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Simulation Hypothesis Essay

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Despite the age and immensity of the Universe, we have not been visited nor been contacted by extraterrestrial beings because we are a part of a computer simulation. According to the Simulation Hypothesis, theory provided by Nick Bostrom, humans are unaware of being part of this computer generated simulation. The most compelling piece of evidence that supports this hypothesis is the fact to one can consider a sequence of possible situations which an increasing fraction of all people live in simulations becomes more accurate. (Bostrom 1) Nick Bostrom’s studies conclude that a “technologically mature ‘posthuman’ civilization would have enormous computing power”. If this were the case, and the posthuman civilization were able to produce “ancestor simulations,” the number of ancestors would “greatly exceed the total number of actual ancestors”. SO according to Bostrom, one of the following theories is most certainly true: (1) The fraction of human level civilization that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero, (2) the fraction of posthuman civilizations is very close to zero, or (3) the fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one. In fact, if theory number 3 is correct, we are most certainly living in a simulation. To counter argue, many philosophers disagree with this approach; calling it a “metaphysical hypothesis” rather than a skeptical one. These …show more content…

To conclude, according to Nick Bostrom’s take on the Simulation hypothesis, at least one of the three theories are valid. (1) human species are very likely to go extinct before reaching a posthuman stage, (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history or we are almost certainly living in a computer

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