The idea that we might be living in some kind of computer-generated artificial reality is growing ever more popular, even among respectable scientists. It’s something that Elon Musk likes to talk about whenever he gets the chance. He’s pretty much convinced that it’s true, saying:
“There’s a billion to one chance we’re living in base reality.”
Musk’s argument gets him very excited, and it goes like this:
Any technologically advanced civilisation that doesn’t blow itself up will inevitably develop computers, and those computers will eventually be able to run simulations that are so complex they appear real to the beings that exist within.
[Yes, there are lots of subtleties here that language and logic struggle to accommodate. What do real, beings and exist actually mean under these circumstances? But let’s ignore those and move on.]
It’s entirely possible that there are 400 billion planets in our galaxy alone, and there may be as many as two trillion galaxies in the observable universe. If just one in every billion planets follows a similar path to Earth, that’s around 800 trillion planets with beings that are capable of building a super-computer.
That’s a lot of planets. More than 100,000 for every human being alive today.
What’s more, if you can build one super computer you can build many, and each can run more than one simulation.
If you accept this theory, which was first put forward by Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom, back in 2003, you quickly end up with so many artificial realities that the chances that we live in a real, organic, squishy universe (or ‘base reality’) are vanishingly small.
There are many different objections to the simulation theory, but there’s also a paradox at its very core.
There's a fly in your ointment, Elon
The simulation argument begins with an observation of the number of stars in the universe.
Stars are easy to see, planets are not. However, we know that, on average, every star has between one and two planets, assuming the results of NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program (which has already discovered 5,388 alien worlds) can be extended throughout the universe.
Herein lies the paradox: if we are in fact part of an artificial reality, those stars are not real. They are simulated. Nothing more than bits of information, compiled and displayed by a computer, for us (the beings within the program) to interpret as stars.
And if they are not real, you certainly cannot build any theory of reality (or in this case non-reality) around their existence.
Proponents of the idea may argue that any simulation would be pointless unless it replicated a base reality, which means the real, squishy universe does contain all those stars and planets... and the theory holds firm.
That’s a whole new level of conjecture, way beyond the enormous amount of conjecture we’re already talking about. But if we’re going down the fantasy route (and we are), let’s try to imagine the circumstances in which a powerful race of computer nerds would want to fully replicate their own base reality.
Why re-create what already exists?
Unless it no longer exists…
We tend to carry out large-scale computer simulations when we want to understand some kind of pivotal, highly complex event, such as the formation of planetary systems and black holes, or interactions between sub-atomic particles.
Herein lies a rather unsettling possibility: we might be part of a program that is designed to replicate some kind of cataclysm. An event that ended the original ‘reality’ of the programmers. Maybe they barely escaped some all-encompassing disaster, using technology we can only imagine, by jumping into a parallel universe or different dimension. Now they want to find out what happened, and why.
Are there any events that could actually cause the premature and unforeseen destruction of an entire universe? Events that you might want to replicate, hoping to make sure they are never repeated?
That pesky Higgs Boson
At least one such possibility does exist. Though you should really buckle up. If you think that what’s gone before is highly speculative, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
The Higgs Boson is a particle… or force… or wave… or, most likely, a field… intimately connected with gravity. At least, that’s the theory. The Higgs has never been directly observed, experimentally, despite the Nobel Prize being awarded to its ‘discoverers’ back in 2013.
Anyway, as with all the fundamental particles and forces found in the dominant ‘Standard Model’ of physics, the Higgs has a very specific value: a mass of 126 GeV (equivalent to 126 hydrogen protons). One tiny change in this value and things get very unpleasant, very quickly.
Here’s where our thought-experiment moves up a gear.
For the universe to remain completely stable, its component parts must occupy the lowest value in their range of potential energies.
What does this mean? Imagine floating on your back in the Dead Sea, happy in the knowledge that the water cannot go anywhere, because you are already at the lowest point on the planet (430.5 meters below sea level). Only to discover that a neighbouring lake is 10 millimetres lower, and that you will soon be sitting in a puddle of mud.
Calculations show that the Higgs Boson might not occupy its lowest energy state, in which case it has the potential to flow ‘downhill’ to a lower value. This could start a chain reaction with the potential to destroy the entire universe.
Bummer.
We are talking about quantum mechanics here, so my Dead Sea analogy is a massive over-simplification. It’s also true that the timescales involved in such an event are mind-bindingly enormous. But the probability of a Higgs-related ‘vacuum instability’ forming somewhere in the universe, then rushing towards us at light speed, annihilating everything it touches, remains slightly greater than zero.
Perhaps the programmers of our simulated reality have somehow survived a Higgs-generated catastrophe. And are, at this very moment, exploring how it happened... using you, me and everything we see.
Rings around reality
Despite the various experiments now being proposed by supporters of simulation theory, I doubt that we will ever have proof one way or the other. And I don’t think it matters.
Coming back to the core contradiction: if we are in a simulation, all the stars we see are make-believe (including our own), and the simulation theory self-implodes.
And what would the 'destruction' of our universe really mean, if we are nothing but computer-generated avatars?
There's nothing for it, but to assume we do live in a base reality. In which case, I would like to be the first to thank Mother Nature for the incredible depth, endless complexity and astonishing beauty of the world we see around us.
At the same time, I will hedge my bets very slightly: if 'one-level-up’ programmers are reading this and laughing at the breathtaking ignorance of one of their creations (me), I would like to congratulate them on the stunning complexity of their simulation.
After all, a 10-cm blue-ringed octopus, bobbing along with its three hearts, nine brains, colour/texture changing skin and enough venom to kill both teams in a football match, along with the referee, is an astonishing thing…
… be it flesh and blue blood, or nothing but bits and bytes.
Additional Sources:
‘How the Higgs Boson might spell doom for the universe’ Scientific American (March 2013)
‘Is the universe a quantum fluctuation?’ Big Think (May 2023)
‘Odds are we’re living in a simulation, says Elon Musk’ The Verge (June 2016)
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