At Scientific American: Why we live in a simulation

Given that this item was published April 1, we are pretty sure it’s a hoax but (“We must never doubt Elon Musk again”), curiously, Khan notes:

There is nothing in philosophy or science, no postulates, theories or laws, that would predict the emergence of this experience we call consciousness. Natural laws do not call for its existence, and it certainly does not seem to offer us any evolutionary advantages. There can only be two explanations for its existence. First is that there are evolutionary forces at work that we don’t know of or haven’t theorized yet that select for the emergence of the experience called consciousness. The second is that the experience is a function we serve, a product that we create, an experience we generate as human beings. Who do we create this product for? How do they receive the output of the qualia generating algorithms that we are? We don’t know. But one thing’s for sure, we do create it. We know it exists. That’s the only thing we can be certain about. And that we don’t have a dominant theory to explain why we need it.

Fouad Khan, “Confirmed! We Live in a Simulation” at Scientific American

That’s all true, actually. And no need to trouble Elon Musk in this matter.

Note: There is a name for the belief that we are living in a simulation, the Planetarium Hypothesis. And Elon Musk is onside:

Hat tip: Ken Francis, co-author with Theodore Dalrymple of The Terror of Existence: From Ecclesiastes to Theatre of the Absurd

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