What If We Live Inside a Simulation?
As the simulation theory gains public attention, many are questioning if life is anything more than a series of ones and zeroes.
Video games have always been a huge part of my life. I spent countless hours in front of my television as a kid, reveling in the glory of each cleared level and groaning in frustration at each defeat. I was also insanely competitive and easily fired up about my own performance. I actually had this funny (and disturbing) habit of hurling my character off cliffs or ledges over and over again whenever the frustration of getting stuck on a level became too great.
That kind of behavior isn’t a big deal though, right? They’re just video game characters after all- the culmination of code, appearing on a screen for our enjoyment. What if they weren’t though? What if they were conscious beings? What if each time we held a controller in our hands and plotted the decisions and movements of a character, we took the reigns over a person who thought themselves to possess free will? What if they were simply living inside a simulation that we built around them? To take it a bit further, what if we were the characters?
Obviously I’m not saying that the characters in our favorite video games possess consciousness. We didn’t program them…
