I think AI puts paid to the idea that there's anything we will refrain from doing for ethical reasons. I also don't see a whole lot of evidence that we're getting more ethical. If anything, as the chaos of the breakdown of late stage capitalism and the social structure, connections between us are erased by manipulated political outrage, and the internet and overwork and overconsumption continue to separate us from meaningful in person interaction, we are getting less ethical, not more. We may have been on an upward curve, but there is no law other than our daft belief in MLK's arc of justice -- which is nothing more than a rhetorical flourish -- that says that curve won't and isn't going down again.
I think a more plausible scenario is the one advanced by Brian Greene relative to the multiverse. That the # of possible simulations, like the # of possible multiverses, is so large -- essentially infinite -- that it's highly unlikely just based on the numbers that we're living in some kind of grounded, organic reality.
Also that said, the assumption in these situations is always that the hand behind the curtain is technological or mechanical. That's a false assumption based on our fetish with tech and sci fi. There's not really any good reason why it couldn't be metaphysical or spiritual in nature. Which brings us right back to the idea of a sentient universe and a divine hand (in whatever way you want to define that), which is pretty much what every major spiritual tradition and a boatload of experimental first person evidence has been telling us since history started. Which means it all comes down to whether you believe that the universe, God, whatever, is inherently good, has the power to shape our lives and has our best interests at heart. And of course, that's the unanswerable question on any systematic level, without getting into trouble relative to dogma and all of the mess of organized religion. It comes down to, as always, faith.
Your comment makes me think of all the "no-see-ums" in the universe that support life and probably as close to the idea of god that I can come to. I'm talking of the billions of senergetically operating communities in healthy soils that supply the needed nutrients in plants that feed our biological systems. I am also thinking of the microscopic "gems of the ocean" whose major function is to provide 70% of the earth's oxygen. Interesting how humanity collectively kills all of that, and of course to our own demise as humans. Indigenous may have no scientific explanation for their beliefs, but science is certainly proving them right, something they knew intuitively.
Thanks for your piece. I'm curious about a lot of things, but on what basis do you conclude that we're more ethical today? I'm interested in understanding this a bit.
Hi there - thanks for reading. I think that humanity progressively becomes more ethical as time goes on. I don't know why this is the case, but I do think it's a pattern.
Take animal rights, for example. I would argue that the mistreatment of animals is considered more unethical today than it was 500 years ago. Of course, the concept of animal rights has existed quite a while (in fact, I even believe Pythagoras advocated for animals to be respected), but I think we, as a society or as a world as a whole, take animal rights way more seriously than any of our predecessors. There are organizations within society, such as animal shelters or animal rights groups, which quite literally exist with one sole goal; to ensure that animals are treated ethically, and to enforce this principle. We even have animal lawyers! I doubt that animal rights groups existed in Ancient Greece, and I also doubt that they treated animals (as a society) as ethically as we currently do. This is just one example, but there's plenty of others. The ethical progress which has been made within science, healthcare, human rights in general, and many other areas also serve as examples, in my opinion.
> Hi there - thanks for reading. I think that humanity progressively becomes more ethical as time goes on. I don't know why this is the case, but I do think it's a pattern.
Consider what happens when people's material comforts go away, like during natural disasters.....some people become more empathetic, but things often turn into every man for himself.
The "is-ness" of reality is very misleading, because of The Simulation.
Accepting general physics, that what ever went Bang, Boom, or Bust, creating our present universe, and perhaps others, started off as a singularity, a unity, a whole entity, created of energy.
This entity, divides into a hundred thousand stars, more or less. Yet under the principles of entanglement, it would still be a whole entity, regardless as to apparent individuality.
These stars in turn go nova, creating all elements from nitrogen, number seven, on the periodic table forward. Despite the continued apparent individuation, the whole would still be a single entity.
And so it has evolved into galaxies, planets, life on planets, and human beings on earth.
If we take the original singularity, and assume, we have no way at present, to my understanding, of examining it, that everything that has been created from it, remains a part of it, and was inherently a part of it. That is to say conscious intelligence and wisdom have existed since the beginning.
So we could be a simulation, but only by being a part of that which has its entire physical being, being a part of our universe and a part of us.
