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Some philosophers and scientists believe it is possible we are living in a computer simulation…

• We are now able to create virtual realities on computers. Are we all living in one created by someone in the future? Greg Fitzsimmons
• Are you living in a computer simulation? Nick Bostrom
• We are living in a computer-programmed reality, and the only clue we have to it is when some variable is changed, and some alteration in our reality occurs. Philip K. Dick
• Is it possible that we are in a holodeck-like space and there is another world “out there”? Rizwan Virk
• The idea of living in a simulated reality has been around for a long time in science, religion and fiction. Rizwan Virk
• Perhaps our world is a computer simulation and we are just avatars that haunt it—as in movies such as The Matrix or The Thirteenth Floor, and games such as The Sims. Perhaps some geek, in another world, gets her kicks creating and controlling us and our world. That geek and her world might in turn be the digital plaything of a geek in a lower-level world. This might continue for multiple levels, until we reach some base level where the first simulation runs. Perhaps that level was conceived by a single edgy artist, or arose as a joint endeavor of a brilliant civilization beyond our imagination, or started as a scientific experiment to test whether new rules of physics could spark fascinating life forms whose creativity and pleasure was worth the pain they suffered. This possibility is not dismissed by some serious thinkers, such as philosophers Nick Bostrom and David Chalmers, as well as tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, and it has interesting points in its favor. Spacetime, for instance, may be pixelated much like a computer screen; the three dimensions of space are a holographic inflation much like the virtual worlds of video games.  Donald Hoffman
• Is the life we are living real? Are the stars, the planets, the universe and everything else we can see and touch tangible? Or, perhaps, are we like all the characters we see in a video game, living in a simulated world. The initial thought may be comical in nature, but it is a thought that many high-profile pundits have been debating for some time. And in some sense, it’s more than just a debate. Many believe there’s actual proof, mathematical and experiential, that we are indeed living in a simulation. Simulation Theory proponents believe we aren’t humanity but actually a simulanity. Rick Gonzales
• What is reality? Countless brainiacs and psychedelia enthusiasts have pondered that question for centuries, formulating theories that run the gamut from scientific to mystical.  From a purely empirical standpoint, the answer seems obvious: reality is anything we can perceive using one or more of the five senses: taste, smell, touch, hearing and sight. But some outside-the-box thinkers, including philosophers and physicists, contend that’s not necessarily the case. It is possible, they theorize, that reality is merely an ultra-high-tech computer simulation in which we sim-live, sim-work, sim-laugh and sim-love.   Mike Thomas
• Are we, in fact, digital beings living in a vast computer simulation created by our own future descendants or future post human civilization? Recently, a number of philosophers, futurists, science-fiction writers, and technologists — people who share a strong faith in technological progress, have come to believe that the simulation argument is not just plausible, but inevitable. They argue that if consciousness can be simulated in a computer and the advanced civilizations are bound to have access to truly stupendous amounts of computing power, then, the notion that the present physical world itself is virtual is quite reasonable. Ashutosh Jain
• Science fiction writers are not alone in believing that we are all living in a simulation. Many prominent scholars and renowned physicists are voicing their beliefs that we live in a sophisticated simulation. The celebrated physicist and author of A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking, speculated that we have a 50 percent chance of being in a simulated reality. Rizwan Virk
• Musk and other like-minded folk are suggesting that we are entirely simulated beings. We could be nothing more than strings of information manipulated in some gigantic computer, like the characters in a video game. Even our brains are simulated, and are responding to simulated sensory inputs. In this view, there is no Matrix to “escape from”. This is where we live, and is our only chance of “living” at all. Philip Ball
• How do we know that the reality we are in is real? The suggestion that we could be living in a computer simulation isn’t just a Matrix-style science-fiction idea. It is a hypothesis that has been discussed and debated by philosophers and physicists since Nick Bostrom at the University of Oxford floated it in 2002. If its startling but logical conclusion is correct, it renders decades of intellectual endeavour obsolete and, ironically, takes us back to the beginning. Donna Lu

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…or a super sophisticated computer game

• Games, by nature, have more plot options and non-linear qualities than TV and film.  David Duchovny
• If you want to move through a virtual reality it’s called a video game, it’s been around forever. James Cameron
• The idea that what we call reality is actually a super-sophisticated video game is popularly referred to as the Simulation Hypothesis. The fundamental question raised by the simulation hypothesis is this: Are we all actually characters living inside some kind of giant, massively multiplayer online video game, a simulated reality that is so well rendered that we cannot distinguish it from “physical reality”? Rizwan Virk

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The idea is also popular amongst some science fiction lovers

• The idea that we are living in a simulated reality first entered Western popular consciousness through science fiction. Rizwan Virk

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The theory buys into the idea that the world is an elaborate illusion…

• What if everything around us — the people, the stars overhead, the ground beneath our feet, even our bodies and minds — were an elaborate illusion? What if our world were simply a hyper-realistic simulation, with all of us merely characters in some kind of sophisticated video game? Dan Falk
• Simulation in Actual Reality. We exist merely or marginally in someone’s or something’s simulation, in an artificial world that actually exists in terms of having physical particles and forces and galaxies and stars, but that entirety is not what it seems because that entirety is derivative not original. Andre Linde analyzes “baby universe formation” and then asks, “Does this mean that our universe was created not by a divine design but by a physicist hacker?” Robert Lawrence Kuhn
• Virtual:  Not physically existing as such but made by software to appear to do so”, in other words “unreal but looking real”.  Oxford Dictionary
• Virtual:  Being on or simulated on a computer or computer network.  Merriam Webster

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…virtual reality taken to the extreme so it becomes simulated reality

• Simulated reality is the hypothesis that reality could be simulated—for example by quantum computer simulation—to a degree indistinguishable from “true” reality. This is quite different from the current, technologically achievable concept of virtual reality, which is easily distinguished from the experience of actuality. Simulated reality, by contrast, would be hard or impossible to separate from “true” reality. There has been much debate over this topic, ranging from philosophical discourse to practical applications in computing. Wikipedia
• The vital factor of virtual reality is immersion, the degree to which the user’s senses are limited to the simulation and screened from a real world. Fjodor Ruzic
• Virtual reality is the representation of possible worlds and possible selves, with the aim of making them appear as real as possible – ideally, by creating a subjective sense of “presence” and full immersion in the user. Thomas Metzinger
• The technologies of virtual reality are attempting to make us see from beneath, from inside, from behind… as if we were God. Paul Virilio
• Virtual reality is a bundle of technology that fools our senses into thinking we’ve gone somewhere else. Ben Kuchera
• Virtual reality is all about selling the illusion that we’re being transported somewhere entirely new. Michael Futter
• The whole idea behind virtual reality is it behaves like regular reality. Hayden Dingman
• Virtual reality is the representation of possible worlds and possible selves, with the aim of making them appear as real as possible – ideally, by creating a subjective sense of “presence” and full immersion in the user. Thomas Metzinger

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If the world is a simulation, it is possible the creators of the simulation are future humans…

• Just as present-day researchers use simulations to digitally create scenarios to aid scientific study (eg., What would happen if we eliminate mosquitoes?), our world and every moment of our past existence might be the simulated experiment of future humans. And just as scientists can terminate simulations (of earthquakes, weather, etc.) when they no longer provide useful data, so too can our hypothetical overlords pull the plug at any time, without warning. Mike Thomas
• Who, or what, is the godlike entity that may have created a simulated universe? One possibility, supporters of the simulation hypothesis say, is that it’s a race of advanced beings — space aliens. Even more mind-bending is the possibility is that it’s our own descendants — “our future selves”. That is, humans living hundreds or thousands of years in the future might develop the ability to simulate not only a world like ours but the bodies and minds of the beings within it. Dan Falk
• 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
• 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 … 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

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…for example, creating ancestor simulations…

• It may be possible for simulated civilizations to become posthuman. They may then run their own ancestor‐simulations on powerful computers they build in their simulated universe. Reality may thus contain many levels. Nick Bostrum

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…or the creators could be intelligent aliens

• This brings us to a likely possibility and one that has been proposed by everyone from Elon Musk to Stephen Hawking: that the creators are some form of alien species. Of course, if they weren’t human but were intelligent, that pretty much describes how we think of alien species. Extraterrestrial is a term that describes beings from another planet, outside of the Earth—but you could easily apply it to beings that came from another dimension of reality. Rizwan Virk
• What look like gods to us could in fact be aliens or just beings outside the simulation who are superusers and have the power to manipulate the simulation. Rizwan Virk

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The idea that the world is a simulation takes old philosophical questions and clothes them in modern clothing

• There is nothing new about asking what is “behind” the appearances and sensations we experience. Philosophers have been doing so for centuries. Plato wondered if what we perceive as reality is like the shadows projected onto the walls of a cave. Immanuel Kant asserted that, while there might be some “thing in itself” that underlies the appearances we perceive, we can never know it. René Descartes accepted, in his famous one-liner “I think therefore I am”, that the capacity to think is the only meaningful criterion of existence we can attest. The concept of “the world as simulation” takes that old philosophical saw and clothes it in the garb of our latest technologies. There is no harm in that. Like many philosophical conundrums, it impels us to examine our assumptions and preconceptions. Philip Ball
• From the time it entered popular consciousness, many have noted that simulation theory is essentially a modern offshoot of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” story from the Ancient Greek philosopher’s book “The Republic,” and René Descartes’s evil demon hypothesis from the French philosopher and scientist’s “First Meditation.” Both contain ruminations on perception and the nature of being — subjects that continue to puzzle and provoke. Mike Thomas

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According to Nick Bostrom’s simulation argument…

• One of the most popular arguments for simulation theory came in 2003 from Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom. He calls his argument the Trilemma, three major points Bostrom says that at least one of them is true. These points are 1) The human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “post-human” stage; 2) Any post-human civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof), and 3) We are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. Rick Gonzales
• In an influential paper that laid out the theory, the Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom showed that at least one of three possibilities is true: 1) All human-like civilizations in the universe go extinct before they develop the technological capacity to create simulated realities; 2) if any civilizations do reach this phase of technological maturity, none of them will bother to run simulations; or 3) advanced civilizations would have the ability to create many, many simulations, and that means there are far more simulated worlds than non-simulated ones. Sean Illing

