On Thursday June 27th, the Goffertpark in Nijmegen will be Muse’s next stop on their Simulation Theory World Tour. The Simulation Crew would like to give the band a warm welcome to the beautiful city of Nijmegen.
The title of the tour, that is so much like The Simulation Crew, made us wonder: what exactly is this Simulation Theory?
Simulation Theory
The Simulation Theory has been formulated by Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom. To start off, Bostrom makes an assumption. He assumes that members of future societies will possess technology with enormous amounts of computing power. In fact, these future humans will have so much computing power that they can create detailed simulations about the lives of their forebears. Inside these simulations, the simulated forebears (humans) will have a consciousness that cannot be distinguished from ours, at least not by the simulated forebears themselves.
Bostrom goes on to claim that at least one of the following three propositions must be true:
- Humans will become extinct before technology has reached the stage that simulated realities can be developed on a large scale.
- Future societies that do have the required level of technology at their disposal choose not to start a large number of simulated realities.
- People with a consciousness and experiences like our own are almost certainly part of a computer simulation.
Living inside a simulation, what does that mean?
Go ahead, take some time to let that sink in. It took us a while… We will not go into the details of The Simulation Theory any further, but if you are curious, read Bostrom’s own article.
We will continue a little bit about statement number 3 above. What if all of this is indeed a simulation, what does that mean? Well, for our daily reality and occupations not so much, says Bostrom. To us, our experiences do not differ from those of real (not simulated) people. Our lives basically have the same course. We, too, have to go to school or work. We also have to develop ourselves, learn new things, gain experience. How cool would it be to learn and gain experience through simulations? Simulations within a simulation! Count The Simulation Crew in!
Simulation Theory Tour: here we come!
Alright, let’s stop here for now… But at least one member of The Simulation Crew will be present Thursday evening in the Goffertpark to see Muse play. So there should be time to continue talking about this topic and have a drink.
You will recognize us by our human-like appearance and behavior.