Matrix is ForkLog’s series of podcasts in which we analyse how the digital environment is transformed by virtual reality and augmented reality technologies, and discuss metaverses with pioneers: entrepreneurs, researchers, and philosophers. The guest of the new episode is the philosopher Alexandra Tanyushina, with whom we discuss how simulation hypotheses emerged and why they interest academic scholars.
1. We are living in a simulation (almost certainly). In the early 2000s, shortly before the first fully-fledged virtual reality systems appeared, and a few years after the release of the film “The Matrix,” among philosophers a sort of hype arose: let’s assess the mathematical probability that we live in a simulation.
In 2001, Swedish futurist Nick Bostrom wrote the cult paper, where he assessed the probability that we are loaded into a peculiar matrix. It, according to his calculations, tends toward 100%. Bostrom uses a neat argument based on three propositions: if one is false, we move to the next.
The first proposition states: computational powers that would allow us to create full-fledged computer simulations will never be realized — humanity will be overtaken by the next pandemic, the Third, Fourth, Fifth World War, and we will not reach the required level of development. Bostrom discards this thesis, assuming that sooner or later sufficient powers will appear.
The second proposition: a computer simulation will never be launched — for ethical reasons or some other reason, it doesn’t matter. This argument Bostrom also dismisses, noting that we are already actively modelling many different processes and are unlikely to stop.
The last proposition remains: if a simulation is possible and humanity is ready to launch it, then more than one such simulation will be launched. This means that statistically we are most likely in a simulation, not in reality.
2. People have contemplated something similar for more than a thousand years. To consider simulation, we do not need digital technologies. At the heart of the simulation hypothesis lies a fundamental thesis — our surrounding reality is unreal, illusory, fake. In ancient Hinduism and in some Buddhist texts one can encounter the concept of maya — the universal illusion, the play of the gods. The goal of any person is to emerge from this state and begin living a true, divine, sacred life.
The same is found in Antiquity. Plato’s theory states: all that is available to a person is shadows on the wall of the cave, shadows of the true ideas, which reside somewhere outside. This too is a simulation hypothesis. The gist is the same: somewhere there is a transcendental reality, more fundamental than ours.
The same will be discussed by many philosophers of the New Age. Immanuel Kant argued that “things-in-themselves” are fundamentally unknowable to us, and all that is accessible to us is the world of phenomena, appearances, our subjective experience. Later this idea was picked up by science fiction writers.
3. The simulation has a creator, but it’s better not to think about it. The idea of an evil being that creates the matrix originates in the Early Modern period. Its proponent is René Descartes, founder of rationalist philosophy. He suggested that the external world may be bewitched by a certain demon, eager to mislead us. Hence the so-called Cartesian scepticism: the view that we cannot reliably know any facts about the surrounding world. Philosophers have fought this postulate up to the present day.
The scenario outlined by Bostrom, as we have understood, is relatively optimistic: we — i.e. future humans — launched the simulation for some pragmatic purposes. Apparently, they need to study something, for example, how historical events unfolded in 2023. From this, by the way, follows the assumption: perhaps, living in this simulation, we need to take certain actions to please our nominal creators, otherwise they will switch off our simulation. And for that we need to understand their motives.
But there are versions that are even scarier: perhaps some child or, worse, a teenager started our simulation — just for fun. Some philosophers say that all this is for pornographic observation. This option cannot be denied, but in that case the question of the meaning of the simulation seems to be lost. It has no meaning, everything happens for entertainment.
4. Conceptually proving that we are not in a simulation is impossible. But what would such proof even give us? If we reflect on this question, the first reaction would be shock, an immediate desire to exit the simulation. To reclaim our “lost paradise,” since our current life experience (as it turns out, in the matrix) is not quite complete. But the problem is that we do not quite understand what a complete reality looks like. Perhaps it is not so good, and we ourselves decided to enter the simulation because that life is not very good. The discourse that the simulation is unequivocally bad and reality unequivocally good is incorrect. In other words, all negative connotations about an inauthentic simulation can be turned on their head.