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…some believe that the probability we are in a computer simulation is high for the number of simulations would hugely outnumber the number of base realities…

• Who is to say that before long we will not be able to create computational agents – virtual beings – that show signs of consciousness? Advances in understanding and mapping the brain, as well as the vast computational resources promised by quantum computing, make this more likely by the day. If we ever reach that stage, we will be running huge numbers of simulations. They will vastly outnumber the one “real” world around us. Is it not likely, then, that some other intelligence elsewhere in the Universe has already reached that point? If so, it makes sense for any conscious beings like ourselves to assume that we are actually in such a simulation, and not in the one world from which the virtual realities are run. The probability is just so much greater. Philip Ball
• Mathematics leads you to a very scary conclusion: since there is only one real world, whereas the number of potential virtual worlds is infinite, the probability that you happen to inhabit the sole real world is almost zero.  Yuval Noah Harari
• A simplified version of the simulation argument says that many simulated universes will be created in the lifetime of a universe containing intelligent life, and there will be more beings in simulations than outside simulations, so it is very likely that we are in a simulation. One could additionally argue that most simulations will be done within the minds of simulating beings. The great majority of simulating beings will be superintelligent brings, and these beings will have little need to run simulations on separate computers. Instead they will have the resources to run simulations directly in their own computational minds. If so, most beings in the cosmos will exist in universes realized by the minds of simulating beings.  David Chalmers
• According to current scientific dogma, everything I experience is the result of electrical activity in my brain, and it should therefore be theoretically feasible to simulate an entire virtual world that I could not possibly distinguish from the ‘real’ world.  Some brain scientists believe that in the not too distant future, we shall actually do such things. Well, maybe it has already been done – to you? For all you know, the year might be 2216 and you are a bored teenager immersed inside a ‘virtual world’ game that simulates the primitive and exciting world of the early twenty-first century. Once you acknowledge the mere feasibility of this scenario, mathematics leads you to a very scary conclusion: since there is only one real world, whereas the number of potential virtual worlds is infinite, the probability that you happen to inhabit the sole real world is almost zero. Yuval Noah Harari
• Paul Davies speaks of “fake universes,” and of those beings who created them as “false gods;” and he ponders that if multiple universes really exist, the great majority of them may be fakes because some of them (there are so many) would have spawned, at some time or another, unthinkably superior beings who would have had the capacity to create these fake universes—and once they could have done so they would have done so, creating immensely many fake universes and thereby swamping the real ones.  Robert Lawrence Kuhn
• There are readily apparent signs all around us that point to the distinct probability that we may be living in a simulation. One:  AI, machine learning, virtual reality and video games have taken huge leaps forward in the past twenty years. Two:  We know subatomic particles must exist, but we still can’t come close to actually seeing them, and no one has the faintest idea how we might ever do that.   Three:  Conversely to point two, the farther we look into the universe, the larger the universe seems to be.  Four:  Our odds of ever existing in the first place verge on the incalculably small: the tiniest variations in any physical constant or in Earth’s material make-up and position in the Solar System would have prevented life from evolving.  Five:  The Fermi Paradox. Our Milky Way galaxy alone, not counting the billions of other galaxies out there, may have hundreds of thousands or even millions of life-harboring planets, thousands of which may have evolved intelligent, technological life. Why is there no evidence of them?  Tony Deller
• If even one civilization got to the point of creating one of these high-fidelity simulations, then they can create literally billions of civilizations that are simulated, each with trillions of beings, because all you need is more computing power. Then there’s a statistical argument that there are more likely to be more simulated beings than there are biological ones, just because it’s so quick and easy to create them. Therefore, if we are conscious beings, we are more likely to be a simulated being than a biological one. Rizwan Virk
• If there were a substantial chance that our civilization will ever get to the posthuman stage and run many ancestor‐simulations, then how come you are not living in such a simulation? Nick Bostrum
• 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. It is then possible to argue that, if this were the case, we would be rational to think that we are likely among the simulated minds rather than among the original biological ones. Nick Bostrum
• If we don’t think that we are currently living in a computer simulation, we are not entitled to believe that we will have descendants who will run lots of such simulations of their forebears.  Nick Bostrom
• If one progresses at the current rate of technology a few decades into the future, very quickly we will be a society where there are artificial entities living in simulations that are much more abundant than human beings. Rich Terrile
• If in the future there are more digital people living in simulated environments than there are today, then what is to say we are not part of that already? Rich Terrile
• Mathematicians have proved that a universal computing machine can create an artificial world that is itself capable of simulating its own world, and so on ad infinitum. In other words, simulations nest inside simulations inside simulations … Because fake worlds can outnumber real ones without restriction, the “real” multiverse would inevitably spawn a vastly greater number of virtual multiverses. Indeed, there would be a limitless tower of virtual multiverses, leaving the “real” one swamped in a sea of fakes. So the bottom line is this: Once we go far enough down the multiverse route, all bets are off. Reality goes into the melting pot, and there is no reason to believe we are living in anything but a Matrix-style simulation. Science is then reduced to a charade, because the simulators of our world — whoever or whatever they are — can create any pseudo-laws they please, and keep changing them.  Paul Davies
• Unless we are now living in a simulation, our descendants will almost certainly never run an ancestor‐simulation.  Nick Bostrom
• Bostrom’s simulation argument says that if humans could one day create simulations of the universe populated with conscious beings, then in all likelihood we are living in such a computer-generated universe. The argument assumes that, eventually, enough computing power will exist to create simulations of human history that are detailed enough for the simulated people in it to be conscious. If so, then, statistically speaking, we are more likely to be living in a simulation, because simulated people would vastly outnumber unsimulated ones. That is especially true if simulated people make their own simulations ad infinitum in an endlessly nested reality. Donna Lu

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…especially considering the fact there could be simulations nested within simulations

• Physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, while discussing Bostrom’s argument, also brings up the idea that each simulation could have beings who create sub-simulations (or simulations-within-simulations), so the number of simulated beings could be almost infinite. He calls it the “simulations all the way down” argument. Rizwan Virk
• Leading scientists and philosophers such as Nick Bostrom, contend that if an advanced civilization created us, most probably this ‘advanced civilization’ is also a creation of an even more advance civilization. Laurence Galian
• Humanity is living in a virtual reality universe, a video game created by a civilization 1,000 to 100,000 years older than the human race. And they themselves are also simulations (virtual reality). These levels of hierarchies can extend to a vast degree above us, creating levels of gods or spirits. Laurence Galian
• What we think we are may be run on virtual machines that are run on other virtual machines – it’s like a nesting doll of simulations, making it nearly impossible for us to see beyond to the true nature of things. Even the posthumans simulating us could be themselves simulated. As such, there could be many levels of reality, concludes Bostrom. The future us might likely never know if they are at the “fundamental” or “basement” level.  Paul Ratner

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Some suggest that if the world is a simulation, then we are simulated consciousnesses

• Bostrom’s conclusion is that the simulated beings are really artificially intelligent characters in simulations rather than conscious entities that have presence in the real world. Rizwan Virk
• Bostrom, in fact, thinks that “we” are the simulated consciousness. He makes the point that perhaps we don’t need to pass the Turing Test, but we are constructed in such a way that we can’t tell if other “humans” (as we think of them), or other characters in the simulation, are simulated or not. Rizwan Virk
• In Nick Bostrom’s original simulation argument, he argues that we are not only part of a simulation but are likely to be simulated consciousness, rather than real beings. Rizwan Virk
• At our current stage of technological development, we have neither sufficiently powerful hardware nor the requisite software to create conscious minds in computers. But persuasive arguments have been given to the effect that if technological progress continues unabated then these shortcomings will eventually be overcome. Some authors argue that this stage may be only a few decades away. Nick Bostrum
• If we are in a simulation which was created by real beings in some “base reality,” then it’s possible there are many such simulations. Just as we have NPCs (non-player characters) in video games that are simulated, if we are in a simulation then could we ourselves be artificially simulated consciousness and not real beings? Rizwan Virk

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Our consciousness is a computer program

• Could conscious experiences bubble out of a computer simulation? Some scientists and philosophers think so, but no scientific theory can explain how. Some suggest that each specific conscious experience—such as the taste of coffee I am savoring right now—is a specific computer program. But no such program has been found, and no one has any idea what principle could tie a program to an experience. For now, this proposal is a hand wave, not a scientific theory. Donald Hoffman
• Others suggest that each kind of conscious experience—such as the kind of taste I have whenever I drink coffee—is a class of programs. But again, no such class of programs has been found, and no one has any idea what principle could tie a class of programs to a kind of experience. In short, we have no idea how simulations might conjure up conscious experiences. Simulations run afoul of the hard problem of consciousness: if we assume that the world is a simulation, then the genesis of conscious experiences remains a mystery. Donald Hoffman

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Those who believe this argue consciousness is nothing but information and electrical activity and therefore will one-day be possible to simulate…

• Kurzweil is optimistic that we will be able to map out “all of the information” in the relatively inefficient chemical processes of the human brain and reproduce it in the more efficient electronic/silicon world (and thus achieve the Turing Test) in the next few decades. He writes, “There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine or between physical and virtual reality.” Rizwan Virk
• If consciousness is digital information, then we should be able to not just preserve consciousness outside of the simulation but also create artificial consciousness as part of a simulation where we can’t distinguish between player characters and non-player characters. Rizwan Virk
• Consciousness is really a set of information and a processing of that information. Rizwan Virk
• If consciousness is information, then it can be represented digitally and could potentially be downloaded and uploaded to “servers,”, even if it is well beyond our ability to do so at the moment. Rizwan Virk
• It’s presumptuous to assume that only experiences within “a carbon‐based biological neural networks inside a cranium” (your head) can gives rise to consciousness. Silicon processors in a computer can be potentially made to mimic the same thing.  In fact, there is number to represent the kind of power needed to emulate a human brain’s functionality, which Bostrom gives as ranging from 10^14 to 10^17 operations per second. If you hit that kind of computer speed, you can run a reasonable enough human mind within the machine.  Paul Ratner

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… by digitally simulating the human brain

