Okay...how is this an instance of privileging the hypothesis? Also, if it is so easy to assign a low probability to the hypothesis, what is wrong with the simulation argument? Is it invalid (or inductively weak) or does it contain a false premise?
“We are in the Matrix” privileged when we could be in any simulation. The original poster can use this to knock down the friend’s Matrix argument.
I am not capable of arguing against the simulation argument ever since I realised that “do things that would make you an interesting simulation target (to increase the count and fidelity of simulations of you) and be near events that are likely simulation targets (to increase the number of simulations involving you, which feeds into the previous)” looks a lot like “be important, leave an interesting history, and be involved in pivotal events” which is just good advice, so I accept the simulation argument to lend weight to that advice.
I interpreted his friend’s claim that “we are in the matrix” to mean, merely, that we are in a simulation. I did not interpret it to mean that we are in a simulation, our actual bodies are being used as batteries, small human communities live underground outside of the simulation and battle robots, etc… The latter strikes me as somewhat non-charitable.
Privileging the hypothesis: here
Okay...how is this an instance of privileging the hypothesis? Also, if it is so easy to assign a low probability to the hypothesis, what is wrong with the simulation argument? Is it invalid (or inductively weak) or does it contain a false premise?
“We are in the Matrix” privileged when we could be in any simulation. The original poster can use this to knock down the friend’s Matrix argument.
I am not capable of arguing against the simulation argument ever since I realised that “do things that would make you an interesting simulation target (to increase the count and fidelity of simulations of you) and be near events that are likely simulation targets (to increase the number of simulations involving you, which feeds into the previous)” looks a lot like “be important, leave an interesting history, and be involved in pivotal events” which is just good advice, so I accept the simulation argument to lend weight to that advice.
I interpreted his friend’s claim that “we are in the matrix” to mean, merely, that we are in a simulation. I did not interpret it to mean that we are in a simulation, our actual bodies are being used as batteries, small human communities live underground outside of the simulation and battle robots, etc… The latter strikes me as somewhat non-charitable.
Well if I broaden it to “in a simulation” I don’t think there is a response. The friend is underconfident in saying 50%.