To Musk’s unique way of thinking, the strongest argument for our probably being in a simulation is that, as he put it in 2016, “Forty years ago, we had Pong, two rectangles and a dot…That is what games were. What we take to be true is our reality.”Īnd what we take to be true, more than a few folks believe - among them tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who famously said the odds that we’re not simulated are “one in billions” - might now or at least someday be merely the effect of simulated brains and nervous systems processing a simulated world. What we believe determines what we take to be true. What we perceive determines what we believe. What we think depends on what we perceive. What we look for depends on what we think. What we perceive depends on what we look for. What we believe is based upon our perceptions. What we take to be true is what we believe. “e or she may just be a teenager,” Chalmers said, “hacking on a computer and running five universes in the background… But it might be someone who is nonetheless omniscient, all-knowing and all-powerful about our world.”Įven more mind-meltingly, theoretical physicist David Bohm once posed this tortuous notion: “Reality is what we take to be true. New York University philosophy professor David Chalmers has described the being responsible for this hyper-realistic simulation we may or may not be in as a “programmer in the next universe up,” perhaps one we mortals might consider a god of some sort - though not necessarily in the traditional sense. Even the definition of a particle in physics is “kind of fuzzy,” Virk added, “and may be in fact just be a qubit - a quantum computing bit.” In his lifetime, Wheeler said, physics had evolved from the premise that “everything is a particle” to “everything is information.” He also coined a phrase that’s well-known in scientific circles: “It from bit” - meaning everything is based on information. Virk mentioned the renowned physicist John Wheeler, who worked with Albert Einstein decades ago. “T he findings of quantum physics may shed some doubt on the fact that the material universe is real." The more that scientists look for the “material” in the material world, the more they find that it doesn’t exist.” “In fact, the findings of quantum physics may shed some doubt on the fact that the material universe is real. “Simply because we perceive the world as ‘real’ and ‘material’ doesn’t mean that it is so,” said Rizwan Virk, a tech entrepreneur and author of The Simulation Hypothesis. There is no definitive answer, but simulation theory posits the universe as we know it is an advanced digital construct overseen by some higher form of intelligence. The question of if we live in a simulated universe has been hotly debated since the Enlightenment period. It is possible, they theorize, that reality is merely an ultra-high-tech computer simulation in which we sim-live, sim-work, sim-laugh and sim-love.įrom the time it entered popular consciousness, many have noted that simulation theory is essentially a modern offshoot of Plato's “Allegory of the Cave ” story from the Ancient Greek philosopher’s book “The Republic,” and René Descartes’s evil demon hypothesis from the French philosopher and scientist’s “First Meditation.” Both contain ruminations on perception and the nature of being - subjects that continue to puzzle and provoke. But some outside-the-box thinkers, including philosophers and physicists, contend that’s not necessarily the case.
![museum of simulation technology museum of simulation technology](https://www.hdwallpapers.in/download/night_leopard-2560x1440.jpg)
“If we are living in a simulation, then the cosmos that we are observing is just a tiny piece of the totality of physical existence… While the world we see is in some sense ‘real,’ it is not located at the fundamental level of reality.” - Nick BostromĬountless brainiacs and psychedelia enthusiasts have pondered that question for centuries, formulating theories that run the gamut from scientific to mystical.įrom a purely empirical standpoint, the answer seems obvious: reality is anything we can perceive using one or more of the five senses: taste, smell, touch, hearing and sight. “It is possible that I am dreaming right now and that all of my perceptions are false.” - René Descartes