at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero; (2) The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero; (3) The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one.
Tim, I assume you meant this as a nit-pick rather than as a substantive criticism. Substitute “if you accept option 3 of the simulation argument”.
If you think this objection is substantive, I expect you to lower the probability you assign to reaching post-humanity and to posthumans wanting to run simulations. (The “ancestor” part in option 2 should be struck out; ancestors are only a small subset of the kinds of agents posthumans might want to simulate that would be more primitive than posthumans.)
That is not the usual conclusion of the simulation argument.
The conclusion of it is this:
Tim, I assume you meant this as a nit-pick rather than as a substantive criticism. Substitute “if you accept option 3 of the simulation argument”.
If you think this objection is substantive, I expect you to lower the probability you assign to reaching post-humanity and to posthumans wanting to run simulations. (The “ancestor” part in option 2 should be struck out; ancestors are only a small subset of the kinds of agents posthumans might want to simulate that would be more primitive than posthumans.)
Aka the “Simulation Hypothesis.”