in many Science fiction stories and movies such as popular Hollywood blockbuster movie series The Matrix speaks about this deep subject of Simulated Reality. In this post we are going to learn the history and the basics of the Simulation theory

what is Simulation Theory ?

Simulation Theory also known as simulation hypothesis is a theory that suggests that all of our reality including earth and the rest of the universe is a created as an artificial simulation Such as a Computer Simulation or something crated artificially.

History and origin of Simulation Theory

The Origin of this ideology can be Traced backed to Ancient Chinese and Greeks .

In Chinese Philosophy this ideology is spoken first by Chinese Philosopher Zhuang Zhou in his Famous Butterfly Dream , one day He saw a dream that he was a Butterfly here's a Quote of his writing in his book Zhuangzi , Zhuang Zhou Dreams of Being a Butterfly appears at the end of the second chapter, "On the Equality of Things", " Once, Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering about, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know that he was Zhuang Zhou. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuang Zhou. But he didn't know if he was Zhuang Zhou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that he was Zhuang Zhou. Between Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things."

In Ancient Greece Philosophers like Anaxarchus and Monimus suggested that the existing things are a scene in a painting and they represent impressions experienced in sleep or madness.

The New interpretation

in 2003 Swedish born philosopher Nick Bostrom published a hypothesis which was named "Are you living in a computer simulation? " his premise for his hypothesis was many science fictions and and many futurologists suggest that in the future the amount of computing power will be enormous and using this computing power later generations will run a very detailed simulation or multiple simulations of their ancestors or people like their ancestors which gives us the name "Ancestral simulation". Imagine these simulated people are conscious, Then it would prove that vast majority of minds like ours aren't the original race but a mere creation made by advance decedents of the original race.

Nick Bostrom's conclusion :

It is then possible to argue that, if this were the case, we would be rational to think that we are likely among the simulated minds rather than among the original biological ones.

Therefore, if we don't think that we are currently living in a computer simulation, we are not entitled to believe that we will have descendants who will run lots of such simulations of their forebears.

— Nick Bostrom, Are you living in a computer simulation?, 2003

Nick Bostrom proposed a trilemma for the argument which he doesn't directly suggest that we are living in a simulation but the chance of it is high . Nick's propositions are

"The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage (that is, one capable of running high-fidelity ancestor simulations) is very close to zero", or
"The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running simulations of their evolutionary history, or variations thereof, is very close to zero", or
"The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one."

if the advance posthuman civilizations have the enormous computing power and if they were interested in running an ancestral simulation which is indistinguishable from the reality to the simulated ancestors the number of simulated ancestors in the universe or the multiverse would exceed the number of real ancestors of the posthumans.

further to explain his trilemma Bostrom states that if (1) is true then we would never reach the level of posthumanity and will go extinct before that if (2) is true then the advance posthumans will not have the desire to run an ancestral simulation even though they have the technology to do so if (3) is true then we are certainly living in an simulated universe,

if number 3 argument is in fact correct then it will raise the question are the post humans running the ancestral simulation living in a real universe or are they simulated as well.

criticism of Bostrom's hypothysis

some philosophers disagree with Bostorm saying that the computer simulated humans will not have the real human consciousness or the same experience as the real humans.

Cosmologist Sean M. Carroll argues that if the posthumans decide to run an simulation they will run many simulation which will lead to making this reality the lowest level of simulation which implies that we cannot run simulations of such contradicts Bostrom's theory of us foreseeing post humans running an ancestral simulation .

Books Movies and TV Shows about Simulation theory

first instance of simulation theory on a scifi book in Simulacron-3 (1964) by Daniel F. Galouye (alternative title: Counterfeit World).

which tells a story of a virtual city developed by a corporation for marketing research purposes . where all the inhabitants are conscious and only one inhabitant knows about their nature. the book was later made as a movie in Germany called world on a wire (1973)