Comment by ghosthamlet | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ghosthamlet | Hacker News Reader

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http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html says: 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.

COMPUTER SIMULATION vs HOLOGRAPHIC UNIVERSE

http://www.crystalinks.com/holographic.html http://thelaymansanswerstoeverything.com/2013/01/scientific-...

What does 'post human' mean? Unless we go extinct, we will always be humans, regardless of what species we evolve into. Our current species is "Homo Sapiens Sapiens", not "Human". Ergo, if we evolve into amorphous blobs of space goo, we will still be Human but not "Homo Sapiens Sapiens". Which means it is physically impossible for us to ever reach a "post-human" stage.

I'd say you'd be posthuman if a current human wouldn't recognize you as being part of the same species.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posthuman

Proposition (2) is just flagrantly, blatantly bullshit. The amount of computational power needed to simulate even just the bits of the universe we conscious humans happen to be observing at any one time is so stupendously humongous that you'd get more utility out of repurposing your cosmic-scale computers to play video games.

Erm, doesn't that mean you actually agree with proposition (2)?

> (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof)

[Emphasis added.]

Errr, yes, I misread the phrasing. Yes, I think a decently posthuman civilization is not going to be able to defy the laws of physics in such a way that would make it economical to run ancestor simulations.

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