| > because the impossibility of proving we have existence in time (our consciousness could exist for only a moment, and we can't tell, because we have access to the past only as memories which could be fake), or that a world outside ourselves exists (our sensory inputs could be fake) means we can say hardly anything about the scale or complexity of a theoretical simulation. Said another way: we don't know even how much of ourselves exists. Consider the following argument: 1] If P being true is a necessary precondition for rational thought to exist, we are rationally justified in believing that P is true 2] The general reliability of our memories is a necessary precondition for rational thought to exist 3] Therefore, we are rationally justified in believing that our memories are generally reliable 4] Therefore, our memories are generally reliable From the general reliability of our memories, the substantial existence of the past trivially follows; does that count as "proving we have existence in time"? And replace the "general reliability of our memories" with "the existence of other minds" to turn the above argument into a proof of the later. > but also raises the question of whether there is a clear line between simulation and what reality is. I actually think the simulation hypothesis is a pretty good argument for idealism: if the simulation hypothesis is true, then either materialism is simply false (if one interprets "matter" to mean only the apparent physical matter of this universe), or else its truth is unknowable (if one interprets "matter" to mean the unknowable matter of the substrate universe.) If we cannot know whether the simulation hypothesis is true, how can we know that materialism is true? By contrast, if idealism is true, then minds and their experiences are the most fundamental constituents of reality; whether this universe is a simulation is simply a question about whether there exists another universe containing minds who have the experience of operating a computer simulation which appears to contain minds having particular experiences, where those particular experiences happen to be identical to the set of all experiences had by all minds in this universe. Idealism could be equally true no matter what the answer to that question may be. The ontological status of this universe is completely independent of whether that separate simulating universe happens to exist; in principle, our universe could even be simultaneously simulated by multiple distinct simulating universes. |