If we drill down on this model, one of the distinctions that becomes apparent is that there are really multiple versions of simulation theory. These are 1) the NPC version (non-player characters, or AIs within games) and 2) the RPG version (Role Playing Game) version, which we also like to call the Matrix Version.
In the NPC version, we are all simulated beings (AI) running on a sophisticated computer, and we have no independent existence outside of the running of the game. In the RPG version, just as in the Matrix, the individual players exist outside the game, but play “avatars’ inside the simulation.
You’ll notice that these aren’t mutually exclusive (you can have both NPCs and Avatars in an MMORPG like World of Warcraft, for example). Most academics who consider simulation theory – including Oxford’s Nick Bostrom, whose simulation argument in his 2003 paper, Are You Living in a Computer Simulation, kicked off the recent spate of interest in simulation theory – imply strongly that we should focus on the NPC version. They don’t always say this outright, but the statistics at the core of the simulation argument imply that most, if not all of us, are NPCs.
On the other hand, the RPG version of simulation theory, where we exist as both “players” and “avatars”, is potentially more interesting and explains many more things about our physical universe, so we can move beyond a statistical argument into a whole new way of looking at and understanding the world around us.
Armed with this new model, we can start to make sense of things which previously seemed “impossible” or “unexplainable”.
Let’s look at some of these phenomena and see how the Simulation Hypothesis might be the answer that we have been looking for all along, bringing explanations...<<<Read The Full Article Here>>>...
