We All Are Just A Computer Simulation

Elon Musk, a renowned figure in technology who also happens to be the genius behind the Space X program, thinks that the whole human culture is just a living simulation. Yes!  An actual computer simulation! I do agree that a belief like that seems incredibly ridiculous, but so seems the concept of the earth being the centre of the universe with planets revolving around it. However surprisingly, people used to believe it more or less. It was nearly 2000 years ago that Galileo proved it otherwise.

Believe me, it's not just some crazy modern age technological fantasy. Aristarchus of Samos posited the same absurd idea - 'Reality is not what it seems '. However, it would be wrong to say that Elon Musk entirely gave birth to this idea. He is essentially echoing on a paper on this theory by philosopher Nick Bostron. 

The theory goes a little something like this - about 40 years ago there was 'Pong' a simple virtual game of rectangles and a dot, 30 years after that there came 'Sims' and now 3D simulations of gaming, virtual reality and what not. So there's one possibility that our civilization might completely get erased. That can be either because of global warming (a huge concern) or self-replicating robots (another considerable interest). But there's also another way that we keep progressing to the point that we'll eventually end up simulating ourselves.

Nick Bostron believes we might send robots and other intelligent life to planets in the future, making them the replicas of giant computers. It's plausible that the robots then start making up their own tinier simulations.

So going along with the theory, in this scenario, there are already billions of universe almost indistinguishable from our own somewhere out in the vast universe. Safe to say, there are genuine chances of us ourselves being an example of such a simulation. We better hope this isn't just a potential, sci-fi movie theme because the only other option left is that humans have an inevitable ceiling, which is something we definitely wouldn't want. 

There is, however, yet another plausibility that maybe humans don't want to run the same ancestral simulations because they are very much unethical. There is already much suffering in the world; it would be morally wrong to pass on the same pain unto simulated humans. Out of the three outcomes, there's a minuscule chance of us experiencing scenario 1 or 2. Whereas, there's more than a 20% chance of us living in an upgraded and who knows, even a dystopian 'Sims environment '. Also, if you're not precisely into futuristic forecasts, he still says that it suggests naturalistic relationships to certain traditional sacred concepts. Such as, there is probably a more distinguished self or God as some might call it — which would actually just  be a version of us. 

Mishita Khurana (IBDP Jr.)
Cambridge International Foundation School
2019-2020