Living in a Simulation

In 2003 Nick Bostrom wrote a paper “Are you living in a simulation?” which questioned the nature of our existence. The paper suggested that we may all be living in a simulation created and operated by post humans.

Post humans would be the species that we present humans would evolve to in the far future. The post humans would have developed the tools and skills to create a system powerful enough to simulate what we call our present universe.

In his paper he proposes that one of three possibilities exist. The first is that the human race has destroyed itself before it could develop to a “posthuman” stage and develop the technology required to create a simulation. The second is that “posthumans” have survived and choose not to run a simulation of their history. The third is that “posthumans” have developed the required technology, and are running simulations. Bostrom also notes that if the third possibility is true then there are likely many simulations and we are “living” in one of these.

Ever since this was proposed I have been thinking about this. This has brought some really hard questions to mind, like, if we are living in a simulation what does this mean for us all? What evidence might there be to support this theory? If we are simulated what does that mean for free will?

NOTE: To have a full picture of how changes to events are impacted then a complete simulation of all happenings on earth must be created as any small change / decision made by any individual will change how history plays out. The death of an individual, a decision made to change jobs, or take a promotion, or demote someone, be evicted, a change in diet basically any minor change to the simulation has unknown results to other parts of the simulation so in order for the simulation to have any ability to predict how things will change the entirety of the simulation must represent everything and everyone, its the only way that it works.

Beyond the personal impact question I first asked myself; what would it take to build a simulation so detailed that its inhabitants wouldn’t know that they were simply creations of another civilization. What stage in a civilizations development can they create something like this and why?

The following are some of my thoughts regarding these questions and others.

Who is running this simulation?

Honestly we may never really know. Bostrom’s paper suggests it could be “posthumans” who have reached a level of technology where they can harness enough energy to create a world, a universe, and to simulate what we call life. This civilization could be completely alien to us, and we are nothing like the beings that have created this universe. Regardless of the species, the civilization far exceeds the technical capabilities of our meager technology.

Why would anyone create this simulation?

I have a number of thoughts on this, some could be considered completely absurd other more feasible.

Could our reality be a prison?

Lets start with a wild one. This could be a prison. We all, every living creature on this planet could be a criminal.

I envision a world where the system of justice doles out punishment in the form of incarceration via simulation. When a crime has been committed the criminal is physically placed in suspension and their mind is connected to the prison, where they are born, live out their lives, and when they die in the simulation their prison sentence is over. Their debt to society is paid in full.

So when we are born we enter in to this prison. We live out our lives and depending on the severity of the crime we are being punished for our “lives” determines how hard our life in the simulation is and how long we stay here.

Punishment is the purpose of prison. Its a payment you make to society for the crime or inequity that an individual has forced upon society for personal gain. Suffering could be described as doing the things we have to do, or are imposed upon us, versus the things we want to do. Punishment in a prison comes in the form of long term suffering. In our society a prison sentence comes in the form of limited access to all that our society can provide to an individual including the freedom of movement. In our theoretically simulated prison suffering comes in many different forms. We are given a physical body which over time breaks down, we feel physical pain, we require food otherwise we starve, we require water other wise we die of thirst, we feel emotional pain, psychological pain and mental anguish, just to mention a few. The simulation has no end to how each individual can suffer, or pay for their crime.

We all at one point or another believe that our lives are hard, unfair and painful. So if we suffer why do we not all just end this “life”, call it a day and just end it all? Well, the simulation has put in place a number of systems that keep the population in check. These systems include governments and religions among other but these two are currently the most powerful.

Religion has been a controlling mechanism from the very beginning, if you do not believe in this or that deity then you will not go to “heaven” or which ever great place you could end up depending on the belief. If you do not follow the rules and believe then you will end up in “hell” or some terrible place for all eternity. The rules for these religions also state that if you take your own life, no matter how well you follow their rules, then you will end up in “hell”. The word sin has been used to decribe the failure to follow the rules dictated by the religion. In a time when the masses are not educated (and by design do not have access to education), and you follow those that you believe are educated then the ignorant follow the beliefs of the “educated”. To know that if you take your own life then you end up suffering for eternity, that makes for a pretty good deterrent to ending your sentence early, no matter how much suffering you may currently be enduring. The thought that you would suffer for eternity if you ended your life almost forces you to continue suffering in this life knowing, or better put; being told, that you will live in heavenly bliss for eternity.

