The Theory Of A Simulated World: Does Anything Even Exist?
Imagine waking up to the realization that our universe is a sophisticated program run by someone— Are all that we see and feel merely pixels and codes in a giant digital design?
What is a SIMULATION?
Now to start with, most of us may find the word Simulation very fascinating but also find it very difficult to explain it to someone who doesn’t know about it anything. 😊
Let us try once here,
Simulation is putting together a set of controlled causes (devices, equipment, software, people, emotions, things) to interact with each other according to the rules that are working in the System Of which the arranged setup of those causes is trying to imitate, to give various results as the effect of the interaction of those causes.
Too complex! Let us try once again………..😭
In simpler words, copying a real-world situation by bringing prototypes together that are capable of interacting with each other and generating several outcomes for study experiments, or just entertainment purposes.
Many times, it may not be any copy of a real-world situation but just an autonomous setup for an imaginary conditional system.✅
A simulation imitates the operation of real-world processes or systems using models.
The model is nothing but a bundle of parameters joined by certain rules which drives the key behaviors and characteristics of the selected process or system while the simulation also represents how the model should evolve under different conditions over time.👀
It is a technique of imitating the behavior of an actual or theoretical system using an analogous mathematical or physical good model.
In the simplest sense, a system in such a case is a set of interacting identities.
The mathematical equations that produce the model represent the various processes within the target system.🚀
Simulation modeling was invented to help humans solve real-world problems safely and efficiently. ➡️
The main aim of it was to provide an important method of analysis that is easily verifiable, communicated, and understood. Across industries and disciplines, simulation modeling provides valuable options of solutions by giving clear insights into complex systems.👉
The next obvious question is What is the meaning of Simulated Reality and the theory behind it?
The concept of simulated reality is related to older concepts which tells us that we can never truly know whether the evidence of our senses and memories are merely illusions.
A simulated reality is an approximation of Reality created in a simulation, usually in a set of circumstances in which something is engineered to appear real when it is not.✔️
The simulated reality hypothesis raises a question of who created the “false reality” and why, as well as questions about our existence in the “true reality” outside the simulation.
In some variants of the theory of Simulated Reality, humans have a similar nature outside the simulation but are being controlled through the use of simulated reality even when they are outside the realm of a simulated world. 🤖
In other words, the theory says that we are no more than a frog in a well-being-fed stimuli or even have no real existence at all.
In some fiction, such as The Matrix, it is possible to “hack” the computer program and hence manipulate the simulated reality, effectively giving those who do so the equivalent of superhuman powers.
Simulation argument
The simulation argument is a thesis set out in a 2003 paper by Nick Bostrom, a philosopher. He strongly suggested that the simulated reality scenario is correct and that the world that we see around us is very likely a computer simulation.🧐
This paper begins by arguing that at least one of the following propositions must be true:
1. The human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “post-human” stage.
2. Any post-human civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of its evolutionary history (or variations thereof).
3. We are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.
The paper then tells us that there is a significant chance that we will one day become post-humans who run ancestor simulations; therefore, it is almost certain that we are living in a computer simulation.
Since 2003 there has been a lot of interest in the idea, especially with the online community.🤩
Now coming back to building the understanding of Simulation theory, the theoretical hypothesis says what people perceive as reality is an advanced, hyper-realistic computer simulation, possibly run and observed by a higher being.
Then according to this theory, Simulated reality is a major implementation of simulation and is the proposition that reality could be simulated — by computer simulation — to a degree indistinguishable from “true” reality.
It could contain conscious minds that may or may not be fully aware that they are living inside a simulation.
There are different accounts of how simulation might work, but the basic idea is that information about the person and the situation is fed into the same system that determines our reactions to events and the output of the simulation is attributed to the other person.🤔
Simulation theory says that we are all likely “entities” in an extremely powerful computer program, directed by another entity outside of our comprehension. 😱
In this situation, humans are not necessarily “real” and tangible beings, but instead predetermined, created constructs of the digital world we inhabit.
