Are We Living In A Simulation?

Scientists have calculated that our universe originated from the singularity that was the big bang. Religious types have concluded that “God is”. With our current state of the art in both science and religion, questions such as “What created the big bang?” or “What or who created God?” are unanswerable. Does the question: “Are we living in a simulation?” belong to one of these unanswerable questions? Well, let’s at least try to find out.

This essay is supported by Generatebg

The Lower Dimensional Being

In geometry, a one-dimensional entity can only be exposed to one reference frame. In other words, it is a point. A two-dimensional entity can exist in space in two dimensions, and is simultaneously exposed to one-dimensional entities. For example, it could be a square that contains several points. A three-dimensional entity can exist in space in three dimensions, and is simultaneously exposed to both two-dimensional and one-dimensional entities. For example, it could be a cube that contains squares and points. Let’s say that human beings are three-dimensional beings. We think we are smart when we observe ants living in their arbitrary colony in New Zealand, unbeknown to the existence of the continents: Europe or Asia. We are indeed smart ‘er’, but by the same extrapolation, we do not doubt (often enough) if we are the equivalent of ants for some other higher dimensional being. For a chicken that grows up in a farm, the farm comprises its world. For all it cares, it gets food at certain times, it gets to move inside certain boundaries, and do certain chicken-things with other chicken-friends and chicken-adversaries. It is not aware of what exists outside of the farm, both in a materialistic sense as well as in a phenomenological sense. By analogy and extrapolation, we could say that the human race comprising a lower dimensional being in relation to higher layers of existences is very much a possibility.

The God Being

If we assume the above (potentially strong) possibility, one of the questions that pops up is “Who created us?” “God” has been our answer so far, and we have religion to thank for that.

Taking an example once cited by George Hotz (geohot), a videogame character like Mario exists in his own universe that follows its own rules. These rules might come across as arbitrary to Mario, but his Gods knew what they were doing. His Gods were none other than the videogame’s developers. Note here how the Gods are not tracking the actions of each and every instantiation of Mario. Neither are these Gods omnipotent or omniscient. Heck, Mario will likely outlive his Gods.

Now if we were created in an analogous way to Mario, it could be a sorry realization that we are not as important as we think we are. In essence, we might be the science project of a higher dimensional school kid, who is neither omniscient nor omnipotent, and doesn’t bother with the micro details of each of our lives. Oh snap!

Mathematics Gives Us Hope Where Physics Lets Us Down

Without going into deeply profound and frankly, difficult mathematical theories, our best efforts so far tell us that the physics we experience could be arbitrarily changed in different simulations (alternate universes anyone?), whereas the mathematics is highly likely to hold across the different simulations. Why is this relevant? Because it connects to the word: entropy.

Entropy is defined in many ways in science. It is used as a measure of randomness, uncertainty, disorder, chaos etc. It can be also taken as the measure of pure information in any observed system. The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of a closed system only goes up with time. Now this is called a ‘law’ for a reason. From our entire collective empirical knowledge, not once has anything happened to disprove this ‘law’.

If we consider the entire universe as a system, its entropy can only increase with time. Now that’s a bold claim. Let’s prove this in a weak, but logical manner. Remember when I told you that entropy could be taken as the measure of pure information in a system? Well, if pure information is entropy, every day that passes gives us more information that we did not have a day before. New stuff happens. Therefore, entropy can only increase with time, as the amount of information only goes up with time. And in a grandiose fashion, all of this is related to why we are unable to reverse time. I know what you’re thinking now. I want to experience time travel too.

In any case, our current understanding of physics does not allow entropy to decrease with time, but our mathematics just might. If we could discover ways to decrease entropy, we might have a chance at interacting with higher dimensions. In fact, Isaac Asimov covered this in his work: The Last Question. But please note that even though reversing entropy just “might” allow us to interact with higher dimensions, the act in itself requires us to acquire / discover abilities that we associate with what we currently call “God”.

Coupled States

Regardless of whether we can interact with higher dimensions or not, there has to be a state change in the higher dimension linked with a state change in the lower dimension. Imagine if a point changes its position in the cube. It could be the point experiences darkness instead of sunlight in its world. But for the cube, the point changed its geometric location. In other words, the state change of the lower dimensional entity is linked to a state change in the higher dimensional entity. With this knowledge, we might be able to interact with higher dimensions. In some sense, the field of quantum mechanics is working on solving problems like these.

Conclusion – Are We Living in a Simulation?

Are we living in a simulation? Most probably, yes. If you push me for a certain answer, I would say “I don’t know.” It is not that the question is unanswerable. It is just that we do not have as yet, sufficient knowledge to work out a meaningful answer to the question. All this article manages to achieve is to give a glimpse into the array of reasons as to why the question has no answer as of today.

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Credit: Isaac Asimov, and George Hotz (geohot)