A being far above us could have created our world for fun
Tyson's intelligence-gap argument; "50-50"
The likelihood that we live in a simulation "may be very high": Tyson puts it at 50-50.
A being as far above us as we are above chimpanzees could create worlds for fun, ours included.
"A being far above us could have created our world for fun" is an argument by Neil deGrasse Tyson (Neil deGrasse Tyson, Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate, 2016, 2016) on the question "Is the world real?" (answer: probably a simulation). Its claim: The likelihood that we live in a simulation "may be very high": Tyson puts it at 50-50. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P3). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 0 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.
At the Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate at the American Museum of Natural History in 2016, the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who was moderating, said he thought the likelihood of a simulation "may be very high" and put it at 50-50. His reason is not statistical but a picture. We share more than 98 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees, yet the gap in intelligence is huge. Somewhere, a being could be as far above us as we are above them. To it, we would be drooling idiots, and it is easy to imagine our life is that being's creation, for its entertainment. A caveat: Tyson is speaking aloud here, without publishing a developed argument. In 2020 he said an objection had changed his mind (see the first objection).
click a premise to reject it
Without the implicit premise: Without P3, the possible does not become probable: such a being might exist and never create a world, or only worlds very unlike ours. The computer finds a case where P1 and P2 hold and a simulation is improbable.
Objections
3Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.
JJ. Richard Gott 2020 · attacks the conclusionTyson reports the objection of his friend the astrophysicist Richard Gott. All the simulations in the chain have one thing in common: they can themselves create simulations. We cannot yet. So we are either the real world or the link in the chain that has not yet managed to simulate. The odds are no longer a gazillion to one for simulation: they drop to about even, and Tyson ends up calling himself "real".
no reply
Tyson reports the objection of his friend the astrophysicist Richard Gott. All the simulations in the chain have one thing in common: they can themselves create simulations. We cannot yet. So we are either the real world or the link in the chain that has not yet managed to simulate. The odds are no longer a gazillion to one for simulation: they drop to about even, and Tyson ends up calling himself "real".
LLisa Randall 2016 · attacks premise 2At the same debate, the physicist Lisa Randall says she does not see why this higher species would want to simulate us: the argument assumes many beings would want to, and she does not believe it. She rates the chance as "effectively zero".
no reply
At the same debate, the physicist Lisa Randall says she does not see why this higher species would want to simulate us: the argument assumes many beings would want to, and she does not believe it. She rates the chance as "effectively zero".
SSabine Hossenfelder 2021 · attacks premise 2Hossenfelder notes that nobody today knows how to reproduce general relativity and the Standard Model with an algorithm running on a machine. Imagining that a being can create a world like ours assumes this is possible, which has not been shown. She names Tyson among those who give the hypothesis a chance.
no reply
Hossenfelder notes that nobody today knows how to reproduce general relativity and the Standard Model with an algorithm running on a machine. Imagining that a being can create a world like ours assumes this is possible, which has not been shown. She names Tyson among those who give the hypothesis a chance.