All the things you mentioned arenât uniquely evidence for the simulation hypothesis but are equally evidence for a number of other hypotheses, such as the existence of a supernatural, personal God who designed and created the universe. (There are endless variations on this hypothesis, and we could come up endless more.)
The fine-tuning argument is a common argument for the existence of a supernatural, personal God. The appearance of fine-tuning supports this conclusion equally as well it supports the simulation hypothesis.
Some young Earth creationists believe that dinosaur fossils and other evidence of an old Earth were intentionally put there by God to test peopleâs faith. You might also think that God tests our faith in other ways, or plays tricks, or gets easily bored, and creates the appearance of a long history or a distant future that isnât really there. (I also think itâs just not true that this is the most interesting point in history.)
Similarly, the book of Genesis says that God created humans in his image. Maybe he didnât create aliens with high-tech civilizations because heâs only interested in beings with high technology made in his image.
It might not be God who is doing this, but in fact an evil demon, as Descartes famously discussed in his Meditations around 400 years ago. Or it could be some kind of trickster deity like Loki who is neither fully good or fully evil. There are endless ideas that would slot in equally well to replace the simulation hypothesis.
You might think the simulation hypothesis is preferable because itâs a naturalistic hypothesis and these are supernatural hypotheses. But this is wrong, the simulation hypothesis is a supernatural hypothesis. If there are simulators, the reality they live in is stipulated to have different fundamental laws of nature, such as the laws of physics, than exist in what we perceive to be the universe. For example, in the simulatorsâ reality, maybe the fundamental relationship between consciousness and physical phenomena such as matter, energy, space, time, and physical forces is such that consciousness can directly, automatically shape physical phenomena to its will. If we observed this happening in our universe, we would describe this as magic or a miracle.
Whether you call them âsimulatorsâ or âGodâ or an âevil demonâ or âLokiâ, and whether you call it a âsimulationâ or an âillusionâ or a âdreamâ, these are just different surface-level labels for substantially the same idea. If you stipulate laws of nature radically other than the ones we believe we have, what youâre talking about is supernatural.
If you try to assume that the physics and other laws of nature in the simulatorsâ reality is the same as in our perceived reality, then the simulation argument runs into a logical self-contradiction, as pointed out by the physicist Sean Carroll. Endlessly nested levels of simulation means computation in the original simulatorsâ reality will run out. Simulations at the bottom of the nested hierarchy, which donât have enough computation to run still more simulations inside them, will outnumber higher-level simulations. Since the simulation argument says, as one of its key premises, that in our perceived reality we will be able to create simulations of worlds or universes filled with many digital minds, but the simulation hypothesis implies this is actually impossible, then the simulation argumentâs conclusion contradicts one of its premises.
There are other strong reasons to reject the simulation argument. Remember that a key premise is that we ourselves or our descendants will want to make simulations. Really? Theyâll want to simulate the Holocaust, malaria, tsunamis, cancer, cluster headaches, car crashes, sudden infant death syndrome, and Guantanamo Bay? Why? On our ethical views today, we would not see this as permissible, but rather the most grievous evil. Why would our descendants feel differently?
Less strongly, computation is abundant in the universe but still finite. Why spend computation on creating digital minds inside simulations when there is always a trade-off between doing that and creating digital minds in our universe, i.e. the real world? If we or our descendants think marginally and hold as one of our highest goals to maximize the number of future lives with a good quality of life, using huge amounts of computation on simulations might be seen as going against that goal. Plus, there are endlessly more things we could do with our finite resource of computation, most we canât imagine today. Where would creating simulations fall on the list?
You can argue that creating simulations would be a small fraction of overall resources. Iâm not sure thatâs actually true; I havenât done the math. But just because something is a small fraction of overall resources doesnât mean it will be likely be done. In an interstellar, transhumanist scenario, our descendants could create a diamond statue of Hatsune Miku the size of the solar system and this would take a tiny percentage of overall resources, but that doesnât mean it will likely happen. The simulation argument specifically claims that making simulations of early 21st century Earth will interest our descendants more than alternative uses of resources. Why? Maybe theyâll be more interested in a million other things.
Overall, the simulation hypothesis is undisprovable but no more credible than an unlimited number of other undisprovable hypotheses. If something seems nuts, it probably is. Initially, you might not be able to point out the specific logical reasons itâs nuts. But thatâs to be expected â the sort of paradoxes and thought experiments that get a lot of attention (that âgo viralâ, so to speak) are the ones that are hard to immediately counterargue.
