One other problem with the Simulation Theory, is that we can never in principle know if we are in "base reality" or not. We could be "woken up" from this life into a different one, but what would be our criterion for knowing that THAT wasn't also a Simulation?
Anyway, I think a big underlying motive for belief in the Simulation, is that it is a way of getting us to immortality with science, instead of with magic or with a God. And isn't immortality without God the best kind of immortality?
This all basically amounts to the philosopher George Berkeley's Idealism:
There was a young man who said "God
Must find it exceedingly odd
To think that the tree
Should continue to be
When there's no one about in the quad."
Reply:
"Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd;
*I* am always about in the quad.
And that's why the tree
Will continue to be
Since observed by, Yours faithfully, God."
- But this universal subjective Idealism is absurd. It portrays a radical ontological Subjectivism and cannot be true, because it is impossible for a mind - any mind, no matter how powerful - to exist solus ipse.
Fascinating, well-written article about an important, and potentially, looming issue.
One other problem with the Simulation Theory, is that we can never in principle know if we are in "base reality" or not. We could be "woken up" from this life into a different one, but what would be our criterion for knowing that THAT wasn't also a Simulation?
Anyway, I think a big underlying motive for belief in the Simulation, is that it is a way of getting us to immortality with science, instead of with magic or with a God. And isn't immortality without God the best kind of immortality?
This all basically amounts to the philosopher George Berkeley's Idealism:
There was a young man who said "God
Must find it exceedingly odd
To think that the tree
Should continue to be
When there's no one about in the quad."
Reply:
"Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd;
*I* am always about in the quad.
And that's why the tree
Will continue to be
Since observed by, Yours faithfully, God."
- But this universal subjective Idealism is absurd. It portrays a radical ontological Subjectivism and cannot be true, because it is impossible for a mind - any mind, no matter how powerful - to exist solus ipse.