Ah, Simulation Theory. The idea that we’re all just a computer simulation driven by some supercomputer somewhere, out there, or maybe even here, just in the far future. Neat stuff, for science fiction. The idea comes in many different forms, from The Matrix to the much older, brain in a jar. Being at its core just an idea, it can be fun to toy with and fantasize about. We can play with our reality and look for glitches, clicking around on the internet for proof of vans disappearing in traffic or people locked in place, like a video game bug. We’re fascinated, I think, for two reasons. One, many of us love video games. From the hardcore player that treats it like a full-time job to the little get away drop games we tap away at on our phones. The idea of a simulated reality isn’t as farfetched as it used to be. We can grasp some level of the concept. Two, escapism. Be truthful, how many times have you sat in front of your computer waiting for the simple text, “*The Matrix has you…” to appear? Haven’t you felt that there is something more, something out there, just on the other side of the veil, waiting to be found? Maybe it’s that none of this is real at all. Maybe you’re becoming “aware.” Maybe you’re daydreaming and your dinner is burning in the oven. Better go check that…
That just freaked someone out.
Don’t worry, lucky guess.
If we’re a simulation we need to think of some of the things we know about simulations. In their current state simulations are pretty small, in the grand scheme of things. We have powerful computers that try to simulate something as simple as the weather. I know, simple is a relative term here. But that’s a point to consider. We can’t even simulate the weather we live in every day to a degree of accuracy worth considering spot on. We’re getting good at tracking the weather, but that’s in real time. Predicting the weather is a whole other ball of wax. We make some good, educated guesses, which is something, but we need a computer that doesn’t predict it but generates it, all of it. Throw that into a computer and watch as the CPU turns into a tiny toaster oven.
What about traffic? We have traffic simulators. Some of my favorite games are, at their core, traffic simulators. One such game is Cities: Skylines. Rooted in a traffic simulator it does good. Okay, not really. It does okay. I can build roads, rails, bus routes, subways, and such. The “people” of the game just don’t do very well at making choices. Heck, the game can’t even handle left turn signals. I know, depending on the traffic light you happen to be sitting at, not while reading this I hope, makes you think maybe I’m onto something. But really? Every traffic light in America simulated? Every car, every truck, every bicycle and pedestrian?
In each of those vehicles is a person, or more. Simulate every action. Every breath, every blink, every sip of coffee, whoops, spilled some, now simulate the stain on the carpet that will be there not only for the owner but for the used car lot owner to try to scrub out, unsuccessfully, and the second owner to frown at but live with because, hey, it’s a used car.
We can quickly see how our feeble attempts at simulations are like comparing a child’s first Lego house to the Freedom Tower. Not even on the same planet, let alone same ballpark. But, of course, one argument is that simulations don’t generate the entire “world” all at once. This is the “holy grail” of computer games; generating a persistent world that evolves even when the player isn’t looking at it. In current gaming even much of the landscape isn’t there until I move my eyes to see it. To put it another way, in computer games if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to see it… it doesn’t fall. There isn’t even a tree. There’s code waiting in the bowels of the computer to be processed once your character goes to the forest. If the tree isn’t pre-determined to be fell when you get there a trigger will happen at some point, even if that trigger is a random number generator, and the tree will fall, and you’ll hear it, because you’re supposed to. In a computer game the world revolves around you. Even in massive online multiplayer games the world revolves around you. If you are going into a cave to defeat the dragon and you’re with five of your best friends, decked out in your greatest armor, bearing your Sword of Amazingness Beyond All That Is Amazing +2, with a healing potion at the ready, what happens when another party come storming out of the cave, just having defeated the dragon? Do you go home? The dragon is dead. Give it up and go back to being a lowly blacksmith hand at the town you started in? No. You stride into that cave with abandon! Here you come, ready or not! Because that dragon is back again, regenerated for your fantastical enjoyment. And you die because you forgot to take your Protection vs. Fire potion. Don’t worry though. Regroup and go again! All about you…
That’s the danger behind Simulation Theory. Our worlds are incredibly small. They kind of have to be. We’re not Atlas, though sometimes it feels like the weight of the world is on our shoulders. The world moves with or without us. The sun crosses the sky because the world turns as it did before we even were. Don’t get me wrong, each of us is important and we each have our place, and every time a bell rings an angel gets their wings… wait, I got a little off track there. We all have value but we’re not The Value. Simulation Theory invades our subconscious and can turn some dangerous dials.
So maybe my comparisons to current technology falls flat because we’re talking about stuff beyond what we can even understand. It’s like sitting a cave man in a space ship. It’s like someone once said, “technology is magic to the uninformed,” or something there abouts. Alright, but here we go again, we need to imagine some being taking the time, with the level of know how needed, to put this all together and let her rip. To what end? To study ancient anthropology? To learn what humans were like in their natural environment before Global Climate Change/Nuclear Apocalypse/Meteor Strike/Insert Life Ending Tragedy Of Choice Here killed them all? Uh, okay. But to simulate us they’d have to know everything about us. They’d need a map of our genome, an understanding of our technology, a complete knowledge of our history, and a psychoanalysis that’d be the envy of every Psychologist. To simulate us they’d have to know us and that begs the question; why?
It’s pretty safe to say we’re not in a video game. If we are this is the worst and most expensive video game ever devised. We’re not a science experiment. If we are the scientists are wasteful. They’ve taken the time to program all that they know just to watch it play out in real time. They must know everything that can happen so they can program it to happen. If they already know, why bother? Surely the most advanced scientific minds in the universe have something better to do. Never mind that they’re diabolical. Our programmers gave us artificial intelligence so we’ll react to the environment around us and that same intelligence and emotions tear our insides apart. Nice of them. Maybe at this point you’re thinking we’re like ants to them, or mice. Besides, we’re not real so what do our emotions matter anyway? If they made us they know it matters. They can see it matters. And that brings us all the way back to the evil doctor experimenting with a brain in a jar. And that brings us back to this all being about you, or at least your brain, in a jar.
Simulation Theory, it tugs at us because we instinctively know we’re not seeing everything there is to see. It has the allure of secret knowledge, something we all want to get our little brains wrapped around so we can know what’s really going on. Some of us want out. We want someone to offer up the pill that will let us escape to the beyond. Sadly, to far too many of us, that pill is a self-induced 9mm to the brain. That’s not the road to enlightenment. If that’s you, get help, please. https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
Are we in a simulation? Well, the simplest answer is usually the right one (Occam’s razor). If we apply that, we’re real. The sun really is warm, the grass really does grow, and ice cream really does make you fat. Science is observable and repeatable. We can’t observe we’re in a simulation and we can’t even begin to come close to recreating such a simulation. So in that sense, it’s not even a proper theory, it’s a guess. It’s an idea, it’s a dream.
Simulation Theory offers up a fantastical tale that strips away responsibility and puts us at the center of the universe. I know, it’s not sold that way, but isn’t that really what we’ll do with it?
Most importantly; what affect does being a simulation have on you? Do you still feel? Do you still thirst, get hungry, grow old, get lonely? What of all the other simulated beings you meet? Do they have feelings, real or not, but don’t they feel them? Even if they really, in reality, don’t, to them aren’t they real, in that moment? How do you want your simulation to play out?
Sure, I believe that there’s more out there than we know. I believe the veil is much thinner sometimes than we think. Our existence is much more complex and meaningful in the grand scale of things than we sometimes believe. It can be confusing. It can give us ideas of simulations, multiverses, and aliens. Or, could it be, just maybe, this talk of God is true? Trinity is on the way, but not how you might think.
The Fourth Watch 