I argue that at least one of the following propositions is true: the human species is very likely to become extinct before reaching a ’posthuman’ stage; any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of its evolutionary history ; we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we shall one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living (...) in a simulation. I discuss some consequences of this result. (shrink)

This book provides an account of the nature of time, especially time's arrow and the role of entropy, at a semi-popular level. Special attention is given to statistical mechanics, the past hypothesis, and possible cosmological explanations thereof.

Anthony Brueckner, in a recent article, proffers ‘a new way of thinking about Bostrom's Simulation Argument’ . His comments, however, misconstrue the argument; and some words of explanation are in order.The Simulation Argument purports to show, given some plausible assumptions, that at least one of three propositions is true . Roughly stated, these propositions are: almost all civilizations at our current level of development go extinct before reaching technological maturity; there is a strong convergence among technologically mature civilizations such that (...) almost all of them lose interest in creating ancestor-simulations; almost all people with our sorts of experiences live in computer simulations. I also argue that conditional on you should assign a very high credence to the proposition that you live in a computer simulation. However, pace Brueckner, I do not argue that we should believe that we are in simulation. 1 In fact, I believe that we are probably not simulated. The Simulation Argument purports to show only that, as well as , at least one of – is true; but it does not tell us which one.Brueckner also writes: " It is worth noting that one reason why Bostrom thinks that the number of Sims [computer-generated minds with experiences similar to those typical of normal, embodied humans living in a Sim-free early 21 st century world] will vastly outstrip the number of humans is that Sims ‘will run their … ". (shrink)

The cosmos exists just because of the ethical need for it We, and all the intricate structures of our universe, exist as thoughts in a divine mind that knows everything worth knowing. There could also be infinitely many other universes in this mind....It may be hard to believe that the universe is as Leslie says it is--but it is also hard to resist his compelling ideas and arguments.

We are prone to gross error, even in favorable circumstances of extended reflection, about our own ongoing conscious experience, our current phenomenology. Even in this apparently privileged domain, our self-knowledge is faulty and untrustworthy. We are not simply fallible at the margins but broadly inept. Examples highlighted in this essay include: emotional experience (for example, is it entirely bodily; does joy have a common, distinctive phenomenological core?), peripheral vision (how broad and stable is the region of visual clarity?), and the (...) phenomenology of thought (does it have a distinctive phenomenology, beyond just imagery and feelings?). Cartesian skeptical scenarios undermine knowledge of ongoing conscious experience as well as knowledge of the outside world. Infallible judgments about ongoing mental states are simply banal cases of self-fulfillment. Philosophical foundationalism supposing that we infer an external world from secure knowledge of our own consciousness is almost exactly backward. (shrink)

This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is (...) false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed. (shrink)

Making only the assumption that you are a random intelligent observer, limits for the total longevity of our species of 0.2 million to 8 million years can be derived at the 95% confidence level. Further consideration indicates that we are unlikely to colonize the Galaxy, and that we are likely to have a higher population than the median for intelligent species.

In this provocative book, Fred Dretske argues that to achieve an understanding of the mind it is not enough to understand the biological machinery by means of...

There are both externalist and internalist theories of the phenomenal content of conscious experiences. Externalists like Dretske and Tye treat the phenomenal content of conscious states as representations of external properties. Internalists think that phenomenal conscious states are reducible to electrochemical states of the brain in the style of the type-type identity theory. In this paper, we side with the representationalists and visit a dispute between them over the test case of Swampman. Does Swampman have conscious phenomenal states or not? (...) Dretske and Tye disagree on this issue. We try to settle the dispute in favor of Dretske's theory. (shrink)

In this paper I explore a brand of scepticism about perceptual experience that takes its start from recent work in psychology and philosophy of mind on change blindness and related phenomena. I argue that the new scepticism rests on a problematic phenomenology of perceptual experience. I then consider a strengthened version of the sceptical challenge that seems to be immune to this criticism. This strengthened sceptical challenge formulates what I call the problem of perceptual presence. I show how this problem (...) can be addressed by drawing on an enactive or sensorimotor approach to perceptual consciousness. Our experience of environmental detail consists in our access to that detail thanks to our possession of practical knowledge of the way in which what we do and sensory stimulation depend on each other. (shrink)