our lives, controlled from some guy's couch

And now, your daily dose of That Just Blew My Fucking Mind:

Until I talked to Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, it never occurred to me that our universe might be somebody else’s hobby. I hadn’t imagined that the omniscient, omnipotent creator of the heavens and earth could be an advanced version of a guy who spends his weekends building model railroads or overseeing video-game worlds like the Sims.
But now it seems quite possible. In fact, if you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom’s, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation.

This simulation would be similar to the one in “The Matrix,” in which most humans don’t realize that their lives and their world are just illusions created in their brains while their bodies are suspended in vats of liquid. But in Dr. Bostrom’s notion of reality, you wouldn’t even have a body made of flesh. Your brain would exist only as a network of computer circuits.

It's sort of like that scene in Animal House when Pinto looks at his thumb and declares that if there's an entire universe in there, that means that we're inside someone else's thumb, man!

Comments

[Damien]

If you read Seth Lloyd's Programming the Universe, then it's not that we're illusory, per se, but that we're Components Of The Computer. What's the computer computing? Itself, of course.

Lloyd's a pretty cool guy, and very open to answering questions.

[Tim Tripcony]

If this is all just a simulation, their AI engine has some serious bugs.

[tjp]

kind of like Horton hears a who by Dr Seuss. Maybe we are all living on a speck of dust.
===========================
Number of Operations Iraq Freedom and Enduring Freedom casualties
as confirmed by U.S. Central Command: 4088

[lauren]

several science fiction authors play with this idea or something like it.

Ken Macleod, Richard Morgan, and Jack McDevitt, have stories with some aspect of simulation or personality stored on Computer.

[Clay]

I've always contended that our lives are just the construct of some superior beings' roleplaying game.

When our lives are dull? Between game lull. When the crazy happens? High adventure.

Along with that, when we roleplay, we, too, are creating entire universes in which we experience things not possible in our own.

Clay

[Wil]

In that case, my Player has been rolling a lot of natural 20s lately.

Awesome.

/tempting fate

[Randy Farmer]

Monday: Late again, today, he'd be in trouble though he'd say he was sorry, he'd have to hurry out the bus.

Tuesday: Horace was so sad, he'd never had a girl that he could care for, and if he was late once more, he'd be out.

CHORUS

Don't be afraid,
just knock on the door,
Well he just stood there mumblin' and fumblin.
Then a voice from above
said -- "Horace Wimp,this is your life, Go out and find yourself a wife. Make a stand and be a man, And you will have a great life plan."

-- Electric Light Orchestra

[Myshtuff]

I always thought our world was just some hobby lobby project on some old guys desk somewhere far out in the universe and that he just forgot about us one day. Since then we have been on your own without his concern for us or care about what we do or how our world unfolds. Thats just me though. Don't anyone dare take this idea. It's going to be a future screenplay for me. :)

[pat]

End of Men In Black - we're in someone's marble bag.

[Freeman]

Professor Moriarty is spending the rest of his life in a two inch hologram cube aboard the Enterprise and enjoying every minute of it.
TNG Episode 138: "Ship in a Bottle".

[Chad.Hicks]

They're running a Micro$oft OS, no doubt.. This explains everything.

[EdwoodCA]

Chad.Hicks says: "They're running a Micro$oft OS, no doubt.. This explains everything."

Absolutely correct. But, if it were an Apple OS, we wouldn't have a sliver of the variety of life. And that would be boring/homogenistic.

/Apple truly designs elegant pieces.
//Go on a photo shoot and you'll see half a dozen identical MacBook Pros.
///Bunch of clones.
////Ironic.

[Sara Niggleron]

I work in a very low-key, albeit fucked up arts organization, and when someone here is intensely busy we accuse them of LARP-ing office.

[angie k]

I'm convinced we're just one huge holo-novel. I'll keep my ears out for someone calling, "Computer - arch." I do wish the writer would have programmed me a better wardrobe, though. Although, who knows... it could all be part of the plan. O_o

P.S. The red shirt pics from the con are geektastic! :)

[jclark666]

Given enough 'reasonable premises' anything can be proven. (See the ontological arguments.)

If I'm a simulation, and I'm conscious, then the machine that is running me is capable of consciousness. Following the logic used in this theory, that machine is, itself, probably a simulation. The machine that simulation runs on must therefore be capable of consciousness. Wash, rinse, repeat forever.

Our children have created many consciousness-capable machines to run historical simulations of us having children who create many consciousness-capable machines to run historical simulations of us? To the infinite power? Uh huh. Turing's Halting Theorem pretty much rules that out.

[And for those of you who just read the ontological arguments and now think you have irrefutable proof of God's existence:

1.) Being loved by all is a perfection (or greater than being loved by some, depending on which version you're using).

2.) I do not love God.

3.) Therefore God is not perfect (or greatest).

4.) Therefore God does not exist.]

[ThemePark]

Back in the 60's when I was a kid......
Ah yes.... in the summertime, at night I would sometimes lay (or is it lie) on my back on the sidewalk at night and talk with my friends. They would talk about TV shows, sports etc. I would stare into the stars, contemplating the universe's vastness, and say things like, " maybe we're all just living in a bubble on the inside of someones fish aquarium"
- (sound of crickets)
Then my friends would say, "hey man, I gotta get home"
It's a lonely road, but it's the only one I know.

[IanKen]

Vernor Vinge and his singularity is to blame! Damn you Vernor!

[LinksMonkey]

Was sitting on my couch reading your blog.

This post has amused me - I will not obliterate the planet.

You're welcome!

[gbina]

So, basically what we are saying is...Bush isn't really responsible for being a mando major conservative religious a$$hole who is going to destroy all good things in life. He has no real power over his own actions and is the pawn of some sadistic role playing git who thinks it's funny to torture his characters and break his toys. Hmmmm....maybe I won't be such a sadistic git next time.

[threechordme]

why haven't any of you read Descartes?
i mean you all have definitly heard the qoute
on this very topic
" i think therefore i am"

read his first and second meditations

its always fun to see how many people know that qoute
but dont know that it was part of a thought sequence not just a stand alone qoute

[akashik]

threechordme,

Came here to say the same thing. Seems Nick Bostrom is almost 400 years too late on his idea - or just forgot he learnt about Descartes during his first year of Philosophy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes

René Descartes:
March 31, 1596 – February 11, 1650

[Saren]

Have you ever seen the movie The Thirteenth Floor?

[raphael]

This is sorta reminiscent of that head-warping moment in King’s The Gunslinger, which of course I shall not repeat lest I be a spoiler-man.

But it is a very similar example of that universe within a universe, we-are-just-a-germ-in-someone-else’s-planet kind of thing.

[claire]

That is pretty mind blowing. His theory makes more sense to me than most other explanations of the universe I've heard.

[Dan from Wordage]

Here's a radical theory: maybe we all live in this huge place called The Universe, and we're made of stuff called Flesh and Blood. Crazy or what?!