A Simulation of the Universe - Part 2

Have you considered where our universe came from? If you read the last post of this blog you certainly must have. Its a very intriguing question and depending on how your brain works there are many different ways to approach it. In the last post, which if you haven't read I strongly recommend you do before reading this one, we talked about one especially interesting possibility of the origins of our universe, and an infinite number of collateral ones.

This possibility is that our entire universe and everything in it exists only as a simulation. This possibility comes from the observation that simulated realities are extremely more common in our world than "actual" realities that we live in. Simulations range to pretty much every aspect of human life, from things like traffic simulations and weather which are quite common all the way to simulations of our entire universe's growth. Even things such as dreaming, books, video games, movies and other sources of fiction could be considered simulations. As you can see, the simulated realities greatly outweigh the actual one that we live in. Based on these numbers, we can draw a conclusion that our universe and the reality we seem to experience every day is also a simulated one.

At this point it would be natural to seriously question this idea. How could the entire world and universe that every human has ever lived in not actually be real? At the appropriate time in history, this question would have been akin to ones such as how could the Earth not be the centre of the solar system? It brings in a particular human arrogance that has built the society we see around us, but I urge you to for a second put it to the side.

Consider one specific simulation now, whichever you like for example a video game like the Sims (a game in which the player controls the entire life of an animated avatar they created). Imagine you are in the game as a character someone else created but you didn't know it and had no way of figuring it out. You would be carrying out a life that someone else had created in a simulation. It would feel like you were living your own life, like everything was normal, you could do anything you felt like doing, you had all your usual free will. But really you would have none of it. Now think about your own life. Do you see any real differences between our life and unknowingly living in a simulation from the inside? I certainly don't. 

So based on this reasoning, we could be living in a simulation our entire life, and never know it.

Of course, theres the element of humanity we have to consider. If we have the presence of mind to ask questions about our creation, and if we are actually real and if we actually exist, could this suggest that we aren't just running the course of someone else's video game? Its a very interesting question that we really can't prove because we would need to probe outside our universe. It also involves the question of God, because if we are a simulation, someone must be running it. These are all questions that I do not have the answers to and as a society we may never have, but nevertheless its very thought provoking. 

If you have any arguments you may have come up with that I overlooked, add it in the comments below!