Hi RB,
Richard Baron wrote:I do not know what Bostrom's own intentions were, but he does push us to take seriously the questions that he raises towards the end. We should not rule out our being in a simulation, therefore we should think hard about how ethics would look if we were. We might then draw lessons from that exercise for how ethics should be even if we are not in a simulation, since, as he points out early on, our own experiences do not give us a clue as to whether we are in a simulation. That is, if experiences are the same in or out, maybe (and this is contentious) ethics should be the same.
I'll have to re-read yet again as I missed this ethical bit?
For myself, I think this a modern update of Descartes 'demon' and Putnams 'brain-in-a-vat', et al, with the added tweak at the 'transhumanists' but with the twist that its based upon not wholly unreasonable assumptions about current technological advance and a fairly unreasonable one about 'consciousness', i.e. its algorithmic(although I tend to agree with this one
).
If we take the fraction at the bottom of page 5 of the pdf version, fpNH/(fpNH+H) (with bars over N, H that I won't attempt to reproduce even if the software could do it), the top line is the number of human-like experience-sets that are simulated (a set is a life or simulated life), and the bottom line is the number that are simulated plus the number that are real. That bottom line is therefore the total number of experience-sets. So the whole fraction is the proportion of experience-sets that are simulated.
The equation marked (*) at the top of page 6 is the same one, with the H cancelled out and with N expanded to fINI. Then, as he says, the large size of NI means that the proportion of experience-sets that are simulated must be close to 1, unless fp or fI is very small.
Ta. I should have 'plugged-in' some numbers I guess
Then we come on to the indifference principle. The only information you have concerns the proportion of experience-sets that is simulated. You have no clues in your experience-set to help you. So if you want to believe in a probability that your experience-set is simulated, you should take the proportion as that probability.
Ah! This is what I meant by my burblings about an inference rule. Does this principle come from anywhere, or used elswhere, in philosophy?
My apologies if I have missed your concerns here. I am not sure whether I have understood your questions properly.
I'm not surprised but you have clarified the mess of my thoughts
Ta again.