Are we all living in a computer simulation Now?

When people believed they were living in a world that was flat
were they living in a simulation?

Before the advent of quantum physics were we living in a simulation?

If God created the world is his/her creation a simulation?




 We can safely assume that

technologically mature civilisations

would have access to enormous

amounts of computing power.

So enormous, in fact, that by

devoting even a tiny fraction to

ancestor simulations, they would be

able to implement billions of

simulations, each containing as many

people as have ever existed. In other

words, almost all minds like yours

would be simulated.

 

The possibility, that more advanced civilisation are running us on a computer simulation is philosophically

intriguing. 

Pursuing this line, then what we have is that what Copernicus and Darwin and

latter-day scientists have been

discovering are the laws and workings

of the simulated reality. These laws

might or might not be identical to

those operating at the more

fundamental level of reality where the

computer that is running our

simulation exists (which, of course,

may itself be a simulation). In a way,

our place in the world would be even

humbler than we thought.

What kind of implications would

this have?

How should it change the

way you live your life?

Your first reaction might think that

if is true, then all bets are off

and you would go crazy.

To reason

thus would be an error. Even if we are

in a simulation, the best methods of

predicting what will happen next are

still the familiar ones – extrapolation

of past trends, scientific modelling and

common sense.


To a first approximation,

if you thought you were in a

simulation, you should get on with

your life in much the same way as if

you were convinced that you were

leading a non-simulated life at the

“bottom” level of reality.

If we are in a simulation and could we ever

know for certain? If the simulators

don’t want us to find out, we probably

never will. But if they choose to reveal

themselves, they could certainly do

so. Another event that would let us

conclude with a high degree of

confidence that we are in a simulation

The above is extracted from an article By Nick Bostrom

Nick Bostrom is the director of the  at Oxford University

Future of Humanity Institute