Take some time to think about the world around you. Think about the towering cities around the world all the way down to every single blade of grass on our entire planet… Now imagine the blue sky in its vastness, and imagine the limitless space surrounding our planet that encompasses our universe. The billions of galaxies that are spread throughout the universe and the quintillions of planets that compose each galaxy.
Huge huh? An unfathomable amount of detail is found throughout our universe… Now what if I told you that this was all part of a simulation. That we were only digitally created codes of memory that simply believe we exist, but in reality, we’re nothing more than a Sims video game character. Imagine that the entire human race and the vast universe we live in was all part of a virtual reality.
Seems almost like the plot to the next Matrix movie, right? Just continue reading, and I’ll explain to you why this theory just may prove to be more realistic than it seems.
To begin explaining how this theory is even feasible, lets travel 40 years back in time to the first video game created, Pong! Who didn’t love pong, a one-pixel dot bouncing back and forth against two boards with the end goal to score more points than your opponent. Now let’s travel to the present-day video game experience. With virtual reality games becoming more popular and the advancing graphics that are getting closer to looking unrecognizable from real life, if progress drops 1000 times slower with video games advancing, we will still reach realistic graphics in the relatively near future.
So how do video games relate to our universe living in a virtual reality? Their progress shows that with advancing technology, humans will eventually have the potential to copy the trillions of neurons in the human mind and upload them into a massive machine known as a quantum computer. This will essentially cause this person to consciously believe he is living within that computer’s digitally created universe. (One interesting fact is that we have recently uploaded a worm’s consciousness into a computer and caused it to believe it was simply living in a realistic environment. Click HERE to check the worm video out).
There is a common argument that our planet does not contain enough energy to process a quantum computer. If this is the case we will have to branch out in our galaxy to inhabit and utilize other planets or even suns for their energy, but we shall approach this issue when the time comes to build a quantum computer.
With our approaching ability to create our own virtual realities, the question arises, what if we are already in a virtual reality? Whose to say a higher being has not already created billions of virtual universes and we just happen to be one of them. Deciding whether we are living in a virtual reality based on these statements becomes more of a dart throwing game where we’re hoping to land on “actual reality” rather than the millions of virtual realities.
Supporting the case of virtual realities, Neil DeGrasse Tyson believes we have a 50/50 chance of living in a virtual reality, while Elon Musk claims we only have a one in one-billion shot at living in an actual reality over virtual. To further Elon Musk’s claims in virtual reality, he claims there are three courses that human existence can pursue. The first is if the human existence gains the potential to create a virtual reality but we decide this action is immoral and choose to refrain, the second is that human existence hits the “great filter” (I will discuss this in another blog) and becomes extinct, and the third is that we are living in a virtual reality. Musk believes the third course is without a doubt the most likely.
Although I can easily dive deeper into the theory that our universe is inside a virtual reality by incorporating how the arguments of a higher being come in to play and the fact that our universe has mathematical laws of physics similar to video games, my blog would seem as endless as the universe itself! So, on this note I leave you to ponder over the theory of living in a virtual reality. Perhaps the creator of this virtual reality is focusing on you right now, or perhaps we may one day possess our own virtual realities and achieve the status of gods? Never stop questioning.
Click HERE for an interesting video on our universe living inside a virtual reality as well as further explaining subjects I mentioned in this blog.
