 billion humans have ever lived
- L = 50 years as the average human lifetime
- T = 31,557,600 seconds in a year
- O = a range of [$10^{14}$, $10^{17}$] operations in each human brain per second
$$ H \times L \times T \times O \simeq [10^{33}, 10^{36}] \,\,\mathrm{operations} $$
**Substrate-Independence:** Substrate-Independence is a term used to denote how the mind is a dynamic process and is not tied to a specific set of atoms. The functions of the mind need to carry out their processing on a platform, a substrate. If these functions can be implemented on different processing substrates, then we can call it a Substrate-Independent mind. This simple fact would allow the mind to exist in other forms and it could be transferred to a computer network. A good analogy is to think of programs that are written in platform independent code, they are independent of the architecture where they are running and can be easily transferred.
There are $10^{11}$ neurons in a human brain operate by sending electrical pulses to one another via approximately $10^{15}$ synapses. Assuming 10 impulses/second this suggests that an adult human brain carries out about $10^{16}$ logical operations per second.
You can read more about this topic here: [Energy Limits to the Computational Power of the Human Brain.](http://www.merkle.com/brainLimits.html)
**(1)** $f_p \approx 0 \Rightarrow $ *"The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero"*
**(2)** $f_I \approx 0 \Rightarrow $*"The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero"*
**(3)** $f_{sim} \approx 1 \Rightarrow $ *"The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one"*
Couldn't you consider the other limiting case with decreasing fraction of people living in simulations? Can someone explain why the upward bound is more likely than the lower bound. I feel like the hypothesis hinges on this assumption.
This subject gained attention recently due to an interview with Elon Musk at the code conference. Someone asked him if he believed we were living in a simulation and he replied that there is a one in one billion chance that we are living in base reality. You can watch that part of the interview here:
[](https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLKof9YSAshgyPqlK-UUYrHfIQaOzFPSL4&v=2KK_kzrJPS8 "Elon Musk interview")
Here is an interview with with Nick Bostrom at the Future of Humanity Institute Oxford University:
[](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnl6nY8YKHs "nick bostrom interview")
Is this the “quite widely accepted position in the philosophy of mind”? I'm probably missing some subtlety in the argument because to me this sounds like “machines can think because machines can think.” My position is that thinking is a physical process and as such it can be carried out by a sufficiently finegrained simulation. I was expecting an argument for or against why thinking is or is not a physical process.
**The Brain in a Vat** thought-experiment is most commonly used to illustrate global or Cartesian skepticism. Imagine that you are a brain hooked up to a sophisticated computer program that can perfectly simulate experiences of the outside world. If you cannot be sure that you are not a brain in a vat, then you cannot rule out the possibility that all that you know about the external world are false. We can construct the following skeptical argument. Let “B” stand for any belief or claim about the external world, for example, the grass is green.
1. If I know that B, then I know that I am not a brain in a vat.
2. I do not know that I am not a brain in a vat.
3. Thus, I do not know that B.
You can read more about it here: [The Brain in a Vat Argument
](http://www.iep.utm.edu/brainvat/)
In the late 1980s Thomas K. Landauer performed a study in order to determine the functional capacity of human memory. In the study people were asked to read text, look at pictures, and hear words, short passages of music, sentences, and nonsense syllables. After delays ranging from minutes to several days the subjects were tested to determine how much they had retained. The remarkable result of Landauer's study was that human beings remembered **two bits per second**. Extrapolating this value over a lifetime (say 80 years), this rate of memorization would produce:
$$3600\,\times\,24\,\times\,365.25\,\times\,80\,\times\,2 = 5,049,216,000$$
which is somewhat over **$10^9$ bits for the entire lifetime of a human being**.
You can read the study here: [Thomas K. Landauer: How Much Do People Remember? Some Estimates of the Quantity of Learned Information in Long-term Memory](http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~mozer/Teaching/syllabi/7782/readings/Landauer1986.pdf)
Ray Kurzweil predicts that by 2029 a personal computer will be 1,000 times more powerful than the human brain.
This chart shows the evolution of computational power over time and Kurzweil's predictions.