Living in a simulation can be likened to living in a gigantic video game as one of its characters, interacting with other created characters and giving out results as outcomes, inside the screen.🥸
This leads us to another curious question, If we live in a computer simulation, then who is the programmer? 🧐
Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom wrote about this in his 2003 paper that future generations might have mega-computers that can run numerous and detailed simulations of their forebears, in which simulated beings are assembled with a sort of artificial consciousness.
Chances are, we are products of that simulation, and we may not be the original species of humans.😶🌫️
“It could be the case,” Bostrom writes, “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.”
How Would Simulated Reality Work, if at all it exists?
For a simulated reality to operate and run smoothly, this could be carried out through one of two notable scenarios.
1. Everything We Know Is Simulated
In the first scenario, this assumes that everything that “exists” — including every person, environment, object, occurrence, and sensation — is a byproduct of code.
This scenario would require hardware powerful enough to simulate all these components and known physics on a highly detailed, intergalactic scale. Reality, in this sense, may be imagined as an elaborate, open-world program that is running on a supercomputer or quantum computer beyond our understanding capability.👾
2. The World We Know Is Simulated
In the second scenario, this assumes humans themselves are real and organic, but that the world and many people that surround us are simulated. To carry this out, we would have to trick our consciousness into thinking that we are in true reality, in which all sensations feel lifelike, and simulated characters mimic humans. Along with powerful computing hardware, this scenario would also require A.I. complex enough to be perceived as real by the human mind.🎃
Simulation theory in this scenario can be illustrated by the movie The Matrix. The film depicts a post-apocalyptic world in which a race of machines has captured most of humanity and imprisoned their minds within an artificial reality known as “the Matrix” to harvest humans’ body heat and electrochemical energy.
In the film, humans going about their everyday lives didn’t realize they were living in a simulation because a cable plugged into their neocortices beamed signals into their brains and read their reactions.
Arguments Against Simulation Theory
Simulating Humans Would Be an Odd Choice
In 2016, during the 17th annual Isaac Asimov Panel Debate at New York’s American Museum of Natural History, simulation theory was discussed by scientific experts that included Professor Chalmers, astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson, University of Maryland physics professor Zohreh Davoudi and Harvard University physicist Lisa Randall.🤫
Randall was the group’s most definitive doubter. Although she allowed for the possibility that nothing is what it seems, including the cognitive process of observation, she also wondered about the judgment of our supposed simulators in choosing humankind for their grand experiment.😫
“It’s just not based on well-defined probabilities,” Randall said. “The argument says you’d have lots of things that want to simulate us. I have a problem with that. We mostly are interested in ourselves. Why simulate us? I mean, there are so many things to simulate. … I don’t know why this higher species would want to bother with us.”🙄
Simulating Reality Would Require Too Much Computing Power!
With the idea of Bostrom’s “posthuman simulator,” he also wrote that it would need sufficient computing power to keep track of “the detailed belief states in all human brains at all times.” 😇
This would be to sense observations (of birds, cars, and so on) before they happened and provide simulated detail of whatever was about to be observed.
In the event of a simulation breakdown, the director could simply “edit the states of any brains that have become aware of an anomaly before it spoils the simulation. Alternatively, the director could skip back a few seconds and rerun the simulation in a way that avoids the problem.”🤯
Many argue if we will ever have technology powerful enough to make that possible.
The Consequences of Proving Life Is a Simulation
Preston Greene, a philosophy professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said he thinks we could be living in a simulation right now. But proving as much, he has warned, would be catastrophic.
Tampering With a Greater Experiment
“If our physicists use experiments to prove we live in a simulation, and they tell everyone about this and that has a large effect on how our civilization behaves,” Greene explained, “then our simulation would no longer be useful for answering questions about the basement [foundational] level of reality, which contains the computers doing the simulations.”😱
Greene continued: “This is because such experimental proofs could never happen on the basement level. So even though there are many possibilities for how our simulators would react to our using experiments to prove we live in a simulation, simulation shutdown is worth taking at least as seriously as anything else since it is supported by observed trends in simulation science.”🤫
The Simulation Could End
Just as in present-day practice, researchers use simulations to digitally create scenarios to do scientific study — such as what would happen if we eliminated mosquitoes — Likewise, our world and every moment of our past existence might be the simulated experiment of future humans.
