Do We Live in a Computer Simulation Run by Our Descendants?

Whoa! Hi There. Have I got a wild idea for you today. But first things first, eh. On to the coffee and virtual treats. Okay…now I’m going to freak you out with another strange time and space theory. Ready?

A decade ago, a British philosopher put forth the notion that the universe we live in might in fact be a computer simulation run by our descendants. Double whoa, eh! While that seems far-fetched, perhaps even incomprehensible, a team of physicists at the University of Washington has come up with a potential test to see if the idea holds water

The concept that current humanity could possibly be living in a computer simulation comes from a 2003 paper published in Philosophical Quarterly by Nick Bostrom, a philosophy professor at the University of Oxford. In the paper, he argued that at least one of three possibilities is true:

• The human species is likely to go extinct before reaching a "posthuman" stage.
• Any posthuman civilization is very unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of its evolutionary history.
• We are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.

He also held that "the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation."

Currently, supercomputers using a technique called lattice quantum chromodynamics and starting from the fundamental physical laws that govern the universe can simulate only a very small portion of the universe, said Martin Savage, a UW physics professor.

The supercomputers performing lattice quantum chromodynamics calculations essentially divide space-time into a four-dimensional grid. That allows researchers to examine what is called the strong force, one of the four fundamental forces of nature and the one that binds subatomic particles called quarks and gluons together into neutrons and protons at the core of atoms.

"If you make the simulations big enough, something like our universe should emerge," Savage said. Then it would be a matter of looking for a "signature" in our universe that has an analog in the current small-scale simulations.

If such a concept turned out to be reality, it would raise other possibilities as well. For example, Davoudi suggests that if our universe is a simulation, then those running it could be running other simulations as well, essentially creating other universes parallel to our own.

"Then the question is, 'Can you communicate with those other universes if they are running on the same platform?'" she said.

In the picture above, the conical (red) surface shows the relationship between energy and momentum in special relativity, a fundamental theory concerning space and time developed by Albert Einstein, and is the expected result if our universe is not a simulation. The flat (blue) surface illustrates the relationship between energy and momentum that would be expected if the universe is a simulation with an underlying cubic lattice.

Got that? I knew you would. Meanwhile, I wonder what’s for lunch today? I nice turkey breast sandwich on multigrain bread with a dill pickle and a dash of honey Dijon mustard washed down with a refreshing mug of coffee. Yippee! Dimensionally speaking of course. Say… what happens if those folks in the future are simulating all of us and they stop the simulation? I guess they’d stop to exist as well, wouldn’t they? Dang…what a bummer!

See ya, eh!

Bob