Are we living in a simulation?
Hello readers!
Did you ever wonder if you are living in a simulation? What if your life was a game, and your routine is a part of it?
One thing that later generations might do with their super‐powerful computers is to run detailed simulations of their forbearers or of people like their forebears. Suppose that these simulated people are conscious. Then what?
To get a better understanding, let’s imagine you are out for a stroll in the park with your girlfriend (let’s say MILLIE from Free Guy XD), and your conversation goes as follows…
You: It’s kinda beautiful.
MILLIE: Yeah, it’s pretty, You know. It’s funny. I’ve spent more time in this world in the past year than I have in my own life.
YOU: Sometimes I feel like I live here.
MILLIE: It’s just I feel like I’m more myself here than anywhere else.
YOU: That’s good. Cause I like this you. I don’t know who I really’m. I don’t know what is outside to be. Whatever happens.
MILLIE: Maybe we should meet up. Y’know. Outside this world. She looks at you, vulnerable. Really putting herself out there.
She starts to walk away, and you touch her wrist. You are about to kiss and just about to connect when
CUT TO BACK: You are informed that it was a simulation and your every move was controlled by some other guy.
How would you react to it now? Do you believe it’s possible?
Getting stimulated?
Continue reading to quench your thirst for answers.
What Is Simulation Theory?
So, what does all of this mean? If we take the red pill and step through the looking glass, simulation theory posits that we are all likely living in an extremely powerful computer program. (Think, The Matrix.)
It sounds far-fetched, but Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom showed in 2003 that it’s more probable than one might think. In his seminal paper titled “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?”, Bostrom argued that if humans are able to survive thousands of years to reach a “posthuman state” — one in which we have “acquired most of the technological capabilities” consistent with physical laws and material and energy constraints — it’s likely that they would have the capabilities to run ancestral simulations. And the odds are, we are products of that simulation.
In his paper, Bostrom explained that future generations might have mega-computers that can run numerous and detailed simulations of their forebears, in other words, “ancestor simulations,” in which simulated beings are imbued with a sort of artificial consciousness.
Other philosophers have expanded on Bostrom’s argument.
New York University philosophy professor David Chalmers has described the being responsible for this hyper-realistic simulation we may or may not be in as a ‘programmer in the next universe up.’
“T[he]y may just be a teenagers hacking on a computer and running five universes in the background … But it might be someone who is nonetheless omniscient, all-knowing, and all-powerful about our world.”
- David Chalmers
Brain spinning yet? Get used to it.
The theory also builds on the argument philosophers have been having for centuries; we can never know if what we’re seeing is “real.”
Do We Live in a Simulation?
Elon Musk’s unique way of thinking is the strongest argument for our probably being in a simulation, as he put it in 2016, “Forty years ago, we had Pong, two rectangles and a dot … That is what games were. Now, 40 years later, we have photorealistic 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously, and it’s getting better every year. And soon, we’ll have virtual reality and augmented reality. If you assume any improvement rate, the games will become indistinguishable from reality.
‘The odds that we are in base reality is one in a billion”
- Elon Musk
You might have seen the sci-fi thriller, The Matrix, which depicts a post-apocalyptic world in which a race of machines have captured most of humanity and imprisoned their minds within an artificial reality known as “the Matrix” in order to harvest humans’ body heat and electrochemical energy. (Thanks, IMDB:)) In the film, humans going about their everyday lives didn’t realize they were actually living in a simulation because a cable plugged into their neocortices (where stuff like spatial reasoning and sensory perception occur) beamed signals into their brains and read their reactions.
“Reality is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe. What we believe is based upon our perceptions. What we perceive depends on what we look for. What we look for depends on what we think. What we think depends on what we perceive. What we perceive determines what we believe. What we believe determines what we take to be true. What we take to be true is our reality.”
- David Bohm
As some philosophers stated, one way to achieve this in the real world would be to gain a greater understanding of human consciousness and how it works so we can produce “conscious AI.” The far less technical alternative, Rizwan Virk, the author of ‘The Simulation Hypothesis’ said, is “tricking our consciousness into thinking that we are in reality when we are in a video game” in which non-player characters exhibit intelligent human-like behavior that passes the Turing Test. “This,” he concluded somewhat ominously, “is coming.” In fact, quantum computing may play a major role in advancing in-game AI.
The Simulation Hypothesis
Just as present-day researchers use simulations to digitally create scenarios to aid scientific study (what would happen if we eliminate mosquitoes?), our world and every moment of our past existence might be the simulated experiment of future humans. And just as scientists can terminate simulations (of earthquakes, weather, etc.) when they no longer provide useful data, so too can our hypothetical overlords pull the plug at any time, without warning. It would be a quick and painless death.
But, now, the real question arises: “what are the limits of computing powers?”
Some advanced species could possess a system that makes even the world’s fastest supercomputers seem like Commodore 64s. Maybe they’ve perfected quantum computing. Or maybe it’s something else entirely — something of which our limited minds can’t even conceive.
Even as far back as 2003, in a story for The Guardian, Davies was posing brain-boggling simulation scenarios. Here’s part of what he wrote:
Mathematicians have proved that a universal computing machine can create an artificial world that is itself capable of simulating its own world, and so on ad infinitum. In other words, simulations nest inside simulations… Because fake worlds can outnumber real ones without restriction, and the “real” multiverse would inevitably spawn a vastly greater number of virtual multiverses. Indeed, there would be a limitless tower of virtual multiverses, leaving the “real” one swamped in a sea of fakes.
So the bottom line is this: Once we go far enough down the multiverse route, all bets are off. Reality goes into the melting pot, and there is no reason to believe we are living in anything but a Matrix-style simulation. Science is then reduced to a charade because the simulators of our world — whoever or whatever they are — can create any pseudo-laws they please, and keep changing them.
Why Does Simulation Theory Matter?
Then again, you might be wondering, why does any of this matter? What is the purpose of proving or disproving that life as we know it is merely a digital construct and existence is simply an immensely complex experiment in someone’s virtual terrarium?
The broad answer Rizwan Virk came up with is that which all good science pursues: truth. More specifically, our truth.
If we do in fact exist inside a video game that requires our characters (i.e., us) to perform certain quests and achievements in order to progress (“level up”), Virk posited, wouldn’t it be useful to know what kind of game we’re in so as to increase our chances of surviving and thriving?
His answer, not surprisingly, is an unqualified yes.
“I think it would make all the difference in the world.”
Whatever type of world it is.
By,
Riddhiman Ghatak
Posa Mokshith
Drishti Bansal
Credits: “Are we living in a computer simulation?” By Nick Bostrom and “The Simulation Hypothesis” by Rizwan Virk
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