Would it make any difference if you lived in a computer simulation?

APRIL 6, 2022
BY BARBARA HILTON

On a parking lot in Houston, Texas, stands a building. It has six floors, each with a balcony. The roof also has a balcony, but with no associated door or apartment – it just juts out from the building, with no apparent use. It doesn’t look like anybody lives there, nor does it look like a workplace. All in all, the function and existence of the house seem odd. Why put a house here?

There could be any number of reasons why this house is where it is. However, its odd location could also indicate that we are living in a computer simulation.

This may sound crazy, but in tech and science circles, it is a relatively common theory. In 2003, Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom published a report that mathematically argued that there is a good chance of this being the case. Similarly, in 2016 and several times since, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has stated that the odds of our not living in a simulation are a billion to one.

Whether or not we live in a computer simulation is precisely what the photographer collective Sara, Peter & Tobias, also known as photojournalists Sara Galbiati, Peter Helles Eriksen and Tobias Selnæs Markussen, examine in their photobook The Merge, published in November 2020 with, amongst others, a picture of the odd Houston building. The three photographers travelled around the world and spoke with prominent scientists, tech nerds and simulation developers to find out how far we have come in creating computer simulations. And through their cameras, the photographers also looked for signs that we may be living in one.

“If we live in a simulation, there will be signs of it, and we have taken pictures of these signs. There might be glitches or program errors, for example a tree planted slantwise, or a window placed where it makes no sense, or three shopping carts parked in exactly the same way in a parking lot. It is in these signs that reality shows its true face,” says Tobias Selnæs Markussen. “Our goal is to make people ask: Could this be real?”

The three photographers take us into a major conspiracy theory in science and technology. But first, what exactly is a computer simulation?

A TECH RELIGION

“The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. (...) It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes, to blind you from the truth,” Morpheus says to Neo. Neo asks: “What truth?” Morpheus responds: “That you are a slave. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Born into a prison you cannot smell, taste or touch. A prison for your mind.”

This is one of the most iconic scenes of the movie The Matrix, which has been highlighted as a good example of what a computer-simulated reality could be like: something like a kind of ultra-advanced computer game in which everything you feel is programmed, your fellow human beings are artificial intelligences (AIs) and your thoughts are determined by programs.

One scientist investigating the simulation theory is Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom. In his 2003 paper “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?” in Philosophical Quarterly, Bostrom argues briefly and simply that we are probably living in a simulation. This argument was quickly acknowledged in academic circles and the tech industry, and there is still support for it, the three photographers explain. They therefore decided to make the theory the backbone of their project.

“We were a bit surprised that this was such an uncontroversial subject. Five years ago, we made a photobook about people who believe in UFOs and aliens. It was hard then to get scientists to talk about it, because they didn’t want to be written off as ‘tinfoil hats’. That wasn’t the case this time,” says Peter Helles Eriksen.

Part of the photobook is dedicated to examining how far science has come in creating computer simulations. The photographers talked with tech nerds and leading scientists, and visited laboratories developing AIs that are often used in simulations. One of the pictures in the book shows one of the world’s biggest computers, in a large, cooled room at the High Performance Computing Centre – a research institution in Germany. The computer screen itself is quite small, but the servers fill row after row in the windowless room. When the photographers visited, the computer had just completed a simulation of the Big Bang, and the Centre was examining the data set. It is possible to simulate anything: natural mechanisms, the weather, human behaviour and more, Sara Galbiati explains.

“Bostrom proposed several reasons why you might want to create a simulation. We talked about that with many of the people we met. You could for example simulate a pandemic to see how people will react,” she says. On one of their trips to the US, they met with Nobel laureate and astrophysicist George Smoot, a professor at Berkeley University and an advocate of the theory. He explained that if our society was a computer simulation, it could be an experiment to test different types of government.

“The people working in Google, Facebook and the other tech giants typically believe that they are moving the world forward. And the people we met at tech conventions really look up to technology. In this sense, the simulation theory has almost become a religion,” says Galbiati.

“Part of the theory is that those who designed the simulation are so much smarter than us that it makes no sense to try to break out of it. It is as if there is a God or intelligent creator controlling the world. It may be provocative to equate the simulation theory with religion, but Christianity is also based on a wild idea: the virgin birth,” says Eriksen.

So what are the signs that we in fact live in a computer simulation, and how would it affect us if we were?

A central argument in Bostrom’s theory is how technology has advanced in, for example, computer games. In less than 40 years, we have gone from Mario Brothers to thousands of people simultaneously interacting in digital universes like World of Warcraft or Eve Online. If we project this, then in just 60 or 90 years’ time we could construct a digital world that would be difficult to distinguish from reality. Bostrom’s idea is that this might already have happened, and that we are living in such a programmed reality. For this reason, the second part of the book is dedicated to looking for signs of this – signs that the three photographers began to see everywhere as they progressed on their journey.

“The camera plays a very interesting role in this. We have the notion that a camera shows the truth. But the camera comes up short if we live in a simulation. The camera only shows what is in front of it, not the system behind that. Nick Bostrom tries to prove the simulation through calculations. We do it with our cameras,” says Eriksen.