Philosophy is replete with oddball ideas that are hard to convincingly refute at first blush. The Chinese Room is a prime example. Another random example is the argument that utilitarianism is compatible with slavery. With enough time and attention, refutations may come. I donât think oneâs inability to immediately articulate the logical counterargument is a sign that an oddball idea is correct. Itâs just that thinking takes time and, usually, by the time an oddball idea reaches your desk, itâs proven to be resistant to immediate refutation. So, trust that intuition that something is nuts.
Strong upvoted as that was possibly the most compelling rebuttal to the simulation argument Iâve seen in quite a while, which was refreshing for my peace of mind.
That being said, it mainly targets the idea of a large-scale simulation of our entire world. What about the possibility that the simulation is for a single entity and that the rest of the world is simulated at a lower fidelity? I had the thought that a way to potentially maximize future lives of good quality would be to contain each conscious life in a separate simulation where they live reasonably good lives catered to their preferences, with the apparent rest of the world being virtual. Given, I doubt this conjecture because in my own opinion my life doesnât seem that great, but it seems plausible at least?
Also, that line about the diamond statue of Hatsune Miku was very, very amusing to this former otaku.
Changing the simulation hypothesis from a simulation of a world full of people to a simulation of an individual throws the simulation argument out the window. Here is how Sean Carroll articulates the first three steps of the simulation argument:
We can easily imagine creating many simulated civilizations.
Things that are that easy to imagine are likely to happen, at least somewhere in the universe.
Therefore, there are probably many civilizations being simulated within the lifetime of our universe. Enough that there are many more simulated people than people like us.
The simulation argument doesnât apply to you, as an individual. Unless you think that you, personally, are going to create a simulation of a world or an individual â which obviously youâre not.
Changing the simulation hypothesis from a world-scale simulation to an individual-scale simulation also doesnât change the other arguments against the simulation hypothesis:
The bottoming out argument. This is the one from Sean Carroll. Even if we supposed you, personally, were going to create individual-scale simulations in the future, eventually a nesting cascade of such simulations would exhaust available computation in the top-level universe, i.e. the real universe. The bottom-level simulations within which no further simulations are possible would outnumber higher-level ones. The conclusion of the simulation argument contradicts a necessary premise.[1]
The ethical argument. It would be extremely unethical to imprison an individual in a simulation without their consent, especially a simulation with a significant amount of pain and suffering that the simulators are programming in. Would you create an individual-scale simulation even of an unrealistically pleasant life, let alone a life with significant pain and suffering? If we had the technology to do this today, I think it would be illegal. It would be analogous to false imprisonment, kidnapping, torture, or criminal child abuse (since you are creating this person).
The computational waste argument. The amount of computation required to make an individual-scale simulation would require at least as much computation as creating a digital mind in the real universe. In fact, it would require more computation, since you also to have to simulate the whole world around the individual, not just the individual themselves. If the simulators think marginally, they would prefer to use these resources to create a digital mind in the real universe or put them to some other, better use.
If the point of the simulation is to cater it to the individualâs preferences, we should ask:
a) Why isnât this actually happening? Why is there so much unnecessary pain and suffering and unpleasantness in every individualâs life? Why simulate the covid-19 pandemic?
b) Why not cater to the individualâs fundamental and overriding preference not to be in a simulation?
c) Why not put these resources toward any number of superior uses that must surely exist?[2]
Perhaps most importantly, changing the simulation hypothesis from world-scale to individual-scale doesnât change perhaps the most powerful counterargument to the simulation hypothesis:
The unlimited arbitrary, undisprovable hypotheses argument. There is no reason to think the simulation hypothesis makes any more sense or is any more likely to be true than the hypothesis that the world you perceive is an illusion created by an evil demon or a trickster deity like Loki. There are an unlimited number of equally arbitrary and equally unjustified hypotheses of this type that could be generated. In my previous comment, I argued that versions of the simulation hypotheses in which the laws of physics or laws of nature are radically different in the real universe than in the simulation are supernatural hypotheses. Versions of the simulation hypothesis that assume real universe physics is the same as simulation physics suffer from the bottoming out argument and the computational waste argument. So, either way, the simulation hypothesis should be rejected. (Also, whether the simulation has real universe physics or not, the ethical argument applies â another reason to reject it.)
