Written by: Samriddha Raj Satyal - 24063, Grade XII
Posted on: 22 August, 2023
Introduction:
Are we the only species that’s the most powerful and intelligent or are we being controlled by some other beings? The Simulation Hypothesis is an idea that our reality could actually be some sort of a computer based simulation. Let’s unfold it more in this article.
The Simulation Hypothesis
What if the reality we are living is not actually the reality? This is a debatable topic somehow. The world is huge. Remember, I am using the word ‘world’, instead of ‘universe’ because there might be something bigger than the universe itself. When it comes to our existence, the question has been always unanswered or partially answered. There is no pure scientific explanation to our existence. The advancements of today’s computer and technology has theoretically reached a point where simulations could possibly exist. We have all heard of Artificial Intelligence. We humans operate AI, isn’t that some sort of simulation too? The potential existence of "glitches" or anomalies in our reality, as well as instances of synchronicity, could be interpreted as signs of a programmed simulation. The nature we live in, the rules we follow to live, and what if it is a block of code and we are being executed as a typical program? There might be an advanced civilization above us controlling us! Now this could be also debated as ‘what if this all was nothing but just a dream?’ The idea remains the same even though it is interpreted in a different way, but again, the answer remains a mystery.
Are we Really Advanced?
Now let’s suppose, everything I’ve mentioned so far is true to its best and we actually are a part of a simulated program of an advanced species. But could we ever get out of this trap? Could we ever, being the part of the program, break the entire system of the program and get out of it? Think of it like this, is it possible for an “if-else” statement to break the system instead of being executed and perform what is told to it? The answer I believe is ‘no’. An “if-else” statement cannot create its own functionalities and its own advancements. It follows what the program structure tells it. Now, in our case, we are the “if-else” statement. We cannot create our own functionalities to get out or to break the program ourselves. We are not advanced enough. Instead, I believe that we live in a nested world. We have further created a different simulation inside this big simulation. It is a simulation of fiction. We actually live in a matrix inside of a matrix, a nested matrix, I suppose.
Evidence of a Nested Matrix we Live in
If we could think for a second, the money is nothing but a piece of paper. Language we speak is the collection of different words and we have assigned meanings to it. The country boundaries we have made are nothing but an imaginary line, there are no such lines in the physical world itself. All the above examples support that we humans live in a completely fantasized world created by ourselves. Our perceptions and beliefs shape how we interact with the world. This is the most powerful proof or evidence that supports that we live in a nested matrix, Matrix A being the entire simulation and Matrix B being the simulation we have made inside ourselves. Now to this point, we are able to create functionalities even though we are a part of the program, but our capability has boundaries, just like the “if-else” loop has the parenthesis! We can never create functionalities that can take us out from those terminal parentheses and to take us out from the complete program. Instead, all we can do is create a nested “if-else” or a nested matrix.
The above diagram I made may be easier to understand what I have mentioned so far. Since we are the creator of Matrix B, we can get out of it. Getting out of this fictional world is a great achievement for a human. I believe Lord Buddha was enlightened as he escaped out of the Matrix B. But to this date, no human has escaped from Matrix A or the entire simulation.
The Relation between Simulation Theory and the Multiverse
The world is huge as mentioned earlier. Couldn’t we say that Matrix A is our entire universe? The above diagram shows that the entire simulation is bigger than the Matrix A(our universe), so couldn’t there be fit thousands of Matrix A inside of that big circle of the entire simulation? Here comes the multiverse theory. The theory suggests that there exists a lot of universes, all being unexplored. This is the multiverse. Now, for a human, we are not even capable of going outside of Matrix A(universe), so forget about the entire simulation. Instead, we live in the 5% explored universe which is the Matrix B. So, think, how small we are. We are nothing, literally nothing!
Conclusion
There is no way seven billion people can escape this entire simulation. This is the simulation hypothesis. We are bound, we have limitations. For a real time example, prisoners live in a jail, a completely different world but they are not able to escape out from the prison world. They don’t know how the real world is now. Likewise, we are in a jail of this simulation, which consists of infinite other jails like ours, we are happy but we cannot escape out of it ever!
