From: Robin Hanson (rhanson@gmu.edu)
Date: Wed Mar 14 2001 - 09:09:14 MST
Mark Walker wrote:
>If our descendants are interested in at least a single blind study then our
>world may be coming to an end. By single blind here I mean that we do not
>know, or believe there is a reasonable degree of probability, that we are
>living in a simulated world. We have good evidence that if we are in a
>simulation then our descendents want the simulation to be at least single
>blind. For on the one hand, if they want to let on that it was a simulation
>they could give us some pretty direct evidence ...
I thought of this but rejected it. If the actual history of our descendants
included many people who believed that they were living in a simulation,
then it could be all right if a similar number of people in a simulated world
believe this. It might in fact be a problem if too few people so believed.
If if our nearer descendants are not complete fools, many of them will
seriously entertain this idea. Nick is right that "the naive transhumanist
dogma that we or our descendants will become posthumans who'll run ancestor-
simulations is false."
Robin Hanson rhanson@gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu
Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
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