this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2024
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Hey guys, what are your thoughts on the existence of extraterrestrial life and the potential involvement of governments in concealing or studying such entities.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Bostrom's theory relies on life being real too. If I could rephrase it, his theory is:

1 if humans can simulate a human mind in the future, they will 2 they will probably simulate their ancestors (us) 3 they will probably do it trillions and trillions of times 4 this means that out of trillions of consciousnesses, some are real humans and some are simulations 5 we are either one of the few billion actual living minds or one of the trillions of simulated minds and math says it's the latter because trillions is more. (He never says trillions, just unspecific words like "countless")

I think Bostrom is genius but I've never found this argument very interesting.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I botched that post, especially the first sentence. I meant to say that it relies on human life being real at some point, either in the present or in the past, and doesn't really rule out alien life at that point