Are We Real?
“Who am I ?” “What is my purpose ?” These are some of the questions humankind has wondered since time immemorial. Every great mind who has pondered upon these questions have their take on the subject. Aristotle once said,
“the purpose of life is earthly happiness or flourishing, that can be achieved via reason and the acquisition of virtue.”
In contrast, Camus has a grimmer version
“there isn’t a meaning of life, and we can’t make one either”
cheerful fella, wasn’t he?
But when we ask questions like “Are we even real ?” “Are our thoughts real ?” then the answers to the previous ones don’t matter to us anymore.
So, ARE WE REAL? Well, it’s difficult to answer until we define what real is, which is quite troublesome and a topic for another possible article. So, let me rephrase that question, “ Are we in a dream or an illusion of some kind?”. There are various theories around it, and I will discuss two of them that I think are most relevant.
The Simulation Hypothesis
Well, if you are thinking about Neo and The Matrix, you are not wrong. This theory suggests precisely that, though it does not necessarily mean that the species that have simulated us are siphoning power from our actual bodies, our real bodies might not be there at all. We could be characters in a video game played by a 13-year-old, which I agree will be a very dull game, but it’s possible. Although it will not be cheap if we go by human standards and not to mention the near infinite compute power this simulation will require. Just to put things into perspective, there are 10¹⁷ synapses in a human brain per second. So, simulating a human for only a year would require about 30 X 10⁶ secs X 10¹⁷ brain synapses to be simulated. Now, multiply that with our population, and you get an enormous number. Though, it is to be noted that we are assuming the universe that our creators reside in follows the same laws that govern our universe. Furthermore, Moore’s law indicates that we can achieve such computing power given time.
For the time being, let us assume that we are in fact, a part of a simulation and quickly go over the possibilities.
- The Reason
Now, what could possibly be the reason for our creators to have made this enormous illusion. According to Nick Bostrom, the guy who solidified this “Simulation hypothesis.”
We could be a part of a history lesson for them. So, instead of reading history, they see it whenever they want. I only imagine the plight of parents during that time.
I know that joke wasn’t necessary, but I couldn’t help myself. (and yeah, I created that comic panel all by myself with the help of an awesome site pixton)
Another possibility that I have already mentioned is that we could be part of a game, which gives rise to two scenarios.
One: We could be independent characters in the game and have what you call “free will,” and some of the people that interact with us could be players just completing their missions, not unlike “The Truman Show.” If that thought doesn’t give you chills, I don’t know what will.
Two: We could just be empty shells inhabited by the players where the players’ own memories are stored somewhere until they finish the game, much like the game Rick and Morty play in S2E02 named “Roy: A life well lived.”
Though it is highly unlikely because superhumans or not, I don’t think anyone would want others to fiddle with their brain.
Now I am not going to go over the possibility of being the power source for our creators because that idea has been dealt with, pretty thoroughly. I would, however, give one more possible reason for this hypothesis, and that would be “no reason” or none at least we could wrap our heads around. The youtube channel kurzgesagt beautifully explains this; they take an example of an extremely intelligent ant that tries to know more about humans.
But some concepts it would not be able to grasp doesn’t matter how hard it tries, for example, how would you explain to an ant, the point of people lining up for just a glimpse of their favorite celebrity. You can’t, right? So, there’s no point for us to discuss this unfathomable reason.
Now that we have gone through some of the possible reasons for us to be in a simulation, let’s just quickly go over its plausibilities.
2. Plausibility
As we have already discussed that it is possible that we could be in a simulation. However, being humans it is our nature to question things, so continuing the legacy let us try and find loopholes in this hypothesis. I know it is challenging, mostly because this particular hypothesis is kind of a circular argument; meaning if we are in a simulation then how can we trust any evidence we find to support our argument because chances are that the evidence itself is simulated. But, as the kid’s father said “We are resilient” (see…that was a callback). Anyways, let’s get back to the point if Nick Bostrom’s “history lesson” argument is true, then we can explain the need for “evolution of species”. But the interesting part is we don’t know from which year we are being simulated, is it only our generation or three or four generations ago us. So, we can’t really be sure if our history really happened because it might just be some implanted memories. Furthermore, if we are part of a history lesson then our each and every move must be pre-decided because the slightest change in our chances could cause a “butterfly effect” and change the history altogether, which implies we DO NOT have free will. Woah! Won’t that mean that everything we are doing is programmed already, you reading this article or me writing that joke? That can’t be it. So, let’s just park this theory because I don’t want it to be true. Phew…moving on, another thing any simulation requires is pixelation. So, if we can find the smallest particle of reality, a “pixel of reality” if you will, we can say that our reality could possibly be simulated. In fact, current research is going on to find exactly that, the quanta of space-time called “Planck-length” making the pixel of reality a “Planck-tetrahedron”.
Though, nothing has been proven yet but even proving the existence of a pixelated reality would not itself imply that our reality, which consists of us too, could be simulated. That is because as far as the human race is concerned we have a wide spectrum of emotions, intelligence, and a quite distinctive awareness of ourselves as well as of our surroundings or as scientists like to call it “consciousness” which we will learn more about in the next section.
