Evolution Is Too Slow. The Search Hypothesis: A Search Motive for High-Fidelity Simulations of Minds

Simulated Minds Series, Paper I of IV. Bostrom’s simulation argument turns on a disjunction whose second horn is that almost no technologically mature civilization chooses to run many ancestor simulations. This horn is usually contested with weak motives (curiosity, entertainment, historical research) that a critic can plausibly deny would ever be pursued at scale. This paper supplies a strong motive. I argue that high-fidelity simulation is an efficient, and plausibly a preferred, method for searching the space of possible minds, talents, and cultures for rare and valuable configurations, and that the incentive to conduct such a search is convergent across a wide range of terminal goals. I formalize the fitness-fidelity principle: the fidelity a search must render scales with the sophistication of the trait it seeks, so searching for minds like ours requires worlds like ours. I introduce the Search Hypothesis as a motive that pressures Bostrom’s second horn, identify the Selector (the objective function a purposive search embodies), and derive a predicted policy of information-retention-by-value. The result strengthens the case that we may be simulated, sharpens the ethics of digital minds, and maps the path along which we are ourselves becoming Selectors. Companion papers (same series): “Death Is a Feature” (Paper II), “The Immortality Question” (Paper III), “Evolution Is Engineered” (Paper IV).