1

You’re listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief. I’m Eric Molinsky.

I start every episode by saying that, but I’m always assuming that we are taking a step back from these virtual worlds and examining their relationship to the real world. But what if the real world is an imaginary world? What if we are not real people but virtual people in a computer simulation?

That’s been the premise of a gazillion stories, and many episodes of Black Mirror. But more and more scientists are beginning to wonder if it’s not science fiction.

The first person to make that point in 2003 and get people’s attention was , who is a professor at Oxford. Other scientists have chimed in, like Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who has said he thinks the odds we’re living in a computer simulation are 50/50. But this idea really went viral when endorsed it in 2016.

I’ve been following this debate for a while. I’ve noticed scientists tend to avoid the sci-fi connection because they want to be taken seriously. And sci-fi writers who explore these ideas often don’t want to be tied by down by real science.

Then I came across Rizwan Virk, or Riz for short. Riz is the first person I’ve seen who has made science fiction and video games a big part of his argument as to why we’re living in a computer simulation. Riz is a video game designer and a Silicon Valley investor who’s supported game companies like Telltale, and apps like Discord, which began out as a gaming app. He also wrote a book called, “The Simulation Hypothesis.”

RIZ: This is a topic I’ve been thinking about for a long time. You know, even when I was a kid, I used to play the video games on the Atari console, like a long time ago, and there would be this racing game. And I remember thinking as we went around the racetrack, you know, what about those people in the bleachers? Are they really real? Are they there after I play the game or not? And so, you know, the idea has been percolating for quite some time, but it was really a few years ago I had sold my last game company and I was visiting a startup that was making a virtual ping-pong game. And so I started to play the game and I was in the room with the headset on, you know, at the end of the game, it felt so realistic. The responses for when I hit the ball, uh, the fact that there was this virtual table. So the engine was so good that it felt so realistic that at the end of the game, I forgot that I was in . And I tried 2 to put the controller down on the table, uh, the paddle down on the table, I thought, and I tried to lean against the table. And of course, I almost fell over and the controller fell to the ground and that's when I realized, oh, you know, someday our virtual reality is going to get so good that we will be unable to distinguish between what's really happening and what's happening in the virtual world.

When you’re playing the type of game where you’re exploring a virtual world, the computer only renders what your character can see. The rest of that world is just information, ready to be activated when you show up.

RIZ: The same thing with my avatar and your avatar. If we're at the same room, mine is only rendering what I can see in yours is rendering only what you can see, which is a much smaller subset of the actual virtual world, which all exists information.

Computer programmers do that to save up energy and hard drive space. One of the unique aspects of Riz’s argument that we’re living in a computer simulation is that he draws the line between how computers render virtual worlds and how quantum physics works.

Science was never a strong subject for me in school, but I’ve always been fascinated by quantum physics because when you zoom down into the teeny tiny world that’s smaller than a single atom – those microscopic particles are behaving in ways that feel more like science fiction.

For instance, scientists can tell when they’re not observing subatomic particles, these particles are doing crazy things like being in five places at once or disappearing and reappearing. But when scientists focus their microscopes on the particles, the particles suddenly fall in line, like misbehaving students who realize the teacher is watching. I can’t explain how scientist know what’s happening with particles when they’re not observing them, but I know there is math to support this. The big mystery isn’t whether it’s happening but why.

Riz has a theory. He says these particles are behaving like pixels a video game, rendering into existence only what we need to see. Maybe that’s because we are in a video game – or a virtual world.

Some scientists have argued there's no way a computer could be big enough to render a simulation of our entire planet, let alone the . But Riz says anyone who believes that is lacking in imagination.

