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Lorenzo Pieri's avatar

Interesting argument. More generally I believe that this kind of reasoning on probability distributions of simulations can put strong constraints on the simulation hyphotesis.

My problem with it is that it's ignoring other factors which make simulations more likely to be run (a.k.a Simplicity Assumption), in particular the computational complexity of the simulations. If a simulation is 1000x easier to simulate, just few simulators are enough to quickly make easier simulations dominant. Imagining that nobody in the future will take a shot at simulating very easy sims is unlikely, similarly to how Fermi's paradox cannot be solved with "ALL possible aliens will do X".

For more info on this line of reasoning check https://philpapers.org/rec/...

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RobinHanson's avatar

My math above does integrate over the entire future.

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