Are We Living in a Simulation? Understanding the Simulation Hypothesis

Elon Musk blew our minds when he suggested that it’s highly likely we’re all living in a computer simulation. Seriously? Why would he think this, and how could we tell if it’s true?

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Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain
Jason Harmer - @jasoncharmer

Created by: Fraser Cain and Jason Harmer
Edited by: Chad Weber
Music: Left Spine Down - “X-Ray”

It turns out I’ve got a few things in common with Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla. We’ve both got Canadian passports, we’re absolutely fascinated by space exploration and believe that humanity’s future is in the stars.

Oh, and we’re kind of obsessed at the possibility that we might be living in a computer simulation.

In the recent 2016 Code Conference, Elon Musk casually mentioned his fascination with the concept first put forth by the scientist Nick Bostrom. Apparently, Musk has brought up the argument so many times, he’s banned from discussing it in hot tubs.

I haven’t received any bans yet, but I’m sure that’s coming.

The argument goes like this:

Advanced civilizations (such as our own) will develop faster and faster computers, capable of producing better and better simulations. You know, how the Sims 2 was a little better than the Sims 1? The Sims 3 was sort of crappy and really felt like a money grab, but the Sims 4 was a huge improvement. Well… imagine the Sims, version 20, or 400, or 4 million.

Not only will the simulations get more sophisticated, but the total number of simulations will go up. As computers get faster, they’ll run more and more simulations simultaneously. You’ll get one mediocre simulation, and then a really great simulation, and then thousands of great simulations, and then an almost infinite number of near perfect simulations.

Nick Bostrom calls these ancestor simulations.

Which means that for all the beings living in all the realities, the vast majority of them will be living in a simulation.

According to this argument, and according to Elon Musk, the chance that you or I happen to be living in the actual reality is infinitesimally low.

Is it true then, are we living in a simulation? And if we are, is there any way to tell?

Nick Bostrom’s ancestor simulation argument is actually a little more complex. Either humans will go extinct before they reach the post-human stage. In other words, we’ll wipe ourselves out before we design computers fast enough to run ancestor-simulations.

I’m really hoping this one isn’t true. I’m looking forward to humanity’s long lived future.

Or, posthuman civilizations won’t bother getting around to running ancestor simulations. Like, the artificial superintelligent machines will have more interesting things to do, and won’t consider sparing a few computer cycles to simulate what it might have been like to watch YouTube videos back in 2016.

Again, this doesn’t sound likely to me. I’m sure those computers will be a tiny bit curious about what it was like to watch Jacksepticeye and Markiplier in their glory, before the terrible Five Nights at Freddy’s Theme Park disaster of 2023.

Those were dark days. Animatronics... blue hair… the horror.

At this point, you’re going to fall into one of two camps. Either you’ve thought through the argument and you find it airtight, like me and Elon Musk, or you’re skeptical.

That’s fine, let’s get skeptical.

For starters, you might say, computers can never simulate actual reality. From our current perspective, that true. Our current simulations suck. But, take a look at the simulations from 10 years ago, and you’ll have to agree that today’s simulations suck less than they did in the past. And in the future, they’re going to suck even less; maybe even be downright acceptable.

Scientific simulations are getting much much better. Cosmologists have developed simulations that accurately model the early Universe, starting from about 300,000 years after the Big Bang and then tracking forward for 13.8 billion years until now.

They’ve been able to model the interaction of dark matter, dark energy, the formation of the first stars and the interactions of galaxies at the largest scale. They have been able to tweak the simulation and get roughly the same Universe as we see today.

They provide all the starting material, and then simulate the gravity and hydrodynamics, the chemical properties of all that gas, radiation and magnetic fields.

[EoinReardon]

i think we are but in my opinion it is nearly cruel to program simulations that can result in species becoming self aware and questioning their existence.

[Nulibrium]

I need cheat codes, the code "there is no spoon" isn't working.

[Anghelnicolae]

For me it's pretty obvious that we're living in a simulation. I'm not a physicist, i'm a programmer, but quantum physics looks a lot like compression techniques. The uncertainty principle, the plank distance, relativity of time (how time moves slower with speed, it's like the computer saying: "screw that, 10 fps it is") and even black holes seem like little tricks to process less information.

[kylehazachode]

Wait. So will the sims in Sims 400 have this same conversation, "are we living in a simulation?" WTF. I had way too much to whiskey

[emielo.]

At least we weren't created by Hello Games

[MusiCaninesTheMusicalDogs]

Well, even if we're not part of a simulation created by an advanced civilization, reality is not that different from a computer simulation.

Consider the universe itself is a big, big, big computer. Think about it. It basically processes information (matter and energy) through the algorithm that contains the laws of nature.

[-dimar-]

We might be in a simulation, or a non interactive space zoo, or entertainment channel for some supreme being(s), or some mixture of those.

[jeffreyhughes]

your argument assumes just because our ability to simulate has improved, we will successfully simulate concepts like consciousness and sentience.

