are we living in The Matrix?

If you, me and every person and thing in the cosmos were actually characters in some giant computer game, we would not necessarily know it. The idea that the universe is a simulation sounds more like the plot of “The Matrix,” but it is also a legitimate scientific hypothesis. In 2016, researchers pondered the controversial notion at the annual Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate here at the American Museum of Natural History.

A popular argument for the simulation hypothesis came from University of Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrum in 2003, when he suggested that members of an advanced civilization with enormous computing power might decide to run simulations of their ancestors. They would probably have the ability to run many, many such simulations, to the point where the vast majority of minds would actually be artificial ones within such simulations, rather than the original ancestral minds. So simple statistics suggest it is much more likely that we are among the simulated minds.

And there are other reasons to think we might be virtual. For instance, the more we learn about the universe, the more it appears to be based on mathematical laws. Perhaps that is not a given, but a function of the nature of the universe we are living in. “If I were a character in a computer game, I would also discover eventually that the rules seemed completely rigid and mathematical,” said Max Tegmark, a cosmologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). “That just reflects the computer code in which it was written.”

coronavirus modeling

As with simulations of Earth’s changing climate or what happens when a nuclear bomb detonates in a city, the goal here is to make an informed prediction—within a range of uncertainty—about the future. When data is sparse, which happens when a virus crosses over into humans for the first time, models can vary widely in terms of assumptions, uncertainties, and conclusions. But governors and task force leads still tout their models from behind podiums, increasingly famous modeling labs release regular reports into the content mills of the press and social media, and policymakers still use models to make decisions. In the case of Covid-19, responding to those models may yet be the difference between global death tolls in the thousands or the millions. Models are imperfect, but they’re better than flying blind—if you use them right.