Are We Living In A Simulation?

An exploration of Nick Bostrom's "Simulation Hypothesis"

When I was first introduced to the idea that we may be living in a simulation, I reacted as many of you probably would have; I thought the idea was laughable. However, after taking an in-depth look at Nick Bostrom’s ‘simulation hypothesis’, the idea began to hold a bit more weight within my mind.

In today’s post, we’ll be exploring a philosophical question that has been quite popular amongst a variety of thinkers in the 21st century — are we living in a simulation?

Nick Bostrom

The ‘simulation hypothesis’ was famously formulated by Nick Bolstrom, a modern-day philosopher who’s known for his work on existential risk, ethics, and more. He’s written a variety of well-received books, and has also contributed philosophically to the field of artificial intelligence. In addition to his ‘simulation hypothesis’ which we’ll be exploring today, I’ve also found his work on existential risk to be quite fascinating. Specifically, I think his ‘vulnerable world hypothesis’ is definitely worth exploring if you’re intrigued by his ideas. 

Skeptical Arguments

Although Bostrom’s ‘simulation hypothesis’ may be a relatively new philosophical idea, the overall skeptical theme of his argument isn’t. In fact, Bostrom’s argument joins a long list of skeptical philosophical ideas concerning the nature of reality which have been formulated over the course of human existence. Plato’s famous Allegory of the Cave and Rene Descartes’ Evil Demon thought experiment are both great examples, and they share common themes with Bostrom’s argument. However, with this in mind, Bostrom has claimed that his argument is not merely metaphysical speculation, but rather, an empirical claim.

The ‘Simulation Hypothesis’

Through his hypothesis, Bostrom is essentially trying to determine the probability of us actually existing inside of a simulation. To help illustrate his overall idea, he states that at least one of the following points (which I’ve slightly reworded for clarity) has a high probability of being true;

1. Humanity is unlikely to technologically progress to a point where we’re capable of running high-level simulated realities, or these simulated realities are impossible to create in the first place.

2. A human civilization that does reach a level of technological progress where the creation of simulated realities is possible is not likely to actually run these simulations due to a variety of reasons, such as ethical issues, the simulation being a waste of computational power, etc.

3. We’re currently living in a simulation.

4. We’re currently living in actual reality, and a simulated reality has never been created yet.

5. We have no way of knowing if we’re living in a simulation because we’ll never reach the level of technological progress required to prove that we’re living in a simulation.

Bostrom’s argument aims to highlight the fact that, granted that humans don’t go extinct, we may reach a level of technological progress where we’re able to simulate consciousness itself. Through computer-powered consciousness that is exactly like ‘real’ consciousness, we could simulate real humans, and would thus be able to run ‘simulations’ of the world, including the past. Realistically, we probably won’t reach this level of technological progress for a while, perhaps 2000 to 3000 years from now. When that time comes, those humans might be interested in running simulations of human societies from the past. This would be the equivalent of us, in the present day, running simulations of the Greek or Roman empires.

“Many works of science fiction as well as some forecasts by serious technologists and futurologists predict that enormous amounts of computing power will be available in the future. Let us suppose for a moment that these predictions are correct. One thing that later generations might do with their super-powerful computers is run detailed simulations of their forebears or of people like their forebears. Because their computers would be so powerful, they could run a great many such simulations. Suppose that these simulated people are conscious (as they would be if the simulations were sufficiently fine-grained and if a certain quite widely accepted position in the philosophy of mind is correct). Then it could be the case that the vast majority of minds like ours do not belong to the original race but rather to people simulated by the advanced descendants of an original race.”

- Nick Bostrom, Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?

Bolstrom’s ‘simulation argument’ isn’t actually an argument - it’s a trilemma. In fact, he doesn’t even directly argue that we’re in a simulation, rather, he argues that one of the following points must be true;

either…

1. It’s very unlikely that humanity reaches a stage where we’re capable of running high-level simulations of reality

or

2. Humanity does achieve a level of technological progress where we can run high-level simulations of reality, but it’s unlikely that they actually choose to do so (due to a variety of reasons).

or

3. Humanity has reached a technological level of progress where they can create these simulations, and they’ve done so, and we’re currently living in a simulation.

You’re probably thinking the following; where’s the option that states “we’re the ‘original humans’ and will go on to create these simulated realities?”. According to Bolstrom, it’s actually more rational to assume that we’re currently existing in a simulated reality rather than to assume that we belong to the ‘original group’ of humans who will go on to create the first simulations. Allow me to explain.