“We will never find the smoking gun, but we are looking for evidence that it exists. Purely professionally, it is an incredibly exciting way to work; circling around something you can never reach. It means that you have to create the visual tracks that lead us to the non-existent, unambiguous truth,” says Markussen.

One of the pictures in The Merge is of a sunset, shown on an iPhone. On Instagram, you will find 274 million posts tagged #sunset, and most of us have been fascinated by the sun’s breath-taking display. However, as astrophysicist George Smoot told the three photographers when he met them: “Maybe you are programmed to think the sunset is beautiful.”

“If you think about it, an awful lot of our reality is constructed, and in many ways, we don’t have free choice. There are ideals and norms for behaviour that are usually ascribed to culture and religion, but they could equally well be the result of programming. We are a bit like lemmings that copy what others do. When I walked through the suburbs and saw row after row of identical houses, I started thinking, fuck what a sick world,” says Galbiati.

We enter a lot of simulations daily, as described by the French philosopher, sociologist and cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard in his 1981 paper Simulacra and Simulation. Baudrillard believes that the post-modern, capitalist world has created a society in which everything we do and ascribe value to is a form of simulation, or symbol. If we buy shampoo, it is not because we need soap for our hair, but because we believe that it will give us better looking, healthier hair, which will ultimately make us happier and more like the people we believe we truly are. Objects and actions have been given connotations that tell stories about the world, which people don’t just subscribe to – they have replaced reality itself with these narratives.

“Disneyland exists in order to hide that it is the ‘real’ country, all of ‘real’ America, that is Disneyland (a bit like prisons are there to hide that it is the social in its entirety, in its banal omnipresence, that is carceral),” Baudrillard writes. He also argues that the media representation of reality is more real than the reality in which people physically live: The world has become hyperreal.

THE COFFIN IN SOUTH KOREA

The Merge mainly examines simulations, and presents evidence that we are living in one. However, as Baudrillard argues, simulations can also arise on another, more personal plan. The three photographers also found examples of this: One picture in the book shows a Korean woman lying in an open coffin, eyes closed, dressed in a white and yellow kimono. The woman is simulating her own death.

“It’s to make you feel that you have been given your life back. People who have tried it say they see the world with new eyes,” Galbiati explains. It is considered a sort of therapy in South Korea, not just for suicidal people, but also for people who want to expand their minds. When the photographers visited, an entire congregation was waiting to try it; a ceremonial experience in which participants would also write their last will and testament.

“It’s human nature to want to simulate – it does not have to have anything to do with computers. If it is fun, or if we learn or feel something, we often don’t care whether what we experience is ‘real’. In this context, simulation isn’t an escape, but often an attempt to get closer to what we consider the truth,” Eriksen explains.

“Our book is thus also an examination of human endeavours and what we do to experience joy and be alive; how we create constructions and simulations to enjoy life and to survive as the sensing, feeling humans we are,” says Markussen. “The simulation need not in principle affect you. If you can still feel, taste, live and love, would it make any difference if this was a computer simulation?”

“In principle, the insecurity only arises because we don’t know the intention behind the simulation,” adds Eriksen.

CONSPIRACY THEORIES ARE BEAUTIFUL

Over the past ten years, conspiracy theories have found fertile ground. The QAnon movement has spread across the world, and the corona pandemic has added fuel to the anti-vaxxer movement. Some people will also view the simulation theory as a conspiracy theory, the three photographers explain.

“To my mind, conspiracy theories are beautiful. They expand the world,” says Eriksen – though of course only if they are non-violent and don’t aim to bash those who think differently.

One reason why conspiracy theories find fertile ground may be that we spend so much time online in forums that agree with everything we say and pour kerosene on our inner fires. “On the internet, whether in social media or algorithmic search engines, everything we interact with is tailored to us. That means there is a high risk of becoming radicalised,” says Eriksen.

It is not just the internet that fuels mistrust in our society. Western society is extremely competitive, and everything you do is measured and put into boxes that are defined by cultural or religious norms, says Markussen: “You must get an education, you must get married and have children; you must live up to a whole lot of things. This automatically feeds a need to break free. So we create alternative realities.” It is also important to remember that to people who believe we live in a computer simulation, the idea that we don’t live in one is absurd.

After spending three years with your heads buried in this universe and talking to high-ranking scientists that support the theory, you begin to get a bit converted. “You start to see signs everywhere. However, when you allow yourself to dive into this theory and go with it – if not forever, then for a moment – you get a new perspective on the world,” says Markussen.

“The Merge may not convince people that we live in a computer simulation. Nor is that the point. But if the pictures can open people’s minds just a little, I believe that their brains will take them where they need to go,” Galbiati adds.

But you should also be sceptical of the book, the three photographers end by saying. For while presenting ‘evidence’ that the theory could be true, the pictures also play games with the viewer and indirectly ask the question: Is this book also part of the simulation?

This article was published in SCENARIO Magazine, Issue 61 - available for purchase in the SCENARIO Shop