Right now, we simply have no scientific mechanism that explains why conciousness arose and how qualia (mental images out concious minds produce) is linked with the physical world.

The argument assumes that we will not only make this discovery but also learn to artifically replicate it. I'm not so sure.

Which is why I don't believe we are in a simulation.

[SaccidanandaSadasiva]

I am a schizophrenic, and I frequently have ideas of matrix, truman show, solipsism

[ThriveAfterAbuse]

The simulation hypothesis would also be a plausible explanation for why so many people experience ghosts or feel as though they've been reincarnated. Perhaps ghosts are a glitch--old data that was overwritten completely, and reincarnation is something similar but happens when a person repeats a level or levels up--like in a video game. I dunno. It's all interesting stuff to think about.

[skroot]

You wouldn't have to simulate everything in "real time". The simulation could run very slowly but we'd be none the wiser. So if it took 20 hours to simulate 1 second, we'd experience 1 second. That way you could get away with having less computer power.

[dragonofparadise]

Heres an interesting thought. In a video game, you have a boundary to the map and limits in the game. In real life, we can't see beyond a certain distance because of the speed of light. Because of the speed of light and the gradual expansion of the universe, we have essentially been boxed in a limited area, albeit a large area, but still a limited area for eternity. The speed of light if you think about it actually places a large limit not only on us but theoretically data limits.

[grahamrich]

I personally don't have an opinion, but I believe that if we were a simulation, it would be because a species, seconds away from the heat death of the universe, decides in one last try to prevent their inevitable demise by simulating the universe. Inside that universe, they would reach the heat death of the universe, then simulate again. This could go on and on for a long time. In each step, fundamental forces would get fudged, basic mathematics could get simpler, etc. In this hypothesis I have, things like e^i*pi=-1 could arise, the Planck's constant could come. I don't necessarily believe this, but this is what I came up with when I first heard of this hypothesis, without evidence being given (other than "try LSD, it's only banned because it cures addiction"). I think it's kind of interesting, but I retain my agnosticism on it. Sorry for the wall of text.

[abdiali]

What if the big bang is a computer geting plugged in

[fireheadk]

I propose that dark matter and dark energy is a result of the simulation taking shortcuts. The simulation is just saving computing cycles by setting the local variables to what they would be if there were stuff there, without having to actually simulate all that stuff.

[dlbouachitalions]

I feel like we come in with amnesia and are programmable life forms who become products of their environment and are played like a doll in dollhouse, until we begin awakening and expanding our consciousness beyond our box, and then we are becoming more conscious and put thru a basic training, full of obstacles, lessons, and experiences to help respark are own true selves, so we become self made and reclaim our true birthrights. The status quo is just a beginning, comfort zone to observe, and then you grow and become a conscious creator on your own. We are each here to awaken and a way to notice the simulation is recognizing the patterns, and also stop being so predictive and scheduled on a routine, begin being spontaneous and try a few things without thought more and see what you notice then, it is highly adaptable, but not perfect. We come in service to self, and are growing up to be service to others. Earth which is really heart, is a place to love and find your inner hero again. 💖

[garetclaborn]

oh boy. i shoulda seen it coming, this one keeps me up at times.
a few things that make me think (or rather help me comfortably delude myself into thinking) we're in a real universe:

1. if heat death of a universe applies to the original, energy conservation is a consideration. the power bill of a simulation may be negligible to a type 100 civilization but i've got to think there wouldn't be many of this magnitude

2. our simulations do have active, generative worlds.. but mostly we design them to 'come alive' for the current scene. the thing about our universe and it's physics.. it makes sense for nature to produce it, but for me as a programmer it seems kind of like there's a lot of wasted compute. just look at the wave function.. cycling through every possibility all the time.

3. while it is an appeal to human senses rather than a scientific inquiry, i'd put out there: the process of discovery throughout human is directional toward a more comprehensive description of nature. however our insights meander and are corrected by nature. it's hard to prove but i think a ton of neural nets inside any simulation would evolve to game the system faster and more efficiently than us.

4. why even have history? unless the current generation is all that's really being simulated, or perhaps.. only you who's reading this is being simulated. i suppose that could be a thing.

5. is a simulation with this level of detail, actually still a simulation? or does that just mean we are AI?

6. AI. It seems more effective to spend power on AI to produce the result of simulations without truly running the full simulation.

7. i think there's going to be a limit to compute power unless we learn how to tessellate energy at arbitrarily high frequency and read such signals with high fidelity. simulating the universe needs a quantum computer with the compute complexity of the universe.. and probably not a small size.

[theblackbull]

The simulation theory would explain alot of things, the big bang, why there are no aliens, deja vu, ghosts and unexplainable things could be glitches...

[RussianPowerful]

i glitches through the wall this morning, thats how i know were in a simulation

[supergewoon]

you should have so much more subscribers! every video is pure gold :)