alt Hacker NewsI've thought about this a lot in the past, and it seems like the strongest argument for our existence being a simulation. What are the odds of being born a human and not a bacteria, a fly, or, apparently, a nematode? What are the odds that I would be born into a wealthy country? What are the odds that I would be born into what appears to be the end of history -- the most prosperous species in the most prosperous time of Earth's 4 billion year history of life, where I can live comfortably, but technology has created multiple civilization-ending threats that will probably come into fruition shortly after I am gone (should I be so lucky)?
The only thing that gives me pause is that if this is a simulation, the beings that created it are evil for creating both a world so full of suffering and a simulation so detailed (from my own perspective) that we fully experience such suffering. For what purpose could simulations like this possibly serve, I wonder. Does it entertain such hypothetical higher beings, in the way that we create murder simulations to entertain ourselves? Or is it somehow informative, although we'd expect the simulation to be much lower resolution than the universe it's being run in? Maybe we're just in some random gambler or forecaster's model, which is not wholly accurate but with sufficient fidelity may gain a couple of percentage points in predictive power.
Replies
> What are the odds of being born a human and not a bacteria, a fly, or, apparently, a nematode?
If you're having that thought and expressing it on the internet ... 100% certainty.
In a similar many worlds conjecture, with an infinite number of potential universes with an infinite combination of fundemental physical constants, what are the odds that I'm here in this, one of the only possible universes with a sweet spot of values that allow life?
Observer bias is a thing.
> What are the odds of being born a human and not a bacteria, a fly, or, apparently, a nematode?
Well you probably have to be a human to ask yourself that so it seems fallacious to argue like that.
> What are the odds that I would be born into a wealthy country?
10% maybe?
> What are the odds that I would be born into what appears to be the end of history -- the most prosperous species in the most prosperous time of Earth's 4 billion year history of life, where I can live comfortably, but technology has created multiple civilization-ending threats that will probably come into fruition shortly after I am gone (should I be so lucky)?
Since the human population is at a peak currently, probably not that bad. From a quick google search it looks like only about 110 billion people ever existed and there are currently 8 billion people alive so the chance of being alive currently given you’re a random human is about 7%.
And also I don’t think human civilization will end in the foreseeable future. Climate change is going to lead to some changes but overall humans aren’t even close to going extinct.
Your thinking is flawed. It seems to assume that you were pulled from a pool of souls and got assigned to an organism somewhere in time. That’s not the case. What makes you “you” is nothing but your brain cells.