In other words, I think that the simulation hypothesis in its original weak form (similar physics here and there) is self-defeating as logically inconsistent. Therefore, all our discussions and speculations about our simulators, including the simulation hypothesis itself, cannot be correct, since we've made a wrong assumption that their real physics and our simulated physics are similar. With high probability, we are in one of such worlds. Most of these simulations are simulations of worlds completely different from theirs, with completely different physics. Since they are super powerful, they simulate a humongous number of such worlds, so that the probability that we are simulated is much higher than that we are real.īut according to the same logic, the simulations of worlds similar to theirs must comprise a negligible fraction of all their simulations. The simulation hypothesis assumes that some future posthuman civilization that is super powerful is simulating worlds of their ancestors-including us. "Given that we're clearly on a trajectory to have games that are indistinguishable from reality," he said, "it would seem to follow that the odds that we're in base reality is one in billions." Simply put, do you think we are living in a simulation? Musk cites the speed with which video games are improving as his primary reason for believing that we're living in a simulated world. We asked him to explain the logic behind the simulation argument and whether we might be living in a Matrix–style world. "We would be drooling, blithering idiots in their presence." As Musk put it, "There's a billion to one chance we're living in base reality."ĭmitri Krioukov, associate professor in the Department of Physics, directs the Network Science Institute's DK-Lab, which focuses on network theory. "I think the likelihood may be very high," Tyson said. For Elon Musk and Neil deGrasse Tyson, there's a good chance that our entire existence is a program on someone else's hard drive, that we're the playthings of our technologically advanced future descendants.