I think you are looking at the wrong conditional probability. You’re saying “Most virtual minds will not be misled into no knowing they’re in a simulation.” I have no objection to that. You then conclude that we, specifically, are probably not in a simulation, because we don’t think we are. But this ignores the question of relative population sizes.
Suppose from the origin of humans to the time when ancestor simulations become cheap enough to consider, that there are a total of ~1e12 humans. Suppose that this civilization, over the subsequent several millennia, creates 1e18 virtual minds, of which only 1 in 10k are simulations as defined here. Then, 99% of all human minds that believe they are living before the advent of ancestor simulations, are wrong and being misled.
Obviously these numbers aren’t coming from anywhere, they’re just to show that the quantities you’re estimating don’t map to the conclusion you’re trying to draw, if the future population is sufficiently large in total.
I think you are looking at the wrong conditional probability. You’re saying “Most virtual minds will not be misled into no knowing they’re in a simulation.” I have no objection to that. You then conclude that we, specifically, are probably not in a simulation, because we don’t think we are. But this ignores the question of relative population sizes.
Suppose from the origin of humans to the time when ancestor simulations become cheap enough to consider, that there are a total of ~1e12 humans. Suppose that this civilization, over the subsequent several millennia, creates 1e18 virtual minds, of which only 1 in 10k are simulations as defined here. Then, 99% of all human minds that believe they are living before the advent of ancestor simulations, are wrong and being misled.
Obviously these numbers aren’t coming from anywhere, they’re just to show that the quantities you’re estimating don’t map to the conclusion you’re trying to draw, if the future population is sufficiently large in total.