I really like these questions where science and philosophy mix, although they are typically unanswerable debates. Yet still very intriguing to think about. My two main comments are: I think it’s hard for us in our society to try and project what these potentially hyper advanced beings are concerned about in terms of societal ethics, and giving limits on advancements in computer capacity seems. Trying to project our ethical rational to a highly advanced society seems like too much of a stretch for us to make a claim for. And to the second point, we may be too far in the dark ages still of technology that what we see as limits in computing power may just be self-imposed limitations because we don’t have a full understanding of what’s possible. Anyway, really interesting and thank you for opening the discussion, Meno!
> However, with this in mind, Bostrom has claimed that his argument is not merely metaphysical speculation, but rather, an empirical claim.
It seems to me that something like this is fairly fair:
Bostrom implicitly claims to be using logic, but it is not actual logic, rather it is a simulation of logic. The simulation runtime we are in does not or can not support us caring about the potential logical consequences this obvious oversight (or that it even exists), therefore all seems well (how things *seem* is different than how things *are* (*can be* known to be)), proving that we are in at least one simulation: Plato's Allegory of the Cave.
I could have quoted other aspects (ie: the usage of "the" simulation theory (as opposed to "a") whenever referring to Bostrom's flavor of the theory, conflation of Reality and The Universe, etc) but in my experience the nature of the simulation is that most agents will form a premature strong conclusion one way or the other regardless of the quantity or quality of the logic provided, typically with easily predictable "explanations" (perceived as ~proofs) if challenged.
I enjoyed this, thank you. The argument is not really a proof and, as was said, is a non-disprovable assertion, like some of the arguments by the early Schoolmen - it’s so engaging though.
Well, I guess a hypothesis which cannot be disproven isn’t much use in science imo; but as an interesting thought experiment, I have always enjoyed this speculation. If it’s non-disprovable as per Popper, then it doesn’t really allow for testable predictions. Russell was good on this too. I might be “just sayin’” though, but as an ageing person in the North of Scotland, I’m not sure what that means!
Maybe....but he's on record as a Naive Realist on other things (the existence of a God, for example). And check out the misinformation game he plays here:
I literally just started reading, watching Youtube, going to meetups.....it is a very fun hobby, but it is extremely time consuming to get to a level of competency (which I think I have achieved, but who knows lol).
Our technology ethics is NOT a bulwark against crimes against humanity. One likely is able argue in the opposite, actually. Neil postman's technopoly, aging now, but still a good framing of the issues.
Bolstrom's idea seems to be that some"where" there is a certain prime physical universe that is a closed system, i.e. it encompasses all existence and all reality. (This is the doctrine of physicalism, the metaphysical doctrine most widely held to true now by philosophers and theoretical physicists).
All of Bolstrom's simulations are then universes which are emergent properties of the prime universe.
To me it seems more likely simply that physicalism is false, and our universe is not a closed system but is an event in another universe, probably not a physical universe. And existence is much, much larger than we believe, with many different kinds of universes, not just the physical kind.
And there is no such thing as a "simulation". Everything that exists is real.
Yes, requiring consciousness to deny the existence of consciousness is like postmodernists saying that there is no such thing as the truth is the truth.
If you were unconscious, would you have been able to write that comment, read the comment to which you are replying, or generate your "is like" comparison?
And, if a genuine proof of a simulation was presented to you, can you be certain that your consciousness would accept it? Be careful: consciousness doesn't just perceive reality, it first generates it.
"...consciousness doesn't just perceive reality, it first generates it..."
Absolutely true. Perception is perception, not the thing that is perceived. Very few people understand that. Because people have been misled by physicalist philosophers and theoretical physicists, and by postmodernists. They have a political agenda.
But if you ask people, perception is *the (perceived) thing itself*...aaaaaaand, "is" is also generated locally, and is what drives action, so it's quite tricky!!!
You are the first person I've ever come across who understands this about consciousness, what a nice treat.
Meno writes, "As humans, we’ve progressively become more ethical over the course of history, a trend that hasn’t changed so far."
That's a reasonable claim, and there would seem to be reasonable objections too. In my view, our relationship with nuclear weapons is hyper-unethical, and has implications for the species far beyond earlier crimes such as genocide of particular groups, slavery, the subjugation of women etc.