The computers that would run these simulations would have to be incredibly powerful. It would be logical to assume that they’d be able to run multiple simulations. Each of these simulations would contain a ton of simulated people (literally the population of the earth, if not more), and therefore it follows that there would exist more simulated humans than ‘actual humans’ who are behind the creation of these simulations.

Put it this way; think of all the video games in the world, and all of the individuals who’ve ever played a video game. Within a single-player video game, there’s a character that’s controlled by a real person who’s playing the game, and every other character within the game is controlled by the computer and is generated (it’s a non-playable character that doesn’t have a human controlling it). Imagine that every single computer generated character, within every single copy of a video game to have ever been played on earth, had consciousness. If we grossly underestimate, and assume that every video game has a minimum of 5 non-playable, computer-generated players, these computer-generated organisms with consciousness would outnumber us ‘real’ humans 5 to 1 (at a minimum). It’s important to keep in mind that many video games, such as the "Assassin's Creed” series, often have hundreds of computer-generated players.

Thanks to technological progress and the availability of the required hardware to play, video games are incredibly popular. It’s common to find a video game console in homes throughout the world. Within Bostrom’s ‘simulation hypothesis’, the technology required to run these simulations may be widely available too, and even if it isn’t, a single computer may be powerful enough to run hundreds, thousands, or even millions of simulations at the same time.

Within Bostrom’s hypothetical future society of advanced humans, it’s rational to believe that simulated humans would vastly outnumber real humans. Therefore, it’s way more likely that you and I are merely ‘simulated’ humans, rather than belonging to the ‘original group’ of real ones. This is why Bostrom states that if we currently do not currently exist in a simulation, it’s safe to say that these hyper-realistic simulations won’t ever exist in the first place.

"Unless we are now living in a simulation, our descendants will almost certainly never run an ancestor-simulation.” - Nick Bostrom, Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?

Objections to Bostrom’s Argument

There have been many objections made towards Bolstrom’s argument. Many have argued that the ‘simulation hypothesis’ is unfalsifiable and therefore unscientific, making it a mere metaphysical philosophical question and also one that is useless to debate. For others, the idea of a simulated being that has consciousness is very far-fetched, and there are many people who’ve argued that this concept is impossible. Some have even pointed out the fact that a computer that is powerful enough to simulate the universe must be more complex than the universe itself, which highlights the unlikelihood of humans being able to create such a machine. I, however, have an ethics-based objection of my own.

My Personal Objection

After doing some reflection, I thought of my own refutation to Bolstrom’s argument. Now, I must preface this by highlighting the fact that I’m not a computer scientist nor a physicist, rather, I’m just a college student who’s read a decent amount of philosophy.

I think that if humans, or any other species for that matter, reach a civilizational level of development where they’re capable of running an ultra-realistic simulation of the universe, it would probably be rational to assume that they’ve also developed in many other aspects of their society. They would not only be advanced technologically, but also in the fields of law, politics, philosophy, and virtually everything else. Therefore, wouldn’t it be rational to assume that they’d have an extremely advanced and well-developed framework of ethics?

As humans, we’ve progressively become more ethical over the course of history, a trend that hasn’t changed so far. This futuristic, hyper-advanced society would probably be way more ethical than we are now, and therefore I think the second point within Bolstrom’s trilemma is the most plausible - I think within this society, they would view the creation of a hyper-realistic simulation with conscious beings to be too much of an ethical violation, and would therefore choose not to run or create it. Think of how fast mainstream ethical beliefs have developed - the world today is incredibly more ethical than it was 1000 years ago, and so it’s probably safe to assume that if humanity survives long enough to be able to create a simulation as described by Bolstrom, our framework of ethics will be advanced enough to curb the possibility of this simulation actually being run. It’s important to note that this ‘post-human’ society that Bolstrom talks about is probably so far into the future that the framework of ethics they’ll be using is most likely incomprehensible to us in the present-day.

All in all, Bolstrom’s ‘simulation hypothesis’ is a thought-provoking experiment that has sparked countless philosophical and scientific discussions around the world. It’s a fascinating example of what can happen when science and philosophy is merged, and demonstrates the fact that even the most basic ‘thought experiments’ can challenge the foundation of logic which the modern world rests on.

---