Where The Simulation Argument Takes Us
Unless we are now living in a simulation, our descendants will almost certainly never run an ancestor-simulation. — Nick Bostrom, Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?
I’m sure we’ve all heard some variety of the simulation argument, or we might have at least heard it mentioned on a podcast or in the news.
The modern formulation of the simulation argument comes from the Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom, whose 2003 paper “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?” lays out the argument for why we might be living in a simulation.
There’s no need for me to reiterate the entire article (I’d recommend reading through it at some point anyway), but I will cover the key points and then give my thoughts on why we should even care, how this affects our relationship to reality and what we need to carry on discussing.
Key points
Firstly, it is useful to define the distinction between the simulation argument and the simulation hypothesis.
The simulation hypothesis is the theory that we are living in a simulation, whereas the simulation argument states that at least one of the three following propositions must be true (one of which is the simulation hypothesis):
- The human species is extremely likely to go extinct before having the capability to create simulations.
- Any civilisation beyond humanity (posthuman civilisation) is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations.
- We are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.
To be living in a simulation means that your existence is the product of the computation of an artificial reality. It assumes a “basement reality” exists that is not a computer simulation, within which all computer simulations (and simulations within simulations) exist.
All of this rests on the assumption that it is computationally and physically possible to construct a realistic simulation, and that it is also feasible to create a simulation within a simulation, and so on. Bostrom deals with this sufficiently in the original paper, so I will take this as a given here.
Why should I care?
The boring answer is that you probably don’t need to. But if you enjoy exploring the deeper questions of existence, then there is definitely something to be gained by being aware of this idea.
I understand that a certain amount of existential fear might be aroused by the possibility your entire existence is simply the result of computation, but the other explanations for our existence leave just as many questions.
Given how real this reality feels, is anything really lost by the possibility we may be living a simulation? It shouldn’t need to diminish the immense beauty, joy, sorrow, pain and mundanity that permeates our collective experience — your favourite food tastes just as good whether it is simulated or not.
Assuming that we live in a simulation and that the basement reality is close to reaching its maximum amount of computational power, what will happen when we get close to creating a simulation of our own? Will there be enough computing power? Might they just switch off our reality? Could they provide an error message in-front of our eyes and tell us that we can’t do that? Would they alter our motivations so that we no longer want to continue with that goal? There’s only one way to find out.
Where does this leave determinism?
The idea of free will is a hugely contested topic and the simulation argument doesn’t pretend to provide any solutions to that. It will be easier to navigate the idea of determinism (the idea that every event necessarily follows on from previous events), which I will approach through the lens of randomness.
It seems as though a simulated reality would be deterministic. A computer simulation, of the type that we are familiar with, is unable to deal with randomness. The randomness that we might interact on systems today use a variety of methods called pseudo-random number generation.
Science has done a fantastic job at attempting to model the randomness of the universe. Using scientific techniques, we have found that the universe isn’t as random as we might have thought. Although, there are still big gaps in our knowledge of quantum mechanics, which has many elements that seem unpredictable to us now. It is possible, however, that in the future we may eventually find equations that can model it suitably.
This leaves us with the possibility that simulations might be run by quantum computers (which are currently in their very early stages). Determinism in a quantum simulated reality then relies on the idea of randomness. If quantum mechanics contains elements of randomness, a quantum computer might be able to simulate a universe in which there is a randomness between events.
The unfortunate aspect of this, is that it leaves us with the exact same philosophical questions we started with.
Where is God?
The simulation argument can have many implications on the existence of God or how we personally might approach the belief in God. On the other hand, there need be no effect on the belief in God at all.
Given that there is (probably) a basement reality that exists somewhere, all the arguments for a belief in God likely exist with just as much validity there as they do here. If we live in the basement reality, there is no reason to dismiss any arguments for God because of any implications of the simulation argument.
However, if we exist in a simulation, could God simply be synonymous for “simulation runner”? This might seem like heresy to some. It could completely flip any pre-existing belief of how God fits into their life/reality. Alternatively, that might sound pretty reasonable. The God they see might be the controller of our reality, and if our reality is a simulation, is anything even changed?
After all this, I can personally say that I don’t believe we live in a simulation. But isn’t that exactly what someone living in a simulation would say?