> People should stop thinking for themselves and relegate it to the pros, lest they repeat informally something already investigated and rejected?
I didn't say anything about thinking. But yes, maybe many programmers (and celebrities and entrepreneurs - also called out by the article itself) should think more and publicly speak less.
Here’s something I’m curious about, hopefully without coming across as too negative: what is the purpose of philosophical work such as Bostrom’s?
As an argument it may or may not be convincing, but it’s not obviously actionable. It’s hard to see how it could be tested.
You seem to be saying that amateur philosophers shouldn’t jump in with their own naive takes on it, as they don’t have the required educational background. I can certainly believe that, but it takes away another avenue by which we non-philosophers can potentially engage with the work.
If there has been any notable followup or rebuttal, it hasn’t made nearly as much of an impact in the public consciousness (and of course the simulation argument is a pretty niche thing in the first place).
How does, or should, this simulation argument affect the average person? How might it affect us in future? What does it change?
> what is the purpose of philosophical work such as Bostrom’s?
This is a good question. This paper is popular well in disproportion to its impact, because it's a sexy scifi topic. I don't know Bostrom but I suspect it's popular far in disproportion to his desires also - it's just one small piece of his work on superintelligence, which is in turn only one part of his work on measuring existential risk.
The paper, it should be noted, is not an argument we are living in a simulation (it's often taken as one, but the simulation hypothesis predates Bostrom, the 20th century, etc.). Rather, it's an argument that there is a trilemma of which two options are material, and potentially even testable - so in a sense, it does allow the simulation hypothesis to be tested, if you buy his trilemma and reject the other options. (Based again on his other work, I suspect Bostrom may personally believe #1 - I personally am suspicious of both the validity of the trilemma and independently suspect #2.)
So this plays the kind of role in philosophy that a discovery of some unique way to synthesize a chemical we already have plenty of ways to synthesize in chemistry. It's a workaday paper - interesting if you are interested in the field, but of no great impact to most people's lives.
The result is that there's also not a lot of great ways to engage with the paper, in the same way it's difficult to engage with a refinement of the equivalence between inertial and gravitation mass.
If you want to engage with the simulation hypothesis and metaphysical realism more broadly, I would begin with Putnam's Reason, Truth and History. The philosophical work around the simulation hypothesis is maybe best thought of not as an attempt to actually answer it conclusively, but as particular lens on the relationship between reality, self-perception, and sense-perception. Clarifying those relationships is of immense use to the average person.
I didn't say anything about thinking. But yes, maybe many programmers (and celebrities and entrepreneurs - also called out by the article itself) should think more and publicly speak less.