Nick Bostrom Elon Musk Nick Bostrom Elon Musk
November 12, 2017 4 Comments
OMG can anyone write an article on the simulation hypothesis without focusing on Nick Bostrom and Elon Musk? It’s like writing an article about climate change and only mentioning Al Gore.
Dear journalists who are trying to be edgy and write about cool fringe theories, please pay attention. The idea that we might be living in an illusory world is not novel. Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi wrote about it with his butterfly dream in 369 BC. Plato discussed his cave allegory in 380 BC. The other aspect of simulation theory, the idea that the world is discrete or digital, is equally ancient. Plato and Democritous considered atoms, and therefore the fundamental constructs of reality, to be discrete.
I’m not taking anything away from Nick Bostrom, who is a very intelligent modern philosopher. His 2001 Simulation Argument is certainly thought provoking and deserves its place in the annals of digital philosophy. But it was predated by “The Matrix”. Which was predated by Philip K. Dick’s pronouncement in 1977 that we might be living in a computer-programmed reality. Which was predated by Konrad Zuse’s 1969 work on discrete reality, “Calculating Space.”
And as interesting as Bostrom’s Simulation Argument is, it was a 12-page paper on a single idea. Since then, he has not really evolved his thinking on digital philosophy, preferring instead to concentrate on existential risk and the future of humanity.
Nor am I taking anything away from Elon Musk, a brilliant entrepreneur who latched onto Bostrom’s idea for a few minutes, generated a couple sound bites, and then it was back to solar panels and hyperloops.
But Bostrom, Musk, and the tired old posthuman-generated simulation hypothesis is all that the rank and file of journalists seem to know to write about. It is really sad, considering that Tom Campbell wrote an 800-page treatise on the computational nature of reality. I have written two books on the subject. Both of our material is largely consistent and has evolved the thinking far beyond the idea that we live in a posthuman-generated simulation. In fact, I provide a great deal of evidence that the Bostrom-esque possibility is actually not very likely. And Brian Whitworth has a 10-year legacy of provocative scientific papers on evidence for a programmed reality that are far beyond the speculations of Musk and Bostrom.
The world need to know about these things and Campbell, Whitworth, and I can’t force people to read our books, blogs, and papers. So journalists, with all due respect, please up your simulation game.
Musings on the Nature of Reality 
Jim,
Great job as per usual. I just re-read my Twitter message to you from last August in the right-hand column. I recall being excited to let you know that Musk, Tyson, and Kaku had entered the fold-next stop mainstream science. Ha!
Perhaps the fact the media is rapidly becoming increasingly harder and harder to believe (one poll I saw said 75% of Americans distrust the MSM) as part of a master script as I heard Robert Stanley say today over at The Leak Project. Undaunted, the media continues on, lazily reporting on formerly ‘hard news’ stories which now amount to nothing more than mere gossip columns. It is not a secret they have traded the hard work involved in exposing deeply researched facts for opinion infused pieces strictly divisive in nature.
Is Robert Stanley correct as he theorized today on the Leak Project as recorded in September 2017? Is it the MSM’s express purpose to divide us into opposing acrimonious factions? My hope is that the public will continue to doubt the steady diet of clearly biased, poorly researched reportage’ and will ultimately become increasingly disinterested to the point where substantive positive change, of some sort, will occur.
I was quite pleased when I saw the link to your two books-hoping you had finished your follow-up to the excellent “The Universe-Solved.” The link took me to Amazon with only your first book available. The last I read you were ~ 2/3 finished with the new follow-up version.I am certainly looking forward to reading it.
I hope all has been well with you and your family. Please keep doing the great work you do.
Pete
Reblogged this on Rosettasister's Weblog.
I thank God I share this reality with someone as intellectually curious as you.
Thanksgiving 2017
This knowledge is very old news in the east. And even in the west, this was known but forgotten.