No, we’re not living in a simulation. Here’s why.
The idea that we might be living inside the simulation of some more advanced future civilisation sounds like something a stoner might dream up on a Saturday night after watching one too many sci-fi movies. Yet in recent years it has been floating around the internet as an ostensibly serious and respectable intellectual position, especially among tech utopians like Elon Musk. In my view, not only is the logic supporting this outlandish conjecture full of holes, implausible assumptions and contradictions, but the whole idea is pernicious and should be resisted.
The argument originates with Oxford University philosopher Nick Bostrom. In a 2003 paper titled “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?” Bostrom argued that a sufficiently advanced civilization might be able to simulate consciousness. Given the rapid advancement of technology, especially in video games and virtual reality, it’s conceivable that future technologies could run highly detailed simulations indistinguishable from reality. Since these simulated civilizations would also eventually advance enough to simulate worlds themselves, then the number of simulated universes would end up vastly outnumbering the original single reality. Thus, he argued, it is overwhlemingly probable that we are living in a simulation rather than “base reality”.
