How sci-fi simulates simulated reality

Elon Musk caused a stir last week by suggesting ours is not the real world, but sci-fi writers have been speculating about this for at least 70 years

“There’s a one in billions chance that this is base reality,” announced Elon Musk at the Code conference last week in California. The billionaire entrepreneur behind Tesla, SpaceX and PayPal stoked new fire under one of pop philosophy’s most debated questions: are we all living in a computer simulation?

While the idea of living in a computer simulation is fun to consider, the consequences of such a reality are quite frightening. If belief in a creator god lets humans off the hook for our destiny, or if belief in a mechanical universe drops us into nihilistic despair, what might believing that we are all sims in a video game do? The possibilities are both wondrous and horrifying.

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