There is actually a realistic chance that those of us living today will go down in what's left of history as the most unethical generation ever. The miracle of the modern world exceeds what our ancestors could even dream of. For 10,000 years or more humanity has been trying to get to where we are today. And those of us living today are casually riding the knife edge of it all being swept away in a matter of minutes.
The fact that the weapons exist at all is crime enough. But the bigger crime would seem to be our relationship with the weapons. We've become too bored by them to bother even discussing them most of the time.
We might be wary of patting ourselves on the back for all our technical and ethical accomplishments. We can squander it all at any moment.
I know, I know, this is off topic etc. Well, not entirely given we are discussing Bolstrom.
But ok, agreed, off topic. But maybe the original topic deserves to be replaced? Maybe just about every other topic on Substack needs to be replaced?
Oh no, no, no, that's ridiculous, unreasonable, unrealistic, unacceptable, chants the group consensus. And that's what I mean by unethical.
"As humans, we’ve progressively become more ethical over the course of history, a trend that hasn’t changed so far." Here, you must not be talking about the governments of the collective West as they seemed to have regressed in ethics and morals while the rest of the world is moving forward as you say. Of course, here I am noting particularly the USA's involvement and hell bent intention of creating and supporting genocides and unnecessary wars. Neither Russia or the Gaza Palestinians are a threat to the USA, but the USA government seems hell bent on provoking them unnecessarily to make a threat of them. It is quite clear to anyone with a thinking brain. The collective West seems unresponsive to its people who want neither of the wars or support for them.
I think AI puts paid to the idea that there's anything we will refrain from doing for ethical reasons. I also don't see a whole lot of evidence that we're getting more ethical. If anything, as the chaos of the breakdown of late stage capitalism and the social structure, connections between us are erased by manipulated political outrage, and the internet and overwork and overconsumption continue to separate us from meaningful in person interaction, we are getting less ethical, not more. We may have been on an upward curve, but there is no law other than our daft belief in MLK's arc of justice -- which is nothing more than a rhetorical flourish -- that says that curve won't and isn't going down again.
I think a more plausible scenario is the one advanced by Brian Greene relative to the multiverse. That the # of possible simulations, like the # of possible multiverses, is so large -- essentially infinite -- that it's highly unlikely just based on the numbers that we're living in some kind of grounded, organic reality.
Also that said, the assumption in these situations is always that the hand behind the curtain is technological or mechanical. That's a false assumption based on our fetish with tech and sci fi. There's not really any good reason why it couldn't be metaphysical or spiritual in nature. Which brings us right back to the idea of a sentient universe and a divine hand (in whatever way you want to define that), which is pretty much what every major spiritual tradition and a boatload of experimental first person evidence has been telling us since history started. Which means it all comes down to whether you believe that the universe, God, whatever, is inherently good, has the power to shape our lives and has our best interests at heart. And of course, that's the unanswerable question on any systematic level, without getting into trouble relative to dogma and all of the mess of organized religion. It comes down to, as always, faith.
Signed,
Faith 😎
Your comment makes me think of all the "no-see-ums" in the universe that support life and probably as close to the idea of god that I can come to. I'm talking of the billions of senergetically operating communities in healthy soils that supply the needed nutrients in plants that feed our biological systems. I am also thinking of the microscopic "gems of the ocean" whose major function is to provide 70% of the earth's oxygen. Interesting how humanity collectively kills all of that, and of course to our own demise as humans. Indigenous may have no scientific explanation for their beliefs, but science is certainly proving them right, something they knew intuitively.
Thanks for your piece. I'm curious about a lot of things, but on what basis do you conclude that we're more ethical today? I'm interested in understanding this a bit.
Hi there - thanks for reading. I think that humanity progressively becomes more ethical as time goes on. I don't know why this is the case, but I do think it's a pattern.
Take animal rights, for example. I would argue that the mistreatment of animals is considered more unethical today than it was 500 years ago. Of course, the concept of animal rights has existed quite a while (in fact, I even believe Pythagoras advocated for animals to be respected), but I think we, as a society or as a world as a whole, take animal rights way more seriously than any of our predecessors. There are organizations within society, such as animal shelters or animal rights groups, which quite literally exist with one sole goal; to ensure that animals are treated ethically, and to enforce this principle. We even have animal lawyers! I doubt that animal rights groups existed in Ancient Greece, and I also doubt that they treated animals (as a society) as ethically as we currently do. This is just one example, but there's plenty of others. The ethical progress which has been made within science, healthcare, human rights in general, and many other areas also serve as examples, in my opinion.
