The Hidden Reality_ Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos - Brian Greene [164]
Nevertheless, Bostrom notes, the conclusion that we’re in a simulation does not fully sever our grasp on the true underlying reality. Even if we believe that we’re in a simulation, we can still identify one feature that the underlying reality definitely possesses: it allows for realistic computer simulations. After all, according to our belief, we’re in one. The unbridled skepticism generated by the suspicion that we’re simulated aligns with that very knowledge and so fails to undermine it. While it was useful when we began to weigh anchor and declare the reality of all that seems real, it wasn’t necessary. Logic alone can’t ensure that we’re not in a computer simulation.
The only way to dodge the conclusion that we’re likely living in a simulation is to leverage intrinsic weaknesses in the reasoning. Maybe sentience can’t be simulated, full stop. Or maybe, as Bostrom also suggests, civilizations en route to the technological mastery necessary to create sentient simulations will inevitably turn that technology inward and destroy themselves. Or maybe when our distant descendants gain the capacity to create simulated universes they choose not to do so, perhaps for moral reasons or simply because other currently inconceivable pursuits prove so much more interesting that, much as we noted with universe creation, universe simulation falls by the wayside.
These are among numerous loopholes, but whether they’re large enough for the proverbial truck to drive through, who knows?* If not, you might want to spice up your life a bit, make your mark. Whoever is running the simulation is bound to get tired of wallflowers. Being a cynosure would seem a likely path toward longevity.5
Seeing Beyond a Simulation
If you were living in a simulation, could you figure that out? The answer depends in no small part on who is running your simulation—call him or her the Simulator—and the manner in which your simulation was programmed. The Simulator, for instance, might choose to let you in on the secret. One day while taking a shower you might hear a gentle “dingding,” and when you’d cleared the shampoo from your eyes you’d see a floating window in which your smiling Simulator would appear and introduce herself. Or maybe this revelation would happen on a worldwide scale, with giant windows and a booming voice surrounding the planet, announcing that there is in fact an All Powerful Programmer up in the heavens. But even if your Simulator shied away from exhibitionism, less obvious clues might turn up.
Simulations allowing for sentient beings would certainly have reached a minimum fidelity threshold, but as they do with designer clothes and cheap knockoffs, quality and consistency would likely vary. For example, one approach to programming simulations—call it the “emergent strategy”—would draw on the accumulated mass of human knowledge, judiciously invoking relevant perspectives as dictated by context. Collisions between protons in particle accelerators would be simulated using quantum field theory. The trajectory of a batted ball would be simulated using Newton’s laws. The reactions of a mother watching her child’s first steps would be simulated by melding insights from biochemistry, physiology, and psychology. The actions of governmental leaders would fold in political theory, history, and economics. Being a patchwork of approaches focused on different aspects of simulated reality, the emergent strategy would need to maintain internal consistency as processes nominally construed to lie in one realm spilled over into another. A psychiatrist needn’t fully grasp the cellular, chemical, molecular, atomic, and subatomic processes underlying brain function—which is a good thing for psychiatry. But in simulating a person, the