3

RIZ: Yeah, I think it’s a lack of imagination and, you know, it gets back to the arguments that, you know, back in, I just saw a headline in the, uh, you know, in the New York times that said, uh, from like 1901, I think it was, which wasn't that long ago. When you think about it, that said, you know, man, we'll never build a flying machine. It would take us a million years to get there. Right. And within four years or whatever, it was, somebody had built a flying machine because discovered an optimization technique. What happens in the history of computer science and engineering is that you, you discover tricks, you discover shortcuts, you discover new ways of optimization. In fact, you know, a quantum computer we estimate should be able to break cryptography that say 256 bits long, or 512 bits long. And it turns out that that is more than the number of particles in the universe. So, you could say, well, we could never break that cryptography using a computer because that's, we don't even have that many atoms in the universe turns out a quantum computer shouldn't be able to do it within a decade or so. And so, I just think it's a lack of imagination.

So, who is simulating us?

RIZ: Well, that's an interesting question, right? And it's one of those big $64,000 $64 million questions.

There are two options. First: aliens. Maybe humans went extinct, and this is how aliens are keeping us alive for academic reasons, or they think we’re entertaining. Riz says if we go with that theory, these aliens could be on a planet that’s very different from ours.

RIZ: Uh, we don't even know if it's a physical world like ours, right? And some people assume just like in your statement about, well, a computer couldn't be big enough that that physical world is just like our world. Well, we have different physics engines we use inside our games, like in the ping pong game, it was a very realistic physics engine, right. But if you go inside something like Second Life, you know, there's two ways to get to different, different places. The game you can fly, and you can teleport yourself. Well, you can't really do either of those things yet in the physical world.

Maybe these aliens are blobs floating around, and they want to experience what it’s like walk on two legs. But I can’t imagine aliens would ever care that much about us to simulate us.

The theory which makes more seems to me is that future humans are simulating us, and if you go outside our simulation, it’s actually the year 2625 or something. The first person to propose this theory was Nick Bostrom at Oxford. 4

RIZ: His point was either civilization will not get to the point where they can create realistic simulations. What I call the simulation point. Uh, he said, or they will get there, and they will make no simulations at all. Or the third option is true. And the third option would seem that they get there, and they make lots and lots of simulations. Therefore, there are many more simulated than there are physical realities. Therefore, if you exist in a reality, simple statistics, as you are more likely in a than base reality, just because there are way more of these than these. Uh, and so that was the art sort of a, more of a philosophical argument, uh, that said basically, if any civilization ever in the universe, whatever the universe is reaches the simulation point, then you are most likely living in a simulation. So, when it would be like us simulating, like the Roman Empire, for example.

That already happening with the video game series Assassin’s Creed. The premise of each game is that somebody in the future is sent back in time to live in the body of one of their ancestors so they can fight bad guys.

VOICE: This might look familiar to you, we’re back in medieval Paris, late 14th century. You’re outside the city walls now, I suggest you find your way back.

But the games are best known for their hyper-realistic, historically accurate depictions of medieval France, the American Revolution, or ancient Egypt. And in these games, the people in the background are called NPCs or non-playing characters. They have a certain amount of free will but the pottery salesman in ancient Greece still doesn’t realize that he’s a video game character.

LURICE: Look I was a little late paying, now Marcus says I owe him double to owe him interest, I don’t have it to spare.

And that’s us. We’re the NPCs of this world.

Why would future humans do this? One theory is they want to experience going back in time. But Riz says it’s more likely our descendants are running scenarios.

RIZ: We run simulations to see what will happen. And we actually run multiple versions of simulations to see what will happen, right? Like the weather, uh, we run simulations of different, you know, where will the storm go? And so we run these simulations to let them run and we, uh, we change variables and then we let them run again. And we see, you know, how that would run. And that gives us a sense of where things might go. Will we have climate change. Will we blow ourselves up? Will we be able to leave the 5 planet? Uh, what will, how will the species evolve over a million simulated years, for example?

I remember after the 2016 election, a lot of people felt like they had ended up in the wrong timeline. Maybe we are part of a simulation that combined three different variables: Trump, Covid and Brexit.

Of course, these ideas have been explored in science fiction for a long time.

NEO: This isn’t real? MORPHEUS: What is real? How do you define real? If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.

