Why Elon Musk, Neil deGrasse Tyson believe we’re inside a video game created by a smarter race

BILLIONAIRE investor Elon Musk, along with some of the world’s smartest people, believe we are living in a giant video game — and their theories will blow your mind.

YOU might think you’re sitting in a chair, reading the news, right now.

But what if the newspaper isn’t really there? What if the chair is made not of wood or plastic but computing code?

And what if your entire existence is taking place inside one of billions of universe-wide simulations created by an advanced alien race or even your significantly smarter successors?

It might sound like a spin-off from The Matrix but the simulation hypothesis — placing the world inside an unfathomably expansive video game — is becoming increasingly popular with some of the world’s most famous minds, from SpaceX founder Elon Musk to astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk is one supporter of ‘the simulation hypothesis’. Picture: AAP Image/Ben Macmahon

Two Silicon Valley billionaires are even rumoured to be investing in a way to break out of the global simulation, and futurists say it will only continue to gain more followers thanks to Musk’s strident support.

Plus, while some sceptics and theoretical physicists have sought to disprove the idea, none have ultimately stopped the momentum of the seemingly outlandish idea.

Simulation theory came to prominence for many when Musk unexpectedly declared there was a “one in billions” chance humans were living in a real world, shocking the audience and even the hosts at a Los Angeles technology conference.

READ MORE: Elon Musk says artificial intelligence could endanger humans

But the concept behind simulation theory dates back to the 1600s, when French philosopher Rene Descartes argued an evil genius might be employing “all his energies in order to deceive me”.

The 1999 film The Matrix brought the theory to life. Actors Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne in a stunt scene.

The argument served to make people question more of their reality, and whether they could really trust their own senses, but modern philosophers take this idea to the next level.

Musk’s ideas are similar to those in Oxford University professor Nick Bostrom’s 2003 paper, Are You Living in a Computer Simulation, which argues there will be “enormous amounts of computing power” in the future, and humans will use that computational grunt to create simulations of those who came before them.

“One thing that later generations might do with their super powerful computers is run detailed simulations of their forebears or people like their forebears,” Bostrom writes. “Because their computers would be so powerful, they could run a great many such simulations.

“Then it could be the case that the vast majority of minds like ours do not belong to the original race but rather to people simulated by the advanced descendants of an original race.”

In short, Bostrom argues it’s more likely that we are all part of a simulation rather than real blood-and-bone humans.

Supporters of simulation theory argue there’s a very small chance that the world we live on is real, as in The Matrix films.

To argue the case, Musk also points to advances in modern video game technology and virtual reality as proof that we are on the path to creating our own simulations.

“The strongest argument for us being in a simulation probably is the following: 40 years ago we had Pong. Like two rectangles and a dot. That was what games were,” he says.

“Now, 40 years later, we have photorealistic, 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously and it’s getting better every year. Soon we’ll have virtual reality, augmented reality.

“If you assume any rate of improvement at all, then the games will become indistinguishable from reality, even if that rate of advancement drops by a thousand from what it is now.

“So given that we’re clearly on a trajectory to have games that are indistinguishable from reality, and those games could be played on any set-top box or on a PC or whatever, and there would probably be billions of such computers or set-top boxes, it would seem to follow that the odds that we’re in base reality is one in billions.”

Musk’s support for simulation theory won the idea an audience as many top technologists pay attention to whatever gamble or concept he backs, Australian futurist Anders Sorman-Nilsson says.

“Marc Andreessen, a big Silicon Valley venture capitalist, said recently if you invest anything against Elon Musk, you’re investing against the future of humanity,” he says.

“There might be some merit to it. I’m not going to claim that aliens are driving our behaviour every day, but could it be true that we live in some kind of Matrix? It’s certainly a possibility and something we should all meditate on a little bit.”

Famous astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson says he would not be surprised if our reality w

Musk is hardly the only supporter of simulation theory, however.

Outspoken believers include MIT physicist Zohreh Davoudi, futurist Ray Kurzweil, as well as noted astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson who says just as mammals can’t perform trigonometry despite similar DNA to humans, a similar life form could be much smarter than humans.

“It is easy for me to imagine that everything in our lives is just the creation of some other entity for their entertainment,” he explains. “So whatever the likelihood is — zero per cent, one per cent, 17, 42, no answer, I’m saying the day we learn that it is true, I will be the only one in the room saying ‘I’m not surprised’.”

It depends on the room. Two unnamed tech billionaires have reportedly hired scientists to figure out a way to break out of our simulation, if it exists.

Simulation theory has plenty of detractors too, of course. German theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder argues the idea ignores the laws of nature, may have to “overthrow quantum mechanics,” and its supporters simply don’t have enough evidence to back up their assertions.

Oxford University researchers also used complex sums to back the theory that even recreating a small part of our reality would “require a memory built from more atoms than there are in the universe”.

But Sorman-Nilsson says the simulation hypothesis is likely to continue to lead discussions in Silicon Valley, where it feeds into ideas around artificial intelligence, “transhumanism,” and even uploading minds to the cloud to live on after death.

“The technology field is moving into ideas of philosophy and meditation and religion and thought,” he says. “We could one day have our mental abilities extended by technology.”

That is if our lives aren’t actually simulated inside a technological creation already, of course.

Originally published as Why Elon Musk, Neil deGrasse Tyson believe we’re inside a video game created by a smarter race