Suppose on television they announced that we live in a simulation. A panic ensues. Of course, we want to go “outside” or at least talk to the creators. Look them in the eyes, ask: why? Demand to disconnect the matrix. A practical question arises immediately: how will we do this? Here I wake up and see my loved ones. Now I know that those around me are not actually people, but artificial intelligences. Should I, in the name of preserving my mental health, keep communicating with them the way I used to?
There is no universal answer to all these questions. Another matter is that perhaps we do not need to do anything, but simply continue living. That would be better for everyone — for the simulation, for those outside the matrix, and for those inside.
5. Proving consciousness is also not straightforward. In the theory of simulation there is a distinctly special branch, referring to the famous problem of other minds. By what criteria can we assess that our conversational partner is not simply a robot, artificial intelligence, or a zombie? We cannot prove the presence of consciousness in parents, friends, children, enemies, etc. And this problem persists when we move into the simulation.
Using solely behavioural and external manifestations of an agent we can with a very small probability assess whether it is a bearer of consciousness. In addition, there is the possibility that we are not dealing with a single artificial intelligence or a single real consciousness, but their combination — augmented consciousness. Current progress in the field of neural interfaces shows how tangled things can be.
6. By the way, we can increase the probability that we live in a simulation (and decrease it as well). In the early 2000s, when Bostrom, followed by Australian philosopher David Chalmers, began to claim that we already live in a simulation, this sparked thoughts on how we can influence the situation. The following line of argument emerged.
If we start now to develop ethical codes and other means that restrict the construction of high-functioning computer simulations, we will reduce the probability that someone in the future will launch a matrix in which we already live. And conversely, if we actively work on models and simulations now, we will increase the probability that we are already living in one of them.
Be that as it may, halting technological development on the basis of purely ethical considerations is practically impossible.
7. If the world is a simulation, then everything in the world is numbers. In analytic philosophy it is not said that simulations are more interesting than in continental philosophy. These are two different approaches to the same problem. If we believe the legend, the Wachowskis sisters, at the time the brothers, were inspired to The Matrix after reading Jean Baudrillard. Important motifs can be seen in the notions of virtuality in Henri Bergson, Gilles Deleuze, etc. The other question is that continental authors discuss existential, cultural, social, political aspects of the simulation hypothesis. Analytic philosophers, however, are interested in the old ontology: what follows from the theory of simulation at the most basic level?
At the core of this theory lies a simple thesis: our surrounding reality is information. A number. A collection of zeros and ones. Therefore analysts love to cite various mathematical and other empirical sciences. In physics, for example, a long-standing line of thought was digital physics: the hypothesis “it from bit” (it from bit), Wheeler’s hypothesis, the idea that the entire Universe is a giant computer, and so on.
8. The theory of simulation must be approached practically. “What if mom is a robot”, “how about the creators…” — this is, of course, interesting, especially if you’re a philosopher, but what practical value does the theory offer ordinary people? It makes sense to view all of the above as a global thought experiment. It helps to identify bugs in our thinking, understand what we mean by reality and what by virtuality, understand how digital metaphors operate in reasoning. This experience is useful for building virtual and augmented realities, metaverses, and so on. From this one can think about practical aspects: modelling codes for various objects, issues of post-digital aesthetics, etc.
The same David Chalmers in 2022 published a very curious book, Reality Plus: Philosophical Problems and Virtual Worlds. It is written in accessible popular-science prose. In it the author argues that events in VR are as important as events in “real reality”. This is a serious conceptual step because it gives us grounds to believe that our hybrid life — half in physical reality, half in digital — has value and is not at all less than life in the “analog”. What exactly this hybrid will turn out to be we do not yet know, but the future will be interesting. I am entirely in agreement with Chalmers on this conclusion.