Rizwan Wirk, founder of MIT's PlayLabs program and author of The Simulation Hypothesis, is one of those who take seriously the hypothesis that our world is artificial. He recalls playing a virtual reality game so realistic that he forgot that he was in an empty room with a headset. This made him wonder: Are we sure we are not immersed in a world created by beings more technologically savvy than ourselves?
Imitation of worlds and creatures
This question makes sense to Rich Terrile, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. As detailed as today's best simulations are, they don't involve artificial minds, but Terrile believes that the ability to simulate living things may soon be in our hands. “We are in the generation that creates these universes,” he says.
Not everyone is convinced of this. During a 2016 debate at the American Museum of Natural History, Harvard physicist Lisa Randall said the chances of the simulation hypothesis being true "are virtually zero." So far, no one has provided serious evidence that our world is unique.
And she wonders why advanced beings would try to simulate Homo Sapiens. “Why imitate us? I mean there are so many things to simulate. I don't know why this higher species would want to worry about us,”she said.
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Echoes of Being
However, there is the idea that there is a simulator or a creator who cares about us. This idea is similar to that described in the Book of Genesis.
Some thinkers, including Terrile, welcome the analogy with religion. He says: "If the hypothesis of the simulation is correct, then the creator, the architect is the one who created the world." “It's an ancient idea, revisited in terms of" mathematics and science, not just faith."
Science, he said in a recent radio interview, "takes us away from the idea that we are puppets controlled by invisible beings." The simulation hypothesis, he says, "begins to look like a religion," and the programmer can replace God.
Who is this divine being who could create a simulated universe?
Proponents of this hypothesis say that, perhaps, this is a race of more civilized creatures - space aliens. Even stranger is the possibility that our own descendants could develop the ability to mimic the bodies and minds of other creatures.
“Just like you can simulate something else, you can simulate the brain,” says Terrile. And once we create brain simulations that are detailed and accurate enough, he says, "it's possible that these models will generate conscious experiences."
Search for evidence
Will we ever know if the simulation hypothesis is correct? Scientists say that there is a small chance that one day we may face an obvious failure in the simulation. They proposed experiments that could prove that our world is simulated.
For example, some have expressed the idea that the world can be made up of discrete "chunks" that resemble pixels in a digital image. If we determine that the world is "pixelated", this may indicate that it was created artificially. A group of American and German physicists argue that accurate measurements of cosmic rays can provide the answer.
What will happen if it is confirmed that we live in an artificial world?
How will people react if they find out that our world, thoughts and emotions - everything we live by - is nothing more than artificial intelligence? Many scientists believe that this will destroy our lives and suppress the initiative.
Harvard astronomer Abraham Loeb says knowledge can even trigger social unrest. Knowing that our thoughts and actions are being controlled can free us from responsibility for our actions,”he says.
Others speculate that this could create a new fear - that the creators will get bored with the modeling and turn it off.
