Is Our Universe a Computer Simulation?
A number of prominent scientists, thinkers, and philosophers believe it to be a mathematical certainty that our universe is an alien video game. Sounds kind of outlandish? Well, here’s the argument:
Our civilization is currently on the eve of artificial life: we are close to creating computer simulations in which the characters are smart enough to be considered artificially intelligent. Moreover, if such a technology is created then we are likely to make a ton of these artificial worlds. Why? Well, whenever we make great new technology we don’t just make one of the new widgets, but rather, we make millions of them. With this in mind, the number of artificial universes out there would greatly outweigh the number of real universes. So, in essence, the probability that we’re living in an artificial universe is very high.
There are a few caveats to this theory, however. If the many worlds theory of quantum physics turns out to be true, then this probability would be greatly altered. Secondly, there is a chance that artificial intelligence will never be realized by us or any other intelligent species in the galaxy. Most believe that this scenario is very unlikely, though. And lastly, there’s also the possibility that we’ll destroy ourselves before we can achieve artificial intelligence.
If none of these scenarios turns out to be true and we do, in fact, develop artificial life, then there is an extremely good chance our universe is merely a simulation. But don’t be too alarmed. Even if we are living in a simulation, it is still real for us. It is the only universe we know and a simulated universe is really no different from a real universe. After all, the very concept of “real” is arbitrary.
