Why You’re Probably Living in a Simulation

English: This image is the output from hermes2d/examples/acoustics/apartment. The image is a simulation of harmonic wave propagation in a model of an existing apartment. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Imagine a future human civilization with unparalleled computing capabilities. So much so that they are capable of simulating, let’s say, the 20^th century, including every person, animal and tree that ever lived. They can do that with such astonishing level of detail that the simulation is for all practical purposes indistinguishable from reality.

It is possible that those humans would decide to use their power to simulate us. Why not? It would certainly be interesting to bring Einstein back to life, for example. And, just like with any other simulation, they would run it more than once.

It is also possible that posterior humans would be interested in simulating those superhumans which in turn would be simulating us. And so on.

This scenario gives an overwhelming number of simulations of the 20^th century: those performed by the first superhumans and those performed by the simulated superhumans and those performed by the simulated superhumans being simulated by the simulated super-superhumans. And so on.

It is easy to see, then, that should this scenario be true chances are we are living in a simulation, since there are many more simulated 20^th centuries than real ones. The odds are overwhelming.

From this argument it follows one of these three sentences has to be true:

We will never reach a superhuman state.
We will reach a superhuman state but future humans will be absolutely uninterested in simulating us for whatever reason.
We live in a simulation.

This may seem like one of those things philosophers do with their research money that seems unjustifiable to the rest of us mortals. However, physicists are taking it seriously. In fact, it turns out that living in a simulation would have testable physical consequences, such as an upper bound to the energy of cosmic rays, which is being researched right now.

I wonder what would happen if we found out this reality is not as real as we thought. As I argued in a different post, I think it wouldn’t matter. After all, simulations are nothing but abstract rules being implemented. Reality, it turns out, is exactly the same. The only real difference would be in the reason of our existence: in a “real” reality our reason for existing is unclear. Probably, we exist because there was the possibility or for no reason at all. If we were living in a simulation, we would exist because someone else wanted us to. However, the reasons for this someone else’s existence would remain as opaque.

At least, we would have the comfort of knowing that, sometime in the future, someone managed to overcome humanity’s limitations. And that our century was interesting enough to warrant another go.