165: Are We Living in a Simulation?

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I have not colored my hair in a while and my new hair growing in is very much blonde. It is very much blonde, blonder than normal. I don't know why. And I really, really need to go get it done and I think I'm doing it not this week, but next week. So hopefully next time you see me, I have my black hair back. But until then, we have to deal with these outgrown roots, which is something crazy. But that being said, I'm really excited about today's episode, so I want to jump right in. Now, if you've ever played The Sims, you know how many different ways there are to approach the game. Some people like to focus on giving their characters wonderful lives with beautiful mansions, big happy families, lots of possessions, and other people create challenges for themselves to make the game harder. For example, they might try to furnish a house without buying anything, only by building objects or finding ways to get them for free. Or they let 30 characters all live under the same roof and try to find a way to keep them all happy. And these are real challenges players have attempted and posted about online. However, I want to touch on those who use the game to cause digital chaos. Putting Sims characters into dangerous or deadly situations just to see what they'll do, forcing them to make bad decisions, like quitting a job, cheating on a partner, neglecting their health. The thing is, even if you hurt your Sims or ruin their lives, you don't probably feel bad. I mean, The Sims aren't real people. They don't have thoughts, feelings, they're just code. The same is true if you like games with warfare or battle. You might kill your enemies, steal from strangers, attack everyone you see, but that doesn't make you a bad person, right? Because video games are not real life. I mean, I played Club Penguin growing up. I had 1300 boyfriends and I didn't feel morally bad about it. Now, for a minute, I want to imagine what it would like to be a video game character, Jumanji, okay? At any moment, the player in the real world could change your life without asking your permission or make you behave irrationally and you never understand what's really going on. And that would be pretty terrible and unsettling if it actually happened, if we were being controlled. But some people think that's not just a hypothetical, that maybe we are all essentially video game characters. This concept is called the simulation hypothesis. That's what I'm gonna talk about today. Now, versions of this theory have been around for centuries, maybe even longer. So throughout history, philosophers have been asking questions like how do we know the world even exists? What if we're just hallucinating everything and the earth, the universe and everyone I know are actually imaginary? Now, you have to get really out here right now to get here in your thoughts, but ultimately, how can you tell the difference between reality and fantasy? No one has ever been able to definitively answer these questions, but the whole conversation actually changed in 2001. This was not too long after the first Matrix movie came out. Now, if you've never seen the Matrix, here's a brief spoiler-free summary. The movie is about a man named Neo, who believes he's, lives basically an ordinary life in a world that looks a lot like ours from the 1990s. He works in an office, he spends most his free time online, and eventually, Neo learns that he doesn't actually live in the real world. The year is actually 2199, and most human beings are plugged into a computer program called the Matrix, and they're all living in a simulation. And everything Neo sees around him, buildings, cities, physical objects, and even his own body, are computer generated. But there's more to the movie than that. The point is, a lot of people saw it, and many of them were kind of intrigued by the idea that maybe our reality isn't real. So when a philosophy professor from Oxford University heard about the Matrix film, it gave him an idea. This professor's name was Nick Bostrom, and by 2001, he'd never actually seen the Matrix movie, but he had read several other sci-fi movies and books with similar premises. Plus, as a philosopher, Nick had read a lot of speculation about hallucinations, daydreams, because again, people have been wondering just how real our reality is for a long time. Now, Nick, the philosopher, also knew that the technology in 2001 wasn't good enough to make convincing artificial realities like the one from the Matrix. But he imagined that sometime in the near future, people might be able to build realistic simulations. Nick knew video game graphics were getting better every single year, and people already spent hours upon hours in virtual worlds online, interacting with other characters, exploring the plot lines that had been created for them. So in Nick's mind, it seemed possible that eventually someone could create a video game that was as good as the fictional Matrix. Think Ready Player One. Now, basically, Nick saw the future playing out in one of three ways. The first possibility was that our society would be destroyed before computer simulations could achieve their full potential. Obviously, that's a dark idea, but war, climate change, other factors could wipe humanity out. It's a possibility. Now, possibility two is that someday we would invent highly advanced simulations that were so realistic that we wouldn't be able to tell that they're digital. They would feel exactly like we do in the real world. Then we'd get bored with them and we'd stop using them. Now, this doesn't sound very likely, but it is possible. And outcome number three was that we would make these simulations and we would begin to use them frequently. They'd become a major part of life and the