Apparently our lives are merely computer simulations run by our future selves (is that even possible if we are simulations?) And if “This kind of posthuman might have other ways of having fun, like stimulating their pleasure centers directly,” would they really be that interested in reworking the past or would they be in a constant state of self-induced bliss? JOHN TIERNEY digs deep into the subject. I will go back to being a pawn…
Until I talked to Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, it never occurred to me that our universe might be somebody else’s hobby. I hadn’t imagined that the omniscient, omnipotent creator of the heavens and earth could be an advanced version of a guy who spends his weekends building model railroads or overseeing video-game worlds like the Sims.
But now it seems quite possible. In fact, if you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom’s, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation.
