Is mankind living in a computer simulation? Part Ⅱ

author: Anthony   

Anthony C. LoBaido

By Anthony C.Lobaido

Over 80,000 people have watched this video on YouTube.com which points to six "facts" that might prove we are living in a simulated realty. Among the most salient points are the following: "Elites" in science and philosophy take the whole idea seriously. World-class physicists are now engaging in tests to see if we are indeed living in a "Matrix." They're looking for technical "glitches" in our existence since the "fake" universe's "computer simulation" would need updates. 

It seems that Virtual Reality as created by humans, in conjunction with our advances in computing power, will one day enable humans to create our own computer simulation world. We could have simulations inside simulations. A deep "rabbit hole" effect emerges. How deep into this are we? 

Then there's the notion that life on Earth is fragile. The Earth is exactly tilted away from the Sun and at such a distance from the Sun to make life possible. The moon controls the tides. We have four seasons. How rare is this in the universe, considering the number of planets – hundreds of billions of them? Why haven't we been contacted by E.T.'s? This might infer that we are "alone in the known universe," or that we're merely living in a computer simulation. One might point to the force of gravity, the size or protons and other "finely tuned" factors which make life on Earth possible. 

Even the Earth's shape as an oblate spheroid comes into question. If the Earth were round, we'd have one large continent with the rest of the world basically water. The Arctic and Antarctica would be covered in water. As Scientific American explains it, "Isaac Newton first proposed that Earth was not perfectly round. Instead, he suggested it was an oblate spheroid—a sphere that is squashed at its poles and swollen at the equator. He was correct and, because of this bulge, the distance from Earth's center to sea level is roughly 21 kilometers (13 miles) greater at the equator than at the poles."

Life in our universe can only occur when certain universal physical constants occur within a very narrow range. How likely is this to happen from a "Big Bang?" Everything came from nothing? A bowl of primordial soup turned into a tadpole and then a frog and then a lizard and then a cheetah and a butterfly and a koala? Is it cosmological luck or fine tuning? Is everything the way it is by accident? 

Finally, the most disturbing point of all is that "string theory" and super symmetry contain computer codes, this according to James Gates. The code they found is called "Block Linear Self Dual Correcting Code," which is used in computer operating systems. Within the mathematical equations we want to use to describe the universe, we find computer code. Wow!

Paste Monthly found this whole scenario extremely disturbing.

It wrote:

"In 2003, a Swedish philosopher named Nick Bostrom came up with a "Simulation Argument" which stipulated that one of the following three statements must be true: Civilizations do not reach a "posthuman" stage where they are capable of rendering "ancestor-simulations" using computer power. [Second] Civilizations do reach this stage, but, for whatever reason (ethics? superior intelligence that leads to disinterest?), have no interest in running ancestor-simulations. [Third] There is an extremely high probability that we are living in a simulation.

 "One thing that later generations might do with their super-powerful computers is run detailed simulations of their forebears or of people like their forebears. Because their computers would be so powerful, they could run a great many such simulations. Suppose that these simulated people are conscious … then it could be the case that the vast majority of minds like ours do not belong to the original race but rather to people simulated by the advanced descendants of an original race. It is then possible to argue that, if this were the case, we would be rational to think that we are likely among the simulated minds rather than among the original biological ones. Therefore, if we don't think that we are currently living in a computer simulation, we are not entitled to believe that we will have descendants who will run lots of such simulations of their forebears."

For readers wondering what would happen to all of us here on Earth – what we think of as Earth – if it were "proven" we're indeed living in a computer simulation, Paste postulates:

"How would that change the way we live? It's easy for some people to say that they'd continue living their lives as before, since, on a pragmatic level, "nothing changes." And maybe for a fraction of our population, that's true. On the other hand, the eternal question about ‘God' would be answered, at least in a limited way, and wouldn't that usher in a bit of chaos? It's possible to predict how religion might adapt, though, provided they don't ignore the evidence altogether. They'd simply have to place God above all the simulated worlds and the original "real" people, rather than solely above our world—it would, in fact, fit nicely with monotheistic religions like Christianity, with its notion of ‘God' communicating with our forebears and placing his son on Earth … even ‘heaven' becomes a concrete proposition, if our consciousness can be transplanted onto new systems.

 "What about laws and morality? Would we take them quite so seriously? Would we value life just the same, or would the knowledge that we're not "real" lead to a societal breakdown, since it wouldn't technically matter how we behaved as intangible beings? Is murdering/raping/beating/robbing a simulated human a lesser crime than doing the same to someone that is biologically "real"? Would suicide rates skyrocket? Are concepts like love and loyalty important if they're a figment of simulated minds?"

The theoretical physicist James Gates of the University of Maryland cited above weighed in via the aforementioned Scientific American article:

"If the simulation hypothesis is valid then we open the door to eternal life and resurrection and things that formally have been discussed in the realm of religion. The reason is quite simple: If we're programs in the computer, then as long as I have a computer that's not damaged, I can always re-run the program."

The BBC published this story saying that our "reality" might simply be a colony or computer simulation created by a super intelligent being, or even a junior high school student in another universe. 

Whatever one chooses to believe, there can be no doubt that the discovery of DNA in 1944, the cracking of the human genome around the turn of the 21^st Century, the birth of the Internet and the counter-intuitive nature of quantum physics had led us to into a never-ending series of unanswered questions begging for answers. Now we're told that human consciousness might one day soon be uploaded onto the Internet for "eternity." 

All of these things call to mind the most fundamental questions humans can ponder. Who am I? How did I get here? Who made me? Where am I going after I die? Plato, Aristotle, the Bible, the Buddha, Islam and philosophers like Descartes have all put forth their versions of the answers. 

Is the ultimate answer to be found in a computer simulation? 

You decide. 

Anthony

Anthony C. LoBaido is a journalist, ghostwriter and photographer. He has worked in 53 nations around the world – from Laos to Lebanon, from Belize to Botswana and from Nepal to Namibia. He also published a book on the Kurds. Some of LoBaido’s favorite stories include attending the British Army’s jungle warfare training in Central America, retracing Lawrence of Arabia’s World War I trek through Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, investigating the blood diamonds of Sierra Leone as popularized in the Leonardo DiCaprio film by the same name, meeting “CNN hero” Aki Ra at one of his landmine digs in northern Cambodia, working with Time Magazine’s “Hero of Asia” Lek Chailert on her crusade to assist injured and abused elephants in Southeast Asia, rescuing HIV/Aids throw-away babies in the garbage dumps of Cape Town, South Africa, as well as visiting a leper colony in Myanmar. LoBaido’s articles have been cited by Ivy League universities such as Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania. As a photographer, LoBaido made National Geographic in 2014.