This is a professional philosopher speaking:

"My gut feeling, and it's nothing more than that, is that there's a 20 percent chance we're living in a computer simulation."

Coming from an eight-year-old, this would be cute. We'd pat the little dear on the head and enjoy the silliness of a childish imagination.

Coming from an adolescent, it would be mildly worrying: Just how much time is the kid spending on the computer anyway, and is it really necessary to avoid the daylight completely?

Coming from a would-be science-fiction writer, such a concept would provoke a yawn and a rejection letter as standard and mindless as the idea itself.

To read this kind of thing in the New York Times, however, attributed to "Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University," is disconcerting. This fellow is paid to think. He's an affiliated researcher at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, and directs the Oxford Future of Humanity Institute. He is also a co-founder of the World Transhumanist Association and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, on the Board of Advisors of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

Bostrom's specialty is coming up with ludicrous premises and then explicating the inferences that can logically be derived from them in pedantic detail. His presentation on "Posthuman Dignity and the Rights of Artificial Minds" last year at Stanford was perhaps the finest example of academic humor since the Appendix to Carlos Castanada's first book -- or it would have been had it been intended as parody. Let us indeed postulate that "procreators have a pro tanto moral reason to select to create, of the possible beings they could create, the one that is expected to have the life most worth living." Not to mention the importance of "non-discrimination with regard to substrate."

But a "gut feeling" of a "20 percent chance"? If I were paying this guy to think, I'd want a refund. Unless perhaps I was just doing it for the laughs.

Comments

1. Comment by Z. M. Davis, Oct 24th, 2008 6:36pm

   I know I'm a year late, but surely I'm not the only one who reads old blogposts, so for the benefit of other readers, I have to say I really don't think this post is fair to Bostrom. Sure, you can make him sound silly by quoting that one sentence about his "gut feeling" out of context, but if you actually read the paper, he makes a serious argument. Of course one could quite reasonably strongly disagree with the paper for any number of specific reasons, but pointing and laughing that it sounds silly does not a substantive critique make.




2. Comment by Sean Henderson, Aug 23rd, 2007 1:40pm

   Jokes and far-out premises to challenge current thinking. Perhaps not in the best taste - but that's entirely subjective. The simulation joke is pretty innoculous.
   
   Could you be more specific about your concerns/objections?
   
   'ludicrous premises'?




3. Comment by Sean Henderson, Aug 23rd, 2007 11:16am

   I agree that there are better things to debate - however when you read his work you will understand that the point is to engage the mind - not really convince us that we're living in a simulation.
   
   Don't take it too seriously or as a representation of Transhumanist goals.
   
   Many Transhumanists take the actual plight of the human race very seriously. Transhumanism is not just about toys for geeks - biotechnology is the means to fundamentally change the human condition (for better or worse).
   
   First we must define what is good before regulation. Preserving normalcy and a sense of abstract decency or dignity is cultural bias. The 'human condition' predisposes us to inherent ethics which transcend temporary cultural values.
   
   If interested in serious debate about any specific Transhumanist issue - there is a place for that here;
   
   www.abolitionist-society.com