Are You A Simulation?

The question "are we living in a dream" is as old as human culture. The 4th-century Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi once dreamt from a butterfly's perspective. Upon waking he wondered if he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was a man. In today's culture we have The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and The Matrix posing modern versions of Zhuangzi's question on where the dividing line stands between reality and simulation. But the detailed philosophical form of the simulation argument comes from Nick Bostrom, a philosopher who is currently the director of the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford. Back in 2003 Bostrom wrote an article imaginatively titled "Are You Living In A Computer Simulation." Bostrom wanted to consider technologically mature civilizations, which for him meant cultures so advanced they build super-duper computers with fully conscious simulated minds living inside simulated realities. Think The Sims on super-duper steroids. These cultures, Bostrom reasoned, might then create ancestor simulations on their computers, meaning simulations of their own past.

 With these ideas in mind, Bostrom then made the final leap by considering the truth, or falsehood, of three statements :
 1.Almost all civilizations at our level of development become extinct before becoming technologically mature.
 2.The fraction of technologically mature civilizations that are interested in creating ancestor simulations is almost zero. 

 3.You are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.
By Adam Frank/NPR/more