The Simulation Hypothesis

by Rizwan Virk

The Simulation Hypothesis, by best-selling author, renowned MIT computer scientist and Silicon Valley video game designer Rizwan Virk, is the first serious book to explain one of the most daring and consequential theories of our time. Riz is the Executive Director of Play Labs @ MIT, a video game startup incubator at the MIT Game Lab.

Drawing from research and concepts from computer science, artificial intelligence, video games, quantum physics, and referencing both speculative fiction and ancient eastern spiritual texts, Virk shows how all of these traditions come together to point to the idea that we may be inside a simulated reality like the Matrix.

The Simulation Hypothesis is the idea that our physical reality, far from being a solid physical universe, is part of an increasingly sophisticated video game-like simulation, where we all have multiple lives, consisting of pixels with its own internal clock run by some giant Artificial Intelligence. Simulation theory explains some of the biggest mysteries of quantum and relativistic physics, such as quantum indeterminacy, parallel universes, and the integral nature of the speed of light.

Recently, the idea that we may be living in a giant video game has received a lot of attention:

"There's a one in a billion chance we are not living in a simulation" -Elon Musk

"I find it hard to argue we are not in a simulation." -Neil deGrasse Tyson

"We are living in computer generated reality." -Philip K. Dick

Video game technology has developed from basic arcade and text adventures to MMORPGs. Video game designer Riz Virk shows how these games may continue to evolve in the future, including virtual reality, augmented reality, Artificial Intelligence, and quantum computing. This book shows how this evolution could lead us to the point of being able to develop all encompassing virtual worlds like the Oasis in Ready Player One, or the simulated reality in the Matrix.

While the idea sounds like science fiction, many scientists, engineers, and professors have given the Simulation Hypothesis serious consideration. Futurist Ray Kurzweil has popularized the idea of downloading our consciousness into a silicon based device, which would mean we are just digital information after all. Some, like Oxford lecturer Nick Bostrom, goes further and thinks we may in fact be artificially intelligent consciousness inside such a simulation already!

But the Simulation Hypothesis is not just a modern idea. Philosophers like Plato have been telling us that we live in a "cave" and can only see shadows of the real world. Mystics of all traditions have long contended that we are living in some kind of "illusion "and that there are other realities which we can access with our minds. While even Judeo-Christian traditions have this idea, Eastern traditions like Buddhism and Hinduism make this idea part of their core tradition -- that we are inside a dream world ("Maya" or illusion, or Vishnu's Dream), and we have "multiple lives" playing different characters when one dies, continuing to gain experience and "level up" after completing certain challenges. Sounds a lot like a video game!

Whether you are a computer scientist, a fan of science fiction like the Matrix movies, a video game enthusiast, or a spiritual seeker, The Simulation Hypothesis touches on all these areas, and you will never look at the world the same way again!

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Audiobook, Physics

330 pages, Paperback

First published March 31, 2019

About the author

Rizwan (“Riz”) Virk is a successful entrepreneur, angel investor, bestselling author, video game industry pioneer, and independent film producer.

​Riz currently runs Bayview Labs and Play Labs @ MIT, a startup accelerator held on campus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Riz received a B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from MIT, and a M.S. in Management from Stanford's GSB.

​Riz's many startups have created products used by thousands of enterprise customers, and his games have been downloaded millions of times, including Tap Fish, Bingo Run, Penny Dreadful: Demimonde, and Grimm: Cards of Fate.

Riz is a prolific Silicon Valley angel investor, having invested in many startups including Tapjoy, Telltale Games, Discord, Funzio, Pocket Gems, Moon Express and many others.

Riz has produced many indie films (imdb link), including Turquoise Rose, Thrive: What On Earth Will It Take? which has been viewed more than 70 million times, Sirius, and the cult classic Knights of Badassdom, starring Peter Dinklage and Summer Glau.

​Riz’s first book, Zen Entrepreneurship: Walking the Path of the Career Warrior, reached the top of Amazon’s business and spiritual bestseller lists.