This argument also calls into question why we should think simulation physics is the same as real universe physics, i.e. why we should think the simulation hypothesis makes more sense as a naturalistic hypothesis than a supernatural hypothesis. The simulation hypothesis leans a lot on the idea that humans or post-humans in our hypothetical future will want to create âancestor simulationsâ, i.e. realistic simulations of the simulatorsâ past, which is our present. If there were simulations, why would ancestor simulations be the most common type? Fantasy novels are about equally popular as historical fiction or non-fiction books about history. Would simulations skew toward historical realism significantly more than books currently do? Why not simulate worlds with magic or other supernatural phenomena? (Maybe we should conclude that, since this is more interesting, ghosts probably exist in our simulation. Maybe God is simulated too?) The âancestor simulationâ idea is doing a lot of heavy lifting; itâs not clear that this is in any way a justifiable assumption rather than an arbitrary one. The more I dig into the reasoning behind the simulation hypothesis, the more it feels like Calvinball.[3]
The individual-scale simulation hypothesis also introduces new problems that are unique to it:
Simulation of other minds. If you wanted to build a robot that could perfectly simulate the humans you know best, the underlying software would need to be a digital mind. Since, on the individual-scale simulation hypothesis, you are a digital mind, then the other minds in the simulation â at least the ones you know well â are as real as you are. You could try to argue that these other minds only need to be partially simulated. For example, the mind simulations donât need to be running when you arenât observing or interacting with these people. But then why donât these people report memory gaps? If the answer is that the simulation fills in the gaps with false memories, what process continually generates new false memories? Why would this process be less computationally expensive than just running the simulation normally? (You could also try to say that consciousness is some kind of switch that can be flipped on or off for some simulations but not others. But I canât think of any theory of consciousness this would be compatible with, and itâs a problem for the individual-scale simulation hypothesis if it just starts making stuff up ad hoc to fit the hypothesis.)
If we decide that at least the people you know well must be fully simulated, in the same way you are, then what about the people they know well? What about the people who they know well know well? If everyone in the world is connected through six degrees of separation or fewer, then it seems like individual-scale simulations are actually impossible and all simulations must be world-scale simulations.
Abandoning the simulation of history at large scale. Individual-scale simulations donât provide the same informational value that world-scale simulations might. When people talk about why âancestor simulationsâ would supposedly be valuable or desired, they usually appeal to the notion of simulating historical events on a large scale. This obviously wouldnât apply to individual-scale simulations. To the extent credence toward the simulation hypothesis depends on this, an individual-scale simulation hypothesis may be even less credible than a world-scale simulation hypothesis.
The Wikipedia page on the simulation hypothesis notes that itâs a contemporary twist on a centuries-old if not millennia-old idea. Weâve replaced dreams and evil demons with computers, but the underlying idea is largely the same. The reasons to reject it are largely the same, although the simulation argument has some unique weaknesses. That page is a good resource for finding still more arguments against the simulation hypothesis.[4]
Carroll, who is a physicist and cosmologist, also criticizes the anthropic reasoning of the simulation argument. I recommend reading his post, itâs short and well-written.
You could try to argue that, despite societyâs best efforts, it will be impossible to supress a large number of simulations from being created. Pursuing this line of argument re quires speculating about the specific details of a distant, transhuman or post-human future. Would an individual creating a simulation be more like an individual today operating a meth lab or launching a nuclear ICBM? Iâm not sure we can know the answer to this question. If dangerous or banned technologies canât be controlled, what does this say about existential risk? Will far future, post-human terrorists be able to deploy doomsday devices? If so, that would undermine the simulation argument. (Will post-humans even have the desire to be terrorists, or is that a defect of humanity?)
Related to this are various arguments that the simulation argument is self-defeating. We infer things about the real universe from our perceived universe. We then conclude that our perceived universe is a simulation. But, if it is, this undermines our ability to infer anything about the real universe from our perceived universe. In fact, this undermines the inference that our perceived universe is a simulation within a real universe. So, the simulation argument defeats itself.
In addition to all the above, I would be curious to hear empirical, scientific arguments about the amount of computation that might be required for world-scale simulations, which would be partly applicable to individual-scale simulations. Obviously, our universe canât run a full-scale, one-to-one simulation of our universe with perfect fidelity â that would require more computation, matter, and energy than our universe has. If you only simulate the solar system with perfect fidelity, you can pare that down a lot. You can make other assumptions to pare down the computation required. Itâs much less important than all the arguments and considerations described above, but if we get a better understanding of approximately how difficult or costly a world-scale simulation might be, that could help put some considerations like computational waste in perspective.
