The Simulation Argument: Weird

Prof. Nick Bostrom

source: www.nickbostrom.com

This one is more than a little difficult to wrap one's head around, and I suspect that most folks will reject it out of hand as being weird and, therefore, dumb.  An Oxford professor, Nick Bostrom, has worked out the idea that our whole universe may be nothing more than a computer simulation being run by an advanced "post-human" race.  That race might itself be a simulation of a still older race, which itself is yet another simulation...well, you get the picture.  Arguably, down there "someplace" is the "Prime Designer," a race that has or once had a real physical existence.  Bostrom has dedicated a website, The Simulation Argument, to the idea, if you are interested in following up on it.  The homepage is basically a long list of links, which begins with his initial paper on the subject, "Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?" (2003).  John Tierney's New York Times post, "Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch" is a good summary of the main points of the simulation argument.

The argument is taken seriously enough that physicists have been investigating it and some argue (see here) that they have evidence that we do in fact live within a computer simulation (we're talkin' a mammoth sized computer here!), and there is now a team of researchers who claim they have ways to test the simulation argument (see here).

A couple of points in all of this rise to the surface: first, even if we are living in a computer simulation, our world is still real to us.  Second, the whole argument raises important theological issues and possibilities.  For example, heaven and hell could be programmed into our reality by the simulator, whoever that might be.  Indeed, the simulator becomes a prime candidate for God, the One who Created All That Is (to us).  This would certainly explain why we live in a universe that is perfectly fitted to our human existence, which we do.

One argument goes that we may know whether or not we are living in a simulation sometime around the year 2050 when we ourselves develop computers large enough to create whole-universe simulations.  It could be that our creator will then terminate our simulation because there is not enough computing power in the megacomputer we "live" in to support a simulation within a simulation.  At that point, we will presumably wink out of existence.  The Mayans were right!  They just got the date wrong!

I'm not even sure what to do with this.  Evidently, some very smart people take the simulation seriously.  But, should we take them seriously?  Weird.