Untrue. Do you know how long indigenous populations respected the animals that supported their lives?
Always a white/western centered philosophy leaving out so many others.
> Hi there - thanks for reading. I think that humanity progressively becomes more ethical as time goes on. I don't know why this is the case, but I do think it's a pattern.
Consider what happens when people's material comforts go away, like during natural disasters.....some people become more empathetic, but things often turn into every man for himself.
The "is-ness" of reality is very misleading, because of The Simulation.
Accepting general physics, that what ever went Bang, Boom, or Bust, creating our present universe, and perhaps others, started off as a singularity, a unity, a whole entity, created of energy.
This entity, divides into a hundred thousand stars, more or less. Yet under the principles of entanglement, it would still be a whole entity, regardless as to apparent individuality.
These stars in turn go nova, creating all elements from nitrogen, number seven, on the periodic table forward. Despite the continued apparent individuation, the whole would still be a single entity.
And so it has evolved into galaxies, planets, life on planets, and human beings on earth.
If we take the original singularity, and assume, we have no way at present, to my understanding, of examining it, that everything that has been created from it, remains a part of it, and was inherently a part of it. That is to say conscious intelligence and wisdom have existed since the beginning.
So we could be a simulation, but only by being a part of that which has its entire physical being, being a part of our universe and a part of us.
I really like these questions where science and philosophy mix, although they are typically unanswerable debates. Yet still very intriguing to think about. My two main comments are: I think it’s hard for us in our society to try and project what these potentially hyper advanced beings are concerned about in terms of societal ethics, and giving limits on advancements in computer capacity seems. Trying to project our ethical rational to a highly advanced society seems like too much of a stretch for us to make a claim for. And to the second point, we may be too far in the dark ages still of technology that what we see as limits in computing power may just be self-imposed limitations because we don’t have a full understanding of what’s possible. Anyway, really interesting and thank you for opening the discussion, Meno!
Thanks for reading!
> However, with this in mind, Bostrom has claimed that his argument is not merely metaphysical speculation, but rather, an empirical claim.
It seems to me that something like this is fairly fair:
Bostrom implicitly claims to be using logic, but it is not actual logic, rather it is a simulation of logic. The simulation runtime we are in does not or can not support us caring about the potential logical consequences this obvious oversight (or that it even exists), therefore all seems well (how things *seem* is different than how things *are* (*can be* known to be)), proving that we are in at least one simulation: Plato's Allegory of the Cave.
I could have quoted other aspects (ie: the usage of "the" simulation theory (as opposed to "a") whenever referring to Bostrom's flavor of the theory, conflation of Reality and The Universe, etc) but in my experience the nature of the simulation is that most agents will form a premature strong conclusion one way or the other regardless of the quantity or quality of the logic provided, typically with easily predictable "explanations" (perceived as ~proofs) if challenged.
Perhaps by breaking Betteridge’s Law, you’ve solved the mystery once and for all? 😉
Really good article! I loved your spin on it and would generally agree with your hypothesis about Ethics. Adding the book to the TBR list.
Nothing is true; everything is permitted.
Friedrich Nietzche, Thus Spake Zarathustra
I enjoyed this, thank you. The argument is not really a proof and, as was said, is a non-disprovable assertion, like some of the arguments by the early Schoolmen - it’s so engaging though.
Does the non-disprovable aspect have substantial consequences, or are you "just sayin'"?
Well, I guess a hypothesis which cannot be disproven isn’t much use in science imo; but as an interesting thought experiment, I have always enjoyed this speculation. If it’s non-disprovable as per Popper, then it doesn’t really allow for testable predictions. Russell was good on this too. I might be “just sayin’” though, but as an ageing person in the North of Scotland, I’m not sure what that means!
> If it’s non-disprovable as per Popper, then it doesn’t really allow for testable predictions.
Testability and non-disprovability are similar, but not identical.
Check out some of the other things Popper said though:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popper%27s_three_worlds
> Russell was good on this too.
Maybe....but he's on record as a Naive Realist on other things (the existence of a God, for example). And check out the misinformation game he plays here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
> I might be “just sayin’” though, but as an ageing person in the North of Scotland, I’m not sure what that means!
