Philosophy of life as knowledge, panspermia, and the simulation hypothesis

''This was a session at the August 2018 [[Resilient Communities Mini-Unconference]].'' == Attendees == * [[Shawn]] (convener) * [[Ben]] (note-taker) * [[Eric]] * Steve * Judy == Discussion == Philosophy of Life as Knowledge * At first the universe just knew how to exist, then chemistry, then with life, it finally found a way to persist knowledge * The environment trims away knowledge (in DNA) that doesn't work * Similarly in science, a model that is a better predictor (works better) will persist longer that one that doesn't Panspermia * Intelligence as fruiting body for life * If we can't send ourselves to other stars, we can at least send microbes as [http://www.panspermia-society.com/ Dr. Mautner proposes] Simulation Hypothesis * Assumptions ** An intelligence can create models of a universe and has some reason to do so ** We're likely to be able to simulate, within these models, more intelligent minds than exist on Earth ** The simulated minds won't be able to tell that they're in a simulation * Steve: This relates to my skepticism about uploading: Can consciousness arise within a computer simulation? ** Eric: John Searle argues that we have no idea if computing processes can map onto the consciousness process; I'm agnostic * Shawn's similar argument about panspermia: if we can develop the ability to send life to newly forming star systems, and we find a reason to do it, and we send them to many such systems, we're probably the product of a similar project 5 billion years ago ** Eric: The existence of Dr. Mautner proves that someone can find the motivation to do this, making it very likely that someone has done it in the past * Fermi Paradox argument ** Shawn: There's a very small chance that any given spore will succeed