The Matrix introduces a strange and terrifying scenario. Humanity lies in a coma in some kind of cocoons, and every detail of reality is determined and controlled by hostile computers.
For most viewers, this scenario is interesting as a science fiction device, incredibly distant from everything that exists today or, most likely, will appear in the future. However, after careful consideration, such a scenario ceases to seem inconceivable. It is very likely.
In one of his articles, Ray Kurzweil discusses the observed trend towards the development of computing power at an ever-increasing speed. Kurzweil predicts a virtually unlimited amount of computing power will become available over the next fifty years. Let's assume that Kurzweil is right and sooner or later humanity will create almost limitless computing power. For the purposes of this discussion, it doesn't matter when it happens. These developments can take a hundred, a thousand or a million years.
As noted in Kurzweil's article, limitless computing power will expand the capabilities of humanity to an incredible extent. This civilization will become "posthuman" and will be capable of extraordinary technological achievements.
Posthuman civilization can take many forms. It may be in many ways similar to our modern civilization or radically different from it. Of course, it is almost impossible to predict how such a civilization will develop. But one thing we do know for sure: posthuman civilization will have access to virtually endless computing power.
Posthuman civilization may be able to turn planets and other astronomical objects into super-powerful computers. At the moment, it is difficult to determine with certainty the "ceiling" of those computing power that may be available to posthuman civilizations.
1. This article presents proof by modeling, according to which at least one of the following statements is true: it is highly likely that as a species, humanity will begin to disappear from the face of the earth before reaching the "posthuman" stage.
2. It is highly unlikely that any posthuman civilization will run a large number of simulations (models) that mimic its evolutionary history (or, therefore, variants of this history).
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3. We are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.
Let's look at these three statements one by one. The first statement is formulated directly: if we destroy ourselves as a result of a nuclear war, biological catastrophe or nanotechnological cataclysm, then the rest of the points of this proof are irrelevant. However, let's assume that this statement is not true, and therefore we will be able to avoid self-destruction and enter the posthuman era.
The essence of human civilization in the posthuman era cannot be fully represented. Likewise, you cannot imagine a variety of uses for virtually unlimited computing power. But let's look at one of them - the creation of complex simulations of human civilization.
Imagine the historians of the future, modeling various scenarios of historical development. These will not be today's simplistic models. Given the immense computational power that these historians will have at their disposal, they may have very detailed simulations at their disposal in which every building, every geographic detail, every personality will be distinguishable. And each of these individuals will be endowed with the same level of computing power, complexity and intelligence as a living person. Like Agent Smith, they will be software-based, but they will have the psychic characteristics of a person. Of course, they may never realize that they are a program. To create an accurate model, it will be necessary to make the perception of the modeled persons indistinguishable from the perception of people living in the real world.
Like the inhabitants of the Matrix, these people will exist in the artificial world, considering it real. In contrast to the Matrix scenario, these people will be entirely computer programs.
However, will these artificial personalities be real "people"? Will they be smart regardless of their computing power level? Will they be endowed with consciousness?
Reality is something that no one is really familiar with. However, philosophers who study consciousness usually make the assumption that it is "independent of the substrate." In essence, this means that consciousness can depend on many things - on knowledge, intelligence (computing power), mental organization, individual details of the logical structure, etc. - but one of the conditions that is not necessary for consciousness is biological tissue. Embodying consciousness in carbon-based biological neural networks is not a necessary property. In principle, the same effect can be achieved with silicon-based processors built into computers.
To many people familiar with modern computer technology, the idea of software endowed with consciousness seems incredible. However, this intuitive distrust is a product of the relatively pitiful capabilities of today's computers. With the continued improvement of computers and software themselves, computers will become increasingly intelligent and conscious. In fact, given the human tendency to animate anything that even remotely resembles a human, humans can begin to empower computers with consciousness long before it becomes a reality.
The arguments in favor of "substrate independence" are set out in the relevant philosophical literature, and I will not try to reproduce them in this article. However, I will point out that this assumption is reasonable. A brain cell is a physical object with certain characteristics. If we come to a complete understanding of these characteristics and learn how to reproduce them electronically, then, without a doubt, our electronic brain cell can perform the same functions as an organic cell. And if this can be done with one brain cell, then why not repeat the same operation with the whole brain? If so, why shouldn't the resulting system have the same consciousness as a living brain?
These assumptions are very curious. With sufficient computing power, posthumans can create models of historical figures who will have full consciousness and who will consider themselves biological people living in an earlier time. This conclusion brings us to claim number two.