​His startups have been featured in Inc. Magazine, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, Tech Crunch, Gamasutra, Venture Beat, and were even skewered on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He speaks regularly on subjects such as startups, video games, meditation and career success both in person and online on shows such as Coast to Coast AM.

He lives in Mountain View, CA and Cambridge, MA

Reviews

[Mario the lone bookwolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excessive and lengthy study of the subject can raise doubts about the nature of reality.

GTA is a term. Moreover, only a game, right? Suppose you were the character. When the figure is in a place, the place begins to exist. When you move your head, reality appears in real-time. The other characters of the other players develop in parallel and follow their daily routine. Everything is photorealistic and as real. However, only polygons covered, empty shells, even without a real ghost. Effects such as fire and ice are programmed to produce an impact on nearby surfaces and when an object is destroyed, its parts, properties and complex mechanics are created at the moment it is opened. The processes in collisions, movements, interactions, etc. are automatically calculated.

Back to reality. How do we know that something is behind us now? That the reality does not reload? The other people, family, friends, and work colleagues exist when we interact with them, but what evidence is there that they live when we are alone?
The monitor we are looking at while reading this review has technology built into it. When we open it, we see it. However, as long as it is closed, a projection onto an empty shell could produce the same effect.

We are a pretty primitive culture. Let's imagine to put the clock forward a million years. A computer game should then have a significantly better graphic and be impossible to differentiate from reality. Our consciousness would be playing in a world that does not provide any indication of its artificial origin. We, as our ego, are instead in a fictive environment than in the body. The Alter ego controls and manipulates the world with hands just as in reality. How could we, lying in a floating tank and equipped with various VR headsets, projections, holograms, suits and implants, distinguish between the real world and the computer game?

Even the photorealism in current games makes it difficult to distinguish between animation and photo and graphic cards do already billions to trillions of operations per second and have hardware built in the nanoscale. Imagine what there will be possible in centuries and what an alien race that has evolved hundred of million years before us may have reached.

Suppose nanobots do not run amok and turn space into grey goo. However, they spread out, transforming planets into computers so that simulations can be played there, replicate and move on. This creates simulations in the simulations based on older simulations, etc. After eons, you have billions of simulations that differ in their slightly different evolutionary history. Therefore, there are anomalies and differences between the simulations. Instead of simulations, one can also speak of the universe or the multiverse.

Our not understood consciousness is currently in a fleshy shell. Experiments have shown that it can partly be transformed into an avatar rather quickly. That the brain adapts to the new conditions and forgets the old body. Thus, the personality and other illusions are transformable or alternatively, even part of the simulation.

Which proof can we use against this assumption? That we are not living in an incredibly advanced simulation of tens of millions of years further developed civilization? What invalidates this theory? Nothing at all.
On the contrary, the theory combines many unsolved problems in itself and solves or explains them.

A profane reason could be the sheer boredom of galactic civilizations that have reached Type III of the Kardashew scale.
Once a civilization has explored all dimensions and galaxies, it gets bored. So it uses the energy of a few suns and bundles them to run a simulation. Maybe it is just a cakewalk for their kids. Also, as they wish, parameters can be changed, the level of difficulty can be varied, and development can be accelerated or throttled.
They may intentionally incorporate errors, such as quantum phenomena, space anomalies, etc. into the simulation so that they can be recognized as such by advanced technology. To laugh at how avatars puzzle over what the anomaly might be. Alternatively, a civilization plays its own story as a simulation in infinite variations and we are one of them.

As Elon Musk and others argue, almost all open hypotheses, anomalies, and errors in astronomy, physics, quantum theory and so on can be explained in this way. There is no other, so a well-recognized model that has no logic error. A new theory of everything.

One of the most reliable indices is the behavior of quanta and other tiny parts. These act differently when observed by machines or people. Such as in the double-slit experiment and quantum teleportation. To put it more precisely: the smallest, entirely not understood, manipulated by unknown forces, acting against the laws of physics parts of reality are timid. They respond to attention and recordings differently than when they feel and are unobserved. Like the code of a computer game that defines the parameters for the representation of the reality of the protagonist.

A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real-life outside books:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulat...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenha...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...

[Khalid Abdul-Mumin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very different and thought provoking take on the view of reality and the universe.