• Just as you can simulate anything else, you can simulate brains. True, we don’t yet have the technology to pull it off, but there’s no conceptual barrier to it. And once we create brain simulations sufficiently detailed and accurate, it is possible that those simulations would generate conscious experiences. Nick Bostrum
• Consciousness is really the result of physical processes—i.e. chemical reactions. More specifically, neural activity in the brain is responsible for consciousness, and, as we are able to map out that neural activity more fully, we can easily reproduce consciousness artificially. Rizwan Virk
• In the materialist point of view, if only we could have enough computational power to model all of the connections in the physical brain, we would have a “copy” of a person at a certain point in time. Rizwan Virk

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Those who believe this argue it may one day be able to upload our consciousness to a computer

• Futurists like Ray Kurzweil of Google have suggested that someday we might be able to download our consciousness into a silicon-based device, extending our lives indefinitely. At some level, this would mean that we are just digital information after all. Rizwan Virk
• The first human-to-computer uploads of 2100 will prove that a perfect simulation is the thing being simulated – that a silicon soul doesn’t need a physical body to inhabit. So eventually everybody who ever lived will be resurrected inside a living machine indistinguishable from God. Isn’t it amazing what you can do with unlimited hard-disk space? Frank J. Tipler
• Kurzweil and others have put forth the idea that if the human brain can be reduced not just to the physical neurons but to the patterns of those neurons, if consciousness is information, then we could not only “reproduce” consciousness, we could actually download our consciousness from a biological machine (the human brain) to a “silicon machine” (a computer system) shortly thereafter! Rizwan Virk
• Kurzweil and others in the modern tech world are waiting for the singularity as the point at which we can transfer consciousness to artificial machines. Rizwan Virk

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Others argue that if our world is a simulation, then we are players from base reality, living temporarily in the simulation

• Video games, on the other hand, as we know them, involve an actual player that is outside the game who is playing the video game. Rizwan Virk
• In the simulation hypothesis that I am making in this book, there are billions of players who are inhabiting our consciousness, but there is nothing that says some percentage of the “characters” we come in contact with couldn’t be simulated consciousness. Rizwan Virk
• Our physical world is a kind of “illusion,” populated by conscious beings that exist outside the simulation. Bostrom didn’t seem to contemplate this possibility, since his argument implicitly suggests that most beings are simulated beings, but it may be one of the most intriguing aspects of the simulation hypothesis. Rizwan Virk
• We exist outside the simulation and you and I are experiencing the simulation as a temporary avatar. Your consciousness exists outside the simulation. Rizwan Virk

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Is it possible to prove we are in a simulation?

• How do we test the hypothesis? If our world is fake, where are the edges? Where are the metaphorical cliffs no one seems able to climb, the borders we never cross? And, even more compelling, where is that threshold that Jim Carrey crosses at the end of “The Truman Show” to enter the “world” beyond the simulation? Eric Mack
• Where’s the signature that will tell us that our universe began with a gentle keystroke rather than a big bang? Eric Mack

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Some believe it is not possible to prove…

• Since the simulation hypothesis does not arrive at a falsifiable prediction, we can’t really test or disprove it, and hence it’s not worth seriously investigating. Sabine Hossenfelder
• It is likely to be profoundly difficult if not impossible to find strong evidence that we are in a simulation. Unless the simulation was really rather error-strewn, it will be hard to design a test for which the results could not be explained in some other way. Philip Ball
• The existence of simulated reality is unprovable in any concrete sense as there is an infinite regress problem with the argument: any evidence that is directly observed could be another simulation itself. Even if we are a simulated reality, there is no way to be sure the beings running the simulation are not themselves a simulation and the operators of that simulation are not a simulation.  Nick Bostrom
• Simulated reality is the proposition that reality could be simulated—perhaps by computer simulation—to a degree indistinguishable from “true” reality. It could contain conscious minds which may or may not be fully aware that they are living inside a simulation.  This is quite different from the current, technologically achievable concept of virtual reality. Virtual reality is easily distinguished from the experience of actuality; participants are never in doubt about the nature of what they experience. Simulated reality, by contrast, would be hard or impossible to separate from “true” reality. To prove without a doubt that the world is an illusion, you will have to leave the simulation. As there are checks in place to make this impossible for us, there is no way to be sure. Anything we may believe exists only within our minds and our imagination.  Aimee Sparrow
• Could we ever know? Some physicists have suggested that it is possible to perform experiments to find out. “Basically, something happens in our simulation that could never happen in the real world,” says Preston Greene, a philosopher at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. One idea is to look at the behaviour of the very highest-energy cosmic rays, which some physicists say are impossible to simulate 100 per cent accurately according to the “real” laws of physics. Anomalies in their behaviour could be evidence that reality isn’t real. But we should proceed with caution. Such a discovery could be catastrophic, says Greene. If our simulator overlords found out that we knew, they might just switch us off. Donna Lu
• However clear our scientific understanding of the universe gets, we will never know it so well that we can be certain that the measurements we take are of a simulated origin or an authentic one. This means the potential for the universe to be illusory is a non-disprovable.  Jack Ester

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…while others argue it might be possible

• How can the hypothesis be put to the test? On one hand, neuroscientists and artificial intelligence researchers can check whether it’s possible to simulate the human mind. So far, machines have proven to be good at playing chess and Go and putting captions on images. But can a machine achieve consciousness? We don’t know. On the other hand, scientists can look for hallmarks of simulation. “Suppose someone is simulating our universe – it would be very tempting to cut corners in ways that makes the simulation cheaper to run. You could look for evidence of that in an experiment. Olivia Solon

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We might be able to tell we are in a simulation if we discover glitches

• But this is all just supposition. Could we find any evidence? Many researchers believe that depends on how good the simulation is. The best way would be to search for flaws in the program, just like the glitches that betray the artificial nature of the “ordinary world” in The Matrix. For instance, we might discover inconsistencies in the laws of physics. Alternatively, the late artificial-intelligence maven Marvin Minsky has suggested that there might be giveaway errors due to “rounding off” approximations in the computation. For example, whenever an event has several possible outcomes, their probabilities should add up to 1. If we found that they did not, that would suggest something was amiss. Philip Ball
• Will we ever learn whether the simulation hypothesis is correct? Bostrum says there’s a remote chance that one day we might encounter a telltale glitch in the simulation. “You could certainly imagine a scenario where a window pops up in front of you, saying, ‘You are in a simulation; click here for more information,’” he says. “That would be a knock-down proof.” Dan Falk
• We would need to look for some kind of glitch in the simulation that reveals that the surroundings aren’t as real or as solid as they might appear. Rizwan Virk
• Maybe I am the subject of an experiment in which other beings impose an illusion on my awareness (the Matrix theory). This is an untestable theory, but it seems improbable that such an experiment could be carried out without something going wrong and either ending the experiment or alerting me to it. The one thing that reality and illusion have in common is that something always breaks down!  Martin Jenkins

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We might be able to tell we are in a simulation through evidence of pixelation

• More realistically, physicists have proposed experiments that could yield evidence that our world is simulated. For example, some have wondered if the world is inherently “smooth,” or if, at the smallest scales, it might be made up of discrete “chunks” a bit like the pixels in a digital image. If we determine that the world is “pixelated” in this way, it could be evidence that it was created artificially. A team of American and German physicists have argued that careful measurements of cosmic rays could provide an answer. Dan Falk
• It may be easier to prove that we’re living in a simulation than to prove we’re not. Nuclear physicist Zohreh Davoudi believes that cosmic rays — the most energetic particles known to man — would appear as pixel-like chunks if we are within a simulation, and unending beams if we’re in base reality. Matt Stieb

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If we ever proved the world is a simulation, the creators would conceivably be able to edit our brain or rewind the simulation to undo the realisation

• Should any error occur, the director could easily edit the states of any brains that have become aware of an anomaly before it spoils the simulation. Alternatively, the director could skip back a few seconds and rerun the simulation in a way that avoids the problem. Nick Bostrum

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At the rate we’re going, virtual reality will one day likely be indistinguishable from reality making a simulation distinctly possible

• Advances in the technology will make this experience more and more immersive by responding to all of our senses — users will be able to feel and smell, not just see and hear the virtual environment. Ekke Piirisild
• If this pace of improvement of video games continues into the future, what kinds of sophisticated video games will we be able to produce? Will we eventually be able to produce a game with such high resolution that it will be indistinguishable from reality? And if so, could we already be inside such a video game? Rizwan Virk
• By the 2030s, virtual reality will be totally realistic and compelling and we will spend most of our time in virtual environments. Ray Kurzweil
• New technologies are substituting a virtual reality for an actual reality. And this is more than a phase: it’s a definite change. Paul Virilio
• 40 years ago we had Pong — two rectangles and a dot. Now 40 years later we have photorealistic, 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously and it’s getting better every year. And soon virtual reality will be followed by augmented reality. If you assume any rate of improvement at all, then soon the games will become indistinguishable from reality, just indistinguishable, and because we will not be able to distinguish real from unreal, It would seem to follow that the odds that we’re in ‘base reality’ is one in billions. Elon Musk
• I have a feeling Virtual Reality will further expose the conceit that ‘reality’ is a fact. It will provide another reminder of the seamless continuity between the world outside and the world within, delivering another major hit to the old fraud of objectivity. ‘Real,’ as Kevin Kelly put it, ‘is going to be one of the most relative words we’ll have.’  John Perry Barlow
• The brain often fails to differentiate between virtual experiences and real ones. The patterns of neurons that fire when one watches a three-dimensional digital re-creation of a supermodel, such as Giselle or Fabio, are very similar–if not identical–to those that fire in the actual presence of the models. Walking a tightrope over a chasm in virtual reality can be a terrifying ordeal even if the walker knows it’s virtual rather than physical. Jim Blascovich
• If you have perfect virtual reality eventually, where you’re be able to simulate everything that a human can experience or imagine experiencing, it’s hard to imagine where you go from there.  Palmer Luckey
• VR’s very purpose is to make it difficult to distinguish simulation from reality. But what happens when the primitive brain is not equipped to process this? To what extent is VR causing users to question the nature of their own reality? And how easily are people able to tackle this line of questioning without losing their grip? Rebecca Searles
• Virtual reality has pushed suspension of disbelief to new heights. Brad Bourque
• We’re in the Pong stage of virtual reality. Basically, we hit photorealism in games almost 10 years ago. So in 35 years, we went from blocky quarter-inch pixels of Pong, to photorealism. It’s only reasonable to assume that we can do the same thing with virtual reality. Nolan Blushnell
• VR has finally broken the jinx and is changing all norms in the tech space. It is likely to grow exponentially as it promises a whole new dimension to customer experience. Onkar Sharma
• By the end of this decade, we will have full-immersion visual-auditory environments, populated by realistic looking virtual humans. By the 2030s, virtual reality will be totally realistic and compelling and we will spend most of our time in virtual environments. By the 2040s, even people of biological origin are likely to have the vast majority of their thinking process taking place in nonbiological substrates. We will all become virtual humans. Ray Kurzweil