The first statement assumes that we will live long enough to create a posthuman civilization. This posthuman civilization will be able to develop simulations of reality similar to the Matrix. The second statement reflects the possibility that posthumans may choose not to develop these models.
We can imagine that in the posthuman era, interest in developing historical simulations will disappear. This means significant changes in the motivation of people in the posthuman era, because in our time, of course, there are many people who would like to run models of previous eras, if they could afford to do so. However, many of our human desires are likely to seem stupid to any posthuman. Maybe simulations of the past will be of little scientific value to posthuman civilization (which is not so incredible given its disproportionate intellectual superiority), and maybe posthumans will consider entertainment as a very ineffective way of getting pleasure, which can be obtained much easier - with the help of direct stimulation of the pleasure centers of the brain. This conclusion suggests that posthuman societies will be very different from human ones: they will lack relatively wealthy and independent subjects who own the fullness of human desires and are free to act under their influence.
In a different scenario, it is possible that some posthumans may have a desire to run simulations of the past, but posthuman laws will prevent them from doing this. What will lead to the adoption of such laws? It can be assumed that more and more advanced civilizations are following a path that leads them to recognize the ethical prohibition of launching models that imitate the historical past, because of the suffering that will befall the heroes of such a model. However, from our point of view today, it is not obvious that the creation of the human race is an immoral act. On the contrary, we tend to view the existence of our race as a process of great ethical value. Moreover, the existence of ethical beliefs about the immorality of running simulations of the past is not enough. To it must be added the presence of such a social structure on a general civilization scale,which effectively prohibits activities that are considered immoral.
So, since there is a possibility that the second statement is true, in this case the motivations of posthumans will either be strikingly different from the motivations of people, or posthumans will have to impose a total ban on simulations of the past and effectively control the effect of this prohibition. Moreover, this conclusion should be true for almost all posthuman civilizations in the Universe.
Therefore, we need to consider the following probability: it is possible that human-level civilizations have a chance to become posthuman; further: in at least some posthuman civilizations there will be individuals who will run simulations of the past. This brings us to our third point: we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. We come to this conclusion quite naturally.
If posthumans run simulations of the past, it is likely that these simulations operate on a very large scale. It is easy to imagine millions of individuals running thousands of simulations on hundreds of different topics, and each simulation will involve billions of simulated individuals. There are many trillions of these artificial people. All of them will believe that they are real and live in an earlier time.
Now, in 2003, about six billion biological people live on the planet. It is very possible that in the posthuman era, trillions of computer-generated people will live in the simulated year 2003, convinced that they are of biological origin - just like you and me. The math is as simple as two and two: the vast majority of these people are wrong; they think they are flesh and blood, but in fact they are not. There is no reason to exclude our civilization from these calculations. Almost all chances are that we are living in a simulated year 2003 and that our physical bodies are a computer illusion.
It is worth emphasizing that simulation proof is not intended to show that we are living in a computer simulation. It only reflects that at least one of the three statements listed above is true. If someone disagrees with the conclusion that we are inside a simulation, then instead they will have to agree either that almost all posthuman civilizations will refuse to run simulations of the past, or that we will probably begin to die out. before reaching the posthuman era. Our disappearance may occur as a result of stabilization of the present progress in the field of computing technology or be a consequence of the general collapse of civilization. Either you have to admit that scientific and technological progress is likely to gain momentum rather than stabilize, in which case you could predictthat the acceleration of progress will be the cause of our disappearance. Molecular nanotechnology, for example, can lead us to this sad end. Having reached an advanced stage, it will make it possible to create self-replicating nanobots capable of feeding on dust and organic matter, a kind of mechanical bacteria. Such nanobots, if created with ill intentions, could cause the extinction of all life on our planet. Elsewhere, I have tried to list the main existential dangers that threaten humanity.if created with ill intentions, they can cause the extinction of all life on our planet. Elsewhere, I have tried to list the main existential dangers that threaten humanity.if created with ill intentions, they can cause the extinction of all life on our planet. Elsewhere, I have tried to list the main existential dangers that threaten humanity.
