Hacker and self-driving car developer George Hotz is also thinking about founding a church to free himself from simulation.
George Hotz, a self-driving car developer and notorious hacker, recently suggested that the universe might be a simulation built by a community more advanced than ours.
“There is no evidence that this is indeed the case,” Hotz announced in his speech at the SXSW technical conference in Austin. "However, it's easy to imagine creatures so much smarter than you that they could build a cage that you wouldn't notice."
The simulation hypothesis has several strong proponents, including entrepreneur and engineer Elon Musk, who essentially claims that we all exist in some super-advanced version of the Sims game.
However, following Hotz's logic, one can justify the existence of literally everything: from Santa Claus to the luminiferous ether - an invisible substance that, as scientists previously believed, covered the entire Earth, but in the end turned out to be non-existent.
Of course, the absence of any evidence of a simulation is not equivalent to proving that no simulation exists. On the contrary, this itself can serve as evidence.
But it doesn't seem that a couple of logical mistakes will stop Hotz: he is seriously considering creating a religion that will free people from simulation. Perhaps we shouldn't think about how we - supposedly simulated creatures - will continue to exist outside of this simulation.
“In fact, corporations are really only losing,” Hotz explains of his decision to found a religion. "I believe the church's goal will be to redirect community efforts to get out of the simulation."
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Be that as it may, the attendees of the SXSW conference were not particularly interested in Hotz's ideas. Although in a Q&A session, someone from the audience asked the hacker if he intends to collaborate with transhumanists - believers in human evolution by fusing body and mind with robotics and AI - to build his church. Hotz was ambivalent about the question: perhaps he did not think that people would take him seriously. However, if he does build a church, then the SXSW "sermon" has definitely sounded in the right place.
Vladimir Guillen