And just as scientists can terminate simulations (study of earthquakes, weather, flights, etc.) when they no longer provide usable data, so too can our hypothetical Lords pull the plug at any time, without warning.😴
But rest assured, Greene said, “It would be a quick and painless death.”🫥
Why Does Simulation Theory Matter?
If we all do live in a simulation, why does any of this matter? What is the purpose of proving or disproving that life as we know it is merely a digital assembly and the existence of everything we know is simply an immensely complex experiment in someone’s virtual terrarium?🙃
The broad answer is that which all good science pursues, The Truth.
More specifically, Our Truth.
If we do exist inside a video game that requires our characters to perform certain quests and achievements to progress, wouldn’t it be fruitful to know what kind of game we’re in to increase the chances of surviving and thriving of our species?🥹
The answer, not surprisingly, should be an unqualified YES.🌟
Whatever type of world it is, it certainly would make a difference in the future.✨
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;… ”
— William Shakespeare from the play As You Like It.
But We shouldn’t forget Discovering the Motives
The base points made in the simulated reality argument require making a lot of assumptions about the motives of the simulators.
Assuming that because they could, they would simulate reality. One can question what it is that they want to achieve by simulating an entire reality and then simulating more realities to go with it. 👨🚀
There are numerous day-to-day activities in the world around us that would be of little use to researchers or explorers, and it would seem pointless to simulate them entirely rather than just focus on more interesting areas and divert the resources to more productive areas. 🕺
However, this would be making decisions and assumptions about whatever Godlike beings are simulating the universe — maybe to them, we’re no more complex than Themselves.🧜♀️
Existential risks
The simulation hypothesis gives birth to the possibility that, if we’re in a simulation, and like happens with most of the experiments or the simulations if it gets shut down, it would result in an existential catastrophe. 🤬
Many futurists have speculated about how we could decrease our chances of getting shut down, which is reminiscent of believers trying to please a God not to smite them; Ray Kurzweil suggests in The Singularity is Near that being interesting might be the best way for us to avoid a simulation shut down, and that the Singularity is probably the most interesting event that could happen. 🤮
However, this argument fails in the fact that, if we were simulated by superior beings, we have no idea what would be deemed as “interesting” to the makers of it as our ideas may differ from theirs.
And of course, this doesn’t consider the possibility that it doesn’t get shut down by accident or if it crashes, in which case nothing we could do would be able to reduce that risk.
Is it important?
No, it’s just a philosophical thought experiment that gets taken seriously by some people.
The problem is that technically, this is what we do already. Every experiment is nothing more than running an “algorithm” and every datum collected is nothing more than the information given back by the system, which we attempt to logically put together into a coherent paradigm regarding the underlying logic of the universe.👩🔧
Some people might get distressed at the suggestion that everything they know might be wrong. If this is you, don’t sweat it; just keep living your life and be happy because, the fact is, even if it was somehow proven that we are only part of a computer program of some immoral jerk, it changes nothing as you still exist and as long as the hypothetical simulation wasn’t being shut down, you’d be all good.
You think therefore you are, after all.
The peace-giving point is, that there’s not much real evidence to support the simulation hypothesis- it’s all very hypothetical like a “mind experiment or simulation” so there is no reason to worry about the possibilities too much.😊
If that’s not enough, put on your headphones and immerse your brain into your favorite playlist music which is prepared by you, if not by any simulation algorithm.😜
As This is one of my favorite topics to think about and brainstorm upon and I keep on reading a lot on this from various sources, most of the thoughts in this story have been taken from these two online resources.
Courtesy:🥳
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Simulated_reality
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_reality
I hope you liked the story, and it gave you something to think about. If you want to read a related story then can view one of my earlier stories Is GOD a Mainframe……..
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