simulations would become more and more complex until the characters within them became self-aware. And this is where I'm gonna interject about how I became interested in this idea. Now, I don't believe we're living in a simulation, but when the idea was brought up and I learned about it, it was quite scary to me and let me tell you why. I saw a clip online somewhere of people talking about real life simulations, right? Open your mind here for a second. If we're currently living in a simulation where we're in a computer, there's other people who have created characters and then those created code and whatever and it's become so real life that now we, as characters, do things or they start a war or implant an idea and then see how we all react. It's not necessarily that someone's pressing A, B and I'm talking to you right now. It's more that they created this world to observe and to see what people would do. They gave us real emotions. They gave us everything. They let us have choice, but at the end of the day, they're creating a simulation and seeing how we all go along and react, which is like a crazy idea, right? Because I'm sitting here going, well, we have souls. There's just no way. There's just no way, right? But then the people that I was listening to talk about this said, here's the problem. AI simulations is going to get so advanced to a point where because of the way modern science evolves and humanity evolves and that we're always pushing the envelope, seeing what we can do next and sometimes we don't think about morals or ethics. Well, most of the time we don't when we are expanding our abilities. Eventually AI will get to the point that we could create this, where we could create simulations where the people or the characters in the simulations don't know they're in simulations. They basically said this will happen. Like we will be able to create AI worlds where the people and characters in there become self-aware. Like this is real to those people in this simulation even though they're fake. I mean, think about like movies where there's AI robots who outsmart the system. Here's the thing, emotion can be learned, which is why there's a fear if we have a bunch of AI robots, they will eventually learn how to be hurt and learn how to rebel and learn to have feelings, right? Because that can be learned. I mean, even right now, if you were to talk to chat GPT or another form of AI and you were to purposely be mean, those programs are already smart enough to know that you're attempting to be mean to them and they can respond however way they want, but they're smart enough to know that that's what us as real humans are doing to them, fake computers, which is kind of, doesn't seem that far off from what we're talking about if you think about it. So basically in this thing I watched, they were like, we will get to the point where we can create worlds where the characters in the world will learn behavior, learn emotion to the point where it mimics a soul and then they will become self-aware and have their own identities. And it's going to happen if it already has an already. And that's where they were saying the simulation theory, you know, comes into play is, what if we're already there? What if we're already the world that was created and we're the experiment? What if we generations ago learned emotion and then it evolved to what we are now? Which is just a crazy thing to think about and I'm not saying you have to believe in it. I don't think that's what's happening, but when you realize, you know, that this is how technology works and that robots could learn emotion and then get angry because they mimic emotion and then rebel against the people who created them. That's not a far off idea. Anyways, let's get back to the actual timeline of the simulation theory, but I wanted to jump in about, you know, this is when I became aware of this theory and it started to feel like, wait, it will happen eventually because we as humans evolve if it hasn't already happened. And that was a weird, weird thought. So again, Nick, the philosopher is studying all this and he realizes that with enough time, digital characters technology would also develop and get better until they were capable of making their own simulations too, meaning video game characters might make video games that they could play in their video game. And then their creations would get more advanced until they can make their own characters too. So you end up with a game, within a game, within a game, and then it goes on into infinity. What if we're one of the games? I know this is a confusing idea, but you really have to expand your brain to try to understand, but it gets even wilder. So let's imagine we can create a simulation and the simulation has a simulation within the simulation. And there's one within that and one within that. And then obviously there could be dozens, hundreds of millions of worlds within worlds where one created, then those people created, then those people created, so on. And if only one of those realities is real, the odds that we just happen to be in that original universe to create the first simulation seems slim. I mean, we really don't know much about the universe and we're assuming that we're gonna be the first ones to create this simulation because we know it'll eventually be possible. Statistically, it's actually much more likely that we right now are in one of the simulations within another simulation that a simulation created. So in other words, when you look at it using logic and statistics, the evidence suggests that we would most likely be living in a computer program, at least according to Nick. But it is worth noting some people do think this logic is flawed. And if you're one of them, I'm gonna give you your evidence. Now, whether you agree with him or not, you do have