The Simulation Argument

                                        

ARE WE LIVING IN A SIMULATION?

Think of reality being part of a thought experiment, where we have crammed many “special” and diverse beings inside a habitable system, where two people are rarely the same, and observe how they interact with each other, and with the system. Yes, I am saying here, we all are part of an experiment and I hope I can convince you about this possibility.

Simulation is emulating real-life, where the reset button actually works if it is there. This is done by researchers and scientist to run real-life scenarios for risk analysis, and to gain insight into possible results. So we try to experience the situation without actually living in it. Now coming to our topic, here we will discuss the inferences that people have drawn regarding this hypothesis, some oversimplified scientific explanations for those who quit an article if they encounter some scientific jargons (words to make people take science seriously) and by knowing that we are in simulation what can we do about it.

The SIMS by EA games recently released The SIMS 4. It is a game where the players build their own characters (called as Sims) and surrounding. There the player can direct a narration with the Sims to control their mood and desires. The demand for these types of games has surged in recent times, along with VR games like Half-life: Alyx where players get real-life feedback. So it is clear that we love simulations and it is fascinating for us, but we are limited with our computing power. But if we travel back 40 years from now, we had simple Atari games like ping-pong. And now we have succeeded in developing games with realistic graphics and animations. So the exponential growth in computational power will help us to run more realistic simulations in future. And the new powerhouse Quantum computers after breaking all the security encryptions of the world will help us build real-life simulations at a large scale. 

So as of now, we have established that computing power will not stop us from running real-life simulations in future so let’s run into some scientific explanations. The Swedish philosopher, Nick Bostrom is the megaphone of this idea and he has published a paper pertinent to this topic. In his paper, he has given three possible conclusions. First, the humankind is destroyed due to a nuclear war (Ahem...Mad-Max Fury road) or a million other possible reasons that we devise to kill each other. Second, humankind doesn’t indulge in simulations due to an ethical dilemma or it is too costly to keep running these complex systems. Third, we are living in a simulation designed by post-human civilization or super-intelligent species. Against the first argument, most countries are nuclear-powered nations still we haven’t seen its use after WW2 (except some proxy uses for chest-thumping purposes ) and I hope this stays this way (hiding under the bed won’t save you!) and rather we harness the nuclear energy to solve our energy crisis. Against the second, maybe some big corporations, like in the TV series Westworld, will take up this task and find out a way (they always do) to monetize it. The third is a possibility, not a certainty. Also, some eminent personalities like Elon Musk and Neil deGrasse Tyson have spoken on the possibility of living in a simulation.

    

Nick Bostrom, Swedish Philosopher

                                

Now let’s systematically bolster our assumptions. People have anxiety reading through these topics. How can this be a simulation when everything feels so real, when we can laugh, talk, feel the emotions. The answer is because you think it is real, so it is real. The feeling of reality is derived from consciousness. This was a debate between Plato and Democritus. Democritus came up with an idea of Atomism where he argued our mind is shaped by the matter we see so matter leads to consciousness, on the contrary, Plato philosophised Idealism/Rationalism that argued, the human mind shapes the matter so consciousness leads to matter. For example, Democritus said if there is a rock, the constituent atoms combine in different geometrical shape to give the perception of rock. But Plato claimed that as our mind shaped something as rock so we perceive it as a rock. The later also came up with Allegory of Cave, which goes like this. Some people are tied to chains for their whole life facing a wall. They have never turned back and the only thing they can see is the wall and the shadows formed by people walking behind them. So for them, a shadow is reality. 

So maybe we are those tied people and what we perceive as reality is shaped by our mind. So we are programmed by someone, somewhere who hardcoded the definition of reality in our mind and we perceive things how our mind shapes them.

A scene from the movie Parasite

                                                    

So I said that we are programmed, isn’t it obvious. Just imagine why do we have so many limitations. Nothing can travel faster than light, we have persistence of hearing and vision. Why do we have these limitations?

Yes, because we are programmed and the programming environment had some limitations. Think of the world as a giant computer monitor screen which flashes on and off way more than 16 times per second (persistence of vision) and thus we think everything is continuous. This tells that the world may not be continuous (Analog), rather discrete (Digital) and the digital concept is the basis of modern-day computers.

Another assumption we encounter is Fermi paradox (it is a paradox so not a science jargon). The universe began 13.8 billion years ago and Earth was founded 4.54 billion years ago. So why haven’t we found any alien life forms even if we are sending radio signals for extraterrestrial life for nearly a century? There are many Earth-like planets still we have no sign of alien life forms (if you want to argue about UFOs, no please no). Are we really alone in this universe? or we are the first ones to walk on this universe? (or the government is hiding something from us)

So now we should talk about the thought experiment that I talked at the starting. If this is all an experiment by super-intelligent species or post-human civilization, then on an average we haven’t sent them positive results. With two devastating world wars, climate change, all forms of discrimination, avarice nature, genocides and this list goes on. They would surely be perplexed with the results of our actions and would never want so much variation in the population. But the silver lining is, with variation we have many creative minds and forever changing mindset to adapt to new situations, these are our perks to leave together. So realising the fact that we are just programs and created by someone, we should let go of our egotistical nature for empathy and send them positive results that even if we have some much diversity and variation, still we can live and grow together peacefully. 

And maybe someday the Voyager 1 or 2 spacecraft by NASA will hit a rigid wall and we will see a neon lighting “EXIT”, like in The Truman Show and then there will be a moment of epiphany, we are living in a simulation.

Some cool things for you to explore more on this topic

1. https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.pdf, Nick Bostrom paper titled "Are we living in a simulation" 

2.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmcrG7ZZKUc, Neil deGrasse Tyson explaining the simulation argument

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KK_kzrJPS8, Elon Musk on the simulation argument

4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9fyZvxkpz4, This is the best video in my opinion