Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?

This is super trippy:

Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?: "ABSTRACT. This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is 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 variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed."

Comments

BillSaysThis said…
A very amusing concept, though not original as such--consider the Matrix movies. I've previously seen this named as the Theater of Consciousness.
Jeff Lindsay said…
Seems relevant to my recent post Digital Games and the Ultimate Tool