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Virtual reality will create the possibility to create realities we can’t even begin to imagine

• The ultimate VR is a philosophical experience, probably an experience of the sublime or awesome. The sublime, as Kant defined it, is the spine-tingling chill that comes from the realization of how small our finite perceptions are in the face of the infinity of possible, virtual worlds we may settle into and inhabit. Michael Heim
• Sometime in the future, science will be able to create realities that we can’t even begin to imagine. As we evolve, we’ll be able to construct other information systems that correspond to other realities, universes based on logic completely different from ours and not based on space and time. Robert Lanza
• The interesting thing about virtual reality is that everything is possible. You can basically recreate a complete new reality. In any context, you can play blackjack on the moon, or you can play slots while flying around. You can create a game, where, instead of playing will let you run around in a roulette wheel or you are actually inside the slot game or you are part of the slot game or part of the story. Ray Keustermans

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Some scientists argue it appears our universe is made of information…

• All creation, from this perch, is made from this incredible foundation. Every mountain, every star, the smallest salamander or woodland tick, each thought in our mind, each flight of a ball is but a web of elemental yes/ nos woven together.  Kevin Kelly
• At the core level, everything is information, everything is based on bits. John Wheeler
• John Wheeler came up with a famous phrase called “it from bit,” which is the idea that anything we see as physical is really the result of bits of information. He didn’t live to see quantum computers come into reality, but it’s looking more like that. So I would say that if the world isn’t really physical, if it’s based on information, then a simpler explanation might in fact be that we are in a simulation that is generated based on computer science and information. Rizwan Virk
• Even the definition of a particle in physics is “kind of fuzzy,” Virk added, “and may be in fact just be a qubit — a quantum computing bit. Rizwan Virk
• The fact that 3D printers now can print 3D pixels of objects shows us that most objects can be broken down as information. Rizwan Virk
• The burgeoning field of computer science has shifted our view of the physical world from that of a collection of interacting material particles to one of a seething network of information. In this way of looking at nature, the laws of physics are a form of software, or algorithm, while the material world-the hardware-plays the role of a gigantic computer. Paul Davies
• In physics, the view of the universe and its workings as the ebb and flow of information was first observed by Wheeler. This shift of paradigm from understanding the universe as energy transformation to the information processing universe leads to the emergence of a new branch of science called quantum computation. Quantum evolution of a system is represented in quantum computation by a quantum circuit built from quantum gates. Consequently, two views of the world emerged, the first one, proposes that the universe is a quantum computer and the other one proposes that the system performing the simulation is distinct from its simulation (the universe). Barry Dainton
• In his autobiography, Wheeler summarized three phases of his long career in physics: “Everything is Particles” evolved to “Everything is Fields” which eventually evolved to “Everything is Information”. The “it” is the physical world. The “bit” is the information. Rizwan Virk
• Quantum theory itself is increasingly being couched in terms of information and computation. Some physicists feel that, at its most fundamental level, nature might not be pure mathematics but pure information: bits, like the ones and zeros of computers. The influential theoretical physicist John Wheeler dubbed this notion “It From Bit”. In this view, everything that happens, from the interactions of fundamental particles upwards, is a kind of computation. Philip Ball
• If reality is just information, then we are no more or less “real” if we are in a simulation or not. In either case, information is all we can be. Philip Ball
• It from bit symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom — at a very deep bottom, in most instances — an immaterial source and explanation; that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the resistering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe.  John Wheeler

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…and the universe could be regarded as a giant quantum computer

• The Universe can be regarded as a giant quantum computer. If one looks at the ‘guts’ of the Universe – the structure of matter at its smallest scale – then those guts consist of nothing more than [quantum] bits undergoing local, digital operations. Seth Lloyd
• There is only one real computer – the universe – whose hardware is made up of non-spatial states of consciousness and software is made up of superhuman as well as non-superhuman thoughts. Kedar Joshi

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The rules governing subatomic particles have features that resemble computer codes…

• Based on his own research in fundamental physics, James Gates of the University of Maryland thinks there is a more specific reason for suspecting that the laws of physics are dictated by a computer simulation. Gates studies matter at the level of subatomic particles like quarks, the constituents of protons and neutrons in the atomic nucleus. He says the rules governing these particles’ behaviour turn out to have features that resemble the codes that correct for errors in manipulating data in computers. So perhaps those rules really are computer codes? Philip Ball

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…and there appears to be computer code embedded in nature

• In 2017, a multidisciplinary group of researchers at the University of Washington proved that they could embed malicious computer code into physical strands of DNA. Their aim was to show that computers working in gene sequencing were vulnerable to attack. But they may also have inadvertently revealed that what we perceive to be biological reality was in fact computer code all along. Matt Stieb
• Seemingly not-crazy theoretical physicist James Gates claims he has identified what appears to be actual computer code embedded in the equations of string theory that describe the fundamental particles of our universe. He says he found “error-correcting codes — they’re what make [web] browsers work. So why were they in the equation I was studying about quarks and electrons and supersymmetry?” Matt Stieb
• Stephen Wolfram and others argue that computation is a part of our physical world, embedded within all other biological, chemical, and physical processes. This finding of the universality of computation and information science makes it even more likely that we are in some kind of computer simulation Rizwan Virk

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The mathematical laws of the universe may also reflect computer code

• If I were a character in a computer game, I would also discover eventually that the rules seemed completely rigid and mathematical. That just reflects the computer code in which it was written. Max Tegmark
• A second argument is that the Universe appears to run on mathematical lines, just as you would expect from a computer program. Ultimately, say some physicists, reality might be nothing but mathematics. Max Tegmark of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology argues that this is just what we would expect if the laws of physics were based on a computational algorithm.  Philip Ball

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The fact that the speed of light has a limit could conceivably be a hardware artefact

• MIT cosmologist Max Tegmark has pointed to our universe’s strict laws of physics as possible evidence that we live in a video game: “If I were a character in a computer game, I would also discover eventually that the rules seemed completely rigid and mathematical.” In this theory, the speed of light — the fastest rate at which any particle can travel — represents the speed limit for transmitting information within the network of our simulation. Matt Stieb
• All computing hardware leaves an artifact of its existence within the world of the simulation it is running. This artifact is the processor speed. If for a moment we imagine that we are a software program running on a computing machine, the only and inevitable artifact of the hardware supporting us, within our world, would be the processor speed. All other laws we would experience would be the laws of the simulation or the software we are a part of. We can see now that the speed of light meets all the criteria of a hardware artifact identified in our observation of our own computer builds. It remains the same irrespective of observer (simulated) speed, it is observed as a maximum limit, it is unexplainable by the physics of the universe, and it is absolute. The speed of light is a hardware artifact showing we live in a simulated universe.  Fouad Khan
• Universe has a maximum speed: Einstein proved that the speed of light is a maximum but gave no reason for it. In contrast, a screen pixel can only move point-to-point as fast as the screen refresh rate allows. This defines a maximum “speed” for the pixel. Ashutosh Jain
• An illusion can never go faster than the speed limit of reality. Akiane Kramarik

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If the universe is a simulation, it would explain the apparent finetuning of the universe for life

• Earth exists within what astrobiologists call a Goldilocks Zone, close enough to a star that greenhouse gases can trap heat to keep liquid water, but far enough away that the planet does not become a Venusian hothouse. That we live in such an orbital sweet spot is circumstantial evidence for a simulation: If our sim-designers wanted us to succeed, it makes sense that they’d place us in such a cushy environment. Matt Stieb
• Some scientists argue that there are already good reasons to think we are inside a simulation. One is the fact that our Universe looks designed. The constants of nature, such as the strengths of the fundamental forces, have values that look fine-tuned to make life possible. Even small alterations would mean that atoms were no longer stable, or that stars could not form. Why this is so is one of the deepest mysteries in cosmology. One possible answer invokes the “multiverse”. Maybe there is a plethora of universes, all created in Big Bang-type events and all with different laws of physics. By chance, some of them would be fine-tuned for life – and if we were not in such a hospitable universe, we would not ask the fine-tuning question because we would not exist.  However, parallel universes are a pretty speculative idea. So it is at least conceivable that our Universe is instead a simulation whose parameters have been fine-tuned to give interesting results, like stars, galaxies and people.  Philip Ball

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If the world is a simulation, it would help explain the weirdness of quantum physics…

• Many renowned physicists believe a computer-generated simulated world would explain some of the strangest findings of quantum physics. Rizwan Virk
• According to simulation believers, we may have already found the pixel-sized building block of the universe: the Planck-length, the point at which our concepts of gravity and spacetime no longer apply. If our world is simulated, the Planck-length would be equivalent to one bit of information, or a pixel. Matt Stieb
• Until the players actually make choices and log into the game, the gameplay interactions are only possibilities—like the quantum foam probabilities. Rizwan Virk
• Just as the subject and object can no longer be separated from each other in quantum physics, in modern video games, particularly Massively multiplayer online role-playing games, it is difficult to separate the player from the rendered world itself. Rizwan Virk
• Quantum mechanics, the theory of the very small, has thrown up all sorts of odd things. For instance, both matter and energy seem to be granular. What’s more, there are limits to the resolution with which we can observe the Universe, and if we try to study anything smaller, things just look “fuzzy”. These perplexing features of quantum physics are just what we would expect in a simulation. They are like the pixellation of a screen when you look too closely. Philip Ball

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…including the observer effect…

