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TagNick Bostrom on computer sim universe

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Red Pill Blue Pill concept. The right choice the concept of the movie matrix. The choice of tablets

What Drives the Belief That We Live in a Computer Sim Universe?

The lack of evidence for the sim is admitted — but then we are challenged to prove that it ISN’T true…
If we grasp the psychological role that the belief that we live in a sim universe plays, it’s easier to see why it persists in the absence of evidence. Read More ›
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Terrariums

Dartmouth Physicist Slams Matrix Idea That Life Is an Aliens’ Sim

A number of prominent people have taken philosopher Nick Bostrom’s idea that our universe is a computer sim seriously

Matrix fans, take heed: Dartmouth College physicist Marcelo Gleiser is not a fan of the idea that we are all living in a giant simulation created by intelligent aliens. He takes issue with it for ethical reasons as well as physics ones: “It is little more than a fancy excuse for escapist fantasizing.” Well, some prominent people in our world are escapists! That would include science broadcaster Neil deGrasse Tyson, driverless car entrepreneur Elon Musk, and former Astronomer Royal Martin Rees. Gleiser, author of The Island of Knowledge (2014), traces the idea that our universe is a computer simulation by advanced aliens to an influential 2003 paper by Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom, director of the Future of Humanity Institute and Read More ›