Are We Sims? How Computer Simulations Represent and What this Means for the Simulation Argument

The Monist 97 (3):399-417 (2014)
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Abstract

N. Bostrom’s simulation argument and two additional assumptions imply that we likely live in a computer simulation. The argument is based upon the following assumption about the workings of realistic brain simulations: The hardware of a computer on which a brain simulation is run bears a close analogy to the brain itself. To inquire whether this is so, I analyze how computer simulations trace processes in their targets. I describe simulations as fictional, mathematical, pictorial, and material models. Even though the computer hardware does provide a material model of the target, this does not suffice to underwrite the simulation argument because the ways in which parts of the computer hardware interact during simulations do not resemble the ways in which neurons interact in the brain. Further, there are computer simulations of all kinds of systems, and it would be unreasonable to infer that some computers display consciousness just because they simulate brains rather than, say, galaxies.

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Claus Beisbart
University of Bern

References found in this work

Models in Science (2nd edition).Roman Frigg & Stephan Hartmann - 2021 - The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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Who is a Modeler?Michael Weisberg - 2007 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 58 (2):207-233.

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