• The simulation hypothesis also accounts for peculiarities in quantum mechanics, particularly the measurement problem, whereby things only become defined when they are observed. Olivia Solon
• A philosophical question that comes up in both quantum physics and in video games is that if no one is in a particular part of the 3D world — i.e., no one is observing it or no player is there — does the particular possibility exist? Rizwan Virk
• While there may be a master “state” on the server in multiplayer video games, rendering is done on each client machine. This corresponds to the finding in quantum physics that a probability wave collapses to a specific reality only when there is an observer. Rizwan Virk
• Observation collapses the probability wave. In other words, only what is observed is rendered. This is the golden rule of video games. Rizwan Virk
• In quantum physics, this collapse of a probability wave into a single future seems to happen based on conscious observation or measurement. In a video game, the path that any player follows depends on the conscious choice and subsequent rendering of that choice on the player’s own computer (which can be thought of as his or her “machine of consciousness”). Moreover, in video games, the computer renders only the part of the world that is relevant to that single player, based on their choices when they are logged in to the virtual world. There is no “shared rendering,” since the rendering is done on each player’s individual computer, which brings up the idea that each of us might be experiencing a slightly different version of reality, based upon our observations of the world around us. Rizwan Virk
• In physics’ famous double-slit experiment, electrons are fired at a photosensitive screen through slits in a copper plate, usually producing an interference pattern that indicates wavelike behavior. But when the same experiment is conducted under observation, electrons behave like particles, not waves, and there’s no interference pattern. Some have taken this to mean our simulation is conserving its resources and rendering certain things only when it knows we’re looking at them. Matt Stieb
• Why would we be in a probabilistic world where making a choice (or having an observation) collapses a probability wave to a single timeline or probability? Rizwan Virk

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…quantum indeterminacy…

• What is the purpose and nature of quantum indeterminacy? Is it an optimization technique similar to what rendering engines do in video games? Rizwan Virk
• Quantum indeterminacy, a fundamental principle of the material world, sounds remarkably similar to optimizations made in the world of computer graphics and video games, which are rendered on individual machines (computers or mobile phones) but which have conscious players controlling and observing the action. Rizwan Virk
• Quantum Indeterminacy is really an optimization technique. Elon Musk
• Quantum Indeterminacy is the idea that the world may not be “rendered” if we are not looking at it. Rizwan Virk
• There are lots of mysteries in physics that are better explained by the simulation hypothesis than by what would be a material hypothesis. For example the existence of quantum indeterminacy, which is the idea that a particle is in one of multiple states and you don’t know that unless you observe the particle.  Rizwan Virk

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…quantum entanglement…

• Quantum entanglement could be a compression or optimization technique.  Rizwan Virk
• Entangled photons maintain opposite spins no matter how far apart they are. Einstein called this spooky action at a distance. In contrast, a program can instantly change any pixel anywhere on a screen. So for the screen of our universe, all points on it are at equal distance to a server. Ashutosh Jain

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…quantum fluctuation…

• Scientists predicted the existence of anti-matter, but no reason has ever been given why matter inherently needs an inverse of the same mass but opposite charge. In virtual reality though, matter created by processing inevitably implies anti-matter created by anti-processing. Ashutosh Jain

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…quantum leaps…

• Quantum physics provides significant clues that we are in some kind of simulated reality. The basis for quantum physics is that the universe is not continuous but exists as a set of “quanta,” or discrete, values. This is true for subatomic particles, such as electrons, that seem to jump from one state to another without going through the values in between, a phenomenon known as a quantum leap. This is also true for computer simulations, which are based on discrete particles called pixels. Rizwan Virk

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…quantum tunnelling…

• When an electron suddenly appears outside a field barrier, like a coin in a perfectly sealed glass bottle suddenly appearing outside it. Science fails to explain this phenomenon called Quantum tunneling. In contrast, a digital reality can “cut” between one probabilistic frame and another. Ashutosh Jain

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…dark matter and energy…

• Dark matter and Dark energy: Our space exerts a pressure! How can vacuum exert pressure? Quantum processing can be a simple explanation. Ashutosh Jain

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…the multiverse theory…

• The theory that all reality is in fact an artificial or virtual simulation might be the only practical way that the many world interpretation (MWI), the delayed-choice experiment and the idea of future probable scenarios could be true or implemented. If the universe is seen as a virtual world with a game state, then we can envision how multiple probable futures can be generated (as information, not as physical worlds), and then choices can be made through this branching tree of possibilities using some evaluation function. Rizwan Virk
• Now we simply refer to this idea as the “multiverse.” The multiverse theory is taken seriously because it offers an alternative to the idea of a subjective universe that quantum physics seems to imply. Rizwan Virk
• If every quantum decision creates different universes, then there must be an infinite number of universes with slightly different choices made along the way—including those with different versions of ourselves that have made different choices in life. Rizwan Virk

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…while still raising some interesting questions

• Some of these questions (the observer effect and quantum entanglement) are strikingly similar to the ones that I have been asking about video games my whole life: Do all these probable realities actually exist, or are they just probabilities? Is there an actual shared reality, or is it rendered on separate observation devices? Is there in fact an objective world when no one is watching, or does it come in to existence only when someone is watching it – i.e., only when someone is “logged in”? Rizwan Virk
• Many of the findings of relativity and quantum physics make no sense in the purely materialist worldview—that we are living in an immutable physical universe, but make more sense if we are living in a physical universe that is constructed out of information. Rizwan Virk
• Is space quantized—i.e., does it consist of pixels like a virtual world? Rizwan Virk
• Is time quantized—does the universe have a clock speed and proceed like a computer simulation? Rizwan Virk
• Do parallel worlds actually exist? Or are they just probabilities on a “virtual grid” of possibilities, like a video game? Rizwan Virk
• Is there an objective universe or is it, like a video game, information that is rendered on each of our “computers” (i.e., our minds)? Rizwan Virk
• Does matter actually exist, or, like pixels in a video game, are subatomic particles simply turned on or off as needed? Rizwan Virk

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It is conceivably possible for the world to be created through coded holograph-like projections

• Light-field display is a way to render an object in the real world by analyzing how that object affects and reflects light. By simulating how light bounces off an object, it is possible to create a holograph-like projection of the object that appears real in the physical world without a screen and, eventually, without any glasses. Rizwan Virk
• The ability to project holographic images that look solid to observers in the room is a special kind of simulation. Rizwan Virk
• Unlike film in a projector, the holographic energy template isn’t fixed or static; it is dynamically evolving in accordance with its own inherent, intelligently created laws—more like a computer program than like a film. The old computer game SimCity could run a simulation of how a city would evolve over years, decades, and even centuries because its programming contained the basic laws that governed the outcome. The holographic energy template, likewise, contains the laws that govern all matter-energy interactions and contains all the information about the evolving state of the physical universe—the complete history of all matter-energy interactions from the Big Bang to the present. Joseph Selbie

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The world as a simulation is conducive with the big bang

• This first event began not only our universe but also its space and time. Yet a complete physical universe can’t begin as by definition there is nothing outside it to create it. And to create itself, it would have to exist before it began. In contrast, every virtual reality has a boot up that creates its pixels and its space-time operating system. Ashutosh Jain

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The world being a simulation would explain near death experiences…

• Video games today have the ability to record our moves in the game as we play, and these recordings can be reviewed after the game. Moreover, this idea of “replaying” our actions after the game is done aligns closely with descriptions of the afterlife from people who’ve had a near-death experience (NDE) (who describe a “life review”) and from texts such as the Koran (which describes in detail a review of your “scroll of deeds” after you die) and the Bible (which has a similar concept of the “book of life”). Rizwan Virk
• How could such a 360-degree immersive view of everything that has ever happened in your life be achieved? This would be a startling technical achievement, but, once again, video games are already providing the answer for how this might be done. Recently, a video game startup was able to take the 3D landscape of a multiplayer competitive game and go back and re-render any part of a game that was already played in virtual reality from any point of coordinates in the virtual space. While we obviously cannot reproduce the feelings of other players, we already have the technology to see three-dimensional scenes replayed from other players’ points of view. Rizwan Virk
• Brinkley goes out of his way to describe the life review. In fact, he calls it a “360-degree life review.” He reports that he felt like he was inside a three-dimensional movie recording of his entire life, and could look (and feel) every single situation not just from his own point of view, but from other people’s points of view. This was a jarring experience and one that caused him to change how he related to people after his NDE. Rizwan Virk
• It’s not very difficult to imagine that, with the simulation hypothesis, an NDE goes from being a mysterious, unexplainable thing to a very explainable scientific process. In fact, the decision to “go back” and continue the life of the character we were just playing is a lot like the crude “insert another quarter now to keep playing!” Rizwan Virk
• We see that the “book of life” serves the same function as the scroll of deeds, and if someone is recording all our actions and “playing them back” to us after we die, showing us our score and then telling us the next step, this would be very similar to the idea of a video game—and the simulation hypothesis may be the only possible explanation! Rizwan Virk
• I began to relive my entire life, one incident at a time. In what I call the panoramic life review … I watched my life from a second person point of view. As I experienced this I was myself as well as every other person with whom I had ever interacted. Dannion Brinkley

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…and déjà vu

• Philip K. Dick, who explicitly believed that we were living in a computer-generated reality. He believed that when we experienced déjà vu it was because we had seen an event or place before—but that reality had been changed. We were in essence sensing a parallel reality that had been rewound and rerun to the present with a different outcome. Rizwan Virk
• We are living in a computer-programmed reality, and the only clue we have to it is when some variable is changed, and some alteration in our reality occurs. We would have the overwhelming impression that we were reliving the present—déjà vu—perhaps in precisely the same way: hearing the same words, saying the same words. I submit that these impressions are valid and significant, and I will even say this: such an impression is a clue, that in some past time point, a variable was changed—reprogrammed as it were—and that because of this, an alternative world branched off. Philip K. Dick

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The world as simulation agrees to some extent with Eastern religions…

