I've always been fascinated by the notion that we may all just be a simulation running in some advanced being's computer. Or rather, even that computer's simulation's simulation. The Times has a great article on this. An Oxford professor Nick Bostrum has advanced a theory that it's more likely than NOT that we are all just a computer simulation not unlike say, all the various iterations of Sim video games or World of Warcraft: we're not biological at all, but rather just a series of bits and digital zits. Bostrum contends that advanced human civilization will have the computing power that enables them to recreate ancient or past civilizations virtually, including fully functioning digital individuals. The length of time it takes humans to achieve this amount of computer power is irrelevant.
If civilization survived long enough to reach that stage, and if the posthumans were to run lots of simulations for research purposes or entertainment, then the number of virtual ancestors they created would be vastly greater than the number of real ancestors.
There would be no way for any of these ancestors to know for sure whether they were virtual or real, because the sights and feelings they’d experience would be indistinguishable. But since there would be so many more virtual ancestors, any individual could figure that the odds made it nearly certain that he or she was living in a virtual world.
The math and the logic are inexorable once you assume that lots of simulations are being run.
Woa. There are obvious critiques, whch the article covers, but it also illuminates an answer, if tongue in cheek, to one of the great questions in life: Why does God allow bad things to happen?
How could God allow so much evil in the world? For the same reason there are plagues and earthquakes and battles in games like World of Warcraft. Peace is boring, Dude.
To read more click here.
Update: BoingBoing has more on this.