Are We Living in a Simulation?
At some point, most of us have wondered: what if this is all just… fake? Not “fake” like a trick or a lie, but fake in the sense that everything around us—our lives, the universe, every thought and feeling—could just be running on someone else’s computer. It’s an idea that keeps coming back in philosophy, science fiction, and late-night conversations. The more you poke at it, the stranger the world can start to feel.
The Simulation Argument: Why Bother Entertaining This?
The simulation argument really caught fire when philosopher Nick Bostrom published his famous paper, “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?”
He laid out a chain of logic that’s tough to shake:
- If it’s possible to simulate conscious beings, and
- Advanced civilizations get the tech to do it, and
- They actually run these simulations,
…then the number of simulated beings would soon outnumber the original, “real” ones by a huge margin. In that scenario, just by probability, you’re way more likely to be simulated than real.
One quote that sticks in my head:
“Existence of an extremely large number of simulations created by many different civilizations in a potentially infinite universe implies that there are other copies of each person in different simulations. There is a very large but finite number of possible people, limited by different combinations of atoms, and if the number of the simulations is larger than the number of possible people, people will repeat in the simulations.”
Think about it. If this is true, you might have lived your same life, with the same thoughts and memories, more than once—in more than one universe.
Looking for Glitches and “Edges”
People love the idea of “glitches in the Matrix.” Strange déjà vu, bizarre coincidences, the moments when things feel just a little too off. Are these mistakes in the code? Are we seeing the limits of our simulation?
One way to frame it is:
“What if the unknowns we strive to understand are not inherent mysteries of the cosmos, but rather the edges of the simulated world, the points where the rendering becomes computationally expensive or where the creators have deliberately obscured the underlying code?”
Physics gives us plenty of mysteries. Some, like the observer effect in quantum mechanics, or the fine-tuning of the universe’s physical constants, seem almost designed—too precise, too odd. But does that really point to a simulation, or are these just mysteries we haven’t cracked yet?
Consider the case of the Pioneer anomaly. For years, it looked like the Pioneer spacecraft was behaving in ways that didn’t make sense. Some wondered if this was a hint. In the end, it was solved—a tiny force from leaking propellant explained almost everything (). Still, the wish to see signs of the simulation in cosmic mysteries remains powerful.
Can a Simulation Even Work? The Physics and the Problems
The big challenge is detail. Simulating the entire universe, down to every atom and photon, is a ridiculous computational task. Some scientists have run the numbers: just storing the info for even a small chunk of our world would require more energy and computing power than any civilization could ever muster.
“Simulating even a small portion of the universe at a high level of detail would require exaflops of computing power, the energy costs could be astronomical... On the other hand, the human brain is highly efficient at processing information, using approximately 20 watts of power.”
Perhaps it doesn’t all need to be simulated at once. Maybe it’s just like a video game, where only the part you see is rendered. Maybe the creators cut corners, filling in the details only when someone’s looking.
Or maybe, as some theorize, what we experience is a “synthetic dream”—not a literal copy of the universe, but a highly targeted, subjective simulation inside the mind.
“The path forward lies not in attempting to build a digital cosmos, but in embracing the elegance and efficiency of synthetic dreams. These targeted simulations offer a more manageable, resource-efficient, and ethically responsible approach to exploring the possibilities of simulated realities.”
Why Run a Simulation At All?
If we’re simulated, there must be a reason. Here are a few possibilities people have thrown out over the years:
- Curiosity: Maybe advanced civilizations (or AI) run simulations to explore how life and intelligence develop.
- Testing: Maybe we’re part of a series of experiments—see how a civilization handles risk, or what happens when certain conditions change.
- Fermi Paradox: If alien civilizations are running the numbers on how often intelligent life arises, they might use countless simulations to estimate their odds. But if they themselves are simulated, the whole chain gets stranger and stranger.
- Ethical Experiments: It could be that smaller, contained “synthetic dreams” are the only simulations allowed, since full-scale ones pose bigger moral risks.
One quote lays it out:
“Humanity’s location at the beginning of the 21st century could be best explained by the fact that this period is in a scientific Fermi simulation by an alien civilization or future humanity-based AGI simulating variants of its own origin, which could be called a singularity simulation. This means that humanity could be tested for different scenarios of global catastrophic risks, and no matter what the result of the test is, the simulation of us would be turned off relatively soon, in tens to hundreds of years from now.”
And another twist:
“If someone starts a simulation of his past but commits to terminate the simulation if it becomes nested (the simulation starts a simulation), he basically has given himself the death penalty, as he most likely is already in such a simulation.”
Are There Glitches, or Is It Just Us?
Even if the idea sounds neat, evidence is thin. The “glitches” are usually solved by science, not a peek behind the curtain. But there are deeper, stranger thoughts—like whether the mathematical structure of the universe is the “code,” or if déjà vu means you’re repeating a simulated loop.
“The mathematical structure we observe in the universe could be a reflection of the underlying code of the simulation. The simulator might be using mathematics as the language of their simulation engine, but mathematics does not create reality.”
And another, almost poetic take:
“You’ve been to this beach before, Norea. A million times, but you don’t remember them. We’ve had this conversation a million times before, Norea, but you don’t remember. You know it’s an algorithmic beach, and you know what that means and what that says about the reality of your reality. It’s a radical loss of meaning. When there’s no way out either to the right or to the left maybe you should think about looking up. Look, the sun sets. A sunset is just the core code of the original LyAV. Too bad you won’t remember these words on your next attempt, Norea!”
What If We Are Simulated? Does It Even Matter?
The weirdest part of the simulation theory is that even if it’s true, it might not change anything about how you live your life. You still feel, think, love, struggle. You still experience sunsets, even if they’re just code or memory.
Some scientists, like Sabine Hossenfelder, point out that even if we spotted patterns that look artificial, there’s no way to know if they’re proof of a simulation, or just the underlying laws of nature.
In the end, maybe the only real “glitch” is the human urge to ask questions with no clear answer.
Final Thoughts
Maybe this is code. Maybe it’s not. Maybe we’re “synthetic dreams,” or a weird accident of evolution in a universe that doesn’t care. Either way, asking if we’re in a simulation opens the door to a different kind of thinking—a way to question everything, even reality itself.
If it is a simulation, whoever built it has a wild imagination.
References
1. Nick Bostrom – The Simulation Argument Are You Living in a Computer Simulation? https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html
2. Scientific American – Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? By Clara Moskowitz https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation/
4. Space.com – Pioneer Anomaly Spacecraft Mystery Solved
https://www.space.com/16648-pioneer-anomaly-spacecraft-mystery-solved.html
5. Sabine Hossenfelder – Are We Living in a Simulation? YouTube (video essay by physicist Sabine Hossenfelder)
youtube.com/watch?v=p4U4oG4gkVg
6. Energy Efficiency of the Human Brain The Efficient Brain: Energy Usage and Brain Power David Attwell & Simon Laughlin (Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism, 2001) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1693092/
7. Forgotten Languages https://forgottenlanguages-full.forgottenlanguages.org/