• As I continued to study the ancient Buddhist and Hindu texts and philosophies, I found they were much more in alignment with the simulation hypothesis than a materialistic worldview. The Eastern traditions are built on the idea that the world around us is not “the real world.” In fact, they believe it is a world created by our minds as we make choices in the world. We are so engrossed in this world, like players addicted to a video game, that we get lost in this world of maya, this world of illusion. Rizwan Virk
• In Eastern traditions, consciousness is transferred to multiple bodies in a series of incarnations. This is a direct analogy to a single player who plays multiple “roles” or “characters” in a role-playing game. Rizwan Virk
• In many of the Eastern traditions and their new age updates in modern times, there’s the belief that certain subtle bodies, which contain consciousness, actually leave the physical body while we are asleep and that this the same as being away from keyboard (afk). Rizwan Virk
• Building on the modern idea of downloadable consciousness, the Eastern religious traditions teach us that we are either soul or consciousness that gets downloaded into a physical body for the duration of the dreamlike state, which we call life. This happens multiple times, and we end up with multiple lives, not unlike what happens in video games. Rizwan Virk

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…including a belief in karma…

• Karma, which most of us in the West think of as a cosmic game of “what goes around, comes around”, is actually more subtle and more rule-based than it appears. In fact, karma can be modeled as a list of tasks and outcomes that we have to fulfill. Whenever we create karma, a new “task” gets created on a virtual manifest, stored somewhere outside the material world. When we incarnate in the future, we can choose which particular tasks of our past karma we should tackle in our new life. Buddha’s endless “Wheel of Life” tells of the purpose of reincarnation: The reason we keep incarnating in future lives is to fulfill the “missions” created in our present and past lives. To a video game designer like myself, the twin concepts of karma and reincarnation sound a lot like video games in which a player has multiple lives and an on-going list of “quests” and “achievements.” The accomplishment of one task (or quest) unlocks new quests that get added to the list.  Rizwan Virk
• Although the definitions of the types of karma may vary, their purpose is the same: karma is a storage of the results of our actions in the past, whether in this life or in previous lives, and that “vault” or “information bank” is drawn upon to help us create experiences in the present moment and in the future. Rizwan Virk
• The karma of the player would be lessons or achievements the player may need to accept and “finish” over many lifetimes, while the karma of a given character may need to be resolved during the life of this character. Rizwan Virk
• A more sophisticated game, such as the Great Simulation, would need to keep track of not just a generic quest database but a list of individual accomplishments (tasks that a certain character should accomplish in this life) and a store of past karma (which can be thought of as set of quests or tasks that involve other specific players). Rizwan Virk
• In this scenario, Buddha’s endless wheel is now a computer algorithm that stores karma created in-game and unceasingly creates additional situations in future gameplay sessions to satisfy past karma with other players who are in the vicinity. Rizwan Virk
• In Buddhism, the endless wheel of karma is what drives us to keep coming back—like an ongoing manifest of quests. We create new quests for ourselves by our actions. Rizwan Virk
• Karma is, in fact, like an endless quest engine in video games, keeping track of our achievements and our goals, and creating situations with other players that we need in order to resolve previous karma. Rizwan Virk

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…and reincarnation

• We are like children who attend school to get simulated experiences to prepare ourselves for places in society. Paul Twitchell
• Just like in a video game, when one life ends, you have the option to learn from it and then go back into the world to play again. In the Eastern model, you enter the ongoing simulation with a different character, a different personality, but you carry with you traces from previous lives—namely, your karma. This information follows you around and becomes the basis for your experience in the new life. Rizwan Virk
• Players can learn skills and hone their understanding of the game world by playing multiple lives and characters over time. Rizwan Virk
• Each character we play is like a life that we are living “in world”—i.e., in a simulated virtual world, and we go through the “virtual life,” which, from the characters’ point of view, is real and their only life. Of course, the reason the metaphor works in the simulation hypothesis and in the Eastern traditions is because there is a part of each character that is outside the game world: the player. Rizwan Vi
• Both Eastern and Western mystical traditions share the idea that the world around us is in some ways not the real world but a training ground or a testing ground. In the Eastern traditions, there is typically a soul that goes through multiple lives (playing multiple characters). Rizwan Virk

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Some believe that our fascination with the idea of the world being a simulation is simply us viewing the world through the spectacles of our computer age

• The discussion of Bostrom’s three possibilities involves a similar kind of solipsism. It is an attempt to say something profound about the Universe by extrapolating from what humans in the 21st Century are up to. The argument boils down to: “We make computer games. I bet super-beings would too, only they’d be awesome!” Philip Ball
• It is surely no coincidence that many advocates of the “universal simulation” idea attest to being avid science-fiction fans in their youth. This might have inspired them to imagine futures and alien intelligences, but it may also have predisposed them to cast such imaginings in human terms: to see the cosmos through the windows of the Starship Enterprise. Philip Ball

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Some question whether our computational powers could ever conceivably be powerful enough to create a simulation

• Just storing information about a couple of hundred electrons would require a computer memory that would physically require more atoms than exist in the universe. Zohar Ringel and Dmitry Kovrizhi
• The real question is what are the limits of computing powers. Or are there limits? Judging by the types of real-world simulations scientists can now run on supercomputers, what might they be able to run in the coming decades or centuries as processing power achieves levels we currently can’t fathom?   Mike Thomas
• The simulation hypothesis is first and foremost about computation. Video games wouldn’t be possible without computer graphics, and it is the development of this relatively new field of science that has brought the simulation hypothesis out of science fiction and into serious consideration. Rizwan Virk

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Some argue there is too much complexity in our universe for it to be simulated

• There’s too much wasted complexity in our universe for it to be simulated. Building complexity requires energy and time. Why would a conscious, intelligent designer of realities waste so many resources into making our world more complex than it needs to be? Frank Wilczek

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Some question why there would be ancestor simulations

• I object to the notion that posthumans would have a reason to run simulated universes: “…being so advanced they would have collected enough knowledge about their past to have little interest in this kind of simulation. …They may have virtual-reality museums, where they could go and experience the lives and tribulations of their ancestors. But a full-fledged, resource-consuming simulation of an entire universe? Sounds like a colossal waste of time. Physicist Marcelo Gleiser

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Of all things to simulate, why simulate us?

• It’s just not based on well-defined probabilities. The argument says you’d have lots of things that want to simulate us. I actually have a problem with that. We mostly are interested in ourselves. I don’t know why this higher species would want to simulate us. Lisa Randall
• Why simulate us? I mean, there are so many things to be simulating. I don’t know why this higher species would want to bother with us. Lisa Randall

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Others argue our future selves would be likely to create ancestor simulations

• That The Sims video-game franchise has sold over 125 million copies in its first decade shows we’re interested in playing with simualtions, too. If and when a future version of humanity finds themselves with the ability to create more realistic simulations, it wouldn’t be a surprise if they opted to use it. Matt Stieb

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Some dismiss the notion of the world as a simulation as the ultimate conspiracy theory

• That life is a simulation is the ultimate conspiracy theory. The mother of all conspiracy theories, the one that says that everything, with the exception of nothing, is fake and a conspiracy designed to fool our senses. All our worst fears about powerful forces at play controlling our lives unbeknownst to us, have now come true. And yet this absolute powerlessness, this perfect deceit offers us no way out in its reveal. All we can do is come to terms with the reality of the simulation and make of it what we can. Fouad Khan

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Some argue the simulation theory smells of religion coming in through the back door

• The similarity between the simulation hypothesis and religious belief should be taken as a warning that we’re off track. Science has taken us “away from this idea that we are puppets controlled by an unseen entity. The simulation hypothesis starts to look like a religion with a programmer substituting for god. Sylvester James Gates
• There’s a familiar ring to the idea that there’s a simulator, or creator, who does care about us. Similarly, the idea of a superior being forging a simulated universe parallels the notion of a deity creating the world — for example, as described in the Book of Genesis. Lisa Randall
• If the simulation hypothesis is correct, then “there’s a creator, an architect — someone who designed the world.” It’s an ancient idea recast in terms of “mathematics and science rather than just faith. Rich Terrile

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Some question whether we’ll ever be able to simulate consciousness (inner experience) in computers

• To simulate neuron activity on a computer with the intention of producing consciousness is like simulating kidney function digitally and expecting the computer to pee.  Bernardo Kastrup
• What exactly are the conscious experiences that constitute the flow of the mind? Every subjective experience has two fundamental characteristics: sensation and desire. Robots and computers have no consciousness because despite their myriad abilities they feel nothing and crave nothing. A robot may have an energy sensor that signals to its central processing unit when the battery is about to run out. The robot may then move towards an electrical socket, plug itself in and recharge its battery. However, throughout this process the robot doesn’t experience anything. In contrast, a human being depleted of energy feels hunger and craves to stop this unpleasant sensation. That’s why we say that humans are conscious beings and robots aren’t, and why it is a crime to make people work until they collapse from hunger and exhaustion, whereas making robots work until their batteries run out carries no moral opprobrium. Yuval Noah Harari
• A machine cannot feel what it is doing. It only follows instructions – our instructions – instructions of the humans. Abhijit Naskar
• AI can be programed to imitate human behavior only, but it can’t be programmed to feel the emotions that make the humans behave the way they do. Abhijit Naskar
• Can a computer feel things like pleasure and pain? Robert Lanza
• The key issue as to whether or not a non-biological entity deserves rights really comes down to whether or not it’s conscious…. Does it have feelings? Ray Kurzweil
• Is consciousness just a set of information that can be downloaded. Or is it something fundamental where simply simulating the neurons isn’t enough. Rizwan Virk

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A computer pretending to have awareness and sentience is not the same as having them

• A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human. Alan Turing
• The Turing Test, however, never intended to prove machines are as smart as human beings. It was designed to showcase how well a machine can disguise as a human in a narrow conversation. Kate Levchuk
• Pretending to have sentience is not the same as showing signs of sentience. Abhijit Naskar
• Consciousness is synonymous with existence, and those that argue that a computer is conscious if it can fool us into thinking it is, completely miss the point. That is as ridiculous as saying if a wax sculpture of Elvis can fool us into thinking it’s him, it IS him. Eric Wayne
• Just because a machine passes the Turing Test–in which a computer is indistinguishable from a human–that doesn’t mean it’s conscious. To us, an advanced AI may give the impression of consciousness, but it will be no more aware of itself than a rock or a calculator. Geoge Dvorsky
• The subject matter is perhaps best characterized as “the subjective quality of experience”. When we perceive, think, and act, there is a whir of causation and information processing, but this processing does not usually go on in the dark. There is also an internal aspect; there is something it feels like to be a cognitive agent. This internal aspect is conscious experience. DJ Chalmers
• Will the sheer power of computing and simulated brain be sufficient to jump-start the hitherto now mysterious processes of love, hope, ambition, belonging, creativity, fear, lust and curiosity? Kate Levchuk

