“Is the reality we live in real or is it just a simulation?” Let’s take a closer look at simulation theory. Its definition, or rather theory, claims that everything around us is not real, but a highly sophisticated simulation. It may sound like science fiction to you, but imagine everything running on a super-powerful computer made by an alien civilization. This would mean that everything that seems real to us – e.g. our family, the whole planet, the universe and ourselves – is simply one big fake. But the problem is that we are unable to detect this fact in any way. The simulation so advanced that it is indistinguishable from the “real” reality.
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Who are the proponents of simulation theory?
The Matrix film series, created by the Wachowski siblings, will immediately come to mind. Perhaps these and other similar films have fuelled the simulation theory a bit. And as with many other cases, we can argue about whether it’s a conspiracy theory or not. We can also look to the past. Two and a half thousand years back, to the time of Plato, who once said that the world around us was not real. Or take the French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes, the famous pioneer of simulation theory. Nowadays, simulation theory has more and more supporters. One of them is Elon Musk. Speaking at the 2016 Code Conference, he said: “Odds are we’re living in a virtual game and there’s only a one in billions chance we’re in base reality.” The strange thing about his statement is that he repeated it a total of three times.
How does the simulation work?
Let’s try to engage our imagination for a moment and admit that we really do live in something similar to what we saw in The Matrix. For a large part of us, this reality would be very hard to imagine. Let’s take an example. Everyone has probably played or at least seen the Sims, which was first released in 2000 and has become one of the best-selling computer games worldwide. The game revolves around your own character that you create, build a house for, find them a job to go to, take care of their kids, the household and the garden. At the same time, the game involves interaction with neighbours and other household members. The point and goal of the game is to satisfy the character’s needs. If the simulation theory is real, this is exactly what may be happening to us. So let’s ask the question: Is it possible that we are being watched and controlled by someone else?
What could be the reasons for creating a simulation?
In The Matrix, the idea was that the machines needed energy, and the humans were like batteries that provided them with the energy they needed. According to Professor Nick Bostrom, simulation theory is about something slightly different. He says our simulated reality was created by extra-terrestrial civilizations who want to study the behaviour of their ancestors. Why? Because they plan to create a model of the past and then travel to it.
Glitch in the Matrix!
“It’s a glitch in the Matrix” is exactly the line you hear when something goes wrong. If you remember the first movie, Neo saw a cat walk by and then saw the same one again. He said “déjà vu”, which is French for “already seen”. It was then explained that it was all a glitch in the Matrix and that something had changed. But if someone created a simulation, they had to take certain precautions so that reality and truth could not be revealed. Let’s admit that it may be an unexplained mystery in our case, which defies logic or the laws of physics and nature. Like time travel, unexplained disappearances or hallucinations and things like that.
How to detect if we are living in a simulation?
Scientist Tom Campbell and his team have come up with a suggestion on how to detect whether or not we are living in a simulated reality. If the actual simulation of the universe had limited computing power, then only certain actions that the simulated entities (i.e. us) currently interact with would be rendered. This is similar to computer games, when the graphics card renders and sends to the monitor only what the player is looking at and does not display the rest. So if we were to find that reality is only rendered in locations we can observe, that would mean that we are indeed living in a simulation.
Do we even want to know the truth?
The philosophical question “Do we want to know the truth?” has been considered by many scientists, also based on the idea of The Matrix. What would actually happen if we knew the truth? Speaking at a lecture in New York in 2020, Professor Preston Green said that scientists should stop worrying about discovering the truth. Why? Because if we were to reveal the fact (that we are living in a simulation), it could very well lead to our creators shutting us down for this epiphany. The opposite side of this argument is supported, for example, by Elon Musk, who argues that these theories should be tested experimentally.
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