I should start today’s newsletter with a disclaimer: I have never watched the movie, The Matrix. Part of the reason is because I have never been a big Hollywood fan, but also because the idea of imagining problems in a make-believe universe — or science-fiction, in other words — just seems exhausting. I mean, don’t we have enough problems in our real world?
But I accept that I may be in the minority here. The Matrix has a huge fan following and, more recently, the premise of the movie is gaining an even bigger following. In this week’s The Global Tiller, we dig into the simulation theory and the science behind the argument that we are all living in a digital simulation. How likely is this to be true and what does it mean for humanity?
Simulation theory posits the universe as we know it is an advanced digital construct overseen by some higher form of intelligence. The notion of simulated realities is not a new one and has deep roots in Western and Eastern philosophical traditions, from Plato’s allegory of the cave to Zhuang Zhou’s butterfly dream. But the idea that we are living in an advanced digital simulation was popularised more recently by Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom in 2003 when he argued that the idea was more likely than we may think.
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. And the odds are, we are products of that simulation. “Then it could be the case,” he explained, “that the vast majority of minds like ours do not belong to the original race but rather to people simulated by the advanced descendants of an original race. It is then possible to argue that, if this were the case, we would be rational to think that we are likely among the simulated minds rather than among the original biological ones.”
If we accept Bostrom’s argument, this would mean that a future generation has created the world we live in today, either as a replica of what they imagined their ancestors to have been doing, or as an antithesis. Did their world turn out so perfect that they wanted to see what it would be like if humans were self destructive? Or did the world they inherit was so damaged that they wanted to recreate it to know exactly where the ancestors messed up? It’s kind of like imagining our own history at various turning points. What would have happened if Nazis were not defeated in World War II, or if European explorers had not ventured out, or if 9/11 hadn’t happened? But I digress.
Since Bostrom, a number of philosophers, physicists, technologists have been grappling with this idea. Some have tried to identify ways in which we can discern if we are simulated beings. Others have attempted to calculate the chance of us being virtual entities. Now, astronomer David Kipping of Columbia University has published his analysis showing that the odds that we are living in base reality—meaning an existence that is not simulated—are pretty much 50-50. But the study also demonstrates that if humans were to ever develop the ability to simulate conscious beings, the chances would overwhelmingly tilt in favour of us, too, being virtual denizens inside someone else’s computer.
But for every believer in the simulation theory, there is a non-believer. Like mathematician Jonathan Bartlett, director of a STEM research non-profit called The Blythe Institute, who insists that the simulation theory relies on faulty logic because we have limited space and we cannot simulate as much as we have reality. Even Kipping of Columbia admits that the theory that we live in a simulation is not falsifiable, which doesn’t really make it science.
In such cases, we follow Occam’s razor, or the law of parsimony, which says that in the absence of other evidence, the simplest explanation is more likely to be correct. Our world is too complicated and complex so the simpler answer is that, and I hate to break it to you, indeed what we are living in is the reality.
Until next time, take care and stay safe!
Hira - Editor - The Global Tiller
Note: The Global Tiller is on break for the next two weeks, we’ll be back in November. If you’d like to access our past issues, please find them here.
Dig Deeper
If we believe for a second that we are in a simulation, how does it change how we see ourselves? Is there an advanced alien watching our every move, is this why we have ideas about god? Does this overarching entity then have moral values, or is our role merely to be as entertaining for them as possible? Don’t miss these interesting musings:
…and now what?
Is our world so bad now that we have to believe it is all made up? Are we about to give up by retreating into a world of ideas?
It may seem so when you see how famous this simulation theory has become in the past years, which raises some questions on the principle of this simulation itself. But aren’t those the same questions that we ask already about life: what makes it real, what makes it true, what makes it worth it?
For many, and mostly the tenants of effective altruism that we talked about recently, life is all about ending any form of suffering. One could ask: what’s the point of including suffering if it’s a simulation? Why not make everyone happy all the time? Unless the creators of the simulation have some kind of twisted mind à-la Squid Games!
But is this really new? Has our world has become so tough, so deprived of hopeful narratives that we want to escape towards believing it’s all a “joke”? This seems quite similar to how some people deal with video games: losing themselves to a virtual reality that helps them escape the worries of daily life. Are we all giving up?
Or are we just perpetuating a very human ability to imagine other worlds, other realities that helps us cope with the world as it is and eventually helps us find solutions for the challenges to come. Because to me, the simulation theory has similar notes to Plato’s cave: a world created by people to feed to the masses some shadow of the reality and keep them enslaved into the cave until enlightenment helps them escape from it.
So, simulation is not a young theory. And one could argue that it is based on the same principles through which religions have spread throughout the world: the promise of another life, this one being the trial run, the not-so-real reality as the “real life” will come when we will have passed the challenges designed for us on Earth. Again, à-la Squid Games…
We have this innate ability to build up other realities. Even science does it while theorising other dimensions to fit our understanding of the laws of nature. And, when you think about it, it’s quite an amazing ability: not being tied up by the limits of what we feel, but being able to expand way beyond it, thanks to our imagination. It helps us cope with our world, deal with it, find solutions: ideas, hope, motivation all those elements that cater to our inner strength to fight and always do better for our future and the ones that come after us.
In that regard, the simulation theory makes me think of a concept I hear more and more everyday: digital twins. Whether it be for climate models, health and many other fields, we have now developed the ability to create replicas of our world, of ourselves, to run experiments, to run models and predictions that will eventually help us understand our very concrete, very immediate, very personal world.
Hold on, aren’t we actually creating a simulation in which some avatars of ourselves are living? And if so, aren’t we just proving that the simulation theory may soon be real?
What is reality? This I do not know. Do I like it? Not necessarily, sometimes reality sucks and it’s always good to escape into those simulations we call movies, books, stories or dreams until we, eventually, come down to earth, accept reality, build our resilience and move forward to face the next challenge. We’ve done this since the dawn of time… or since the launch of the software. Nevertheless, this looks real to me and at the end of the day, isn’t that what matters, even when it sucks?
Philippe - Founder & CEO - Pacific Ventury