Rizwan Virk posits some exciting ideas and speculations on the fact that our ultimate reality might be a simulation which strongly resonates with the ideas from vedantic and even hermetic philosophies.

The book reads in the vein of Michio Kaku's Parallel Worlds and Hyperspace in the sense of explaining complex concepts in an understandable manner, albeit with a different premise. Well researched too.
Highly recommended.

2022 Read

[Ahmed Samir · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read for sure. Although some of the chapters touched on the science behind the theory, a lot of the theories posed were based more on logic rather than pure scientific evidence. This did cause some of the chapters to feel more like trying to convince the reader of the point the author was trying to make rather than hard-core evidence for the simulation hypothesis.
Nonetheless, it was an entertaining read, and the merging between video games and reality was quite interesting.

[Craig · Rating 1 out of 5]

Rizwan Virk: What if I told you that the metaphor of the universe as a giant computer wasn’t just a metaphor and that we really are living in a Great Simulation?
Reader: Go on…
Virk: Well, that’s pretty much it.
Reader: …
Virk: !!!

It’s not that The Simulation Hypothesis fails to grapple with the so what? question, there’s not even an attempt. There’s certainly something intriguing in the idea that our physical reality is a giant computer simulation, but after that brief initial novelty wears off it’s not clear how you should react. If true, the question is how does this alter daily life and the practice of science, but judging by the presentation in the book, if the revelation is sufficiently trippy no exploration of consequences is needed. But stringing people along on exclamation points alone may work for a chapter or two, but for three hundred pages it’s not a viable strategy.

As best I can tell the simulation hypothesis is nothing but a more sensational recapitulation of the idea of an information-based physics. Virk’s first job, then, is to show how inhabiting a simulation would be meaningfully different than inhabiting a world that’s non-simulated yet information-fundamental. But rather than laying out this contrast, he adds the idea that our world may be information-based and computationally driven as a mere bullet point in a list of nonplusing confirmations of “the Great Simulation”.

The reader’s entry point to the idea of a simulated universe is through Virk’s childhood love of video games and his ensuing career in that industry. The entire first quarter of the book is devoted to charting the evolution of video game and rendering technology. This in itself is passingly fascinating until you realize that this history lesson of our progression toward virtual reality video game technology is intended as the cornerstone of and the blueprint for the simulation hypothesis.

The progress we’ve made in the video game arena and the future prospect of creating virtual realities that are indistinguishable from the simulating overworld is itself given as evidence of the simulation hypothesis. And not precisely in the way Nick Bostrom lays out in his theory (as I’ve understood it in the broad outlines I’ve encountered). Bostrom’s argument is more probabilistic: roughly, if any civilization reaches the point where lifelike simulation is possible, then our reality is far more likely to be a simulation than not because such a civilization would deploy numerous ancestor simulations. Virk mentions Bostrom’s argument, of course, as friendly to his, but where Bostrom thinks that we would be simulated AI-based agents, (or non-player characters in video game terminology), Virk thinks people in our reality are more likely to be consciousnesses controlled from base reality.

Virk finds much of his evidence for simulation in the representational efficiencies developed to get video games where they are today, plotting these one-to-one atop of the phenomena that physicists observe in our universe. He likens, for example, our quantized physical world to the pixelation of video games. The only part of this section that proved intriguing is the idea that quantum wave probability collapse is evidence of conditional rendering (rendering only the part of a video game that’s being experienced by players). But this was glibly packaged with other bits of evidence such as the speculative possibility of faster-than-light travel through wormholes being equated to teleportation within video games.

Aside from this section’s overall weakness and its lack of compelling integration, there’s a more fundamental issue with making video games the point of departure for laying out a hypothesis of simulation. If a simulator could simulate universes with alternative physics it doesn’t seem like there’d be much we could infer about the simulator and the simulating reality above from within the simulation. And while Virk rightly refrains from fleshing out the simulating universe at the human-interactive scales we might be most curious about (apart from briefly speculating about motivations for creating a simulation), he quickly succumbs to this trap when shifting his investigation to more refined granularities, happily linking the rendering artifacts of today’s video games with the past century’s findings in physics, offering these various superficial similarities as evidence of simulation. In doing so it’d seem that he risks begging the question. If I’m wrong about this Virk doesn’t at all elucidate on what grounds such inferences can be made, on what can be inferred from simulation about simulator.

