Simulation theory - first proposed in 2001 by Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom - spread across the app after TikToker Heidi Wong posted a video that introduced the hypothesis and argued that we’re more likely to live in a simulation than reality, citing recent advances in video game graphics as evidence. The idea spreading across the platform is that some super-advanced civilization, be it human or alien, built a virtual environment so powerful that we, as cognizant as we feel, are all just digital characters living in a sophisticated video game. If this is the actual universe (or part of the Multiverse, but that’s another conversation entirely), then all of the scientific principles that we know of apply, which means a simulated universe would be an impossibility.Īgain, neither is known for sure, so unless new information surfaces, you’ll probably want to assume what you see in life is what you get."Basically we are living inside a video game." Hot New Trendįor the past few weeks, simulation theory has been spreading across TikTok.Ī growing number of TikTokers are signing on to - or at least considering - the idea that our world is a giant, Matrix-like simulation, as demonstrated in a roundup by YourTango. But, then there’s the equally plausible chance that there is one base reality, and we’re living in it. So, whatever happens, happens no harm can be done in a virtual world because nothing is real not even you. If Musk and his fellow believers turn out to be correct, there could be multiple existing levels of reality and parallel technologies that we could somehow learn about one day. Then, of course, the reason for a simulation could be as simple as the fact that virtual games are fun and exciting because you can have any experience without risk.
There are possibilities, and within each possibility, there are scientific limitations.
#Is the world a simulation simulator
Microsoft is coming back out with a new Flight Simulator after 10 years undeveloped. World building both in movies and in gaming is becoming more immersive and explicitly converging in films like Speilbergs Ready Player One. Ultimately, there is no definitive evidence confirming either side of this theory. In parallel, we are seeing the acceleration of the convergence between the physical and simulated worlds. Some even argue that, because human beings aren’t expected to survive on planet Earth for that much longer (relatively speaking), a civilization could never advance to the point that such a simulation would be possible. Unless information technology is radically and rapidly changed, it just might never be possible.Įssentially, unless life as we know it completely changes and the way that computers operate is turned on its head, the only way that the type of simulation Musk is talking about would be possible is through some higher level of reality. The Word was with God, and the Word was God In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. So there’s a kind of religious element to the notion of a giant simulation, a sense that there is a higher, purer reality, if we could only but grasp it. The Bible Genesis reverse engineered our world as In the beginning the Word already existed. Ancients firmly believed in an eternal, all-powerful, and all-knowing God. No matter how powerful quantum computers grow to be over the years, decades, and centuries, using them to create a real physical world, or “simulation,” might still be a technological impossibility. Perhaps the oldest human story is that the world and whatever we see and know is the product of a creator. Once a “simulated” object becomes physical, then does it, conceptually, stop being a simulation?Īnother argument against the notion of a simulated reality is the limitations of computing. However, even though the idea is old and debated heavily by both scientists and philosophers, it might not hold much actual weight.įor starters, a simulation is, by definition, an “imitation of a situation or process.” And so, if we were living in a simulation, how would we exist and interact with our physical world as we know it? Unless our physical interactions with food, humans, air, and the like are all elaborate programs to trick the brain in every which way to perceive the physical as such, the concept in and of itself is inherently flawed. This concept has been around for decades, and if you count its predecessor, the idea that everything around you is just a dream, the concept is much, much older than that. While the idea of a simulated universe was officially described by Bostrom and recently brought to headlines by Musk and Tyson, it is not a new idea.
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