All the things you mentioned arenât uniquely evidence for the simulation hypothesis but are equally evidence for a number of other hypotheses, such as the existence of a supernatural, personal God who designed and created the universe. (There are endless variations on this hypothesis, and we could come up endless more.)
The fine-tuning argument is a common argument for the existence of a supernatural, personal God. The appearance of fine-tuning supports this conclusion equally as well it supports the simulation hypothesis.
Some young Earth creationists believe that dinosaur fossils and other evidence of an old Earth were intentionally put there by God to test peopleâs faith. You might also think that God tests our faith in other ways, or plays tricks, or gets easily bored, and creates the appearance of a long history or a distant future that isnât really there. (I also think itâs just not true that this is the most interesting point in history.)
Similarly, the book of Genesis says that God created humans in his image. Maybe he didnât create aliens with high-tech civilizations because heâs only interested in beings with high technology made in his image.
It might not be God who is doing this, but in fact an evil demon, as Descartes famously discussed in his Meditations around 400 years ago. Or it could be some kind of trickster deity like Loki who is neither fully good or fully evil. There are endless ideas that would slot in equally well to replace the simulation hypothesis.
You might think the simulation hypothesis is preferable because itâs a naturalistic hypothesis and these are supernatural hypotheses. But this is wrong, the simulation hypothesis is a supernatural hypothesis. If there are simulators, the reality they live in is stipulated to have different fundamental laws of nature, such as the laws of physics, than exist in what we perceive to be the universe. For example, in the simulatorsâ reality, maybe the fundamental relationship between consciousness and physical phenomena such as matter, energy, space, time, and physical forces is such that consciousness can directly, automatically shape physical phenomena to its will. If we observed this happening in our universe, we would describe this as magic or a miracle.
Whether you call them âsimulatorsâ or âGodâ or an âevil demonâ or âLokiâ, and whether you call it a âsimulationâ or an âillusionâ or a âdreamâ, these are just different surface-level labels for substantially the same idea. If you stipulate laws of nature radically other than the ones we believe we have, what youâre talking about is supernatural.
If you try to assume that the physics and other laws of nature in the simulatorsâ reality is the same as in our perceived reality, then the simulation argument runs into a logical self-contradiction, as pointed out by the physicist Sean Carroll. Endlessly nested levels of simulation means computation in the original simulatorsâ reality will run out. Simulations at the bottom of the nested hierarchy, which donât have enough computation to run still more simulations inside them, will outnumber higher-level simulations. Since the simulation argument says, as one of its key premises, that in our perceived reality we will be able to create simulations of worlds or universes filled with many digital minds, but the simulation hypothesis implies this is actually impossible, then the simulation argumentâs conclusion contradicts one of its premises.
There are other strong reasons to reject the simulation argument. Remember that a key premise is that we ourselves or our descendants will want to make simulations. Really? Theyâll want to simulate the Holocaust, malaria, tsunamis, cancer, cluster headaches, car crashes, sudden infant death syndrome, and Guantanamo Bay? Why? On our ethical views today, we would not see this as permissible, but rather the most grievous evil. Why would our descendants feel differently?
Less strongly, computation is abundant in the universe but still finite. Why spend computation on creating digital minds inside simulations when there is always a trade-off between doing that and creating digital minds in our universe, i.e. the real world? If we or our descendants think marginally and hold as one of our highest goals to maximize the number of future lives with a good quality of life, using huge amounts of computation on simulations might be seen as going against that goal. Plus, there are endlessly more things we could do with our finite resource of computation, most we canât imagine today. Where would creating simulations fall on the list?
You can argue that creating simulations would be a small fraction of overall resources. Iâm not sure thatâs actually true; I havenât done the math. But just because something is a small fraction of overall resources doesnât mean it will be likely be done. In an interstellar, transhumanist scenario, our descendants could create a diamond statue of Hatsune Miku the size of the solar system and this would take a tiny percentage of overall resources, but that doesnât mean it will likely happen. The simulation argument specifically claims that making simulations of early 21st century Earth will interest our descendants more than alternative uses of resources. Why? Maybe theyâll be more interested in a million other things.
Overall, the simulation hypothesis is undisprovable but no more credible than an unlimited number of other undisprovable hypotheses. If something seems nuts, it probably is. Initially, you might not be able to point out the specific logical reasons itâs nuts. But thatâs to be expected â the sort of paradoxes and thought experiments that get a lot of attention (that âgo viralâ, so to speak) are the ones that are hard to immediately counterargue.