With these questions in mind, of the main partitions of the book, this section on the physics of simulation needed to be robust and convincing, but instead of a physics of simulation, Virk provides a disjoint catalog of quantum phenomena and retrofits them with reasons that they can “only” be explained as artifacts of simulation. From here he swiftly moves on to mine the religious and the paranormal for more “evidence”.

Where religion is concerned in the Great Simulation framework, you’ll find no deep insights, only a mishmash of religious ideas that are united in a way that will enthuse only the specialest of new-agey readers. Through the video game lens, multiple character lives is the explanation for the religious notion of reincarnation, and game world quests are like the karmic traces that various Eastern traditions say you must work your way through. In a video game you need to be able to keep track of score or somehow record the characters actions and deeds from one life to another. Such record keeping would necessarily fall outside the simulation. Sounds like karma again. The Abrahamic religions have similar structural notions:

We see that the [Christian and Judaic] ‘book of life’ serves the same function as the [Islamic] scroll of deeds, and if someone is recording all our actions and ‘playing them back’ to us after we die, showing us our score and then telling us the next step, this would be very similar to the idea of a video game—and the simulation hypothesis may be the only possible explanation!

In this section densest with exclamation points, out of body experience, remote viewing, aura photography, and astral projection also stack up as evidence of the simulation. When you consider the possibility that you inhabit a simulation, you probably quickly begin to wonder why some people see UFOs while others don’t. There’s a simple explanation:

If we go back to the idea that each of us is conscious in a videogame-like simulation, then each of us would have to render the physical world on our own ‘computer’—in this case, in our own consciousness. A situation where the commands to render the UFO on person A’s consciousness while not rendering it on person B’s consciousness only makes sense in the context of a distributed multiplayer simulation as opposed to a shared physical reality.

Arriving at the second to last chapter, Virk catalogs some of the most pertinent questions about the simulation hypothesis, but having just spent a quarter of the book on the religious and the paranormal, there’s no time to address them. Had this been the intro chapter and the launching off point for the discussion, The Simulation Hypothesis would have made for a fairly interesting read. But even at the end Virk doesn’t differentiate the world that is simulated from that which is merely information-based. Here he introduces fractals and Stephen Wolfram’s work on cellular automata as further evidence of simulation: “The implication [of Stephen Wolfram’s work on cellular automata] is very strong that if there is some kind of computation going on around us in nature, then we may, in fact, be in some kind of universal computer program—what I call the Great Simulation.”

Why is this evidence of simulation? To claim that Wolfram’s work (or any work indicating a computational/informational basis to our universe) is evidence of simulation you’d have to show that a non-computational model is what we’d expect if we were not in fact in a simulation, but this isn’t what that work shows. Wolfram’s work provides an example of how a few very simple initial rules can create a complex and computationally irreducible result. Why could this not equally explain the evolution of a non-simulated world? Why take evidence of computation and make the immediate jump to simulation? What should we expect from a base reality and why should a base reality itself not be computational? In the same way that we can’t know if we live in a simulation, without establishing some way in which a base reality is clearly differentiated from simulation, it also seems that we couldn’t know if we live in the base reality.

The movie The Matrix is summoned as inspiration at multiple points in the book. In it, protagonist Neo learns that his mind is plugged into a simulated world while his body is harvested for energy by a race of machines. In a narrative of rebellion and human empowerment, Neo fights the machines to make knowledge of the simulation widespread among humans stuck in the simulation. But much earlier, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1973 World on a Wire (based on the novel Simulacron-3 by Daniel Galouye) reaches a much different conclusion in its depiction of humans living in a simulated world. Here protagonist Dr. Fred Stiller, administrator of a simulated world, slowly begins to understand that he inhabits a simulation himself. When as Neo did in The Matrix, Stiller escapes the simulation, he realizes that he has escaped nothing at all. He’s simply in a new world of equal verisimilitude with again no way of determining whether it’s the base reality or simply another layer of simulation.

