Unless you, dear reader, are a web-scraping software bot quietly pulling this text into a data-hungry LLM, you’re probably a human. And though you’ve likely never seen me in person, you have good reason to believe I’m human, too. But we don’t know one another exist, for sure. In fact, we have no definitive proof that anything is conscious beyond ourselves—a clunkier analogue to René Descartes’ famous dictum: Cogito, ergo sum — “I think, therefore I am.”
Forget one another—what if none of it’s real? Not our coworkers, the trees, the constellations—not even ourselves? That’s a question Gizmodo recently posed to a slew of experts across the fields of computer science, philosophy, social psychology, and neuroscience.
For this Giz Asks, we asked these experts a straightforward question: How do we know we’re not living in a computer simulation? Their answers—varied and nuanced—offer thought-provoking insights into a question much older than computers themselves, yet one that has remained compelling, if not obsessive, for thinkers through the centuries. With so much technological innovation happening right now, it’s only natural to consider the age-old question with greater scrutiny. We’re creating technology so uncanny, it seems like it will climb out of the valley and dust itself off. Strange, surreal times—the perfect time, I would suggest, to ask how we know what is real at all. Some responses are lightly edited for clarity.
The hypothesis that we live in a simulation seems provable: it could be the discovery of a flaw in the simulation, such as a distant region of the universe that cannot be zoomed in on, where a telescope would not be able to obtain a clear image. Of course, an even more advanced simulation could roll back time, erase the flaw, and then restart the simulation. This suggests that simulations may vary in type and quality.
Nick Bostrom’s Simulation Argument is a brilliant piece of philosophy, suggesting that the initial probability we assign to the idea that we are currently living in a simulation should be revised upward. However, the argument does not convince me, mainly because simulations can be of very different natures. In particular, the Simulation Argument is based on a reference class of simulations created by post-humans, where the simulated beings are nearly indistinguishable from real humans but are unaware of their simulated status. However, it is also conceivable that simulations just as sophisticated could be created, where the simulated beings are aware of their nature. Depending on which of these reference classes is chosen, the conclusion of the argument changes significantly. If the majority of simulations involve beings aware of their simulated nature, it eliminates the disturbing conclusion that we ourselves are simulations, since we are not aware of being simulated. The choice of reference class is therefore crucial. If the argument is based on simulated humans who are unaware of their simulated nature, it leads to the unsettling conclusion that we are likely living in a simulation. Conversely, if the argument focuses on humans who are aware they are being simulated, the conclusion is far more reassuring: we are not such simulations. There is no a priori justification, however, for favoring the choice of humans unaware of their simulated nature over those who are aware of it. Furthermore, one could even argue that simulated humans who are unaware of their nature might be prohibited in a post-human civilization for ethical reasons.
Nobody knows whether or not we live in a computer simulation. I put the probability around 20%. I think we might be living in a simulation because I can’t rule out the following premises (one or both may be false, of course, but that is not obvious to me). First, simulation technologies will continue to improve, and they will eventually be capable of simulating people with experiences like ours. Second, there would be an irresistible temptation to use such simulations to study things about the past. (For example, if you wanted to study the connection between intelligence and violence, you could run many simulations of the history of humanity in which you vary the average IQ and observe trends in the prevalence of warfare.) If these premises are true, then we should conclude that eventually people will run millions of simulations concerning humanity’s history. But if so, how do we know we’re not already living in one of those simulated histories? After all, there would exist millions of simulated realities and only one unsimulated reality. So the odds would be good that we are in a simulated reality.
This way of thinking in philosophy started with Nick Bostrom’s 2003 paper “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?” Eventually, physicists got on board with the idea, and in 2014, some suggested that we could scientifically test the simulation hypothesis by taking a close look at the movements of cosmic rays. In 2017, more potential tests were proposed. In my 2019 paper and New York Times piece, I argued that the move to scientific experiments in studying the simulation hypothesis is dangerous because such experiments risk causing the shutdown of our simulation. Essentially, the experiments are attempts to reveal something that would happen only in a simulation—for example, a “glitch” in the movement of a cosmic ray. But whoever might have created our simulation probably cares that it is accurate. So, if we manage to reveal some glitches, our simulators might simply end the simulation and develop a less glitchy one (as is the current practice in computer programming). Philosophical theorizing about the simulation hypothesis doesn’t have this risk, because philosophers draw conclusions based on logical inference and the nature of probability, and not by looking for glitches.
The idea that we “live in a computer simulation” is too vague to be scientific. It only becomes scientific once you specify what you mean by computer simulation.
If you say, for example, that it means that our observations can be calculated, then it just means that the laws of nature are mathematical, which they are. But this is usually not what people mean when they talk about a “computer simulation”. They tend to mean that there is an algorithm that can be executed on a computer that works similar to the computers we use ourselves and that will reproduce reality as we observe it.
There is no known algorithm which does that. If we had such an algorithm it would be a theory of everything. People who claim that it can be done tend to underestimate the problem, usually because they have no idea how physics works in the first place. Maybe they should have a look at how difficult it is to even make a weather forecast despite the fact that we do have the equations. And let’s not get started about quantum physics or quantum gravity. Generally, if someone claims we live in a computer simulation I think it’s up to them to please tell us what the algorithm is and not just claim that it exists.
Another thing that people sometimes mean when they refer to the simulation hypothesis is that not only is the universe a simulation but it’s a simulation created by someone or some thing, so a god basically. I do not know how one could find evidence for any sort of creator behind an algorithm that explains our observation, even if we had such an algorithm, and I don’t think this is a scientific question.
Artificial intelligenceComputersconsciousnessGiz AsksSimulations
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Source: Gizmodo