We can not speak of religion without mentioning prayer. Prayer gives peace in great times of doubt or tragedy, this little mechanism that religion provides to their faithful is yet another way to control the populace. Prayer is not a mechanism that was created by the formation of religion but rather the other way around. Prayer has been used by humans since the origin of our species. We use it to give us solace in time of suffering; “Please help me though this and I will be a good person”, “Oh please help me now and I will never drink so much again.”, “Please let it rain, our crops need it so much.”. These are all prayers, outside of any religion, but again a form of solace, to ease the pain or anguish that a person might be suffering through. In reality its no more than a control used to keep the individual from ending their sentence.

Prayer for some is soothing because it acts as form of meditation, which in itself is another form of control.

One note about something that those that believe state at least once in a lifetime; “Why would God allow this to happen?”. Well if we are all criminals, and this world we live in is a simulation, and this simulation is a prison, then perhaps ‘God’ is the warden making sure that those that need suffer are doing so based on the crime committed.

I am a huge supporter of prayer and meditation, and if you find that religion gives you community, and solace then I support you in committing to and supporting which ever believe you may have. We all need something to help us through this prison sentence.

Government is also a very good controlling mechanism as it adds additional layers of suffering to the prison sentence, but never enough suffering to push an entire society to the point where they just want to end it. Government controls a number of different mechanisms to control the population, two of the most efficient are laws and taxes. Taxes are a great controlling mechanism; each individual (inmate) pays their taxes, and in turn the inmate expects something in return. This return on your investment could be better roads, more schools etc., but if you look at the mechanism the return rarely exceeds what you put into it and more often than not the inmate gets less then what they put in. Control in this manner is expanded upon when the government lays down rules called laws. Laws are forever expanding, rarely do you see a law removed from the books, but that said they all have the same impact laws are there to punish members of the population when they break them. The punishment can come in different forms, if you speed you wil likely have to pay a fine which provides hardship on the individual in the form of a financial impact. If one individual kills another then the law may state that you go to prison providing limited freedom and access to all free individuals have access to. If you do not pay your share of taxes then you could be imprisoned or pay a heavy fine and suffer further.

Though government is in place to represent the general poplulace, its also a mechanism to contol the same poplulace. Much like a religion, we believe, and we follow its rules otherwise we could be punished for breaking a law, or in religious terms, sinning.

A failure of government is that at times it imposes a hardship so strenuous that an individual may see no other option but to end their life, and therefore their prison sentence. Now this may be by design to inflict the appropriate punishment for the crime committed or at times

I particularly like this scanario, because it lends to an after life. I would like to believe that there is something that comes after we die in this simulation. It also assumes that we have a certain amount of free will, we can do what we wish, but the better we make it for ourselves in this simulation the longer we have to stay here to suffer enough to pay for our crime.

Could this be a Historical Reproduction?

What is a historical reproduction? Typically it involves groups of people who have an interest in a specific period of history to the point where they pick a particular event from that period in history, dress up in appropriate costumes, and then recreate it as best as possible based on the known information about the chosen event. This usually happens in front of an audience to both entertain and educate. Might this be what our simulation is doing as well? Might we be simply recreating moments in history for a class room of students or a theatre of patrons looking for a bit of entertainment?

The use cases for our simulation being a historical reproduction are many. They range from strictly used for entertainment or educational purposes as well as tools for testing scenarios, performing ‘What If’ tests to see what results come from changes great or small on the environment or society.

Might we all be costumed players in a massive historical reproduction?

This may seem confusing to us, but from the perspective of an advanced human race living in the far future, what we as actors in this simulation experience is simply their history.

Might this simulation be used to test scenarios?

To expand on the theory that we might all be actors in a historic re-enactment. Perhaps we are actually avatars of our real selves? Do we live our lives as we would in the ‘real’ world, recreating history for far future humans. If this is the case, might a researcher experimenting on how history could be impacted by changing variables on our simulated lives to see how history is impacted.

Of the various types of experiments that researchers could be executing I will look at two; Past Run Scenarios where known history is manipulated to assess what impacts are made to the simulated future and the other is Current Run Scenarios where changes to current events are manipulated to see how future might play out.