The Matrix, arbitrarily depicting the machines as adversary, is a story of simulation. Revealing that reality itself is what’s arbitrary, World on a Wire is a story of information. The Simulation Hypothesis tells the first story with zero cognizance of the latter. Virk does briefly reckon with the idea of nested simulations, saying that the computational demand would halt the chain before it could stretch beyond a certain length, but this isn’t really the main point. The question we should be asking is not whether we live in a simulation but whether we live in a simulable world. I agree with Virk that the universe (at least to the degree that it’s practical to this discussion) is information based, but I find this a rather disempowering narrative. We’re installing ourselves into a simulation in real time as we decode the world around us. The rules that govern simulation are the same as the rules that govern dissimulation, and as we decode the world we enable ourselves to (dis)simulate it at will. Here, signal become interchangeable and reality (the yet to be decoded) is banished to realms beyond those humans can interface with and at too many chaotic node hops removed to be transmitted faithfully back to us.

Substrate is immaterial. Simulation is a distraction—it’s simulability that should be the concern. Unfortunately The Simulation Hypothesis is locked in on the idea of video games and doesn’t even approach such a distinction. I just hope my base reality operator didn’t pump too many quarters into the machine to complete the quest of reading it.

[Bria · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got this book in a Goodreads giveaway, and I entered the giveaway because I've heard a lot about the simulation hypothesis, kind of know the basic premise, but haven't actually read a full argument. However, this was not the book for me. It was aimed at a much more general audience. I don't want to be a snob, however I had to struggle not to be turned off by so many of the references being from Wikipedia. I wanted something more in depth, more high-falutin', written by some stuffy academic who would cow me into believing the hypothesis with math I couldn't understand, backed by a miles-deep philosophical treatise. Instead this was an essay written by a smart guy who got excited by an idea and went down a wikipedia hole for a few days.

So I'm not confident how well the details of the argument are represented here, and I admit I also didn't care too much for the spiritual/mystic side. I couldn't decide how much of that was Virk trying to appeal to everyone or how much was due to his own mystical beliefs. I suppose it doesn't matter, either way it's always a bit worrying when some theory explains how all religions are actually right. There was definitely some overreach - the idea that fractals are easily computable, so when we find fractals in nature, that's evidence for the computational nature of the universe. That seems like something that can be explained by growth patterns we already understand. And it was strange to me how Virk wrote essentially the whole book more or less as though, were the universe a simulation, there would exist, for each of us, a player in the outside world - and only at the end mentioned the possibility that we might be entirely simulations. That seems to be a bit hopeful, clinging to the notion of our consciousness and spirit as something transcendent while simultaneously surreptitiously denying the possibility of an AI being conscious. I always figured that of course, if this were a simulation, we are part of that simulation - minds and all, not people with some kind of body or other existence outside the simulation only 'playing' us. It's definitely a possibility, I suppose, but I'm not sure it makes any more sense than the alternative.

