Here, I explain the difference between serious scientific theories and BIV-like theories.* [ *Based on: “Serious Theories and Skeptical Theories: Why You Are Probably Not a Brain in a Vat,” Philosophical Studies 173 (2016): 1031-52. ] This, by the way, is the paper that has caused me to receive the most invitations to contribute to predatory journals and conferences. They all want me to contribute to their neuroscience conferences and journals because they were so “impressed” with my paper about brain science.
Regarding the Sim Sci's motivations, here's a frightening scenario whose probabilities I won't guess at. We're in an Apocalypse Sim, playing through the final two minutes on the Doomsday Clock. The tragedy of Tech Civ is it makes cheap and ubiquitous ruinous weaponry, many Big Red Buttons that are bound to be pushed, if only by rogue nihilists. The Sim Scientists of the near future are running many iterations of recent Civ history, hoping one Sim will show a way thru this conundrum. In the Host world, in other words, it's two *seconds* to midnight, and they're sifting Sims like ours for ideas on how to avoid a coming apocalypse.
Most sims look like ours, look like a Tech Civ on the cusp of VR-capability, because most near-future computational resources are prioritized for these crucial Sims. [They don't start the Sims too far back, because those Sims would diverge too quickly from the Host World's history to provide viable solutions.]
Sadly, *if* we're in an Apocalypse Sim, it's likely that the valiant Hail Mary pass fails: our Host Civ fails to find a solution among its Sims, and is about to succumb to a Red Button. Otherwise, there would be many kinds of Sims other than Apocalypse Sims: in the Host World's longer, happier future, there'd be freedom to explore all kinds of non-Apocalypse Sims, one of which we'd likely be in.
[or: they find a solution among the A-sims, a Dune solution which requires banning computers or something extreme. Implementing that solution, the total set of Sims is dominated by that little burst of A-Sims.]
Lucid as always!
Regarding the Sim Sci's motivations, here's a frightening scenario whose probabilities I won't guess at. We're in an Apocalypse Sim, playing through the final two minutes on the Doomsday Clock. The tragedy of Tech Civ is it makes cheap and ubiquitous ruinous weaponry, many Big Red Buttons that are bound to be pushed, if only by rogue nihilists. The Sim Scientists of the near future are running many iterations of recent Civ history, hoping one Sim will show a way thru this conundrum. In the Host world, in other words, it's two *seconds* to midnight, and they're sifting Sims like ours for ideas on how to avoid a coming apocalypse.
Most sims look like ours, look like a Tech Civ on the cusp of VR-capability, because most near-future computational resources are prioritized for these crucial Sims. [They don't start the Sims too far back, because those Sims would diverge too quickly from the Host World's history to provide viable solutions.]
Sadly, *if* we're in an Apocalypse Sim, it's likely that the valiant Hail Mary pass fails: our Host Civ fails to find a solution among its Sims, and is about to succumb to a Red Button. Otherwise, there would be many kinds of Sims other than Apocalypse Sims: in the Host World's longer, happier future, there'd be freedom to explore all kinds of non-Apocalypse Sims, one of which we'd likely be in.
[or: they find a solution among the A-sims, a Dune solution which requires banning computers or something extreme. Implementing that solution, the total set of Sims is dominated by that little burst of A-Sims.]
Nice and succinct. Am now off to read the paper and onwards from there.