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What Happens When You Live in a Simulated Reality?
If reality is a computer simulation, how does that work?
In 2003, Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom proposed that the universe may be a simulated reality — an enormous game of Sims. This virtual universe may have been created by our future generations who wanted to time travel to the past but eliminate the inherent paradoxes. In this scenario, you could kill your great grandfather and not destroy your own chance to be born.
Bostrom suggested that if a civilization developed advanced technology that could create such a virtual world, the inhabitants would probably create multiple copies.
If our descendants managed to achieve this, Bostrom argued, then the odds were that you are one of many copies living in a simulation rather than the base reality. Statistically speaking, if there are 10,000 simulated universes where copies of you exist, the chances of your consciousness being the original would be 1 in 10,000.
In other words, if copies were made, and the odds are you are not the original.
A Universal Web of Simulated Realities
Think of it as a vast Internet where each individual page represents one possible reality simulating the past. Or, this world may have been designed based on nothing more than…