And finally, so much of the support for the hypothesis rested on what we are or may soon be capable of doing in this universe. Since we can create video games, since we have such-and-such computing power, such-and-such physics, then that tells us something about the capabilities of the outside world. And this is where I'd like to read a more thorough argument about statistical probabilities or whatnot. Since I know that Bostrom's original paper talked about ancestor simulations, which suggests that the simulations are worlds much like the one making the simulation, so in that case is makes sense to suppose that our future is much like the outside world's past, and we are much like them. However I really don't know how much more likely that is than that we are in some significant way different than our creators. Think of World of Warcraft, which Virk so loved to reference - if a player becomes very advanced in a game like that, they can maybe cast very powerful spells, maybe as new versions of the game are developed more land or monsters appear. These types of things do not happen in our universe, and it's completely plausible to me that our universe is different in some serious way from the outside one. Since the foundations of physics are perhaps the most compelling argument in support of this hypothesis, that might imply that physics are not the same out there - with who knows what consequences. So the focus on our activities and future as an argument for how the outside world works seems a little strange to me, but then again, it is all we have to go on.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book’s title is the idea that what we call “the universe” is in fact a gigantic computer-generated simulation, one of those ideas about which, in recent years, there’s been plenty of discussion on the internet but few properly thought-through books. What this one covers, broadly speaking, is as follows: first, computer-science stuff (the history of video games, virtual reality, artificial intelligence; and possible future developments of these); then the universe itself (a number of features of which, at both the quantum level and on the grand scale, are interpreted as hints that we may be living in a simulation); similarities between the ancient teachings of (particularly Eastern) mysticism and the simulation idea; and the implications of all this, if it turned out to be true.
    The central theme here is that what we think of as the physical world actually consists, at bottom, of information, and at times I almost found myself convinced—by some of the parallels between software and physics in particular. For example, many of the programming rules software follows while running a simulation such as an online video game closely resemble the “rules” our universe seems to follow—particularly the peculiar stuff down at the quantum level (“indeterminacy”, “entanglement” and so on). There’s also the fine structure of spacetime itself, which may be granular rather than smooth; it seems to have minimum, indivisible, distances (and durations) not unlike pixels.
    The author makes a decent case with the physics, but I was less enthusiastic about the section on ancient mysticism (there’s more variety there, compared with just one physics!). There then follows another short section (a single chapter) in which the Simulation Hypothesis is used to account (or perhaps not) for an assortment of oddities: out-of-body experiences, synchronicity, telepathy, UFOs and so on.
    To summarise: this book details why “…computer science, quantum (and relativistic) physics, as well as Eastern (and some Western) mystics all seem to be describing a world that is better explained by the simulation hypothesis.” Am I convinced? Not yet. It’s a very interesting read though and recommended if you’re at all curious as to what Elon Musk was on about.

[Diane Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This whole concept was new to me. I’ve never been interested in any form of science fiction or computer games, and I’d never heard of the possibility of simulation before. But I’m so glad I had the opportunity to preorder and review Rizwan’s well written book. It’s opened my eyes to a whole new world, literally.

I’ve always had an enquiring mind. I’ve been interested in the big questions, and open to new ideas. But I’d always thought of science fiction and video games as made-up escapes from life. Whether or not the hypothesis is true, my horizons have been broadened, my outlook completely changed.

From beginning to end, I found The Simulation Hypothesis easy to follow and understand, though obviously if I had a scientific background my understanding would have been deeper. But Rizwan has successfully combined the scientific, the religious and the mystical in a way that would interest readers of all persuasions.

I highly recommend this book.

[Matthew Swayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spiritual leaders have contemplated the Simulation Hypothesis — the idea that reality is an illusion — for thousands of years. Philosophers have discussed the theory for centuries. For the past few decades, quantum physicists have proven that reality at its deepest level is unquestionably nonlocal and interconnected. Recently, technologists and futurists have warily eyed the close parallels between advanced computer and video tech and the world around us. Now Rizwan Virk, an MIT-trained computer scientist and video game expert, has combined all of these approaches to produce one of the most comprehensive expositions of the Simulation Hypothesis. Virk’s writing is comprehensive and compelling. He starts you at the beginning and thoroughly cover the material along the way. Though some people might be intimidated by the idea of reading a book that covers everything from Eastern religions to double slit experiments to old school video games, Virk is a great guide. He explains, you explore. If you’re listening to Elon Musk talk about the world as a computer, or hear your friends discuss that latest incomprehensible findings in quantum physics labs, this book will get you up to speed. For the beginner, the mildly interested, and the thoroughly convinced, The Simulation Hypothesis will bend your mind — and maybe even open it up.
I received a free review copy for an honest review.
I also preordered a copy.

[Till Raether · Rating 1 out of 5]

The audio-book version sounds like its being read to the listener with a smirk, so for the longest time I thought Virk himself was speaking to me: this is a smirking book. It takes itself very seriously, but not its source material. Apart from Elon Musk. This is the only text I've ever encountered which quotes Elon Musk in earnest. This is the kind of book where Elon Musk makes an appearance as an expert. Not an expert on putting batteries in cars or people in the vicinity of space, but apparently an expert on quantum physics, philosophy, and computation. Because Musk once said chances are we are living in a simulation. That's enough for Virk. Stephen Hawking also said something along the lines. And Philip K. Dick! That, in Virk's book, means Simulation 3, Non-Simulation 0. Enough for a hypothesis, surely. But instead of exploring the hypothesis, he delves into a mish-mash of new age religion and cherry-picked science.

