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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

will perkins: The original paper shows that, according to our laws of physics, it's probable that we're living in a computer simulation. If it can be shown that our physics allow it, then it's a legitimate argument that we're likely to live in one - otherwise it's just a repetition of the millenia-old argument that it's possible for us to be living in a hallucination.

If one wants to make a plausible case for this, you have to start from our laws of physics and establish that it's likely according to them. Once you have already established that it's likely, then you can go around speculating about the physics in other worlds, because you've shown that there is at least one universe in which the argument holds (and the people simulating us might be living in a similar universe).

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Isn't the whole premise of the original paper a little wrong? He claims that the probability of our being in a simulation depends on whether or not humans will eventually be able to simulate full worlds. But the two are unrelated. It is not our future descendants or 'post-humans' who would be simulating us, it is someone in a completely different universe with different laws of physics.

Think of it like this - the fact that the little Sims in SimCity are simulated has nothing to do with their ability to create a simulation inside the game.

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