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CellBioGuy comments on Astronomy, space exploration and the Great Filter - Less Wrong Discussion
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For me, one of the strongest arguments against the simulation hypothesis is one I haven't seen other make yet. I'm curious what people here think of it.
My problem with the idea of us living in a simulation is that it would be breathtakingly cruel. If we live in a simulation, that means that all the suffering in the world is there on purpose. Our descendants in the far future are purposefully subjecting conscious entities to the worst forms of torture, for their own entertainment. I can't imagine an advanced humanity that would allow something so blatantly immoral.
Of course, this problem largely goes away if you posit that the simulation contains only a small number of conscious entities (possibly 1), and that all other humans just exist as background NPCs, whose conciousness is faked. Presumably all the really bad stuff would only happen to NPCs. That would also significantly reduce the computational power required for a simulation. If I'm the only real person in the world, only things I'm looking at directly would have to be simulated in any sort of detail. Entire continents could be largely fictional.
That explanation is a bit too solipsistic for my taste though. It also raises the question of why I'm not a billionaire playboy. If the entire world is just an advanced computer game in which I'm the player, why is my life so ordinary?
We could be living in an ancestor-simulation. Maybe our descendants are really, really devoted to realistic simulations. (I'm not sure how much I'd like a future in which such descendants existed, but it's a definite possibility.)
This is commonly known as theodicy.
Well yes. I wasn't claiming that "why is there suffering" is a new question. Just that I haven't seen it applied to the simulation hypothesis before (if it has been discussed before, I'd be interested in links).
And religion can't really answer this question. All they can do is dodge it with non-answers like "God's ways are unknowable". Non-answers like that become even more unsatisfactory when you replace 'God' with 'future humans'.
Well, the simulation hypothesis is essentially equivalent to saying our world was made by God the Creator so a lot of standard theology is applicable X-)
What, do you think, can really answer this question?
There is a rather obvious solution/answer: the purpose of the simulation is to resurrect the dead. Any recreation of historical suffering is thus presumably more than compensated for by the immense reward of an actual afterlife.
We could even have an opt out clause in the form of suicide - if you take your own life that presumably is some indicator that you prefer non-existence to existence. On the other hand, this argument really only works if the person committing suicide was fully aware of the facts (ie that the afterlife is certain) and of sound mind.