The worst part: he does not mention Daniel F. Galouye's "Simulacron-3," the most influential and groundbreaking novel about simulated reality, from 1964. Because he doesn't know it or because it manages to be more complex than his hypothesis?

The best part: instead of reading Galouye, he mentions having talked to Tessa Dick, widow of Philip K. Dick, to verify that Dick did in fact think that we live in a simulation. Simulation 4, Non-Simulation 0. That was funny to me. Also, some nice screenshots of early computer games, but you can find those anywhere.

[Malum · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started out strong but ended up having the same problem as Talbot's The Holographic Universe in that it started referencing debunked woo peddlers to try and prove its point. It also started losing me when it started talking about UFOs.

The hypothesis is fascinating, however, and anyone interested in the subject could probably find worse books to read about it.

On a side note: I listened to the audiobook version and it was pretty bad. The narrator would often mispronounce pretty basic words and there seemed to be a lot of background noise (like page shuffling and, once or twice, I could have sworn I heard what sounded like pots and pans banging. Was he making lunch?).

[Derrick Stormblessed · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I'll say is this book definitely changed my world view a bit. I'm now taking the simulation argument much more seriously than before though I'm not at a point where I can say we are living in one. Through the reading, I found most chapters very convincing and some to be lazy or weak argumentatively. The chapters covering the road to the simulation and the ones dealing with quantum physics and Eastern mysticism worked well within the book. Especially the quantum indeterminacy. Quantum entanglement could be easily explained if we are living in a simulation. The laws of nature could be explained away if we were in a simulation with a physics engine running the physical world. Conditional rendering could explain the collapse of the quantum wave function when we observe a quantum event. All this could be evidence but only in a theoretical way. The fact is there's no way we can know we are in a simulation even with all the arguments he proposes. Still, the author argues sufficiently well enough that he makes me take the simulation argument more seriously than before so I'll say thanks to him for changing my mind a little.
Great read for anyone looking for a simple non complex way of approaching the simulation argument.

[Lucas G. · Rating 2 out of 5]

The main premise of this book is that the universe in which we live is most likely a computer simulation. Virk's argument is simple. First, he draws upon his expertise in video game design to explain how computer simulations work. Then he summarizes discoveries in modern physics such as the quantization of physical reality and the observer-dependence of reality according to (some interpretations of) quantum mechanics. Next, he surveys the landscape of religious perspectives regarding life and afterlife. Finally, he ties it all together by suggesting that the simulation hypothesis best explains all of the data from both science and religion.

Overall, the most interesting part of this book is the first section, comprising almost a third of the book. Here he focuses on the history of video game development, with a bit of speculation on what the future has in store. Even though video games aren't an interest of mine, Virk makes this section enjoyable and informative.

The discussions surrounding modern physics are decent, but barely. It is clear that, despite being a layman, Virk has done his research. Nevertheless, his presentations and interpretations of the data are rather simplistic. Furthermore, his instance that the simulation hypothesis is the best explanation is not substantiated by his arguments. At most, he demonstrates that the simulation hypothesis is possible, but nothing more.

When it comes to religion, Virk is clearly out of his depths. While his understanding of eastern religions seems sufficient, he struggles to present Judeo-Christian ideas accurately. Furthermore, his connection to the simulation hypothesis is incredibly weak, almost undeserving of even being called "pure speculation" because of how simplistically he has to treat the various religious tenets in order to draw any connection whatsoever. This section is so bad, that the overall argument of the book would be stronger if Virk would refrain from discussing religion altogether. Instead, Virk comes off as all too eager to make anything appear to support the simulation hypothesis, no matter how much he has to twist and manipulate the subject matter to do so.

