question: How does the Simluation Theory's trilemma conclude that we are living in a simulation?
comment: If there is interest in the creation of simulations, as described in the 3rd point, then it's likely that hundreds, if not thousands, or even millions of simulations were created. After that, what is the chance, that between these millions and millions of universes that exist, we just happen to live in the 'real' one?
passages: Some scholars accept the trilemma, and argue that the first or second of the propositions are true, and that the third proposition (the proposition that we live in a simulation) is false. Physicist Paul Davies deploys Bostrom's trilemma as part of one possible argument against a near-infinite multiverse. This argument runs as follows: if there were a near-infinite multiverse, there would be posthuman civilizations running ancestor simulations, and therefore we would come to the untenable and scientifically self-defeating conclusion that we live in a simulation; therefore, by "reductio ad absurdum", existing multiverse theories are likely false. (Unlike Bostrom and Chalmers, Davies (among others) considers the simulation hypothesis to be self-defeating.)
   BULLET::::3. "The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one"
  
  The trilemma points out that a technologically mature "posthuman" civilization would have enormous computing power; if even a tiny percentage of them were to run "ancestor simulations" (that is, "high-fidelity" simulations of ancestral life that would be indistinguishable from reality to the simulated ancestor), the total number of simulated ancestors, or "Sims", in the universe (or multiverse, if it exists) would greatly exceed the total number of actual ancestors.
   Bostrom goes on to use a type of anthropic reasoning to claim that, "if" the third proposition is the one of those three that is true, and almost all people with our kind of experiences live in simulations, "then" we are almost certainly living in a simulation.
   Bostrom argues that "if" "the fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one", "then" it follows that we probably live in a simulation. Some philosophers disagree, proposing that perhaps "Sims" do not have conscious experiences the same way that unsimulated humans do, or that it can otherwise be self-evident to a human that they are a human rather than a Sim. Philosopher Barry Dainton modifies Bostrom's trilemma by substituting "neural ancestor simulations" (ranging from literal brains in a vat, to far-future humans with induced high-fidelity hallucinations that they are their own distant ancestors) for Bostrom's "ancestor simulations", on the grounds that every philosophical school of thought can agree that sufficiently high-tech neural ancestor simulation experiences would be indistinguishable from non-simulated experiences. Even if high-fidelity computer Sims are never conscious, Dainton's reasoning leads to the following conclusion: either the fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage and are able and willing to run large numbers of neural ancestor simulations is close to zero, or we are in some kind of (possibly neural) ancestor simulation.
   Bostrom claims his argument goes beyond the classical ancient "skeptical hypothesis", claiming that "...we have interesting empirical reasons to believe that a certain disjunctive claim about the world is true", the third of the three disjunctive propositions being that we are almost certainly living in a simulation. Thus, Bostrom, and writers in agreement with Bostrom such as David Chalmers, argue there might be empirical reasons for the "simulation hypothesis", and that therefore the simulation hypothesis is not a skeptical hypothesis but rather a "metaphysical hypothesis". Bostrom states he personally sees no strong argument for which of the three trilemma propositions is the true one: "If (1) is true, then we will almost certainly go extinct before reaching posthumanity. If (2) is true, then there must be a strong convergence among the courses of advanced civilizations so that virtually none contains any individuals who desire to run ancestor-simulations and are free to do so. If (3) is true, then we almost certainly live in a simulation. In the dark forest of our current ignorance, it seems sensible to apportion one's credence roughly evenly between (1), (2), and (3)... I note that people who hear about the simulation argument often react by saying, 'Yes, I accept the argument, and it is obvious that it is possibility #"n" that obtains.' But different people pick a different "n". Some think it obvious that (1) is true, others that (2) is true, yet others that (3) is true."
   Some theorists have argued that if the "consciousness-is-computation" version of computationalism and mathematical realism (or radical mathematical Platonism) are true then consciousnesses is computation, which in principle is platform independent and thus admits of simulation. This argument states that a "Platonic realm" or ultimate ensemble would contain every algorithm, including those which implement consciousness. Hans Moravec has explored the simulation hypothesis and has argued for a kind of mathematical Platonism according to which every object (including, for example, a stone) can be regarded as implementing every possible computation.
  
  Section::::Arguments.:Dreaming.
   Section::::See also.
  