RIZ: 1999 was the year of simulation movies. Oh, was it really besides ? RIZ: Besides the Matrix, there were two other major motion pictures that were simulation related. One was existence, and one was the 13th floor. And the most popular is the matrix. But perhaps the most interesting was the 13th floor. And so what happened in there was they had a simulated world where, uh, the people just kind of existed, but then whenever a player inhabited a specific character, they would then take on the memories of that player, but also they had a, another simulation being built. Uh, and so it turns out they were in the 19, I forget what year it was now, 1940s, perhaps, uh, inside, uh, the world.

DAVID: How may simulated worlds like this are there? JANE: Thousands, but yours is the only one that created a simulation in the simulation.

There are several movies coming out this year about computer simulations including Free Guy, where Ryan Reynolds realizes he’s an NPC in a video game.

GUY: I know this world isn’t real but this place, these people, that’s all I have.

RIZ: So, this will be the new year of simulated related movies. And then of course in December, there's the big one, which is the next Matrix movie. So, The Matrix four will be coming out.

But the science fiction creator Riz likes to reference the most is Philip K. Dick.

6

RIZ: Yeah. So, he stands out for a couple of reasons. And while I was writing my book, The Simulation Hypothesis, I interviewed his wife, Tessa. And, uh, you know, she said that, yeah, you know, he, he very much believed this. And there was a famous quote from him, uh, at a sci-fi convention in Metz, France in 1977 where he said:

PDK: We are living in a computer programed reality. And the only clue we have to it is when some variable is changed, and some alteration occurs in our reality occurs. We would have the overwhelming impression that we were reliving the present – déjà vu.

RIZ: And, uh, you know, the creators of The Matrix were inspired by him. And I asked Tessa, well, what, what would, uh, you know, Phil, think of the Matrix that she goes? Well, the first thing you'd think is he'd like it, she thinks he would've liked the movie a lot. The second thing you'd think is can I Sue these guys for, uh, for some of my ideas.

NEO: What is it TRINITY: A déjà vu is usually a glitch in The Matrix. It happens when they change something.

RIZ: But you know, the more I got into his belief system, the more intrigued I became because, you know, he believed not only that we were in a single simulation, but that somebody was changing these variables and would rerun the simulation. So he felt like we were living, he was living the same life again and again, but with slightly different variables, change, creating this funny sense of deja vu. And eventually he came to believe that some of his science fiction such as The Man in The High Castle was depicting a real timeline where the Japanese and the Germans won World War II, but that, that timeline was rewind and then rerun. And so, this timeline that we're on now, where the allies won World War II was actually not the original timeline. It was one of many timelines and that they're constantly doing this. Uh, they're constantly, you know, fiddling with little things. And in fact, the movie, the adjustment bureau, which was based on his story, the adjustment team came about because, you know, he went to bathroom once and, and he, he, he thought there was a light switch, but there was a chain, I forget which way it was, or maybe there was a chain, but he knew it was a light switch. He goes, I've been in here hundreds of times before. And he felt like someone had been fiddling with these little parameters in reality, someone that's outside of the reality. And, and so that kind of defined, you know, his, his . It actually, you know, my next book, the simulated multi-verse really takes off this idea that if we can be inside one simulation, there's no reason. In fact, it makes no logical sense at all, that they wouldn't run multiple versions at the simulation. Uh, all you have to do is change a few variables and rerun it again.

7

While I appreciate all the science fiction references that Riz makes, I do wonder if people like him have been exposed to so much sci-fi, they’ve started to believe these unlikely scenarios could be possible. But Riz says, most scientific developments started out as science fiction.

