Life is a simulation after all? Physicists want to test this possibility

The scientists’ experiment will help to check whether the hyperrealistic simulation straight from the movie “The Matrix” is possible at all.

In 2003, the Swedish philosopher and Oxford University professor Nick Bostrom wrote a thesis under the title Are we living in a computer simulation ?. The scientist describes the assumption that future generations can run simulations of their ancestors and give them a kind of artificial consciousness. If something like this is already happening, it would mean that the vast majority of people are simulations made by advanced descendants of primitive humanity. Simply put – we can be one of the simulations, not biological people.

Bostrom proposed three possible scenarios. The first assumes that the fraction of civilization that can simulate is close to zero. Second, the interest in such simulations is almost nil. The third scenario assumes that we already live in such a simulation. If the other two are false, then option 3 remains: our species develops the required technology and begins to create an incomprehensible number of ancestral simulations. This would mean that the vast majority of “humans” with an experience of life on Earth are inside the simulation, they just don’t know it.

Purely philosophical assumptions have become the subject of much research

In 2017, a group of physicists proposed several methods of checking this fact, with a varying degree of complexity. Their idea is based on the assumption that a simulation would have limited resources, so it doesn’t simulate everything in the universe at the same time. It would work much like a computer game, rendering only those parts of the simulation that are currently being watched by the “player”.

Also read: The universe is a simulation? One of the physicists says so

The key to determining whether we are in a simulated universe or a real universe is finding out when information becomes available to us observers.

“To save yourself work, the system calculates reality only when the information becomes available for the player to observe. In addition, the system tries not to be detected by players “

the authors of the study in “On Testing the Simulation Theory”

Using a series of abstractions, scientists suspect (if we live in a simulation) that the information is only given to us at the point of observation. To this end, they try to create different versions of the experiments that would lead to a paradox.

Of course, a simulation can be smart enough to know the observer’s intentions and find ways to hide information from us. If it turns out that we are not living in a simulation, this also has implications. Going back to Bostrom’s proposal, this would mean that we have options 1 or 2 to choose from: either we don’t survive as a species or we become something practically unimaginable.