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?"
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.