We’re Not Really Here (There is no spoon, it’s only on a computer)

Some people say that in seven days, God created all Earth and people, starting with the creation of light on the first day, and ending with land animals and man at the end of the week. Other’s say that Darwin’s theory of evolution is how life came about, starting with bacteria and evolving into modern man. This debate has been perpetuating for many years. However, recently a new idea has been unearthed. There is a good chance that we came about when someone clicked the “Commence Evolution” button on their computer, initiating a simulation of reality. It is just as likely, if not more likely, that we are actually a computer simulation, similar to the one in The Matrix, as opposed to being “real.” There are several core concepts that need to be explained in order to understand this, the first being computational power.

ENIAC, which is considered to be the world’s first computer, occupied a large room. Today, a silicon chip with the same amount of memory as ENIAC is only a 0.25mm2. Moore’s Law and it’s derivatives, as outlined in a paper by Intel co-founder, Gordon Moore, state that the size of a computer decreases by half every two years, and the processing speed and memory capacity doubles about every two years as well. This has been true since 1965, and if it continues, then it is very likely that in the future, very powerful computer’s will be available at relatively low cost. These computer’s are expected to be what is know as quantum computer’s, which use properties of sub-atomic particles to store and manipulate data at incredibly fast rates. One of the things some of these future computers may be devoted to are running “ancestor-simulations.”

An ancestor-simulation would be a virtual representation of beings from the past in which each person within the simulation is conscious and sentient. These simulated realities would be identical to the real world, and it would be impossible to tell whether or not the you are a virtual being in the simulated world or if you are “real.” This may seem like a stretch, however if you consider that today you can go out and buy a video game based on World War II, then it is not unlikely that as technology advances, the historical video game could evolve in to an actual representation of history through simulated reality. These simulation’s could be used either as a form of entertainment (similar to today’s video games); as a form of scientific or historical research into what life was like in the past, or what may have happened if a certain event did or did not occur; or as an appeal to future being’s ego’s, allowing the simulation’s creator to act as some sort of god or have a god-like feeling.

Nick Bostrom, a professor at Oxford University, and head of the Future of Humanity Department, outlines in a paper the likelihood of future humans (posthumans) creating simulated realities. He states that unless humanity is destroyed before it reaches the posthuman stage, or if creating simulated realities is deemed immoral, then it is almost certain that simulated realities will be created. Seeing as the human race has been around for about half a million years, it seems unlikely we’ll be leaving anytime soon, unless we get really unlucky and Earth is destroyed by a giant asteroid or some other cataclysmic event happens. However the chances of something akin to that actually occurring has been calculated to be about 1 in 100,00, as explained by David Rabinowitz of NASA’s Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking team. As for the moral issue, twenty-five year’s ago, a married couple shown on television in the same bed (wearing clothes), was a large controversy due to moral reasons. Now it’s no big deal if two unmarried, nude people are shown in the same bed together as long as the sheets are pulled up. Morality changes over time. Additionally, the complete banning of ancestor-simulations would require convergence of all of humanity into one large, society in which all laws are completely enforced, and no one ever breaks them. This scenario is also extremely unlikely. If in the future someone wants to create a simulation and has the ability to do so, it almost definitely will happen whether or not it is deemed immoral.

It is then likely that in the future many simulation’s will be run. Calling on research from various expert’s, Nick Bostrom also calculates that one running one ancestor-simulation would only use one-millionth of one posthuman’s computer. Posthumans could have an astronomical number of these computer’s, with an even greater number of ancestor-simulations running on the computer’s. Therefore, are we the one society that reaches the posthuman stage and creates simulations, or are we one of the billions of simulations that the posthuman society runs?

If we knew for sure that society could reach the posthuman stage, and that posthumans would create simulations, then the chance that we are actually a simulation would be almost 100%. However, because this is uncertain, the probability is lower. John Tierney of the New York Times believes that the probability of our world being a simulation versus being real is about fifty-fifty. David J. Chalmers, of the University of Arizona Philosophy Department believes the chance is about twenty percent.

In all actuality, chances are we will never know for sure whether or not we’re really here. It is likely we are here, however this is a large chance that our life is a simulation. We may be God’s creation, there may have been a big bang, or there could have been a mouse click. But does that even make an significant difference? Life seems real, and we believe it is, so it might as well be. We think we’re here, so we should just get on with it and keep on living.

This was written for persuasive essay assignment in my English class.