But What If We're Wrong?: Thinking about the Present as If It Were the Past

by Chuck Klosterman

What Bostrom is asserting is that there are three possibilities about the future, one of which must be true. The first possibility is that the human race becomes extinct before reaching the stage where such a high-level simulation could be built. The second possibility is that humans do reach that stage, but for whatever reason—legality, ethics, or simple disinterest—no one ever tries to simulate the complete experience of civilization. The third possibility is that we are living in a simulation right now. Why? Because if it’s possible to create this level of computer simulation (and if it’s legally and socially acceptable to do so), there won’t just be one simulation. There will be an almost limitless number of competing simulations, all of which would be disconnected from each other. A computer program could be created that does nothing except generate new simulations, all day long, for a thousand consecutive years. And once those various simulated societies reach technological maturity, they would (assumedly) start creating simulations of their own—simulations inside of simulations. Eventually, we would be left with the one original “real” reality, along with billions and billions of simulated realities. Simple mathematical odds tell us that it’s far more likely our current reality would fall somewhere in the latter category. The chance that we are living through the immature stages of the original version is certainly possible, but ultra-remote.