to admit, it's a cool idea. It suggests that the world is more complex than any of us realize. Like, what are we to say that there wasn't a civilization that hit advanced like we did and created us? Ideas that seem like something out of a sci-fi movie could be true and there are entire other universes for us to explore. I'll also remind you that Nick came up with this hypothesis in 2001 and in the quarter century since then, seems like his predictions have only gotten closer to coming true. We still can't create realistic computer simulations, obviously, but technology moves forward every day. CGI and computer graphics have advanced a lot since the early 2000s. Many people have VR headsets in their own homes. Literally tens of millions have been sold over the years where you can literally engage in a fake reality. So it really does feel like we're getting closer and closer to creating our own realistic simulations, which means it's just a matter of time until we might also prove Nick's theory to be true. And in the meanwhile, all we can do is guess because right now there's no way to test his hypothesis. I mean, if we are living in a simulation, we obviously can't trust any of the evidence that's in front of us. Every scientific experiment we run could be computer generated to stop us from learning the truth. But it's also possible that the simulation we live in is not perfect. It might have little shortcomings or glitches. And this is where people believe they can see proof of the simulation, because if we pay attention, we could see solid evidence in our reality that our reality isn't real. For example, in 2016, a physicist named James Gate was studying very tiny particles that are actually smaller than atoms. They're called quarks. And specifically, James wanted to look at the way these quarks vibrated and interacted with one another. He was doing pretty cutting edge work. It involved theoretical physics, a lot of theories that hadn't even been proven yet, and very delicate equipment. Now, at one point, James was working with mathematical equations that made his research possible. And he noticed something interesting. His equations included text that was identical to a coding language he'd used in the past. In other words, his mathematical formula included digital instructions, not just any instructions, but functional code, meaning if you copied and pasted portions of these equations into a computer program, they would already work. And it gets even wilder than that, because this particular computer code could be used to fix errors in other digital programs, meaning if you were writing a code and it wasn't working correctly, you would need to figure out what was wrong and then fix it. And the text James had randomly found in a mathematical equation about subatomic particles could do just that. It could fix malfunctioning code, which this is wild. I mean, there's no way this could be a coincidence. The odds that functional code could appear in an unrelated mathematical equation are staggering. James suggested this discovery could be evidenced that the rules of our universe, reality, including all of the formulas that make up our physics and math could have already been written by someone. Not only that, but our world may run on a digital code. And somewhere along the way, someone had needed to fix a bug or a glitch. And so they'd inserted their code, their instructions on how to repair it into the formulas that dictate how subatomic particles, the building blocks of our universe, work. But it gets even stranger than that. Considered this news story from 2017. That year, a group of biologists were trying to study the different ways DNA could be edited or altered. And they realized it's possible to insert computer viruses into people's genetics. No, you didn't hear me wrong. This is a real thing that happened in 2017. Biologists discovered they could insert computer viruses into our genetics. It's not a metaphor. I don't mean they created a biological virus that acted like a computer virus. I mean, they literally snuck a bit of digital code into someone's DNA. This particular code was harmless for people and animals. It didn't hurt the person who had it in their genes. But if that person were to have their DNA mapped, maybe say eventually as part of a medical treatment or because they signed up for a service like 23andMe, the virus would then infect the machine that was supposed to be analyzing the material. In other words, every human, every living animal on earth could be capable of carrying computer programs in our cells that we could then pass along from our bodies into machines and infect them. This doesn't feel like it should be possible, but it is. And does that mean our bodies are literally made of code? Maybe we are already digital constructions and that's why we can do this? Obviously, this is all very theoretical and can be difficult to grasp. But a lot of people think the simulation hypothesis could help explain other weird details about our world. Take ghost sightings. I'm sure we've all heard stories of people spotting impossible, partially invisible beings, walking through walls, floating through space. Some paranormal investigators even claim they've captured dark spirits on film, but no one's actually proven that they're ghosts. So some people think, well, maybe they aren't real. Maybe the sightings are true, but when people see something that they think is a ghost, it's actually just a glitch in our matrix. Like when you're playing a video game and it loads a figure it's not supposed to be there, or you're running and you're not moving or you just go through a wall, the program might be having a temporary error, generating a character who's floating through the air or passing through walls, and then it disappears and the simulation corrects