Kurzweil argues that time periods between events in human history shrink exponentially. He believes that we are very close to having the computational power required to simulate a human brain.
The following chart by Kurzweil depicts his law of accelerating returns.
The simulation argument is time independent. It does not matter that it will take 100 or 100,000 years, all that matters is that we reach the posthuman stage before going extinct.
This is an interesting argument against the multi-level hypothesis. This would mean that if we are in a simulation then we ourselves will never achieve the posthuman level and will never be able to create ancestor-simulations.
The author makes a good analogy with religion. **The creators of ancestor-simulations can be seen as Gods.** They are omnipotent and decide when and how to create, and stop the simulations. Assuming we live in multi-level simulations then only the creators in base reality are really omnipotent and omniscient and have control over all the simulations.
If we believe that we are in a simulation and that our simulators are in a simulation too then we live in a multi-level simulation. We can safely assume that we are on our way to create our own ancestor-simulations.
**The simulation hypothesis cannot be proven or disproven**. It also cannot matter, it cannot make any difference to us. If it's true, it's not that trees and clouds and other people don't exist, it's just that trees and clouds and other people have a different ultimate nature than we thought.
Nick Bostrom is a Swedish philosopher at the University of Oxford. He is known for his work on existential risk, the anthropic principle, human enhancement ethics, superintelligence risks, the reversal test, and consequentialism. He authored more than 200 publications including New York Times bestseller *Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies*.
You can learn more about Nick on his personal home page: [nickbostrom.com](http://www.nickbostrom.com)
*Thinking is a function of man's immortal soul [they say.] God has given an immortal soul to every man and woman, but not to any other animal or to machines. Hence no animal or machine can think. I am unable to accept any part of this … It appears to me that the argument quoted above implies a serious restriction of the omnipotence of the Almighty. It is admitted that there are certain things that He cannot do such as making one equal to two, but should we not believe that He has freedom to confer a soul on an elephant if He sees fit? ... An argument of exactly similar form may be made for the case of machines.*
** - Alan Turing **
In this paper, Bostrom describes his **"Simulation Argument"**. This simple argument does not directly state that we live in a simulation but instead leads to a trilemma of three unlikely-seeming propositions, one of which must be true.
One of these three propositions must be true.
1. "The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero"
2. "The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero"
3. "The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one"
Read on to learn more about Bostrom's argument.
To dive deeper into this topic: [The Simulation Argument}](http://www.simulation-argument.com/)
There are mentions to simulated worlds in pop culture that date as far back as the 1950s *[(Time Out of Joint)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Out_of_Joint)*. It is inherent to our civilization to want to embed itself in virtual, simulated worlds. This argument is gaining weight as we are at the dawn of virtual reality and augmented reality. If we take a look at the evolution of video games we can clearly see that they are becoming more photorealistic and that we feel a need to immerse ourselves in these virtual worlds that depict stories of our past, our present and try to imagine our future.
With the upcoming virtual reality revolution, we should start seeing more and more experiences similar to Second Life which show a real want of humans to embed themselves in simulated realities.
The author develops a probabilistic consideration of the argument of this paper in order to determine whether or not we live in a simulation.
There is a lot of debate about whether we will be able to simulate consciousness in machines. The central problem lies in the fact that we have no real understanding of how the brain gives rise to the mind, of how neurons and action potentials create consciousness.
Henry Markram is a neuroscientist who heads the [Blue Brain Project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Brain_Project), a project that attempts to create a synthetic brain by reverse-engineering mammalian brain circuitry. The project successfully recreated a single neocortical column of a two-week old rat, which contains about 10,000 neurons (the human brain contains 100 billion neurons). **Markram believes that it will be possible to build a model of the human brain within 10 years.**
This is a very interesting topic and you can dig deeper with these interesting reads:
- [Big Think: Can Computers be Conscious?](http://bigthink.com/going-mental/can-computers-be-conscious)
- [Popular Science: Is A Simulated Brain Conscious?](http://www.popsci.com/article/science/simulated-brain-conscious)
- [What It Will Take for Computers to Be Conscious](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/531146/what-it-will-take-for-computers-to-be-conscious/)