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Transhumanism - The Simulation Argument

Noticed any irregularities about your existence, recently? Not to worry, we may yet find that all was only a simulation:

Consideration of the theoretical limits of technology (think Moore’s Law) indicates that a technologically mature civilization, using the resources of a single planet, could create computational power sufficient for simulating the entire mental history of humankind by using less than a millionth of its processing power for only one second.

The main computational cost in creating simulations that are indistinguishable from physical reality for human minds in the simulation resides in simulating organic brains down to the neuronal or sub-neuronal level (a technical feat that based on the current rate of growth in processing power will occur sometime around the year 2060, the point in time when the brain of the Homo Sapiens will rapidly fall behind the cognitive capabilities of a computer, as we are gradually entering a “posthuman” civilization).

Human memory seems to be no more stringent constraint than processing power. The maximum human sensory bandwidth is ~10^8 bits per second, simulating all sensory events incurs a negligible cost compared to simulating the cortical activity. We can therefore use the processing power required to simulate the central nervous system as an estimate of the total computational cost of simulating a human mind.

While it is not possible to get a very exact estimate of the cost of a realistic simulation of human history, we can use ~10^33 - 10^36 operations as a rough estimate (100 billion humans × 50 years/human × 30 million secs/year × [10^14, 10^17] operations in each human brain per second [10^33, 10^36] operations.)

Source: www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html

The above are excerpts from Nick Bostrom’s Research Paper “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?” (except the text in bold and italics) - and it really just scratches the surface of the surface of the subject of Transhumanism (H+).

Nick Bostrom is director at Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute.

It may seem “far out”, even controversial but the implications mustn’t be devout of morals, spirituality, and consciousness simply because we are somehow no longer closer to reality than the goldfish inside a bowl. I encourage everybody concerned with the interplay of technology and the human mind to put aside their reservations and spend some time with the subject of H+ and its potential - we can play an active part in influencing future technologies and innovative social systems to improve the quality of all life on the planet (you don’t want to leave it all up to the fish, now.. do you?)

Posted in: Transhumanism   
Nov 18th, 2011

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