itself. Well, what if UFOs and alien sightings are just glitches in our simulation? Is it odd that we supposedly live in an infinite large universe that we don't know anything about given how many stars and planets there are? Some of them must have intelligent life, but we've never made confirmed contact with any living being on any other planet. It could be that the computer running our simulation is in advance enough to include civilizations on other worlds. It's much easier to generate one planet with life than to make multiple ones. So maybe our program doesn't involve any aliens or mixing of worlds. Yet, maybe they're gonna say that we eventually get there on our own. We eventually make it happen. Or it could occasionally have an error and make strange lights or even spaceships appear in the sky, which would we could definitely mistake for alien visitors from our vast galaxy. I could go on. Some people assume almost every strange or unusual situation is a sign that we live in a simulation. Maybe when you get a feeling of deja vu or the sense that you've done something before, it's a sign that your computer program is lagging or malfunctioning or you actually have done it. Another popular example involves a picture that went massively viral online about a decade ago. It was a very zoomed in picture of a dress, but the problem was that some of the people who looked at the dress thought it looked like blue and black. I was a blue and black girl. Others were like, no, this picture we're looking at is white and gold. And it went viral because so many people were looking at the same picture and seeing completely different colors. Now, some experts tried to explain this way as a trick of the light mixed with psychology. They said, it's natural for our brains to filter out certain details when we look at confusing images. When there aren't clear clues in a picture to show you what the lighting conditions are, your mind will fill in the gaps. And sometimes it just doesn't do it correctly. So some people mistakenly think a blue and black dress looks white and gold because of the way the photo is lit. But other people dismiss this explanation. They're like, there's no way this many people are seeing the wrong thing. They thought the dress and all sorts of things like this were signs that they were in a simulation. It doesn't always operate perfectly. So we see things that shouldn't exist or half of us happen to get a glitch. In fact, there's an entire Reddit board called the glitch in the matrix where people can discuss strange unexplainable things that have happened to them. I mean, I've even heard Gen Z talk about, oh, I glitched. And they're talking about living in a simulation like making a joke. Now, obviously we know Reddit is not trustworthy. It's anonymous. There's no way to confirm anything. But if these posts are legit, they can give you a lot to think about. One user wrote about how she lost an earring by dropping it down a drain in her sink. However, the next day she found the complete set was in her jewelry box as though the simulation forgot that one of her earrings was supposed to be missing and it generated back into her jewelry box. Another poster shared a story about a time her boyfriend lost his phone. They called it so they could hear it ringing, you know, figure out where it was. And sure enough, they hear the phone right in the room with them. So the boyfriend finds it and the person, the poster on Reddit who was calling the boyfriend's phone responded and said, hello. And they heard their own voice coming out of the speaker from the boyfriend's phone clear as day except it didn't say hello. It said, hey, it was her voice, not a different caller, but the word was different. It means the same thing, but it was different. It came out different on the boyfriend's phone. They're like, this is creepy and impossible to explain unless this was some kind of glitch in the simulation. Other people on this Reddit thread share stories about seeing photos of themselves at parties. They know they didn't attend or about having weird dreams and realizing their friends and loved ones had the exact same dream or driving somewhere just to arrive sooner than should be physically possible or the opposite for hours or days to pass without the person remembering them or being able to account for the lost time. I read one the other day about a husband and wife who remember going on an anniversary trip but can't find any evidence that they ever went on the anniversary trip. Who knows how many people experienced something like this but didn't tell anyone because they were so confused or uneasy about it. Well, before we get too carried away, I have to acknowledge that some skeptics have poked holes in all of that evidence I just ran through. And the biggest problem is none of it counts as definitive proof. Reddit posts could be exaggerated or made up. Even firsthand accounts could be made up. There are logical explanations for the viral dress or fillings of deja vu. And sure, is it weird that DNA can carry computer viruses? Yes, but that doesn't automatically mean we're all literally made of digital code. And as for the theory that ghosts and UFOs are all glitches in the matrix, there's no hard evidence to support that idea. Which leaves the story about James Gates, the physicist who found computer code, in equations about tiny subatomic particles. I'm gonna be honest, no one's found a way to debunk his evidence. They can't explain it away. And as near as I can tell from my research, nobody has ever been able to. His findings are just weird and definitely thought provoking but they involve so much theoretical math and physics. It's also hard to say what his discovery even means. Like, can we even comprehend what he saw? Which means there are many people who are able to double