Describing the makeup of your opinion about Reality.
Well, I'm just sayin' :). Thanks, I'll follow these up. Out of interest (and no more) how did you get into philosophy?
I literally just started reading, watching Youtube, going to meetups.....it is a very fun hobby, but it is extremely time consuming to get to a level of competency (which I think I have achieved, but who knows lol).
On the same path, brother!
As in "I merely make an observation", I guess so!
Fun read.
Our technology ethics is NOT a bulwark against crimes against humanity. One likely is able argue in the opposite, actually. Neil postman's technopoly, aging now, but still a good framing of the issues.
Bolstrom's idea seems to be that some"where" there is a certain prime physical universe that is a closed system, i.e. it encompasses all existence and all reality. (This is the doctrine of physicalism, the metaphysical doctrine most widely held to true now by philosophers and theoretical physicists).
All of Bolstrom's simulations are then universes which are emergent properties of the prime universe.
To me it seems more likely simply that physicalism is false, and our universe is not a closed system but is an event in another universe, probably not a physical universe. And existence is much, much larger than we believe, with many different kinds of universes, not just the physical kind.
And there is no such thing as a "simulation". Everything that exists is real.
Alternatively, we could acknowledge the Elephant in the Room: Consciousness.
Then again, acknowledging that *requires* consciousness (the cooperation of), and it tends to not like attention.
Yes, requiring consciousness to deny the existence of consciousness is like postmodernists saying that there is no such thing as the truth is the truth.
If you were unconscious, would you have been able to write that comment, read the comment to which you are replying, or generate your "is like" comparison?
And, if a genuine proof of a simulation was presented to you, can you be certain that your consciousness would accept it? Be careful: consciousness doesn't just perceive reality, it first generates it.
"...consciousness doesn't just perceive reality, it first generates it..."
Absolutely true. Perception is perception, not the thing that is perceived. Very few people understand that. Because people have been misled by physicalist philosophers and theoretical physicists, and by postmodernists. They have a political agenda.
But if you ask people, perception is *the (perceived) thing itself*...aaaaaaand, "is" is also generated locally, and is what drives action, so it's quite tricky!!!
You are the first person I've ever come across who understands this about consciousness, what a nice treat.
Meno writes, "As humans, we’ve progressively become more ethical over the course of history, a trend that hasn’t changed so far."
That's a reasonable claim, and there would seem to be reasonable objections too. In my view, our relationship with nuclear weapons is hyper-unethical, and has implications for the species far beyond earlier crimes such as genocide of particular groups, slavery, the subjugation of women etc.
https://www.tannytalk.com/p/nukes-are-we-worse-than-nazis
There is actually a realistic chance that those of us living today will go down in what's left of history as the most unethical generation ever. The miracle of the modern world exceeds what our ancestors could even dream of. For 10,000 years or more humanity has been trying to get to where we are today. And those of us living today are casually riding the knife edge of it all being swept away in a matter of minutes.
The fact that the weapons exist at all is crime enough. But the bigger crime would seem to be our relationship with the weapons. We've become too bored by them to bother even discussing them most of the time.
We might be wary of patting ourselves on the back for all our technical and ethical accomplishments. We can squander it all at any moment.
I know, I know, this is off topic etc. Well, not entirely given we are discussing Bolstrom.
But ok, agreed, off topic. But maybe the original topic deserves to be replaced? Maybe just about every other topic on Substack needs to be replaced?
Oh no, no, no, that's ridiculous, unreasonable, unrealistic, unacceptable, chants the group consensus. And that's what I mean by unethical.
We are not living in a simulation...a simulation...simulation...simulation...simulation...simulation...simulation...
There is a typo on the sub-headline. Bolstrom
Thanks for catching that!
"As humans, we’ve progressively become more ethical over the course of history, a trend that hasn’t changed so far." Here, you must not be talking about the governments of the collective West as they seemed to have regressed in ethics and morals while the rest of the world is moving forward as you say. Of course, here I am noting particularly the USA's involvement and hell bent intention of creating and supporting genocides and unnecessary wars. Neither Russia or the Gaza Palestinians are a threat to the USA, but the USA government seems hell bent on provoking them unnecessarily to make a threat of them. It is quite clear to anyone with a thinking brain. The collective West seems unresponsive to its people who want neither of the wars or support for them.