Simulation Theory- Life might Just be a Game

Whenever I try to picture abstract things, things that I cannot perceive with my limited human senses such as what will happen to me after death, where I was before I was born, infinity, another color outside of the spectrum of what I can see, or the size of the universe, my brain “glitches”. I cannot picture or understand what it is that I’m looking for. I have always found it difficult to believe that “God” is watching us in a traditional sense. A man in the sky who created the universe does not seem right to me. After questioning our existence, and why I am here, for years, I found a theory that I like. Of course it is completely a theory and I will likely never know if it is the answer within my lifetime. I still think however, that we should be researching it.

The theory that interests me and seems plausible is known as “Simulation Theory”. This is the idea that our universe is just a simulation in a giant extremely powerful computer. Proponents of Simulation Theory include many well known scientists and great thinkers. Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, SpaceX and PayPal is one well known believer in simulation theory.

There is some evidence for simulation theory in sciences such as quantum mechanics. The idea that we might be living in a simulation solves lots of problems associated with complicated physics such as the fact that things are not defined unless they are observed or that particles can be in two places at once and affect each other. The fact that our world is made up of particles, like bits in a computer, and follows a set of rules would suggest that there is something organizing it.

If we are in fact living in a simulation, it was likely created by a civilization much more technologically advanced than ours. One of the biggest problems with this theory however is that it is difficult to prove that we are in a simulation unless we know about who created the simulation and why. This is a problem as the creator of the simulation may live in a place where there are completely different laws of physics or are no physical laws at all.

One issue that arises if we are living in a simulation is the issue of limited computational resources. If we start to create lots of simulations within our simulation, we may cause the big simulation that we are in to reach its maximum processing power. This could cause “the system” to fail. Another problem is that our simulation could be simply turned off. The controllers or creators of our civilization could turn off the simulation, or render us an unconscious piece of the game. If we become aware that we are in a simulation, we may be the artificial intelligence of the civilization that created our universe becoming self aware, much in the way that we fear computers, robots and AI becoming aware of the fact that they are simulations or that they are artificial. If we show the creators that we know we are in a simulation, it could be very dangerous. The might fear that we could escape, and in turn hit the kill switch.

This scenario poses many questions. Can we escape the simulation, and if so how? Who created the simulated reality? Why was it created? We may even ask how many layers of simulations deep we truly are. Maybe we live in a simulation within a simulation. A videogame within a video game.

I know this was a really strange post but it’s something that intrigues me. Let me know what you think? Maybe life is just a game.

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--Aaron