Bookup №9 — “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?”

Technically, this was Bookup No. 11 since two other bookups took place in Amsterdam and Stockholm, respectively. On top of that, there have been a couple of events where no one came. Do they count?🤷🏽‍♀️

After the big crowd of Bookup № 8, we restricted the number of participants to seven (quality over quantity, right?). At last night’s bookup, five people showed up, having purchased tickets in advance. Two of them were newcomers, three of them recurring — which tells us there is some customer retention happening ✌🏽.

The discussion was in the Top 5 we’ve had so far: smart, curious people; points of view mostly supported by arguments; new visions & interpretations; and a lot of new information to be absorbed. Undoubtedly, the chosen topic helped as well — Nick Bostrom’s essay “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?”.

So… are we or aren’t we living in a computer simulation?

It’s a secret 🤫. No, I’m kidding, we didn’t get that deep. And while we didn’t reach a definite answer, we did analyze some very solid pro and counter arguments. I will not be going into too much detail on what was discussed because we are planning at least one more bookup on the same subject, and I wouldn’t want to influence any potential, future bookupers.

However, to give you a flavour of things, I will tell you that our quest for an answer started indeed with Bostrom’s essay, but took us through religion (need for purpose, relief of responsibility), philosophy of mind, neuropsychology (how does our mind perceive the environment around it?), quantum entanglement, continuum hypothesis etc.

Did we learn anything?

Yes, we learned a lot more about the bookupers’ needs, albeit our findings might only be valid for Romania. Both radudaniel and I agreed to focus our efforts on Western European markets. A strategy for that is in the making.

Once again, we were surprised to discover that some of the participants had not read the material, and therefore an in-depth analysis of the article had to be replaced by a more general & conceptual discussion. Our attempts to steer the conversation back to text analysis were thwarted, so we just went with the flow👍🏽. However, this brings into question whether there is still need for the discussion guide which we used to send out to participants, especially since no one had used it.

On the substance of things, it would be fair to say we are going through a teeny-weeny identity crisis. Which essentially means we are progressing as a business and growing in strength and clarity. Fingers crossed.