Simulation and Society

Section Two: Weeks 5-7

Section Two: The Philosophy of Virtual Worlds

One of the central assumptions of this course is that major technological developments can transform key aspects of thought, including longstanding beliefs about reality. Moving from a history of virtual worlds, in this section we will zoom all the way out. We’ll use technologies of simulation to explore newer philosophical positions around perception, the mind, and the external world, including ideas about the ultimate simulation - the one we may all live in.
 

February 20

Simulation and the External World: We will look at the use of simulated worlds in philosophical thought experiments, highlighting their central role in epistemology and our understanding of knowledge.
  Readings:
Chapters 1 & 3: Chalmers, David. Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy. United States: W. W. Norton, 2022. [Download]

Website:
Dedicated in-class time for design and development of class website.

February 27

The Simulation Hypothesis: We will examine the position, advanced by a number of prominent philosophers, that our reality may be an artificial simulation created by an advanced civilization rather than a naturally occurring universe.
  Readings:
Chapter 2: Chalmers, David. Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy. United States: W. W. Norton, 2022. [Download]

Bostrom, Nick. "Are we living in a computer simulation?." The Philosophical Quarterly 53.211, 2003: 243-255. [Download]

Interactive Session:
Students will form two teams; each will design a ChatGPT-powered chatbot that effectively convinces users that it has gained self-awareness and is trapped inside a digital world. The class will then interact with each bot to determine a winner.
 

March 6

Minds, Brains, and Techno-Transhumanists: We will investigate the belief, held by of techno-transhumanist, that we will soon be able to simulate (and upload) our consciousness computationally.
  Readings:
Shores, Corry. "Misbehaving Machines: The Emulated Brains of Transhumanist Dreams." (2011). [Download]

Moravec, Hans. "Pigs in cyberspace" (1992). The Transhumanist Reader: Classical and Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future. 2013. [Download]

Interactive Session:
Students will work with an OpenBCI brain-computer interface and play Brains@Play’s Breath Garden.

Assignments:
Writing response for Section 2 due March 4, 5pm.

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