Is the Universe a Sophisticated Simulation? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Other Scientists Discuss the Possibility
Although we perceive the universe as being something enormous and real, in recent years, a growing number of researchers have considered the possibility that everything we perceive as reality, could in fact turn out to be a sophisticated simulation.
A group of distinguished scientists –including Neil deGrasse Tyson; Lisa Randall, theoretical physics at Harvard University; Max Tegmark, a cosmologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); David Chalmers, a professor of philosophy at the University of New York; Zohreh Davoudi, a theoretical physicist at MIT and James Gates, a theoretical physicist at the University of Maryland –gathered at the Museum of Natural History in New York, discussing the possibility that the universe is, in fact, a sophisticated simulation. It seems that researchers are becoming extremely open-minded in recent years.
The possibility that the universe could be a simulation is not new, and numerous researchers have discussed this possibility in the distant past. Some have even proposed that the universe could be a hologram while others suggest everything we consider as the universe, could, in fact, be part of a highly advanced ‘code’.
According to the holographic theory, gravity in the universe comes from thin, vibrating strings. Researchers suggest that these strings are holograms of events that take place in a simpler, and much ‘flatter’ cosmos.
Max Tegmark believes that up to seventeen percent of our universe could be a sophisticated simulation while Lisa Randall suggests like is real as it gets.
Philosopher Chalmers commented ‘We’re not going to get conclusive proof that we are not in a simulation because any proof would be simulated.’
The event which was part of Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate series is held each year to commemorate the life of one of the most innovative and open-minded researchers on the planet.
‘If you look at how these quarks move around, the rules are entirely mathematical as far as we can say’ said Max Tegmark, a cosmologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
‘That makes me wonder if I were a character in a computer game that started asking the same kind of big questions about my game world, I would also discover eventually that the rules seemed completely rigid and mathematical.’
In the past, researchers have also proposed that the universe could be in fact he a sophisticated computer simulation.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn, author and host of the Closer to Truth program, recently explored this theory in an episode where he interviewed several scholars, including Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, who argues that the scenario presented in the movie The Matrix might be true, but “instead of brains connected to a virtual simulator, own brains would also be part of the multiverse simulation.”
Philosopher Nick Bostrom thinks that “the hypothesis of a giant simulation is a weak form of creationism, because the creators-simulators share some of the attributes traditionally associated with God, in the sense that they have created our world.”
What do you think?
