an engineering rush :: the argument

the argument is this*

technology is accelerating
computing racing
in ten years
all PCs combined
will be as complex
as a conscious mind

in fifty years
a watch will tick that power
active clothes could wear
a hundred living minds
in a simulated world

if our race survives

and assuming we can build a self
(the arguments against
seem to me
akin the reasons why
a man will never fly)

so

these machines are builded here
and might be banned
but would a ban apply
in all cultures
in all times
forever

and would the ban
be utterly obeyed
by every kind of man
in all cultures
in all times
forever

so

somewhere somewhen
people run the programs
containing conscious minds
living lives on simulated earths

historians can like to argue over port
they'll recreate and reconstruct
to see what wrecked events
they will

children can like to play dread games
set in simple hubris worlds
they'll play a life back then
they will

penmen can like to matchstick-make
a real or some invented culture
they'll entice take-parters in
they will

business can like the cheap design
let the simulants run the risks
then simply nick the best success
they will

and education
wow
what this can do for education

now

today's machines are not enough
to run a conscious mind
but their exuberant quantity
one billion made
will be as zero
tomorrow

and even if
a hundred years from now
the computer count remains the same
and even if
a hundred years from now
their users do no more than us
then a billion games will run
with a billion best opponents
in a billion conscious hosting worlds

and if the human race
lasts a billion years
there'll be just the one true history
and a billion billion simulations

that's quite a lot to one
that we're alive
in a simulated world

if the race survived
the next one hundred years

*This is a loose poetic reinterpretation of an original paper by Nick Bostrom,
see www.simulation-argument.com.