ThinkingShift

I really have to stop reading future predictions. In yesterday’s post, we read about some of the future predictions that didn’t quite happen. Well, here’s a future prediction that I certainly hope doesn’t happen! Well, it’s not really a prediction; maybe it’s already a reality. I thought I’d stick my nose into transhumanist or post-human stuff - you know, humans enhanced by technologies that eliminate stupidity (well, that would eliminate most business people), disease, ageing and involuntary death (mmmm…think most of us don’t want to voluntarily shuffle off). I discovered that transhumanism is sometimes symbolised >H or H+ okay, I’m probably years behind everyone else, because you knew this already.

Anyway, I’ve read Nick Bostrom’s stuff before. He’s a transhumanist philosopher and I very much liked his article, A History of Transhumanist Thought, which you download here or check out on his site. He makes the logical argument that the human desire to acquire new capacities is as ancient as humanity itself, going back to the Epic of Gilgamesh and the yearning to extend our present life to the work of medieval alchemists transmuting substances.

But in a recent article in the New York Times, Bostrom suggests that “it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation”. Now, I’ve often thought I’m trapped in a Salvidor Dali painting when the weird or the wonderful happens to me, but here’s a thought: maybe one day computers will be so powerful and have more cognitive functioning than all the combined brains of humanity and advanced humans could run ancestor simulations of their evolutionary history by creating virtual worlds inhabited by virtual people with fully developed virtual nervous systems. The virtual ancestors would have no clue whether they were trapped in virtuality or reality and maybe there are so many virtual ancestors because of the super computing power, that an individual thinks “well, I must be real as there are millions of us”. Why not? Who knows what sort of computing power the future will harness? But maybe advanced humans will have better things to do than run ancestor simulations. And would a simulated entity possess the consciousness to know that it is part of a virtual reality simulation?

Bostrom says: “My gut feeling, and it’s nothing more than that is that there’s a 20 percent chance we’re living in a computer simulation” right now. So I guess he’s thinking that our current world is run by God sitting up there with a copy of Sim City? Or some pimply computer geek from the year 8000 is running our world. Or multiple worlds theory might suggest that there is a landscape of realities - the multiverse - and so there will be exact copies of each and everyone of us but with slightly differing realities. Think of Schrödinger’s Cat experiment - you have one reality with a live cat; another reality with a dead cat and each version you exist in. I realise I’m mixing up virtual reality with reality (and the definition of reality is a whole other topic) - but if Bostrom is right (and if I’ve interpreted him correctly) then transhumans would be able to run such perfect simulations that the distinction between virtual reality and reality wouldn’t be realised.

Freaky stuff! Check out Bostrom’s site for some great reading.

I almost got caught out by this. I was doing a spot of research into future world scenarios, the primary one being what will a world without oil be like? I stumbled onto World Without Oil and almost hyperventilated when I read that the world had finally hit peak oil production and that major crises over oil were already breaking out. Two things gave away the fact that this is an alternate reality game (albeit with teeth!) - the “start here” button on the site and an incoming RSS feed from OReilly Radar. It’s a game with teeth because it focuses on a real world scenario and invites us to think now about life without oil (and don’t fool yourself into thinking this won’t actually happen).

On the site, you will find stories of how people are suffering or coping without oil, along with videos and photos. Checking out some of the video links reminded me of a post I recently did in which flash mobs and organised gangs roam cities gripped by increasing social unrest. Have a look at this YouTube video that (fictitiously) depicts San Francisco during Week 4 of the 2007 oil crisis (which is the scenario of a World without Oil). Scary stuff. Bloggers have been posting stories for some time but the game officially opened at the end of April. The backstory (setting up the scenario) scared the heck out of me - “The world oil supply is falling short of demand - by 1.5% at first, but it’s expected to increase to 3% or more throughout 2007“. And on the incoming screen you’ll see a dashboard, which shows the world’s current (very high) energy prices.

I presume the content for the site is being pulled from various web sources plus the collective intelligence of the world’s bloggers and gamers concerned about the fast-approaching energy crisis. I guess it might also attract the unsuspecting (like me) who stumble onto the site and leads them to contribute. Take the time to explore World without Oil and maybe even create your own story. As the theme of the site says: “Play it before you live it“. Oh…and to really keep you awake, check out the transcript of the US Secretary of State (fictitious character of course)….I suspect that it might serve as a good template for a future political speech that will no doubt occur in reality. (But Mr Secretary will have to learn that “shacles” is spelt “shackles”).