Philosophy is replete with oddball ideas that are hard to convincingly refute at first blush. The Chinese Room is a prime example. Another random example is the argument that utilitarianism is compatible with slavery. With enough time and attention, refutations may come. I donât think oneâs inability to immediately articulate the logical counterargument is a sign that an oddball idea is correct. Itâs just that thinking takes time and, usually, by the time an oddball idea reaches your desk, itâs proven to be resistant to immediate refutation. So, trust that intuition that something is nuts.
Strong upvoted as that was possibly the most compelling rebuttal to the simulation argument Iâve seen in quite a while, which was refreshing for my peace of mind.
That being said, it mainly targets the idea of a large-scale simulation of our entire world. What about the possibility that the simulation is for a single entity and that the rest of the world is simulated at a lower fidelity? I had the thought that a way to potentially maximize future lives of good quality would be to contain each conscious life in a separate simulation where they live reasonably good lives catered to their preferences, with the apparent rest of the world being virtual. Given, I doubt this conjecture because in my own opinion my life doesnât seem that great, but it seems plausible at least?
Also, that line about the diamond statue of Hatsune Miku was very, very amusing to this former otaku.
Changing the simulation hypothesis from a simulation of a world full of people to a simulation of an individual throws the simulation argument out the window. Here is how Sean Carroll articulates the first three steps of the simulation argument:
We can easily imagine creating many simulated civilizations.
Things that are that easy to imagine are likely to happen, at least somewhere in the universe.
Therefore, there are probably many civilizations being simulated within the lifetime of our universe. Enough that there are many more simulated people than people like us.
The simulation argument doesnât apply to you, as an individual. Unless you think that you, personally, are going to create a simulation of a world or an individual â which obviously youâre not.
Changing the simulation hypothesis from a world-scale simulation to an individual-scale simulation also doesnât change the other arguments against the simulation hypothesis:
The bottoming out argument. This is the one from Sean Carroll. Even if we supposed you, personally, were going to create individual-scale simulations in the future, eventually a nesting cascade of such simulations would exhaust available computation in the top-level universe, i.e. the real universe. The bottom-level simulations within which no further simulations are possible would outnumber higher-level ones. The conclusion of the simulation argument contradicts a necessary premise.[1]
The ethical argument. It would be extremely unethical to imprison an individual in a simulation without their consent, especially a simulation with a significant amount of pain and suffering that the simulators are programming in. Would you create an individual-scale simulation even of an unrealistically pleasant life, let alone a life with significant pain and suffering? If we had the technology to do this today, I think it would be illegal. It would be analogous to false imprisonment, kidnapping, torture, or criminal child abuse (since you are creating this person).
The computational waste argument. The amount of computation required to make an individual-scale simulation would require at least as much computation as creating a digital mind in the real universe. In fact, it would require more computation, since you also to have to simulate the whole world around the individual, not just the individual themselves. If the simulators think marginally, they would prefer to use these resources to create a digital mind in the real universe or put them to some other, better use.
If the point of the simulation is to cater it to the individualâs preferences, we should ask:
a) Why isnât this actually happening? Why is there so much unnecessary pain and suffering and unpleasantness in every individualâs life? Why simulate the covid-19 pandemic?
b) Why not cater to the individualâs fundamental and overriding preference not to be in a simulation?
c) Why not put these resources toward any number of superior uses that must surely exist?[2]
Perhaps most importantly, changing the simulation hypothesis from world-scale to individual-scale doesnât change perhaps the most powerful counterargument to the simulation hypothesis:
The unlimited arbitrary, undisprovable hypotheses argument. There is no reason to think the simulation hypothesis makes any more sense or is any more likely to be true than the hypothesis that the world you perceive is an illusion created by an evil demon or a trickster deity like Loki. There are an unlimited number of equally arbitrary and equally unjustified hypotheses of this type that could be generated. In my previous comment, I argued that versions of the simulation hypotheses in which the laws of physics or laws of nature are radically different in the real universe than in the simulation are supernatural hypotheses. Versions of the simulation hypothesis that assume real universe physics is the same as simulation physics suffer from the bottoming out argument and the computational waste argument. So, either way, the simulation hypothesis should be rejected. (Also, whether the simulation has real universe physics or not, the ethical argument applies â another reason to reject it.)
