Machines Like Us – Science News

Abstract: This philosophical paper tries to tackle the question of what could be the ultimate future of ALife from a cosmic viewpoint. We first argue that the natural direction of ALife is a simulation of an entire universe. Two new challenges naturally arise. The first is to simulate open-ended evolution at all levels in a single simulation; i.e., not only in biology, but also to link it up a level above (cultural evolution). The second challenge is to probe what would happen if we would "replay the tape of the universe." Assuming that intelligent life would indeed simulate an entire universe, this leads to two tentative hypotheses. Following the soft-ALife program, some authors argued that we could be in a simulation run by an intelligent entity. Following the hard/wet-ALife program, this would lead to an artificial cosmogenesis. This last direction is argued with a careful speculative philosophical approach, emphasizing the imperative to find a solution to the heat death problem.

Read entire paper here(PDF).