Conatus: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

Another great question of science and philosophy that seems alive and well is whether or not the universe is a simulation. This, again, is a variation on a ‘substrate’ problem. Again, I think it is a bit dubious, in that VR and AI are getting to the stage where they can produce viable simulations themselves — simulated realities. All this takes us away from the real eco-systems and the bio-sphere of which we form a part and on which we totally rely.

So — consciousness is substrate-neutral and hence we could create consciousness through AI or upload our own minds to computers. Or — the substrate is an alien civilisation’s computer system and we are just a simulation!

What conclusions might be drawn from the above? Philosophy and science are so far inconclusive — but the current direction is worrying — all related to the ‘substrate’ problem. We don’t seem to get stories that allow for consciousness, agency, hierarchy, holism and even of life itself. As I’ve suggested above, such ideas seem to be out of favour for now, and the story we are given of the universe is one of a very simple order appearing out of nothing by random chance. It is worrying that this kind of reductionism is becoming the dominant narrative.

In this book, we noted a few candidates for the substrate that science seems to seek — it might be some as yet undiscovered, physical thing, it might be an abstract thing like the laws of nature, it might be consciousness, it might be God. What seems to disturb science so much is that, without a substrate, there is only relation.

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