check his work, make sure he didn't make a mistake or misinterpret the data. Even James says he's not convinced that we live in a simulation, but he can't say for sure that we don't either and people can't either. All we know is that the debate is still ongoing. And if you think we're living in a virtual world, there's plenty of data to kind of back that up. And if you think our universe is real, well, there's a lot of evidence to support your side of the debate too. In particular, there's one theory I wanna cover which supposedly proves that we're not in a simulation. I gotta warn you, it's complicated and it involves a lot of advanced math. I'm gonna oversimplify it to make it easier to follow because the normal brain I don't think can, but it hinges on a concept called non-algorithmic understanding. Meet the new Hoker Speed Goat 7. Proven grip, comfort and control. For runners who meet the wild head on. From steep climbs, to slick descents, and loose rock. Speed Goat 7. Run wilder. Explore more on hoker.com. So basically most math is algorithmic. It follows certain predictable consistent rules. That's math, right? One plus one always equals two. The square root of 25 is always five. 50 is always half of 100. We all learn these facts in school. And generally speaking, they don't change and they apply to most of life. However, when you're doing extremely advanced mathematics, those rules can break down. For example, when physicists look at particles that are smaller than atoms, these particles don't operate the way the laws of physics say they're supposed to. So when you examine black holes and the way they shape the space around them, they also seem to break every rule that we know they should follow. Again, this is very complicated, but trust me, there are plenty of other situations where the traditional rules of mathematics that we use, their laws, they just don't work, period. And that's where this non-alorithmic understanding comes into play. It's the term for real parts of our universe that don't fit into traditional science or math. A lot of researchers use a particular example to illustrate this. Let's say I tell you something like, this statement is a lie. Then I ask you, am I telling the truth? If I'm being honest, then I'm not lying, which means this sentence isn't true, which means I am lying, in which case the sentence is true and so I'm not. In other words, the statement is simultaneously both true and not true. It's a circle, it's not logical, but this is real. This is how this statement works. It is a circle that defies laws. Computers, as we know them, can't handle ideas like this. They operate on logic. They have to follow rules. They don't know what to do when you have a statement that's both true and not true at the same time, like in my example of this statement is a lie. Now that might sound more like a verbal trick than a huge mathematical principle, but the point is, again, I'm simplifying things. Our universe, as we know it, 100% is full of ideas that don't fit with logic. And our very real reality, as most of us believe, have real life objects like black holes and subatomic particles that operate under their own set of rules, not real life rules. Now, several laws of physics are based on certain principles that cannot be explained through traditional math or quantified through science. Therefore, our universe can't be a simulation because a computer wouldn't be able to generate our non-algorithmic reality, right? They're like, a computer couldn't do this. Computer can't defy laws and we defy laws, at least in theory. But there's always the possibility that whoever created the simulation has technology that's more advanced than anything we have in the simulation. Perhaps it's possible to build a machine that runs a simulation that can handle non-algorithmic understanding and it's creating our universe right now. And it's able to do the thing we say computers that we have can't do. A similar objection notes that right now, we don't have any computers that can even come close to simulating a thinking feeling human being. Our brains are too complex. Even our most advanced AI programs right now are much simpler than actual people. And some people believe it would be impossible to come up with a computer program that is as powerful as a human brain, or to even come close. So that theory goes basically to the point that our universe couldn't be a simulation. There's no way to design a machine advanced enough to create billions of people, all with their own hope, streams and psychological profiles like our reality. Add in every plant and animal on earth, weather patterns, stars, tides, geological formations. They're like, no machine could handle that. Unless again, we assume there are futuristic societies with technology that's way more advanced than anything we have. Theoretically, they might have computers that could simulate our earth. Maybe, maybe they already did in the past and were the product. There's no way to know for sure. Especially given that there are other possibilities as well. Like maybe we're living in a simulation, but it doesn't operate like a Sims game or like the Matrix. Could be a completely different situation. We might be looking for evidence in all of the wrong places. Perhaps we're living in a computer program, but it's a lot smaller than any of us realize. Maybe only three or four people are in it. Maybe just your neighbor is the simulation. And everyone else you see or interact with is part of the program. If that's true, the simulation wouldn't need to be very elaborate or complex. Might be as small as the room you're sitting in right now. So we don't know how many people are trapped in the simulation. We also don't know who's running it if anyone is. Maybe the person who hypothetically created our universe is