Are we living in a massively complex computer simulation? Far from being an idea restricted to stoner bull sessions and sci-fi stories, this question is now receiving attention from the physics community, who are trying to develop theories and tests which could show that we are, if we are.
The Measurement That Would Reveal The Universe As A Computer Simulation
I’m agnostic on the question. Partly because of a lack of evidence, partly because of a lack of caring. If we are… so what? Doesn’t change things, to my mind. Sure it’d be interesting, but the mortgage would still have to get paid.
It’s a question that has received a lot of minimal-thinking thought over the past few years, with advocates on both sides occasionally crankign out some pretty lame arguments. Here are two I’ve actually heard:
1) “We’re living in a sim, because that’s the only explanation for psychic phenomena, ghosts and whatnot.” Sure, if this is a simulation, such things could be programmed in… or could be programming bugs. Or… the same counter to claims of the psychic that works outside of the sim hypothesis: there are no psychic phenomena, people are just makin’ stuff up or misinterpreting things.
2) “We’re not living in a sim, because who would make a world that’s so *boring?*” which misses several distinct possibilities:
A) The sim is building towards a particular event or character. For all we know, this is just a giant simulation of the pre-history of Batman, who will arise in 2040, fight for justice for 30 years, get killed, and then the simulation will end.
B) The sim universe is a vastly interesting place. Just not *here.* We’re filler.
C) The sim universe is a vastly interesting place. Just not to *you.*
D) The goal wasn’t interestingness itself, but to simply test what a universe would be like with this particular set of physical laws. We and our environment weren’t specifically and intentionally planned, we just emerged from the complexities of the coding. This would be virtually indistinguishable from “reality” in terms of “meaning.” We’re just an emergent property of the system, whether the system is “real” or “virtual.”
And if we are in a sim, one has to wonder about our own future in simulation programming. To us, this simulated reality is fully real (though I have doubts about Paris Hilton). A century from now, might our own computers be powerful enough to simulate entire universes? And would those universes eventually be capable of simulating their own? It’s a potential infinite series downward… and possibly upwards. If we’re a sim, there’d be no good reason to assume that we are a simulation created by a real system… we might be a simulation in a simulation in a simulation in a …