RIZ: Space traveled was considered science fiction, right. And so, you know, sometimes these ideas started off as ridiculous ideas, uh, and then they become more and more realistic. Um, so we, we still don't have warp drive yet, but we do have interplanetary travel. And so, you know, give it another a hundred years or 200 years. I think science fiction is a good harbinger of what's to come down the road. So, okay. So, let's say we're definitely living in a simulation. We figured it out, uh, the closest sort of like primordial version to us, if we're talking about simulations within a simulation would be the Sims or Sim City, if we were to look at the Sims or Sim City, assuming that it's really us, we don't know it. Is there anything we can learn about ourselves and learn about our reality by looking at games like that? RIZ: Uh, yeah, well, so now we get into philosophical areas, but, I think these days in video games, we have quests that we set up for ourselves. And so, these quests are achievements, uh, and there are difficulty levels at each of these questions. So, you know, if we think of life as a video game like that, we can think of the difficulties that we face and all of us face difficulties in our lives, whether they're medical problems or issues with families or financial issues, we can think of these as quests that are set up, and so, you know, it gives you maybe a different way of thinking about some of the troubles of life. So that's, you know, one of the ways that I think you can kind of enhance your perspective on life, uh, just by looking at video games and how they work. You mean like in a philosophical way, instead of someone saying, you know, oh God, why me? Or something like that saying like, oh, simulators, why have you done this? Then you must have had a reason this must be part of my story arc, kind of thing? RIZ: Exactly. That's, that's exactly right. That there's a story arc that you may or may not be able to see the whole story of, you may only see the individual achievement, but these question achievements over time, determine the overall story arc. Now, if you remember in the Matrix, like many people will say, well, if I were to make a simulation, I would make myself a billionaire and I would have no problems and I would do whatever I want, but they actually mentioned that the first version of the Matrix was this kind of idyllic scenario where no one had any problems, and the human didn't accept that. Uh, and so you had to have challenges and you had to have some prevails, uh, but just think of it as a difficulty level.

8

That’s where we start crossing over into religion. In fact, I’ve heard critics of the simulation theory argue it’s just religion for atheists where future humans have taken the place of all-powerful beings that created us. Although, as I mentioned in my recent episode about Buddhism and science fiction, Eastern religions have explored the idea that the physical world as we know it is an illusion, hiding the true nature of existence.

To be honest, I think of this as a fun thought experiment. I’m not sure if I really believe it. Riz started out feeling that way, but not anymore.

RIZ: I originally got on this track because I wanted to figure out what are the stages of technology to get us to the simulation point. And in the book, I have 10 stages, you know, ranging from virtual reality to photorealistic, augmented reality to brain computer interfaces, right. Where, you know, to false memories, to downloadable consciousness. And once we get there, we'll pretty much be at the simulation point. So, so it really started as a thought experiment, but the more I began to think about it and the, I began to delve into the physics of it, the more I realized, oh, there's really something to this. So, so now, you know, I'm looking at it from four different perspectives, technology development, looking at it from a philosophy, looking at it, uh, you know, from a religious point of view and then looking at it from the science and the physics point of view and realizing, okay, you know, there's actually a good chance that what we think of as the real world is just information. And it's not the real world, which is what the mystics have been telling us all along that we live in some kind of an illusion or . I feel like it's funny. I don't smoke pot, but I feel like I should be at this point, I'm like, oh, totally…. (makes toking up sound) RIZ: Right. Some people think, right, this is one of those dorm rooms (laughs) Yeah, late night dorm room discussions! (laughs) RIZ: That’s true, these are the kinds of speculations you would have. You know, I get emails from college students all the time. Um, you know, even from, even from like college students in Brazil saying, hey, do you have a Portuguese version of your book? I heard about it. We were talking about it at four in the morning over pizza. RIZ: Exactly! (Laughs)

I still can’t help but wonder, what is it like to be one of the simulators? What do they get out of creating us, and observing us? We might have an answer to that after the break.

BREAK

9

As I mentioned earlier, if our world is a computer simulation, the closest comparison we have is the video game The Sims. I never played The Sims, but the journalist Stephanie Foo used to play as a kid.