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Consciousness is still a profound mystery to science

• How does the water of the brain turn into the wine of consciousness? David Chalmers
• Scientists don’t know how a collection of electric brain signals creates subjective experiences. Yuval Noah Harari
• We have no idea how the subjective quality of consciousness emerges from the physical stuff of the brain. Richard Davidson
• The great mystery of our consciousness is beyond our grasp. William Shatner
• Human consciousness is just about the last surviving mystery. Daniel Dennett
• Human consciousness is too obscure a mystery to itself for us to script our own lives. Robert Jenson
• How can you build consciousness from mechanical pieces and parts? Michael Talbot
• How neural information is discriminated, integrated, and reported still doesn’t explain how it is experienced. Robert Lanza
• Nobody has any idea how a congeries of biochemical reactions and electrical currents in the brain creates the subjective experience of pain, anger or love. Yuval Noah Harari
• How it is that anything so remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as a result of irritating nervous tissue, is just as unaccountable as the appearance of the Djin, when Aladdin rubbed his lamp. H. Huxley
• The centermost processes of the brain with which consciousness is presumably associated are simply not understood. They are so far beyond our comprehension that no one I know of has been able to imagine their nature. Roger Wolcott Sperry
• To simply assert that consciousness arose at some point in the evolution of life, and that it results from a specific arrangement of neurons firing in concert within an individual brain, doesn’t give us any inkling of how it could emerge from unconscious processes, even in principle. Colin McGinn
• Nothing in modern physics explains how a group of molecules in your brain create consciousness. The beauty of a sunset, the miracle of falling in love, the taste of a delicious meal—these are all mysteries to modern science. Nothing in science can explain how consciousness arose from matter. Robert Lanza
• We have no idea how the subjective quality of consciousness emerges from the physical stuff of the brain. Richard Davidson
• We really don’t have a definition for what digital consciousness might actually be because we really don’t understand what human consciousness is all about. Rizwan Virk

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Some argue science may never be able to explain consciousness

• Neither physical science nor psychology can ever ‘explain’ human consciousness. To me then, human consciousness lies outside science, and it is here that I seek the relationship between God and man. Nevill Francis Mott
• This most certain and familiar of phenomena obeys none of the usual rules of science. It doesn’t seem to be physical. It can’t be observed, except from within, by the conscious person. It can’t even really be described. Oliver Burkeman
• Colin McGinn has raised an intriguing if ultimately defeatist possibility: what if we’re just constitutionally incapable of ever solving the Hard Problem? After all, our brains evolved to help us solve down-to-earth problems of survival and reproduction; there is no particular reason to assume they should be capable of cracking every big philosophical puzzle we happen to throw at them. Oliver Burkeman
• I am sympathetic with those who, like the philosopher Colin McGinn and the psychologist Steven Pinker, have suggested that perhaps the emergence of consciousness is simply incomprehensible in human terms. Sam Harris
• We have learnt that the exploration of the external world by the methods of physical science leads not to a concrete reality but to a shadow world of symbols, beneath which those methods are unadapted for penetrating. Feeling that there must be more behind, we return to our starting point in human consciousness – the one centre where more might become known. There we find other stirrings, other revelations than those conditioned by the world of symbols… Physics most strongly insists that its methods do not penetrate behind the symbolism. Surely then that mental and spiritual nature of ourselves, known in our minds by an intimate contact transcending the methods of physics, supplies just that… which science is admittedly unable to give. Arthur Eddington

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If consciousness creates matter and matter cannot exist separately from consciousness, how can matter (including computers) ever give rise to consciousness?

• If consciousness creates matter (through the observer effect), how can matter create consciousness. Anthony Lambert
• If consciousness creates matter (through the observer effect observed in quantum physics), how can matter create consciousness? Anthony Lambert
• How can consciousness be decisive in shaping the reality of the physical world? Does this not imply the primacy of consciousness over matter? Amit Goswami
• Consciousness cannot be reduced to matter – for it appears that it is needed for matter to exist in the first place – but must itself be fundamental. Bernardo Kastrup
• If nothing is real until it is observed, consciousness cannot arise from electrochemical events in the brains of animals like ourselves; rather, it must be part of the very fabric of reality. Sam Harris
• If nothing is real until it is observed, consciousness cannot arise from electrochemical events in the brains of animals like ourselves; rather, it must be part of the very fabric of reality. Sam Harris
• No physical reality can exist without being perceived subjectively in mind. As I argued then, the implication is that mind cannot be reduced to matter, for the paper suggests that matter cannot exist without mind being there in the first place. Bernardo Kastrup
• That action, however, poses a problem only for material realism. In this philosophy, consciousness is an epiphenomenon of matter, and it seems impossible that an epiphenomenon of matter could act on the very fabric of which it is built—in effect causing itself. Amit Goswami

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If our world is a simulation, then it is distinct from the base reality…

• If we are living in a simulation, then the cosmos that we are observing is just a tiny piece of the totality of physical existence. While the world we see is in some sense ‘real,’ it is not located at the fundamental level of reality. Nick Bostrom
• We are entering a world where there won’t be one but two realities, just like we have two eyes or hear bass and treble tones, just like we now have stereoscopy and stereophony: there will be two realities: the actual, and the virtual. Thus there is no simulation, but substitution. Reality has become symmetrical. The splitting of reality in two parts is a considerable event which goes far beyond simulation. Paul Virilio

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…and may have completely different physical laws to the base reality

• Sometime in the future, science will be able to create realities that we can’t even begin to imagine. As we evolve, we’ll be able to construct other information systems that correspond to other realities, universes based on logic completely different from ours and not based on space and time. Robert Lanza
• In order to make the argument in the first place, we need to know what the fundamental laws of physics are where the simulations are being made. And if we are in a simulation then we have no clue what the laws of physics are. What I teach at MIT would be the simulated laws of physics. Max Tegmark
• Okay if this is a simulated world, what is the thing in which it is simulated made out of? What are the laws for that? Frank Wilczek
• One of the most intriguing concepts of virtual reality is the ability to achieve a realistic simulation of worlds which are entirely the product of the imagination. One example of this sense of freedom is evident in the way that virtual worlds do not have to behave according to the laws of physics which rule over our physical world. Daniela Bertol
• Virtual reality promises a kind of transcendence of the limits of physical reality. Frank Biocca
• It is possible to build a virtual-reality generator whose repertoire includes every possible environment. David Deutsch

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The simulation argument suggests that space and time may be part of an elaborate virtual reality

• Spacetime is your virtual reality, a headset of your own making. The objects you see are your invention. You create them with a glance and destroy them with a blink. You have worn this headset all your life. What happens if you take it off?  Donald Hoffman
• If you can accept that the technology of virtual reality will one day create for you a compelling experience that is nothing like your experience when you take off the headset, then why be so certain that, when you remove the headset, you’re seeing reality as it is?  Donald Hoffman
• Our brain simulates reality. So, our everyday experiences are a form of dreaming, which is to say, they are mental models, simulations, not the things they appear to be. Stephen LaBerge
• If our 3D reality is actually a simulation, then what we think of as physical space and time are really virtual constructs. Rizwan Virk

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The simulation would need to render just enough that we humans don’t notice it is a simulation…

• Simulating the entire universe down to the quantum level is obviously infeasible, unless radically new physics is discovered. But in order to get a realistic simulation of human experience, much less is needed – only whatever is required to ensure that the simulated humans, interacting in normal human ways with their simulated environment, don’t notice any irregularities. Nick Bostrum

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…and would need to render only what is observed

• …a posthuman simulator would have enough computing power to keep track of the detailed belief‐states in all human brains at all times. Therefore, when it saw that a human was about to make an observation of the microscopic world, it could fill in sufficient detail in the simulation in the appropriate domain on an as‐needed basis. Nick Bostrum
• What if in all the galaxies we see, none of the stars are real but are procedurally generated planets/stars that we can observe from Earth but can never actually visit? Rizwan Virk
• …a posthuman simulator would have enough computing power to keep track of the detailed belief‐states in all human brains at all times. Therefore, when it saw that a human was about to make an observation of the microscopic world, it could fill in sufficient detail in the simulation in the appropriate domain on an as‐needed basis.  Nick Bostrom
• If you are in the rendered world of a video game, it seems real and permanent to the characters in the game, but we know it is ephemeral, and the rendering lasts only as long as the rendering process is actually going on—while we are playing. Rizwan Virk

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The world being a simulation is an argument for intelligent design by intelligent beings…

• If we are essentially software, he noted, then after we die we might be “resurrected” in another simulation. Or we could be “promoted” by the programmers and brought to life in base reality. The theory was totally naturalistic – all of it was possible without any appeals to the supernatural – but it was essentially an argument for intelligent design. “In some ways,” Bostrom conceded, “the posthumans running a simulation are like gods in relation to the people inhabiting the simulation.”  Meghan O’Gieblyn

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…beings that could be considered Godlike…

• The second model for God is “inspired by transhumanist eschatology”. This model builds on the assumption that “our reality as a [simulation] computed by intelligent entities in a higher level of reality. You, and I, and everything around us, are but information bits that live and move in a supercomputer beyond space and time, operated by a God-like operator. Giulio Prisco
• Although all the elements of such a system can be naturalistic, even physical, it is possible to draw some loose analogies with religious conceptions of the world. In some ways, the posthumans running a simulation are like gods in relation to the people inhabiting the simulation: the posthumans created the world we see; they are of superior intelligence; they are “omnipotent” in the sense that they can interfere in the workings of our world even in ways that violate its physical laws; and they are “omniscient” in the sense that they can monitor everything that happens. Nick Bostrum
• Beings which are “outside the simulation” might seem like gods to us, even if they aren’t technically so. Rizwan Virk
• A god’s relationship to the world, even a world in which he was walking, was about as emotionally connected as that of a computer gamer playing with knowledge of the overall shape of the game and armed with a complete set of cheat codes. Neil Gaiman
• “In some ways,” Bostrom conceded, “the posthumans running a simulation are like gods in relation to the people inhabiting the simulation.”  Meghan O’Gieblyn

