“There’s a kind of faulty logic to why a lot of people think we’re living in a simulation.”
reality check
One of the most unusual speculations in science and technology is that the universe itself is not real.
The simulation theory, or the idea that all of our perceived reality is a virtual creation of a sophisticated extraterrestrial – or future human – society, has a lot of support among big names like SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, the philosopher from Oxford Nick Bostrom, and more recently a bunch of kids on TikTok.
But the idea is almost certainly nonsense, said mathematician Jonathan Bartlett, director of a nonprofit STEM research organization called The Blythe Institute. The mind matters. The simulation theory, he argues, is based on faulty logic, which means that it is more likely that we are actually living in reality.
Stacking turtles
To make his point, Bartlett considers the technology required to simulate physical reality in a virtual environment.
“I can make a model of atoms moving, but it actually requires entire computers, all of which are made up of billions of atoms, to do this simulation,” Bartlett said. Mind Matter News. “And so you end up with a space problem that you can’t simulate as much as you have reality. And so even if you could do a perfect simulation of reality, it would have to be a smaller reality than this that you’re simulating it with.”
Logic challenge
This becomes a problem for the simulation theory argument that if an advanced civilization learns to simulate reality, we would more likely than not live in a simulation because the simulated entities would eventually learn to do the same. and would create a series of simulations all the time. descent.
“There’s a kind of flawed logic that’s why a lot of people think we’re living in a simulation,” Bartlett said. Mind Matter News.
READ MORE: Jonathan Bartlett explains why we don’t live in a simulated universe [Mind Matters News]
Learn more about simulation theory: Kids on TikTok are convinced we’re living in a simulation
