Do We Live in a Simulated Universe?

 Simulation Argument  

Richard Dawkins and Brian Greene recently discussed the notion that our universe might be simulated - even created by a pimply teenager in his garage from the future.

W ith his paper, the Simulation Argument, Nick Bostrom suggested a series of assumptions namely, 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, and we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.

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Bostrom also held that “the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become post-humans who run ancestor simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation.”

In the video above, Richard Dawkins' argument that we are probably not living in a simulation is that the simulation creator would have to be incredibly disciplined.  For example, in Second Life, a user can break the laws of physics and fly around.  In  our world we do not see any case where the laws of physics are arbitrarily breached.

Interestingly, the simulation argument has led some to point to it as evidence of a creator.


SOURCE  World Science Festival

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