111 | Nick Bostrom on Anthropic Selection and Living in a Simulation

111 | Nick Bostrom on Anthropic Selection and Living in a Simulation

Human civilization is only a few thousand years old (depending on how we count). So if civilization will ultimately last for millions of years, it could be considered surprising that we've found ourselves so early in history. Should we therefore predict that human civilization will probably disappear within a few thousand years? This "Doomsday Argument" shares a family resemblance to ideas used by many professional cosmologists to judge whether a model of the universe is natural or not. Philosopher Nick Bostrom is the world's expert on these kinds of anthropic arguments. We talk through them, leading to the biggest doozy of them all: the idea that our perceived reality might be a computer simulation being run by enormously more powerful beings.

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Nick Bostrom received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the London School of Economics. He also has bachelor's degrees in philosophy, mathematics, logic, and artificial intelligence from the University of Gothenburg, an M.A. in philosophy and physics from the University of Stockholm, and an M.Sc. in computational neuroscience from King's College London. He is currently a Professor of Applied Ethics at the University of Oxford, Director of the Oxford Future of Humanity Institute, and Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology. He is the author of Anthropic Bias: Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy and Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies.


Episoder(418)

244 | Katie Elliott on Metaphysics, Chance, and Explanation

244 | Katie Elliott on Metaphysics, Chance, and Explanation

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24 Jul 20231h 36min

243 | Joseph Silk on Science on the Moon

243 | Joseph Silk on Science on the Moon

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242 | David Krakauer on Complexity, Agency, and Information

242 | David Krakauer on Complexity, Agency, and Information

Complexity scientists have been able to make an impressive amount of progress despite the fact that there is not universal agreement about what "complexity" actually is. We know it when we see it, per...

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AMA | July 2023

AMA | July 2023

Welcome to the July 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patreo...

3 Jul 20233h 4min

241 | Tim Maudlin on Locality, Hidden Variables, and Quantum Foundations

241 | Tim Maudlin on Locality, Hidden Variables, and Quantum Foundations

Last year's Nobel Prize for experimental tests of Bell's Theorem was the first Nobel in the foundations of quantum mechanics since Max Born in 1954. Quantum foundations is enjoying a bit of a resurgen...

26 Jun 20231h 33min

240 | Andrew Pontzen on Simulations and the Universe

240 | Andrew Pontzen on Simulations and the Universe

It's somewhat amazing that cosmology, the study of the universe as a whole, can make any progress at all. But it has, especially so in recent decades. Partly that's because nature has been kind to us ...

19 Jun 20231h 26min

239 | Brian Lowery on the Social Self

239 | Brian Lowery on the Social Self

There is an image, especially in Western cultures, of the rugged, authentic, self-made individual choosing how to navigate the intricacies of the social world. But there is no mystical soul within us,...

12 Jun 20231h 10min

AMA | June 2023

AMA | June 2023

Welcome to the June 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patreo...

5 Jun 20232h 58min

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