Philosophy Test 2

Exam 2

According to Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, the universe is somebody’s hobby – much like the game the Sims, where one person gets to be the omniscient and omnipotent creator and ruler of the universe. In the article “Our Lives, Controlled from Some Guys Couch,” the author John Tierney says that he has never considered this possibility until he spoke to Dr. Bostrom. Tierney says that the simulated world would be similar to “The Matrix,” in that the simulated people are unaware of the fact that they are simulations. Dr. Bostrom has come up with this idea because he believes that someday a super computer with more processing than all of the brains in the world will be created. Some computer experts have projected that a computer like this will be produced by the middle of this century - 2050. On this computer, people will be able to create “virtual worlds inhabited by virtual people with fully developed virtual nervous systems.” One of the practical questions that was brought up by Tierney, is how people would behave in a computer simulation, because “just because your neural circuits are made of silicon instead of carbon doesn’t mean your feelings are any less real.” In this virtual reality, there would be one Prime Designer – the creator of the first virtual world – who would be the equivalent of, for those who are Christian, God. One problem with this that was brought up was the fact that if the billions of inhabitants of the first virtual world started creating their own virtual worlds with billions of inhabitants, there might not be enough computing power to continue these simulations, causing the world to end “not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a message on the Prime Designer’s computer.”

Rationalism is the idea that the knowledge that a person has comes from reason as opposed to coming from experience. Rationalists generally believe that the opinions and actions of a person should come from reason and knowledge as...