Is the world around us real? Can we just be virtual "babbling fools" to entertain "other entities"? A famous astrophysicist believes not, but he has no evidence
From the morning chill to your consciousness
You have probably already encountered the hypothesis that all the world around us that we see, hear and feel is not real, but only simulated by a computer. But according to Bostrom's "revolutionary" essay, such a simulation would be a "fraud" on a much larger scale. For it wouldn't just be the fake morning frost, your cat's soft fur, or the smartphone whose screen you're reading this article on, that would be simulated by computation to make your (unreal but very believable) bus journey go by faster.
As British cosmologist Paul Davies describes in his book The Cosmic Jackpot, your brain would be part of that computer simulation - the computer would have to artificially create your mental experiences and imagery, in short, your entire consciousness. You yourself would be a virtual being - a figment of your own imagination. Computing technology would probably not simulate the whole of reality 24/7, it would only create specific perceptions as needed - like when you play a video game on a computer and it only renders the part of the scene you see on the monitor.
Without evidence, we're at a standstill.
Does that sound absurd and unimaginable to you? Ironically, it's not so easy to prove that our world is real. More than two decades have passed since 2003, when Bostrom introduced the so-called simulation argument, but we still don't have the scientific tools to reliably disprove - or confirm - this idea of reality.
And it is precisely on the absence of clear scientific evidence that Neil deGrasse Tyson, a science populariser who has in the past appeared in the top 10 most influential scientists and in Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world, bases his scepticism.
While the renowned astrophysicist acknowledges that the idea of life in simulation is fascinating, he recommends that we develop it on a more philosophical level. Science needs to be based on evidence - and without it, experts simply have nothing to investigate, test or verify.
Are we serving other creatures for fun?
In 2016, Tyson told Scientific American magazine that he estimated the probability of living in a simulation as "very high", specifically 50:50. He stated that since we share over 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees, yet have incomparably higher intelligence, some other creatures might similarly surpass us in intellect. "In their presence, we would be drooling, babbling fools," he remarked. "If that's the case, I can easily imagine that everything in our lives is a creation of some other entity for its amusement."
In other comments, the scientist also let it be known that if we were really living in the simulation, it would probably be so cleverly designed that we wouldn't know it was a fake - which makes uncovering the truth even more difficult.
Tyson (with his trademark humor) expressed his skepticism in 2020 when he discussed on StarTalk what knowledge convinced him that we don't live in a simulation. "What do all these simulated universes have in common? They have the [computer] power to simulate themselves. Do we have that power now? No, we don't," the astrophysicist conveyed his train of thought. "So either we're the real world, or we're the one in that chain that's still evolving and trying. To one day create a simulation in its own world."
Well, this "skeptical" option still sounds more sympathetic than the fate of virtual beings who are perceived by more intelligent entities as ridiculous "babbling idiots" and don't even know it, does it?