  BULLET::::- Avatamsaka Sutra – a Mahayana Buddhist text describing a cosmos of infinite realms
  
  BULLET::::- Digital physics
  
  BULLET::::- Holographic principle
  
  BULLET::::- Mathematical universe hypothesis
  
  BULLET::::- Simulated reality
  
  Section::::Further reading.
  
  BULLET::::- "Are We Living in a Simulation?" "BBC Focus" magazine, March 2013, pages 43–45. Interview with physicist Silas Beane of the University of Bonn discussing a proposed test for simulated reality evidence. Three pages, three photos, including one of Beane and a computer-generated scene from the film "The Matrix". Publisher: Immediate Media Company, Bristol, UK.
   In 2003, philosopher Nick Bostrom proposed a trilemma that he called "the simulation argument". Despite the name, Bostrom's "simulation argument" does not directly argue that we live in a simulation; instead, Bostrom's trilemma argues that one of three unlikely-seeming propositions is almost certainly true:
  
  BULLET::::1. "The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage (that is, one capable of running high-fidelity ancestor simulations) is very close to zero", or
  
  BULLET::::2. "The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running simulations of their evolutionary history, or variations thereof, is very close to zero", or
   Besides attempting to assess whether the simulation hypothesis is true or false, philosophers have also used it to illustrate other philosophical problems, especially in metaphysics and epistemology. David Chalmers has argued that simulated beings might wonder whether their mental lives are governed by the physics of their environment, when in fact these mental lives are simulated separately (and are thus, in fact, not governed by the simulated physics). They might eventually find that their thoughts fail to be physically caused. Chalmers argues that this means that Cartesian dualism is not necessarily as problematic of a philosophical view as is commonly supposed, though he does not endorse it.
   The dream hypothesis is also used to develop other philosophical concepts, such as Valberg's personal horizon: what this world would be internal to if "this" were all a dream.
  
  Section::::Arguments.:Existence of simulated reality unprovable in any concrete sense.
  
  Known as the idea of Nested Simulations: the existence of simulated reality is seen to be unprovable in any concrete sense as there is an infinite regress problem with the argument: any evidence that is directly observed could be another simulation itself.
   Epistemologically, it is not impossible to tell whether we are living in a simulation. For example, Bostrom suggests that a window could "pop up" saying: "You are living in a simulation. Click here for more information." However, imperfections in a simulated environment might be difficult for the native inhabitants to identify and for purposes of authenticity, even the simulated memory of a blatant revelation might be purged programmatically. Nonetheless, should any evidence come to light, either for or against the skeptical hypothesis, it would radically alter the aforementioned probability.
  
  Section::::Arguments.:Computationalism.
   Both the dream argument and the simulation hypothesis can be regarded as skeptical hypotheses; however in raising these doubts, just as Descartes noted that his own thinking led him to be convinced of his own existence, the existence of the argument itself is testament to the possibility of its own truth. Another state of mind in which some argue an individual's perceptions have no physical basis in the real world is called psychosis though psychosis may have a physical basis in the real world and explanations vary.
   The cosmologist Sean M. Carroll argues that the simulation hypothesis leads to a contradiction: if a civilization is capable of performing simulations, then it will likely perform many simulations, which implies that we are most likely at the lowest level of simulation (from which point one's impression will be that it is impossible to perform a simulation), which contradicts the arguer's assumption that advanced civilizations can most likely perform simulations.
  
  Section::::Simulation hypothesis.:Arguments, within the trilemma, against the simulation hypothesis.
   Simulation hypothesis
  
  The simulation hypothesis or simulation theory proposes that all of reality, including the Earth and the universe, is in fact an artificial simulation, most likely a computer simulation. Some versions rely on the development of a simulated reality, a proposed technology that would seem realistic enough to convince its inhabitants the simulation was real. The hypothesis has been a central plot device of many science fiction stories and films.
  
  Section::::Origins.
   There is a long philosophical and scientific history to the underlying thesis that reality is an illusion. This skeptical hypothesis can be traced back to antiquity; for example, to the "Butterfly Dream" of Zhuangzi, or the Indian philosophy of Maya. A version of the hypothesis was also theorised as a part of a philosophical argument by René Descartes.
  
  Section::::Simulation hypothesis.
  