I don’t know if it’s even possible to pixelate consciousness because we don’t even understand it as a whole. So, we can’t prove that too, great! What else? Well, there is one more complexity that scientists have pointed out. If we do have free will and given the rate of technological advancements in the last two decades or so, we could very well achieve simulation of reality ourselves and so could our simulated subjects. This makes the initial simulation program infinitely complex which means that it would require infinite compute power that even a Matrioshka brain (which is nothing but a giant computer feeding power from the star it engulfs) around a black hole would not be able to perform. (I know there was no real reason to mention Matrioshka brain, but I had to learn about it during research for this article so you have to too). But, you guessed it! There is a workaround for this as well. It’s like we can’t win. So, you guys must have heard about the Schrodinger’s cat thought experiment where the cat is both dead and alive at the same time.
This is called the quantum superposition principle where the state of a quantum particle depends on the observer(which is a gross oversimplification but it gives you the basic idea). So until the observer opens the box the cat could be both dead and alive at the same time, it is the observer’s interaction with the system that leads to the final state. Now, why did I tell you all this? because this same principle could be applied to reduce the complexity of the simulation program. According to some scientists and YouTubers, there is no reason to completely simulate your innards or the inside of an atom until someone observes it, meaning your brain could very well be empty until someone opens it. (So, next time somebody calls you empty-headed, try not to get too offended because it might be true.) Though I do not agree with this assumption because you would still have to write some logic for the food to be digested or a chemical reaction to happen and that itself would eventually lead to the very thing that you are trying to avoid …“complexity”
As you would have understood by now, I have mixed feelings about this hypothesis. The reason being that it is no different than religion, they both have the same characteristics, a mysterious creator whose existence could not be scientifically verified; so, what we are left with is blind faith.
We have discussed that our understanding of consciousness is quite limited, and this very problem has led to hypotheses like the one discussed above. So, naturally, we are now going to discuss the problem that started it all
The Mind-Body Problem
Have you ever been in a dream, that you felt was so real, when you woke up, it took a long time to come back to your senses? And you were glad and thanked heavens that it was all a dream. Well, How do you know? How do you know that you are not in a dream, right now?
As you would’ve guessed by now this is what is called the Mind-Body Problem. Descartes, while addressing this problem, wrote the famous words “Cogito, ergo sum,” which roughly translates to “I think therefore I am” in his book “Discourse on Method’’. What he meant by those words was that even if all of the world around us were a hallucinatory dream, our thoughts would still be real. This idea of self gave rise to a new philosophical term known as “Solipsism” where only one’s mind is sure to be real, rest could be hallucinations. Given our discussion’s premise, I would not delve too deep into it but this idea gives us a new perspective on the questions of reality. “Are we a mind with a body or a body with a mind?”.
Imagine a machine of great historical importance which has to be kept in a working condition. Every now and then its old parts are replaced by newer and identical ones, until each and every part of the machine is replaced. Would you say that it’s still the same machine? If not, when did it change? What if I build a new machine with the replaced parts? Which would be the original one? Confused? This is, in fact a natural phenomenon that happens to all of us, our every cell gets replaced at some point in our lives; at roughly seven years, all of our cells would have been replaced. But we don’t change who we are every seven years, Ofcourse we acquire new memories, experiences, and companions, but we are still the same. So, what makes you, YOU? If you don’t know the answer to that, don’t worry, no one does, at least not definitively. You can say it’s the conscious part that makes you aware of your being is also what makes you unique. Naturally, the next question would be, “What is consciousness?”. Well, nobody has a definite answer to that too. But, let’s try it anyway. Consciousness is often described as an “emergent” phenomenon, because it is something that develops within us, is molded by our surroundings and experiences. Even if you are provided with every bit of information about a person, you still wouldn’t be able to predict accurately how the person would react if subjected to a particular scenario. Just like you cannot accurately predict the physics of a macroscopic object by knowing its constituent atoms. However, this can be due to our lack of understanding of nature. We do not know enough about quantum mechanics or relativistic mechanics to be sure that we can connect one from another. According to late Steven Hawkings, the discovery of a Theory of Everything that would explain all of the emergent phenomena is highly unlikely. In that theory, we would also be a part of the equation and would no longer remain observers. So, even if we find all of the variables of this equation, there will still be one variable unaccounted for “Us”.
So, what does all of this have to do with you? Absolutely nothing, It doesn’t matter if we are simulated or in a dream; everything is real enough for us, life goes on. These are just some fun questions to think about. Although scientists are rigorously trying to find the meaning of reality, some even suggest that our consciousness is a part of it. But, if they are successful at finding the answer, would you want to know? Which pill would you take?
Thank you so much for bearing with me. If you like this article, let me know because I have a few more fun topics in mind, and yes, I will try to make them short.
I am jotting down some cool links for further reading on the subject
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