unherd.com
Are we living in a simulation?
Two decades ago, the Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom asked whether the universe is a simulation. Should an advanced civilisation somewhere have the technology to create a simulation of one universe, he theorised, they would also, in all probability, have created our own. Tech billionaires Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Sam Altman reckon this is possibly true, and science writer Neil deGrasse Tyson gave it a 50% chance. This year, a physicist claimed to have found proof. We might dismiss this as Silicon Valley’s solipsistic fantasy were the simulated world not becoming a reality.