he is explicit that the minds in the simulation may be only tenuously related to ‘real’/historical minds;
Oh, I guess I missed this. Do you know where Bostrom said the “simulations” can only tenuously related to real minds? I was rereading the paper but didn’t see mention of this. I’m just surprised, because normally I don’t think zoo-like things would be considered simulations.
This falls under either #1 or #2, since you don’t say what human capabilities are in the zoo or explain how exactly this zoo situation matters to running simulations; do we go extinct at some time long in the future when our zookeepers stop keeping us alive (and “go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage”), having never become powerful zookeeper-level civs ourselves, or are we not permitted to (“extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations”)?
In case I didn’t make it clear, I’m saying that even if a significant proportion of civilization reach a post-human stage and a significant proportion of these run simulations, there would still potentially be a non-small chance of actually not being in a simulation an instead being in a game or zoo. For example, suppose each post-human civilization makes 100 proper simulations and 100 zoos. Then even if parts 1 and 2 of the simulation argument are true, you still have a 50% chance of ending up in a zoo.
Thanks for the response, Gwern.
Oh, I guess I missed this. Do you know where Bostrom said the “simulations” can only tenuously related to real minds? I was rereading the paper but didn’t see mention of this. I’m just surprised, because normally I don’t think zoo-like things would be considered simulations.
In case I didn’t make it clear, I’m saying that even if a significant proportion of civilization reach a post-human stage and a significant proportion of these run simulations, there would still potentially be a non-small chance of actually not being in a simulation an instead being in a game or zoo. For example, suppose each post-human civilization makes 100 proper simulations and 100 zoos. Then even if parts 1 and 2 of the simulation argument are true, you still have a 50% chance of ending up in a zoo.
Does this make sense?