Past Run Scenarios: If this simulation is has been created by humans in the far future then these experiments are being done on known history. Researchers could be asking questions like what if we introduce nuclear weapons during world war one rather than world war two, or lets stop the development of the internal cumbustion engine. The variety of scenarios that could be executed on this scale are many generating a vast number results. Many things could be learned by making even minor changes in history. Even things like preventing the birth of individuals, historic or not, human or not, could have long term impacts on how things on earth could develop.

These simulations run on the past likely would be used for educational and entertainment purposes as they would have no real practical impact on what is happening with current events.

The data that these experiments expose could be used to make future decisions. I personally believe that the best way to predict the future is to better understand the past, and if you can run simulations that change the past and see how the future is impacted then this tool becomes unbelieveably valuable, with this data you might be able to steer the future in the direction you want.

Where it becomes really interesting is when changes are made on ‘current day’ events.

Current Day Scenarios: If this simulation has been created by humans living in the time frame we call ‘now’. In similar fashion to how a past run simulation is used to determine how the future is impacted when changes are introduced, running current day simulations could generate a wide variety of results depending on which variables are manipulated.

The ‘What If?’ scenarios become real time predictions of future events based on decisions that have to be made ‘today’. Leaders, scientists and engineers could be using this elaborate simulator to create potential outcomes based on changes made to known data. This data comes in the form of human knowledge, which could be an understanding of current events or scientific developments. The ability to change any variable within the simulation could provide extremely valuable data regarding the experiment being conducted. New developments in health care, economics, or social engineering could be but a few of the things that researchers could be working on. These simulations may have no impact on current reality if the simulations fail, but could have huge impacts if they are successful.

Items that are based on solid data, or true knowledge become very predictable, where things get messy is when we try to simulate the reaction of irrational variables, specifically human beings. We can try to predict what an individual will do and we might be somewhat accurate for a decision or two but beyond that it becomes irratic, much like the human brain. To correct this we would have to run multiple scenarios on each decision being made in order to predict next steps. This sounds a lot like a multi-universe scenario doesn’t it.

This could explain why we see constant improvements in almost every aspect of human knowledge, we simulate first, test, verify, implement then repeat. We keep what ‘works’ and throw away what doesn’t. We call that progress.

Is this simulation simply an elaborate video game?

If you’ve ever seen or played the game ‘The Sims©’ by Electronic Arts©, then you might have a feeling as to what I mean by the question. In ‘The Sims©” you create a character and place it in an environment created for that character, then you play the character, you give it a career, traits and help it progress until it ultimately dies. Sound familiar?

This simulation or game, would likely be for entertainment purposes. It is impossible to know if any of what we are living through is a version of history, or perhaps a complete fabri

In a scenario where this simulation has been created around historical facts we are just players reproducing the past for the creators of this universe, this means that we do not have free will. We play out our lives just as we had in their past, we experience all of the nuances of the great things that bring joy to our lives as well as the tragedies that bring sorrow and the grand events that impact us all. The one thing we do not have in this scenario is control, we are programmed to behave the way we do and all of our decisions are predetermined, some call that fate.

Why create such a reproduction? My best guess is research. This type of research could be unbelievably valuable to understand how past events shape future developments. It could be used to study how ancient peoples behaved under certain circumstances, and how present day people behave under similar circumstances. The possibility of research is really endless, let your imagination run wild because there are no wrong answers to what a simulation of this size and complexity could be used for.

The thing to take away from this scenario is that we are all players in a game called ‘Historical Reproduction’. We play ourselves as we had lived, in this simulation creators past. Whether we have any free will, or if we are all programmed players set on a pre-detemined path based on how we lived when we were alive remains something each individual reading this must determine for themselves.

Free Will? Real or Illusion?

If our universe is a simulation and we are simply avatars created by researchers using an elaborate computer system used for any of the purposes noted in this article, then do we as the simulated have free will? Might our existance really be nothing more than a computer script that we have no choice but to follow, and any decision that we feel that we are making has already made for us?

This, we may never know, which is probably a good thing. We all like to feel that we have control over our lives, that the decisions that we make shape our life. I personally like to believe that this is how the world works.