Stephanie also used to work on Snap Judgment, which is a public radio show and a podcast. In 2014, Snap Judgment asked her to play The Sims for the first time as an adult, and report back on her experience. I’m thrilled that Stephanie and producers at Snap Judgment have given me permission to play that story because – well first of all, it’s one of my favorite pieces they’ve done – but also, there are so many interesting parallels between the experience Stephanie had playing The Sims, and the conversation we just heard about creating a simulated world.

So here is the story, which originally aired on Snap Judgment in 2014.

STEPHANIE: My dad and I didn't have much in common when I was growing up, but we did share one hobby - computer games. We'd play games together where we'd decapitate monsters with names like Putrid Defiler.

UNIDENTIFIED CHARACTER: Now you die!

STEPHANIE: So, when I started playing "The Sims," he didn't get it. "The Sims," for those who don't know, is kind of like playing with a hyper realistic dollhouse with mini people or Sims living their everyday lives. I already have to wash dishes and pay bills in real life, my dad would say. I don't need to do it on a computer game. And he'd go back to looting villages, but that's just why I liked it. I liked controlling these little people, making them do grown-up things - getting jobs, making money. OK let's be honest, I was 12. Mostly, I just liked to make the woo-hoo, which is what it's called when two Sims have intimate relations. I also liked doing things like buying leopard print sofas and starving my children to death, which sounds heartless, but I'm going to blame my behavior on the game. Sims were almost impossible to feel personal affection for. "The Sims'" AI was pretty terrible back then, and it was hard to actually like your Sims because they were so dumb. You just want them to cook breakfast, and they'd set themselves on fire.

If you didn't tell them to go to the bathroom one time, they'd pee all over the living room. And so, after I started to think the funniest part of "The Sims" was manipulating them to commit suicide, I through "The Sims" away and didn't play the game again. And it wasn't long after that that I stopped playing computer games entirely. As I entered adulthood, I learned what actually being a grown-up was all about. It was about making 10 money and maximizing productivity. I work a lot. Sometimes I don't have time to eat, let alone play video games. In fact, I probably would have never played the game again unless work asked me to. SNAP assigned me a story about "The Sims" for this episode. While I downloaded the newest iteration of the game, "The Sims 3," I read the game's message boards. I was disappointed. A lot of the users were saying the Sims were still super dumb. But I did get a little rush when the game started, and I heard the classic kitschy theme song. One of the first things I noticed with the new Sims is I can make a Sim that looked like an Asian girl. And I could even give her an outfit with clothes really similar to ones I have in my own closet. So, I decided to make a Sim-me - a Sim Stephanie. When it came time to build her personality, my boyfriend helped me pick traits similar to my own.

Sim Stephanie is ambitious, very excitable and, of course, a workaholic. One of her life goals is to be a journalist. And then I saw that the Sims had free will now. There was this slider where you could control the amount of free will they possessed so they could be more independent and do things like use the bathroom without you telling them to. I gave Sim Stephanie the maximum amount of free will. Then I made a Sim boyfriend for her who resembled my own boyfriend. The first thing I did was I suggested Sim Stephanie flirt with my boyfriend's Sim. And thankfully, they started getting really into each other. And then, right before they had their first kiss, my Sim excused herself, ran into the next room, clapped her hands and did a happy dance before turning to make out. And this is super embarrassing, but the thing is I actually did do that in real life before me and my boyfriend's actual first kiss.

And then, Sim Stephanie continued to do happy dances about many things - getting a phone call, bedtime, her waffles. I laughed, but a dark shameful part of me recognized her behavior as familiar. I started to get self-conscious. Is this how people saw me? I look ridiculous. I mean, God, waffles are super good, but I think maybe I need to calm down about them. Then, Sims Stephanie got her first journalism job. She wanted to be successful so badly that after she came home, she'd still write articles late into the night. But it got to the point where she'd be writing at midnight and then she'd be miserable and exhausted all of the next day. She'd show up late for work. She'd take it out on her boyfriend. I tried to get her to stop working and go to sleep, but she wouldn't listen to me. So I'd start yelling at the screen, what is wrong with you? You are screwing yourself over until I realized, wait a second. I did this in real life yesterday.