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…or maybe it’s a just the homework of a spotty-nosed teenager from the future

• New York University philosophy professor David Chalmers has described the being responsible for this hyper-realistic simulation we may or may not be in as a “programmer in the next universe up,” perhaps one we mortals might consider a god of some sort — though not necessarily in the traditional sense. “[H]e or she may just be a teenager,” Chalmers said, “hacking on a computer and running five universes in the background… But it might be someone who is nonetheless omniscient, all-knowing and all-powerful about our world.” Mike Thomas
• Ray Kurzweil has suggested that “maybe our whole universe is a science experiment of some junior high-school student in another universe”. Rizwan Virk

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If the world is a simulation, then God could be considered to be the AI program running the simulation

• In the case of the simulation hypothesis, God, if he exists, is most likely some kind of intelligent computer program (or conscious entity outside of the simulation. Rizwan Virk
• Godlike AI would be an AI that was omniscient over all the happenings going on in the world according to various rules. Sure sounds like a server with a very intelligent program keeping track of everything—some kind of digital consciousness that can watch and respond to events as they happen! Rizwan Virk

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If the world is a simulation, its creators are most likely benevolent

• According to the “Argument for Virtuous Engineers”, it was reasonable to assume that our creators were benevolent because the capacity to build sophisticated technologies required “long-term stability” and “rational purposefulness”. These qualities could not be cultivated without social harmony, and social harmony could be achieved only by virtuous beings. Meghan O’Gieblyn

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If the world is a simulation, there might be an afterlife…

• For Rich Terrile, the simulation hypothesis has “beautiful and profound” implications. First, it provides a scientific basis for some kind of afterlife or larger domain of reality above our world. “You don’t need a miracle, faith or anything special to believe it. It comes naturally out of the laws of physics.”   Olivia Solon
• Suppose you drive with friends to a virtual-reality arcade to play volleyball. You slip on headsets and body suits, and find your avatars clad in swimsuits, immersed in sunshine, standing on a sandy beach with a volleyball net, surrounded by swaying palms and crying gulls. You serve the ball and start playing with abandon. After a while, one of your friends says he’s thirsty and will be right back. He slips out of his headset and body suit. His avatar collapses onto the sand, inert and unresponsive. But he’s fine. He just stepped out of the virtual-reality interface. When we die, do we simply slip out of the spacetime interface of Homo sapiens?  Donald Hoffman

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…though not necessarily

• Being virtually killed by virtual laser in virtual space is just as effective as the real thing, because you are as dead as you think you are. Douglas Adams

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If the world is a simulation, then science is about learning the rules of the game and can say nothing about the true nature of reality

• The goal of what we call science is to understand the nature of reality. If we are in fact inside a video game, then science becomes a matter of “discovering” the rules of this video game. Rizwan Virk
• It is time we understood that physics, while valuable and extremely important, just models the elements of the ‘game’: where to shoot, which wall to avoid, etc. The true underlying nature of reality – the inner workings of the computer running the game – is an issue of philosophy. Bernardo Kastrup
• The scientific method limits itself to what is empirically and ordinarily observed from within the ‘game’ of reality. Scientific modeling requires little or no understanding of the underlying nature of reality in exactly the same way that a gamer needs little or no understanding of the computer’s underlying architecture in order to win the game. Bernardo Kastrup
• The ability to predict how things behave with respect to one another says little about what things fundamentally are. Bernardo Kastrup

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If the world is a simulation, it’s possible many of our memories are false

• There is also the possibility of simulators abridging certain parts of the mental lives of simulated beings and giving them false memories of the sort of experiences that they would typically have had during the omitted interval. If so, one can consider the following (farfetched) solution to the problem of evil: that there is no suffering in the world and all memories of suffering are illusions. Of course, this hypothesis can be seriously entertained only at those times when you are not currently suffering. Nick Bostrum
• If we create virtual characters who live in a virtual world, we may need to implant memories to make the characters feel real inside that world. Rizwan Virk
• The idea that we are digital consciousness and that even our memories may be false brings us back to Philip K. Dick’s questions about reality and what it means to be a real human versus a fake one. Rizwan Virk

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If the world is a simulation, it is possible it is a selective simulation with a small group and most humans are unconscious “zombies”

• In addition to ancestor‐simulations, one may also consider the possibility of more selective simulations that include only a small group of humans or a single individual. The rest of humanity would then be zombies or “shadow‐ people” – humans simulated only at a level sufficient for the fully simulated people not to notice anything suspicious.  Nick Bostrum

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If the world is a simulation, then the creators might conceivably decide to switch it off at any time…

• Others imagine evidence in support of the simulation hypothesis could engender a new fear — that the creators might grow tired of the simulation and switch it off. Dan Falk

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…which means we are advised to be as interesting as possible

• It may be best for us all to heed the advice at the end of the video — Impress who-or-whatever is watching the possible simulation by living interesting lives so that we are not relegated to NPC status. A. S. Deller
• Does it make a difference if that information were programmed by nature or by super-intelligent creators? It is not obvious why it should – except that, in the latter case, presumably our creators could in principle intervene in the simulation, or even switch it off. Tegmark, mindful of this possibility, has recommended that we had all better go out and do interesting things with our lives, just in case our simulators get bored. Philip Ball

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Some argue the idea that the world is a simulation provides a welcome dose of humility

• Whatever we might think of the simulation hypothesis, Bostrom thinks the mere act of pondering it provides a welcome dose of humility. He cites Hamlet’s cautionary remark to a friend in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Dan Falk

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If the world is a simulation, could it be that our consciousness exists to allow experiencing?

• Pretty much since the dawn of philosophy we have been asking the question: Why do we need consciousness? What purpose does it serve? Well, the purpose is easy to extrapolate once we concede the simulation hypothesis. Consciousness is an integrated (combining five senses) subjective interface between the self and the rest of the universe. The only reasonable explanation for its existence is that it is there to be an “experience.” That’s its primary raison d’être. Parts of it may or may not provide any kind of evolutionary advantage or other utility. But the sum total of it exists as an experience and hence must have the primary function of being an experience. An experience by itself as a whole is too energy-expensive and information-restrictive to have evolved as an evolutionary advantage. The simplest explanation for the existence of an experience or qualia is that it exists for the purpose of being an experience. Fouad Khan
• The simplest explanation for the existence of consciousness is that it is an experience being created, by our bodies, but not for us. We exist to create integrated audiovisual outputs. Our product mostly likely is for the benefit of someone experiencing our lives through us. Fouad Khan

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The world as simulation, some argue, is akin to dreaming

• While dreaming, consider the following naturally occurring characteristics: The “player” lays down physically, and their body goes to “sleep” (downloading of consciousness into a simulated body). Pictures and sounds are projected directly into the player’s mind’s eye (mind interfaces). The player is immersed to such an extent that they forget the world they are seeing is not real (the simulation point). The player is conscious at some level, even though unaware of their normal. Rizwan Virk
• Our dreams are like simulation. We have virtual scenes projected in front of our minds. Some characters are real, some are not. We interact with the virtual dream world. It’s the same game play loop we use when we play video games. Rizwan Virk

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If the world is a simulation, it still does not answer the question “What is reality?”

• Of course, the simulation argument doesn’t provide an ultimate answer to the question “what is reality?”. Even if simulations vastly outnumber non-simulations, there is still a base level of reality in which the first simulation was or will be created. The nature of that real reality will still demand an explanation, and so the ultimate quest goes on. Donna Lu

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Some argue it would be useful to know if we are in a simulation

• If we do in fact exist inside a video game that requires our characters (i.e. us) to perform certain quests and achievements in order to progress (“level up”), Virk posited, wouldn’t it be useful to know what kind of game we’re in so as to increase our chances of surviving and thriving? Mike Thomas
• Probably the most important question related to this is whether we are NPCs (non-player characters) or PCs (player characters) in the video game. If we are PCs, then that means we are just playing a character inside the video game of life, which I call the Great Simulation. I think many of us would like to know this. We would want to know the parameters of the game we’re playing so that we could better understand it, better navigate it. If we are NPCs, or simulated characters, then I think it’s a more complicated answer and more frightening. The question is, are all of us NPCs in a simulation, and what is the purpose of that simulation? A knowledge of the fact that we’re in a simulation, and the goals of the simulation and the goals of our character, I think, would still be interesting to many people. Rizwan Virk

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Others argue that the possibility of the world being a simulation does not change our notion of reality in any meaningful way

• Until you can show that drawing distinctions between what we experience and what is “real” leads to demonstrable differences in what we might observe or do, it does not change our notion of reality in a meaningful way. Philip Ball
• Even considering the idea that life is a simulation is essentially pointless. No matter what life is or how it began, we will never know all of the facts and never be able to bookend the story of creation: Humanity was neither here at the very beginning of things and will certainly not be around (at least not in its current form) at the end of time. Lisa Randall
• If there is no way to detect that we are in a simulation, it shouldn’t make a difference to us one way or another, should it? So, why bother? We should just get on with playing the game. Rizwan Virk
• Even if we are in a simulation, everything around us is still real from the point of view of those inside the simulation. Rizwan Virk
• It could always all be unreal — how could you ever tell otherwise? You took it on trust, in part because what would be the point of doing anything else? When the fake behaved exactly like the real, why treat it as anything different? You gave it the benefit of the doubt, until something proved otherwise. Ian M. Banks

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Some argue that knowing our world is a simulation might be damaging to our social order

• What if we did confirm that we were living in a simulation? How would people react upon learning that our world and thoughts and emotions are nothing more than a programmer’s zeroes and ones? Some imagine such knowledge would disrupt our lives by upending our sense of purpose and squashing our initiative. Harvard astronomer Abraham Loeb says the knowledge could even trigger social unrest. Knowing that our thoughts and deeds aren’t our own could “relieve us from being accountable for our actions,” he says. “There is nothing more damaging to our social order than this notion.” Dan Falk

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• I know it’s a simulation and I want to cheat codes.
• The shock, the power of an ordinary life. It is a thing you could not invent with banks of computers in a dust-free room.  Don DeLillo