ARE WE LIVING IN A FAKE WORLD?
You walk down a busy street, admiring the tall and impressive buildings around you, watching people bustling about to attend to their daily tasks; and the cacophony of city sounds deafens you. But, what if you were told that this scene of hustle and bustle, everything and everyone you know and, in short, your very life and reality you perceive, could be nothing more than an intricate and sophisticated computer simulation, possibly run and overseen by a higher entity outside of our physical comprehension? In this sense, it is argued that we may be mere digital beings or predetermined coded constructs trapped in this gigantic computer game with no way out!
The simulation theory, which is purely philosophical, is an old belief that relies on the possibility that our universe is a hologram. According to this theory, everything within our reality happens as a result of algorithms and computer equations. The theory, which is as hard to disprove as it is to prove, posits that space-time and matter are not fundamental phenomena, but instead are just bits of information that make up our physical world. In this situation, human beings are not necessarily “real” or “tangible”.
Perhaps the most supportive evidence of the simulation argument comes from quantum mechanics that describes the behaviour of nature at the sub-atomic level which suggests that the nature as we perceive is not real. This means that particles in determined states, such as specific locations, do not seem to exist unless you actually observe or measure them. Instead, they are in a mix of different states simultaneously. This has been proved by the now famous double-slit experiment in physics, first performed by British polymath Thomas Young (1773-1829) in 1801.
The University of Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom (born in 1973), Swedish author and philosopher of artificial intelligence and bioethics, who accepts ancient Greek philosopher Plato’s assumption that the world as we see it, is not real, was the first to propose the simulation argument in his 2003 paper “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?”, claiming that future generations might have mega-computers that are capable of running numerous and detailed simulations of their forebears, in which simulated entities are imbued with a sort of artificial consciousness. Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist Prof. David Chalmers (born in 1966) of the New York University, described the higher being responsible for this potential hyper-realistic simulation as one we mortals might consider a ‘god’ of some sort, though not necessarily in the traditional sense.
American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson (born in 1958) puts the odds at 50-50 that our entire existence is a programme on someone else’s hard drive. In a paper, published in 2023, physicist Melvin Vopson of the University of Portsmouth in England, offered scientific evidence for this philosophical simulation hypothesis, positing that the entire universe and our objective reality are illusions emanating from a super-advanced virtual reality. According to him, the recent developments in a branch of science known as information physics, appear to support this possibility. Another high-profile proponent of the simulation argument is business executive Elon Musk, born in South Africa in 1971.
Computer scientist and video game designer Rizwan Wirk, founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s PlayLabs programme, who takes the simulation theory seriously, asserts that all physical objects can be reduced to particles, much like pixels that compose an image. He recalls playing a virtual reality game so realistic that he forgot that he was in an empty room with a headset on.
German-born Konrad Zuse (1910-1995), another computer scientist, proposed the idea that the universe is fundamentally computational, a concept which became known as digital physics.
Evidence for simulation
From a standpoint of physics, some theorists point out to limits on our ability to probe reality at microscopic scales as possible evidence that the world we inhabit is nothing but a simulation. They claim that the quantized nature of fields and particles; movement of quarks; unfathomable vastness of space; mystery of the seemingly one- way direction of time and weirdness of gravity; incomprehensible speed of light; DNA – carriers of genetic instructions, preprogrammed for billions of years ahead; principle of uncertainty; and other mind-blowing mysteries that classical physics is purportedly incapable of unlocking conclusively may emerge from a simulated reality and that these mysteries could be unravelled convincingly by resorting to the simulation argument.
Is death the end of simulation?
What happens to us or the constructs in this ‘video game’ when we die or when the programme is closed or ‘shut down’? Could our consciousness and reality be ‘deleted’ for good or could they transition to a higher state or dimension outside the simulation when our simulated experience and data would be stored and analysed by the simulators? Some proponents assert that we would re-start from the beginning as another person in a new simulated body in a completely new environment with a different timeline within the same simulation. They say that this could be what reincarnation is. When the programmers ‘reboot’ your system-so they claim-all the data and information (or memories) are lost while in very rare cases such information might accidentally remain intact or ‘saved’. This explains, according to them, why some people remember their past lives while others do not.
Glitches in the programme
There are events or experiences in our lives that seem to defy explanation or suggest that our reality might not be as ‘real’ as we think. One such example is the Mandela Effect. It is a phenomenon where a large group of people remembers an event or fact differently from the way it actually occurred. It arises from a false memory and this effect is often cited as potential evidence for the simulation theory, as these memory discrepancies could be the result of alterations in the programming of the simulation.
Déjà vu (French for ‘already seen’) is the eerie sensation that you have experienced a current situation before even when you know well that it is impossible. This phenomenon too is interpreted as a glitch in the simulated reality when our memories are momentarily out of sync with the present moment.
Quantum Entanglement is a mysterious happening in which particles become linked in such a way that the state of one particle instantaneously influences the state of another, irrespective of the distance between them. Some proponents of the simulation theory argue that this bizarre occurrence could result from the underlying ‘code’ of our simulated reality.
Other theorists postulate that ghosts, apparitions, aliens, UFOs, coincidences, premonitions and other such unexplained phenomena and paranormal happenings are nothing but proof of ‘errors’ cropping up in the simulation from time to time.
Is an escape from the simulation possible?
Samuel Altman (born in 1985), an American entrepreneur and investor, told in 2016 that two tech billionaires were secretly engaging scientists to work on breaking us out of the simulation.
Did Buddha who claimed that all is ‘maya’ (illusion) dare to break loose from the clutches of this formidable simulation? Some have suggested that his Enlightenment could mean a sort of ‘hacking’ into this simulated reality. Could meditation and dreams serve as an exit from this illusory existence? Did Aztecs of Mexico who theorized that the world was a painting or a book written by the Teotl (divinity or god) have an idea of this simulated experience?
Critics of the simulation argument
Critics of the simulation argument often point to the lack of direct evidence in support of the theory. They admit that paranormal phenomena may be intriguing, yet they are not definitive proof of a simulated reality we are experiencing. The issue of resource constraints is another counterargument. They say that even if future civilizations have the technological capability to create ancestor simulations, the computational power required to simulate an entire universe with billions of individuals would be immense. “It may simply be impractical or impossible for a posthuman civilization to run such simulations”, they claim.
Swedish-American physicist Max Tegmark (born in 1967), who formulated the “mathematical universe hypothesis”, said that we are probably not in a simulation. Harvard theoretical physicist Lisa Randall (born in 1962) says there is no “real evidence” for our world being a simulation, but agreed that there are still lots of mysteries in the physical world and a lot we do not understand about our reality.
German theoretical physicist, science communicator and You Tuber Sabine Hossenfelder (born in 1976) considers that it is physically impossible to simulate the universe without producing measurable inconsistencies and called it pseudoscience and religion while cosmologist George Ellis (born in 1939) at the University of Cape Town in South Africa rejected the theory as it was totally impracticable from a technical viewpoint.
Another critic is American quantum mechanics specialist Sean Carroll (born in 1966) who argues that the simulation argument is contradictory.
Conclusion
Although the theory of simulation has emerged recently, it has been around for hundreds of years. It is captivating and thought-provoking that challenges our understanding of reality. The debate surrounding its validity is still going on among philosophical and scientific circles, spurring meaningful discussions about the nature of existence and the ethical implications of creating advanced simulations. ***