  Nick Bostrom's premise:
  
  Nick Bostrom's conclusion:
  
  Section::::Simulation hypothesis.:Ancestor simulation.
   Bostrom's argument rests on the premise that given sufficiently advanced technology, it is possible to represent the populated surface of the Earth without recourse to digital physics; that the qualia experienced by a simulated consciousness are comparable or equivalent to those of a naturally occurring human consciousness, and that one or more levels of simulation within simulations would be feasible given only a modest expenditure of computational resources in the real world.
   So, from this point of view, what distinguishes the actual world from other possible worlds is what distinguishes reality from a description of a simulation of reality, this world from Sherlock Holmes': the former exists and is not a product of imagination and the latter does not exist and is a product of the imagination set in a modal construction.
   As a corollary to the trilemma, Bostrom states that "Unless we are now living in a simulation, our descendants will almost certainly never run an ancestor-simulation."
  
  Section::::Simulation hypothesis.:Criticism of Bostrom's anthropic reasoning.
   The philosophical underpinnings of this argument are also brought up by Descartes, who was one of the first Western philosophers to do so. In "Meditations on First Philosophy", he states "... there are no certain indications by which we may clearly distinguish wakefulness from sleep", and goes on to conclude that "It is possible that I am dreaming right now and that all of my perceptions are false".
  
  Chalmers (2003) discusses the dream hypothesis and notes that this comes in two distinct forms:
   Some point out that there is currently no proof of technology which would facilitate the existence of sufficiently high-fidelity ancestor simulation. Additionally, there is no proof that it is physically possible or feasible for a posthuman civilization to create such a simulation, and therefore for the present, the first proposition must be true. Additionally there are limits of computation.
  
  Section::::Consequences of living in a simulation.
   BULLET::::- "Do We Live in the Matrix?" by Zeeya Merali", Discover", December 2013, pages 24–25. Subtitle: "Physicists have proposed tests to reveal whether we are part of a giant computer simulation."
  
  BULLET::::- Tom Campbell, Houman Owhadi, Joe Sauvageau, David Watkinson: "On testing the simulation theory." .
  
  BULLET::::- Conitzer, Vincent. A Puzzle about Further Facts. Open access version of article in "Erkenntnis".
  
  BULLET::::- Virk, Rizwan. The Simulation Hypothesis: An MIT Computer Scientist Shows Why AI, Quantum Physics, and Eastern Mystics All Agree We Are In a Video Game.
   Section::::Other uses of the simulation hypothesis in philosophy.
   Some scholars categorically reject or are uninterested in anthropic reasoning, dismissing it as "merely philosophical", unfalsifiable, or inherently unscientific.
  
  Some critics reject the block universe view of time that Bostrom implicitly accepts and propose that we could be in the first generation, such that all the simulated people that will one day be created don't yet exist.
   Economist Robin Hanson argues a self-interested high-fidelity Sim should strive to be entertaining and praiseworthy in order to avoid being turned off or being shunted into a non-conscious low-fidelity part of the simulation. Hanson additionally speculates that someone who is aware that he might be a Sim might care less about others and live more for today: "your motivation to save for retirement, or to help the poor in Ethiopia, might be muted by realizing that in your simulation, you will never retire and there is no Ethiopia."
  
  Section::::Testing the hypothesis physically.
   In writing, the Frederik Pohl short story "The Tunnel under the World" (1955) deals with like philosophic themes and satirical criticism of marketing research, although in Pohl's story the described simulated reality is mechanical, an intricate scale-model whose inhabitants’ consciousnesses reside in a computer, rather than being solely electronic. The Philip K. Dick story "Time Out of Joint" (1959) presents a man who is unaware that he is living his life in a physically simulated town until changes in his (apparent) reality begin to manifest themselves.
  
presuppositions: Simulation theoryt concludes we are living in a simulation. The Simulation Theory's trilemma is conclusive in its conclusion that we are living in a simulation.
corrections: Simulation theory is just a theory that points in that direction. It does not conclude that as a fact. The Simulation Theory's trilemma is hypothesizing the likelihood that we are living in a simulation.
raw_presuppositions: Simulation theoryt concludes we are living in a simulation. The Simulation Theory's trilemma is conclusive in its conclusion that we are living in a simulation.
raw_corrections: Simulation theory is just a theory that points in that direction. It does not conclude that as a fact. The Simulation Theory's trilemma is hypothesizing the likelihood that we are living in a simulation.