Ever wondered if the world around you is real or merely a computer simulation? At some point in our lives, we may be wondering if we are living in the Sims. This led me to look more into it because I came across an article where Elon Musk thinks we are living in a simulation, and well, if Elon had to say it, then don’t you realise this is why he can achieve so many things and do crazy stuff? If everything is simulated, nothing really matters – at least for him.
I found Nick Bostrom’s famous 20-year-old article called ‘Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?’, so I printed it out and tried to read it last night, but I couldn’t because, one, it was so late at night I couldn’t focus properly, and two, I didn’t get it in the first place. This morning, I sat down with it and properly read it.
The article highlighted 3 possible situations, and this is what I’ve understood:
- Humans will go extinct even before we upload our minds to AI technology overlords.
- Society decides that it’s unethical to play the Sims and make them suffer.
- We are living in a computer simulation, and there’s nothing we can do about it.
In the introduction section, Nick said that if we don’t go extinct and continue to make more babies, and so on, the humans will eventually develop new technology, and that’s where the fun part begins. They begin a computer simulation, mimicking their great-great-great-grandparents, and imagine what it would be like to live as them. Nick refers to them as ‘the advanced descendants of an original race.’ A bit mouthful…
If we live in a simulation, then they would likely be controlling us or merely running the simulation. By controlling, I believe that if you don’t feel that you’re being controlled, maybe you’re one of them who is currently playing the Sims but can’t get out of the game? That’s what I think…
Also, seeing as the simulation is based on the advanced civilisation’s history, the supposed gods controlling our world are likely to be humans like us. Bad news: they’re not aliens, like those green people with big black eyes. Sorry to break it to you, but yeah, this article does suggest that gods are plausible.
A simulation in a simulation in a simulation…
There’s something I realised when I finished reading the introduction section, even before Nick highlighted that ‘we would have to suspect that the posthumans running our simulation are themselves simulated beings; and their creators, in turn, may also be simulated beings.’ (page 12)
This means that reality is likely to have many levels, and we don’t know where we are, but I think if the advanced civilisation is running our simulation, they are likely also living in a simulation. How many levels of simulations are there? There’s no way to know at all.
This reminds me of the miniature universe technology featured in the TV series ‘Rick and Morty,’ where people can visit and leave a miniature universe. Can we leave a simulated world? I don’t think so – my sims have never left their world and shattered through my computer screen to strangle me.
The concept of leaving a computer simulation wouldn’t make any sense because there isn’t really a way for my body to leave this world; it would eventually die and disintegrate within the world. Maybe you believe we have souls and consciousness, but then again, there is no way of knowing if they exist, even science couldn’t prove them. If we do have souls, maybe we’re the ones who are controlling ourselves in this world, and once when we die, we would definitely know what happens next.
Pfft… in order to run a simulation, you need a very powerful computer
Yeah, I think that if we live in multiple levels of reality, could the computer at the top of the food chain handle it at all? But then again, when my Sims play a computer game about Sims, the computer just shows a combination of clips on the computer screen, and they can’t change anything except to pretend that they’re playing for my own entertainment’s sake.
While the idea of a computer simulation might involve simulating the entire universe or world, Nick suggests that not everything has to be simulated. Humans on Earth, unaware of what’s happening in space unless they peer through a telescope, might just as well be looking at a tapestry of star paintings rather than real stars. Likewise, the interior of the Earth doesn’t need to be simulated unless we observe it. Different people’s experiences of the same phenomenon might vary as well, further emphasising that not everything must be part of the simulation.
So, this is why the article suggests that there is a possibility of ‘me-simulations’, where a computer simulation is focused solely on one person and the surrounding environment. For example, I am here in my living room writing this blog post, and I can see sofas, a TV, a bookcase, and of course, my desk. If a housemate comes into the living room, he might as well appear from the void because I cannot currently see what’s behind anything – thus saving a lot of computer energy. And also, this is not like any computer games; the loading is incredibly fast, so no human eyes can notice inconsistencies.
But this is where it gets interesting…
Déjà vu? Anyone heard of it before…?
If any bugs or glitches happen, Nick wrote: ‘the director could easily edit the states of any brains that have become aware of an anomaly before it spoils the simulation. Alternatively, the director could skip back a few seconds and rerun the simulation in a way that avoids the problem.’ (page 5)
This is interesting because, virtually, I have never experienced what one could describe as a bug or a glitch. But if we were living in a computer simulation, there would have been many opportunities for technical errors to occur. If they indeed did happen, I believe this could be the reason why humans experience déjà vu.
Because once the director spots a glitch, they could just rewind and fix the problem, and start again, thereby causing humans to become confused, questioning whether they’ve seen something before or not. I mean, it has happened to me multiple times, and I don’t even remember what I’ve experienced.
If you want to know more, you can read the article or Google it. Just don’t drive yourself crazy or stop making plans. The article does not give an answer as to whether it’s real or simulated. Nick said that we may hope that we are living in a computer simulation because we don’t want to go extinct before technology becomes far advanced. BUT we also can hope that this is reality because, if we get too advanced, the computer simulation could be turned off.
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