This was getting creepy, like some meta-nightmare where I had to watch a birds-eye view of all of my own flaws. In a manic moment of paranoia, I wondered if somehow a chain of meta-meta-ju-ju existed where, perhaps, there was an uber-Stephanie watching me, and face-palming herself over all the stupid stuff I do every day. Yelling, 11 no, no, don't eat those cheese fries. You will break out. No. Eventually, though, Sim Stephanie fell into a groove - balancing work and life. And her relationship with her boyfriend actually started to resemble my own in this really comforting way. She'd work late, but since he was less work obsessed, he'd play guitar into the night serenading her and making her snacks. I kind of felt like I appreciated my real boyfriend more watching it. But what was the deal here? Everyone on the message boards said that "The Sims 3" AI was terrible. So, I went back and reread the comments from the disappointed users.

UNIDENTIFIED USER #1: None of the parents got a single promotion.

UNIDENTIFIED USER #2: My Sims will spend a lot of time woo-hooing, like three or four times a day.

UNIDENTIFIED USER #3: I discovered my Sims flirt with people who aren't their partner when I'm not controlling them - unhappy face.

UNIDENTIFIED USER #4: Sims have always had problems surviving or doing anything without help. The message from the developers is clear - free will is a very, very bad thing. Control your Sims at all times.

STEPHANIE: And they did. Many of the players took away their Sims' free will. Not really because "The Sims 3" AI was bad - because it was so good. They saw themselves in their Sims and they didn't want themselves to fail. I thought there was something incredibly dark about that. I don't believe in fate myself. I like to believe that I control my own destiny. So I thought I was above that. I wouldn't take away Sim Stephanie's free will. And so one night, Sim Stephanie have been working really hard for several days, and her happiness levels were low. She desperately wanted to have fun. She started playing computer games to relax for a couple hours.

But I knew that if she completed this one task by tonight, she could get a promotion and a huge raise tomorrow. I thought, we could really use the extra cash. I thought, I'd like her to be a little more productive. And that little slider was just begging to be slid. So I turned off her free will, and I forced her to finish her work. Sim Stephanie did what she was told, but her happiness plummeted. She sat there resentful, exhausted, miserable, and I knew exactly how she felt.

I felt like I'd just punched myself in the gut. I had taken away Sim Stephanie's free will as punishment for playing computer games. And I was playing computer games right now. I was supposed to be so much smarter than Sim Stephanie. Sim Stephanie stayed 12 up all night once because she couldn't find the bed. But even she knew that finding the next big story was not worth sabotaging her own happiness. Even Sim Stephanie knew that she didn't need any more fancy couches. Sim Stephanie knew how to be a human, knew how to be a happy grown-up better than I did. She - I - we know now that happiness, it comes first and sometimes it's OK to just relax, maybe even play a computer game.

Since producing that piece, Stephanie has gone on a long journey to create more of a work/life balance. She said it’s taken her six years to learn how to treat herself better, and to stop being a workaholic. If you’re interested in learning more, she has a book coming out next year called What My Bones Know.

That’s it for this week. Thank you for listening. Special thanks to Rizwan Virk, Stephanie Foo and the team at Snap Judgment.

By the way, if you’d like to learn more about Philip K. Dick, I did a whole episode him, and I did an episode about Man in the High Castle. You can find both of those episodes in the show archives.

My assistant producer is Stephanie Billman. You can like the show on Facebook. I tweet at emolinsky and imagine worlds pod. If you really like the show, please leave a review wherever you get your podcasts, or a shout out on social media. That always helps people discover Imaginary Worlds.

The best way to support the podcast is to donate on Patreon. At different levels you can get either free Imaginary Worlds stickers, a mug, a t-shirt, and a link to a Dropbox account, which has the full-length interviews of every guest in every episode. You can learn more at imaginary worlds podcast dot org.