How can the quality of "something being very improbable" be used as a philosophical argument?

Question

Do you understand Marcelo Gleiser's "colossal waste of time" reasoning?

Physicist Marcelo Gleiser objects to the notion that posthumans would have a reason to run simulated universes: "...being so advanced they would have collected enough knowledge about their past to have little interest in this kind of simulation. ...They may have virtual-reality museums, where they could go and experience the lives and tribulations of their ancestors. But a full-fledged, resource-consuming simulation of an entire universe? Sounds like a colossal waste of time." Gleiser also points out that there is no plausible reason to stop at one level of simulation, so that the simulated ancestors might also be simulating their ancestors, and so on, creating an infinite regress akin to the "problem of the First Cause". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis

I did have a different impression, that in philosophy, even extremely remote possibilities will never be rounded to a zero value.

For example, I accept this argument:

It is possible that consciousness requires a vital substrate that a computer cannot provide and that simulated people, while behaving appropriately, would be philosophical zombies. This would undermine Nick Bostrom's simulation argument; humans cannot be a simulated consciousness, if consciousness, as humans understand it, cannot be simulated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis

Answer 1

Yes, I do understand the "colossal waste of time" reasoning. So far, the simulation we live in- assuming we live in one- seems to have been running for more than thirteen billion years, which seems a colossal waste of anyone's time.

How do you suppose the simulators are monitoring their simulation? Is it streaming in real time, or do they come back every billion years or so to see how it is getting on? Or maybe they are more advanced than that, and they have monitoring bots reporting on key events. Interesting to speculate on how they are programmed- what criteria they use to determine which events are report-worthy.

In addition to the "colossal waste of time" argument, I incline favourably to the "colossal waste of resources" argument, since a simulation supposedly intended to focus on us humans extends to a Universe so large that we cannot ever see all of it. I would have supposed a vast intelligence would have programmed a more efficient model.

"Something being very improbable" can sometimes mean something being utterly implausible nonsense presented without a shred of evidence or supporting detail.

Answer 2

My 0.1 cent.

Assuming we live in a simulation, the "waste of time" argument is flawed since our time unit can be vastly different than the real time unit, ie 1 billion years our time may simply correspond to 1 second real time (outside simulation).

However the simulation hypothesis is flawed itself. Arguments why simulation hypothesis is flawed:

A. It assumes a perfect simulation but at least according to known laws (eg thermodynamics) such perfect simulation cannot exist physically, the underlying mechanism cannot completely hide itself. A simulation cannot block (the true) physical laws from holding even inside the simulation, so our known laws necessarily must reflect true laws. If a simulation can completely hide its underlying mechanism and block the underlying physical laws from applying inside it, then it is not a simulation anymore, it is rather a separate and complete universe/reality by itself. Similarly, an imperfect simulation cannot give the impression of a valid alternative perceived reality, to the conscious sims inside, because in such a case it would completely hide the underlying mechanism of the actual reality which is impossible for an imperfect simulation. So, if the simulation is imperfect then we can find out or would have already found out in principle thus the argument is undermined.

B. The simulation makers either want us to know we are simulated or not. If they want us to know, then we know it, which we don't. If they don't want us to know then they have to design such system so that it is impossible to betray it is a simulation. The only way to do that is for the system to be the real thing (see perfect simulation above). Either we do not live in a simulation else we would already know it.