If our civilization is indeed a simulation, then there is no need to restrict our progress. It is possible that simulated civilizations may become posthuman. Then they can run their own simulations of the past using the powerful computers they create in their artificial universe. Such computers will be "virtual machines", a term familiar to modern computing. (For example, Java-based web applications use a virtual machine - a simulated computer - inside your “desktop.”) Virtual machines can be bundled together: you can simulate a machine that simulates another machine, and so on, with the steps iterations can be arbitrarily many. If we really succeed in creating our own models of the past,this will be strong evidence against the second and third statements, so we have to conclude, willy-nilly, that we live in a simulated world. Moreover, we will have to suspect that the posthumans who control the model of our world are themselves artificially created beings, and their creators, in turn, may also be modeled.
Thus, reality can turn out to be multi-level (this topic was touched upon in many science fiction works, especially in the movie "The Thirteenth Floor"). Even if the hierarchical structure at some stage needs to close on itself - although the metaphysical status of this statement is not entirely clear - it can accommodate a huge number of levels of reality, and this number can increase over time. (One argument against the multilevel hypothesis is that the computational costs of basic models will be very high. Modeling even one posthuman civilization can be prohibitively expensive. If so, then we should expect our model to be destroyed as we approach the posthuman era.)
Despite the fact that all elements of such a system can be natural, even material, here you can draw some free parallels with religious ideas about the world. In a sense, the posthumans launching the simulation are like gods in relation to the people inhabiting this simulation: the posthumans created the world around us; their level of intelligence is far superior to ours; they are "omnipotent" in the sense that they can interfere with the life of our world, even in ways that violate its physical laws; moreover, they are "omniscient" in the sense that they can observe everything that happens in our country. However, all demigods, with the exception of those who are on the basic level of reality, obey the orders of more powerful gods who live on deeper levels.
Further reflections on this topic may culminate in a naturalistic theogony, which would study the structure of this hierarchy and the restrictions imposed on its inhabitants, based on the possibility that some actions at their level may lead to a certain reaction from the inhabitants. deeper levels. For example, if no one can be sure of what is at the base of the hierarchy, then anyone should consider the possibility that for any action he can be rewarded or punished by the creators of the model. Perhaps the latter will be guided by some moral criteria. Life after death will become a real possibility, just like reincarnation. Because of this fundamental insecurity, perhaps even the mainstream civilization will have reasons to behave morally impeccably. The fact that even this civilization will have a reason to behave in a moral way will, of course, make everyone else more likely to behave in the same way, and so on. The result is a real virtuous circle. Perhaps everyone will be guided by a kind of universal moral imperative, which will be obeyed in the interests of everyone, since this imperative has appeared "out of nowhere."
In addition to models of the past, you can also consider creating more selective simulations that affect only a small group of people or an individual. In this case, the rest of humanity will turn into zombie people or into people-shadows - people modeled at a level sufficient for fully modeled people not to notice anything suspicious. It's not clear how much cheaper modeling shadow people will be than modeling full-fledged people. It is far from obvious that a creature can behave indistinguishable from a real person and at the same time be devoid of conscious experience. Even if such discrete models do exist, you should not assume that you are in one of them until you come to the conclusion that they are much more numerous than the complete models. For the most conditioned personalities to get into self-simulation (a model that imitates the life of a single mind), self-simulations would take a hundred billion times more than simulations of the past.
There is also the possibility that the creators of the simulations will remove certain moments from the psychic lives of the simulated beings and provide them with false memories of certain experiences that they usually experienced during the moments that were removed from memory. In this case, we can consider the following (far-fetched) solution to the problem of evil: in fact, suffering does not exist in the world, and all memories of it are an illusion. Of course, this hypothesis can only be taken seriously when you are not suffering.
If we assume that we are living in a simulation, then what follows from this for us humans? Despite the remarks made above, the consequences are not at all so drastic. The standard empirical study of the universe that we see is the best clue to how our posthuman creators will act to arrange our world. Reconsidering most of our beliefs will lead to rather insignificant and subtle results - in direct proportion to the lack of confidence in our ability to understand the logic of posthumans. Therefore, the truth contained in the third statement, correctly understood, should not "drive crazy" or prevent us from continuing to do our own business, as well as planning and predicting tomorrow.
If we learn more about posthuman motivations and resource constraints - and this may happen as a result of our own movement towards posthuman civilization - then the hypothesis that we are modeled will have a much richer set of empirical consequences. Of course, if the sad reality is that we are simulations created by some posthuman civilization, then we can assume that we have had a better lot than the inhabitants of the Matrix. Instead of falling into the clutches of a hostile AI and being used as a power source for its existence, we were created on the basis of computer programs as part of a research project. Or maybe we were created by some posthuman teenage girl doing her homework. Nevertheless, we are still better off than the inhabitants of the Matrix. Is not it so?