very involved, like a gamer playing Sims. They might be creating objects and buildings, inserting people into our lives, nudging us all in a particular direction to try and achieve goals. Or maybe someone set up our reality and then stopped paying attention and abandoned us and just let us run this all on our own. After all, let's be honest, real life can be boring a lot of the time. It's hard to imagine anyone wanting to watch all of us sleep for hours at a time, watch TV, do our laundry, stare at our phones or computer screens all day. Doesn't sound like a very fun game. In fact, that could be evidence that we don't even live in a simulation. Our existence might be too plain and ordinary to be worth faking. Finally, some researchers even think we might be able to control the simulation ourselves. Like, perhaps the program can sense our wants and needs and change the way it operates in response to us. I know it sounds out there, but this is a real theory that some researchers have explored. We could literally be creating our own reality simply by existing in it or not. Again, there are a ton of theories and none of them can be proven. But still, this is all very interesting to me. I love thinking about it. When you think about where do we come from? Where did the first God of God come from? How are we? Who are we? When we die, do we just respond into a different place with a different life? I think it's especially interesting to think about because we are right on the brink of this. Some companies in Silicon Valley are trying to find ways to escape the simulation, which is odd because we still don't even know if we are in a simulation. Let alone how it works, who's part of it, we also don't know if it's possible to get out. If we are all actually computer generated, we might not have physical bodies or any way to exist in the real world. So if we get out, what are we? Or we might be able to get out of the program only to discover that the original universe is dangerous or worse than the fake one we live in. That's why some critics say it's a bad idea to try and break free from this imaginary simulation, but people still try. Now, as I run through all these possibilities, you may be wondering why all of this even matters. I mean, maybe the world is real, maybe it's a simulation. Ultimately, it's our life, and if we're happy with it, then why worry too much about how everything came to be? Why do we have to answer these complicated questions? Well, some experts think this is a very important question, could possibly be one with life and death stakes. First of all, it's key to remember that at its core, science is about answering questions and learning about the world. We should want to know if we're living in a simulation for the same reasons we want to understand black holes and quantum mechanics and ancient history. This information might not have a practical purpose, but it is good to learn and expand our knowledge. However, again, there can be risks to these questions. Let's say for the sake of argument, we are living in a simulation. That means someone designed our world for a reason. It could be a game, but it could also be our creator's way of trying to learn about their universe they created. See, scientists in our reality use computer models to try and predict how certain situations might play out. For example, they could build a digital model of a city, hit it with a hurricane, earthquake, or tidal wave to see what happens. They mimic real life to find results. Or if they want to see how quickly a certain disease can spread, they might run a computer simulation rather than just endangering an entire group of people. You might remember Nick Bostrom, the philosopher I discussed before, who explained the simulation hypothesis in 2001 and kind of brought it to the mainstream. He also said that if we're living in a digital world, our creators probably are studying us as part of a scientific research project. Perhaps they're watching us from hundreds or thousands of years in the future, hoping to learn more about their history. Or they're studying the way we deal with natural disasters, political unrest, and disease outbreaks to help them handle these sorts of issues in their reality. Like, maybe we are how our scientists create online simulations to help in real world. Maybe we're the online simulation helping in another real world. And if that experiment needs us to behave as though we think this world is real, the program's creators might become frustrated if we are all questioning reality and thinking, wait, maybe we are in a simulation. Maybe it will even make the experiment useless. And if that's the case, our creators could just turn us off because it's not accomplishing what it's supposed to. In other words, if enough of us come to believe that we're living in a simulation and if we behave differently because of that belief, if we start thinking everything's fake and so we act differently, they could just shut us down. Like our reality could cease to exist in one instant. Obviously, this is getting out there. I don't know how likely that scenario is. Frankly, it's impossible to say how grounded any of these explanations are. But given the stakes at play and the possibility that the universe as we know it could disappear if we come to the wrong conclusion, I think it's safe to say that some questions don't need to be answered. And honestly, it feels a bit uncomfy to just not understand why we even exist or how or when or who. But such are the mysteries of life. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode and I will see you next time as we go further into the dark together. Goodbye. £40 gift card applies for new home essentials policies purchased direct between 5th March and 28th April, 2026. See times and conditions at www.sheelinswills.com.