Bøker av Sasha Zouev

Tim and Kate go on a adventure to fix Kate's teddy and find the giant teapot in the sky. Along the way they meet a host of wonderful characters and ask important questions about what they believe and why they believe in it.

How long do we have left until the human race goes extinct? The Doomsday Argument uses basic probability theory to give a forecast about how many more humans will exist by factoring in the number of humans that have already existed. Proponents of the argument suggest that it would be improbable for us to find ourselves somewhere near the start of the total existence of humankind. To this day, the prevailing consensus amongst those actively writing about the DA is that it still remains unrefuted, despite innumerable attempts in the literature to debunk it. This book provides a critical assessment of the use of thought-experiments in DA rebuttals and argues that testing the DA empirically could yield more fruitful results.

This book provides a critical assessment of Nick Bostrom's simulation argument. The argument states that at least one of these statements must be true: [P1] Almost all civilizations will not reach a posthuman stage. [P2] Almost all posthuman civilizations will have no interest in creating ancestor simulations. [P3] We are almost definitely living in a computer simulation. I examine the soundness of Bostrom's argument by questioning some of his premises. I then propose a few modifications that address the issues raised. Thereafter, I suggest that Bostrom is wrong to assign equal credence to each outcome. Instead, I argue that outcome [P1] should be given preference because it requires the least amount of speculation and additional assumptions. Section 1 introduces key concepts and explains why the Simulation Argument is worth our philosophical attention. Section 2 evaluates the two key assumptions underlying Bostrom's argument. Section 3 presents a formal mathematical exposition of the Simulation Argument. This section also discusses several problems with the argument and suggests how they can be overcome. Section 4 looks at each of the three outcomes and discusses how we should best interpret them. I conclude by agreeing with Bostrom that the simulation hypothesis, however unlikely, is fundamentally different from other well-known scepticism scenarios.

Tim en Kate gaan op zoek naar de grote theepot in de lucht om haar knuffelbeer te redden. Tijdens hun tocht stellen ze belangrijke vragen over wat en waarom ze geloven. Dit is een filosofisch verhaal voor de jonge vrijdenker!