Is Reality a Simulation Created by a Vastly Superior Civilization?

Have you heard this philosophical argument – that while we may think we are flesh and blood beings in a physical world, our actual reality is far more likely to be a simulation created by a far more advanced civilization?  This argument comes from a thought experiment in philosopher Nick Bostrom’s paper "Are You Living in a Simulation?"

 Recently at Recode’s Annual Code Conference, the entrepreneur Elon Musk was asked about this and replied why he believed that this was indeed the case.

Here is the core of his argument:

"40 years ago, we had Pong. Two rectangles and a dot. Now, 40 years later, we have photorealistic 3D with millions playing simultaneously. If you assume any rate of improvement at all, then the games will become indistinguishable from reality, even if that rate of advancement drops by 1000 from what it is now. It's a given that we’re clearly on a trajectory that we’re going to have games that are indistinguishable from reality. It would seem to follow that the odds that we’re in base reality is 1 in billions."

After giving this argument, Musk asks, “Tell me what’s wrong with that argument.”

You can watch the question and answer here.

Well, I would argue that there is something left out of the reasoning.  First of all, we might ask what exactly is the difference between what we call reality (for lack of a better word) and a simulation.  That is, we have to establish at the beginning if the two really could be the same.  And I would argue that there is something very important that distinguishes  simulations (like what we play in video games) and what we experience in our everyday world.

And the difference is that we are experiencing something.  We are conscious of various kinds of things.  Perhaps all we are conscious of are illusions.  (Descartes and the Matrix movies explored this possibility).  But we are nevertheless having a conscious experience and that is more that one can say about avatars within the World of Warcraft or whatever your video game of choice happens to be.  And as video and all sorts of other simulations advance (as they surely will) and become more lifelike, we have no reason to believe that will experience anything.

The source of our experience, why we are conscious of anything remains a mystery.  Perhaps one day we will solve that mystery and find away to weave that into a simulated reality.  But the “hard problem” of consciousness remains vexing, so perhaps we shouldn’t count on it being solved anytime soon.  Based on the progress we've made in all the centuries we have been debating it, we might be as likely to invent time travel.  

(By the way, I am not denying we've made progress in understanding ways our brain and nervous systems function to facilitate our experiences.  I'm talking about the how or why of subjective experience itself.)

But if in a thousand years or two, we do find a way to create simulations that are having consciousness experiences, then for all intense and purposes, we have become gods.  Maybe that will happen at some point down the road.  But I don't think I'll be putting it in the category of things that are overwhelmingly likely to happen.