This argument also calls into question why we should think simulation physics is the same as real universe physics, i.e. why we should think the simulation hypothesis makes more sense as a naturalistic hypothesis than a supernatural hypothesis. The simulation hypothesis leans a lot on the idea that humans or post-humans in our hypothetical future will want to create âancestor simulationsâ, i.e. realistic simulations of the simulatorsâ past, which is our present. If there were simulations, why would ancestor simulations be the most common type? Fantasy novels are about equally popular as historical fiction or non-fiction books about history. Would simulations skew toward historical realism significantly more than books currently do? Why not simulate worlds with magic or other supernatural phenomena? (Maybe we should conclude that, since this is more interesting, ghosts probably exist in our simulation. Maybe God is simulated too?) The âancestor simulationâ idea is doing a lot of heavy lifting; itâs not clear that this is in any way a justifiable assumption rather than an arbitrary one. The more I dig into the reasoning behind the simulation hypothesis, the more it feels like Calvinball.[3]
The individual-scale simulation hypothesis also introduces new problems that are unique to it:
Simulation of other minds. If you wanted to build a robot that could perfectly simulate the humans you know best, the underlying software would need to be a digital mind. Since, on the individual-scale simulation hypothesis, you are a digital mind, then the other minds in the simulation â at least the ones you know well â are as real as you are. You could try to argue that these other minds only need to be partially simulated. For example, the mind simulations donât need to be running when you arenât observing or interacting with these people. But then why donât these people report memory gaps? If the answer is that the simulation fills in the gaps with false memories, what process continually generates new false memories? Why would this process be less computationally expensive than just running the simulation normally? (You could also try to say that consciousness is some kind of switch that can be flipped on or off for some simulations but not others. But I canât think of any theory of consciousness this would be compatible with, and itâs a problem for the individual-scale simulation hypothesis if it just starts making stuff up ad hoc to fit the hypothesis.)
If we decide that at least the people you know well must be fully simulated, in the same way you are, then what about the people they know well? What about the people who they know well know well? If everyone in the world is connected through six degrees of separation or fewer, then it seems like individual-scale simulations are actually impossible and all simulations must be world-scale simulations.
Abandoning the simulation of history at large scale. Individual-scale simulations donât provide the same informational value that world-scale simulations might. When people talk about why âancestor simulationsâ would supposedly be valuable or desired, they usually appeal to the notion of simulating historical events on a large scale. This obviously wouldnât apply to individual-scale simulations. To the extent credence toward the simulation hypothesis depends on this, an individual-scale simulation hypothesis may be even less credible than a world-scale simulation hypothesis.
The Wikipedia page on the simulation hypothesis notes that itâs a contemporary twist on a centuries-old if not millennia-old idea. Weâve replaced dreams and evil demons with computers, but the underlying idea is largely the same. The reasons to reject it are largely the same, although the simulation argument has some unique weaknesses. That page is a good resource for finding still more arguments against the simulation hypothesis.[4]
Carroll, who is a physicist and cosmologist, also criticizes the anthropic reasoning of the simulation argument. I recommend reading his post, itâs short and well-written.
You could try to argue that, despite societyâs best efforts, it will be impossible to supress a large number of simulations from being created. Pursuing this line of argument re quires speculating about the specific details of a distant, transhuman or post-human future. Would an individual creating a simulation be more like an individual today operating a meth lab or launching a nuclear ICBM? Iâm not sure we can know the answer to this question. If dangerous or banned technologies canât be controlled, what does this say about existential risk? Will far future, post-human terrorists be able to deploy doomsday devices? If so, that would undermine the simulation argument. (Will post-humans even have the desire to be terrorists, or is that a defect of humanity?)
Related to this are various arguments that the simulation argument is self-defeating. We infer things about the real universe from our perceived universe. We then conclude that our perceived universe is a simulation. But, if it is, this undermines our ability to infer anything about the real universe from our perceived universe. In fact, this undermines the inference that our perceived universe is a simulation within a real universe. So, the simulation argument defeats itself.
In addition to all the above, I would be curious to hear empirical, scientific arguments about the amount of computation that might be required for world-scale simulations, which would be partly applicable to individual-scale simulations. Obviously, our universe canât run a full-scale, one-to-one simulation of our universe with perfect fidelity â that would require more computation, matter, and energy than our universe has. If you only simulate the solar system with perfect fidelity, you can pare that down a lot. You can make other assumptions to pare down the computation required. Itâs much less important than all the arguments and considerations described above, but if we get a better understanding of approximately how difficult or costly a world-scale simulation might be, that could help put some considerations like computational waste in perspective.