Simulation theory
Have you heard the one where everything in the world is a simulation? It’s kind of trippy, when you think about it. Here’s how it breaks down:
GIVEN: There is only one reality.
GIVEN: Humans have created computer simulation programs, such as SIMS games and NASA flight training.
GIVEN: Over time, the simulations humans have created have improved in quality significantly.
POSTULATE: Simulation programs will continue to improve over time as technological advances expand the possibilities. ACCEPTED
POSTULATE: It is possible for simulation technology to advance to such a degree that the simulated individuals created would themselves believe the simulation to be reality. In fact, this is the foundation of an effective simulation—the components within it behave as though the situation is real, or the simulation ceases to be valid. ACCEPTED
GIVEN: More than one simulation can be running simultaneously. There is no limit to the number of simulation programs that can be running at any given moment.
STATEMENT: There is a near infinite probability that this existence that we call reality is, in fact, a simulation.
EXAMPLE:
If I told you there is one and only one Apollo 42 rocket ship to Mars, and an unknown, near-infinite number of people running simulations of the Apollo 42 rocket ship, all appearing on your screen as users in the same list, and it was your job with one guess to identify if any individual one of them was the real, tangible Apollo 42, odds are worse than winning the lottery that you’d pick the right one. If you bet any more than bragging rights, you’d want to place your money on simulation, since there’s a far greater chance in the infinite-to-one odds that you’ll end up on the side of infinite.
Let’s assume that if we were a simulation we wouldn’t know it, because participants who know they aren’t real don’t act real and therefore negate the simulation. We must either be real, or functionally ignorant of our status as Simulants. Infinite-to-one odds.
There’s a whole theory with photos and expert testimony and everything, so if you want your mind blown further, there’s plenty of ammo to do the job in any web search, but I still have to get up in the morning. I don’t need my mind more blown, I need to know where to put this in may brain. How do I make sense of this when I’m sitting in traffic and my brain is running amok for lack of anything better to run it? What do we do with this?
Nothing. If this is simulated reality, it will behave like reality, and in reality if you don’t pay your rent you don’t get to live there anymore. A simulated job producing simulated rent for a simulated person is all the same to the person if they don’t know it’s a simulation, so drink your coffee and hit the road with a book-on-tape, because traffic is a part of this reality, simulated or not, and you shouldn’t leave your mind unsupervised. It gets lost.
But there is one take-away…
If this is a simulation, don’t you hope they take good care of their digital storage? What if the real end of the world is the program glitching back to blinking cursor on the digi-desk of a SIMS game designer who hasn’t kept their equipment room cool enough?
For the sake of all the ones and zeros running around in your digital storage, unaware that they are running inside a computer for you, hire an Engineer and keep a maintenance contract.
Be a merciful God.