Simulation argument

The simulation argument, due to the philosopher Nick Bostrom, attempts to prove that we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.

The rest of this article will attempt to roughly summarise his arguments; more detail can be obtained from his paper, available here.

His argument is based on the following premises:

1. Given sufficiently advanced technology, it is possible to simulate entire inhabitated planets, including all the people on them, on a computer
2. Given a sufficient amount of time, humans will develop that technology
3. Simulated people can be fully conscious, and are as much persons as non-simulated people are,
4. Given the ability to simulate entire planets and their inhabitants, future humans will want to run a large number of these simulations,
5. Future humans will not be prevented from running a large number of these simulations by laws or moral strictures.

Bostrom presents arguments for the truth of each of these premises, based on neuroscience, physics, the rate of technological change, philosophy, and human nature.

Based on these, premises, he concludes that either (a) we are currently living in a computer simulation, or (b) in the future, we will run a large number of computer simulations of worlds and their inhabitants. He then notes that we have no way of knowing whether we are in fact currently in a computer simulation. However, since the number of such computer simulations existing at any point in the future is likely to be very large (it is likely that, given the possibility, the majority of people would want to run one), while there is only one non-simulated universe, he argues that it is almost certain that we are living in a computer simulation.