Ultimately, if you're interested in the simulation hypothesis, then you probably should still read this book. But be warned that, as a self-published book, it contains many cringeworthy comments, not to mention some horrible formatting decisions, that should have been eliminated had it gone through a proper editing process. With that in mind, if you so choose to get this book, try to find it at a discount.

[Costin Nitsoc · Rating 3 out of 5]

From Plato's Cave allegory to the novels of Phillip K Dick and Matrix, questioning the nature of reality raised a lot of debates between science/materialistic approach on reality and spiritual adepts.
More recently, philosopher Nick Bostrom and Tesla's/SpaceX/Hyperloop/Neuralink/Boaring company CEO mentioned that he believes "there's a billion to one chance we're living in base reality'.

The book explores this subject and tries to bring arguments to demonstrate that we could actually be "SIMS" in a giant simulation. Some kind of gigantic proportions of the Truman's show.

Of course, to write on a subject like this is not easy so I guess that no matter how many arguments one can bring (from quantum mechanics to correlations with the computer games) at the end, even if we live in a Simulated World, it will be virtually impossible to realize it so for us as subjects, nothing will change. The reality will still be the same.

However, it's nice to think about this when you experience some 'glitches in the Matrix' like the feeling of "deja vu" or when you keep checking the hour exactly at 11:11 or 23:23 :)

Nice reading.

[Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

I liked the analogy between quantum indeterminacy and optimisations in games. That's probably the only convincing argument in the whole book. Of course there are many interpretations of that phenomenon and none of them have any experimental backing and this one is no different. There is a chapter on supposed "experimental" evidence but it never presents any (anyway, if there was one you'd hear about in the news).

Overall, I have read posts on /x/ that were better thought out and more coherent. This is just some guy with an overinflated ego who smoked just a bit too much weed and wants to start another religion.

I think this stems from the need to believe in an afterlife, because otherwise even uploading your mind into a computer won't save you since the heat death of the universe will kill you. This way, if it's a simulation maybe there is a way out of this universe.

One funny term I came across in the book was "recording angels" - are those the sound engineers in music recording studios who have to put up with annoying musicians' whims?

[Mark Deadman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I began to write a review about the universe, base reality, simulation theory, and the quantum entangled looped donut universe… then my phone crashed. Too close to the truth…! Spooky

[Jules · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting idea, and an enjoyable and thought provoking read. It hasn't managed to convince me. But's it certainly got me thinking about the possibility that we're living in a simulation. If we are, and my character controller can see I'm typing this, please can you boost my energy levels, as I've been running very low for about three decades ;-)

[Iurii Vovchenko · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book. It is good for both types of readers: those who just got familiar with the concept of simulation and those who studied it for a long time(I'm the later).

The book provides thorough and wide angle description of all the fields of science, software, religion, biology, fiction and philosophy that are affected by the simulation theory. Those readers who already studied simulation hypothesis for awhile will benefit from this book as it will help them in organizing otherwise unstructured information about the simulation hypothesis.

The author clearly encourages reader to dive deeper into each of the topics touched in the book. Since I'm looking into spiritual, philosophical and religious aspects of the simulation theory those were my favorite chapters! Having background in software myself it was very enjoyable to read about the history of game development.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. The writing isn't top notch, but the ideas are clear and well explained. It echoes a lot of what I've been thinking about simulation theory and the nature of reality in a way that I've not seen written down before. Worth reading if you are interested in the subject.

[Ethan Kennerly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Virk researched and wrote an excellent survey of video game history. He toured weirdness in quantum physics, UFO sightings, duality, and reincarnation in popular religions. I enjoyed and learned from his facts.

Virk inferred that we are avatars in a simulation, analogous to massively multiplayer game, like World of Warcraft, or more like Star Trek's holodeck. Virk's inference depended on a number of fallacies. He falsely posited that if we don't live in a simulation, then alternative explanations are less sensible. He falsely posited that the technology might be possible, therefore it will be mass-produced. He falsely posited that a subjective world with moral scoring is sensible, because it (unstatedly) is savory. Altogether this line of argument opens up any number of religious faiths. If that is valid, then his faith is only one of thousands of possible faiths, and so on those grounds, improbable.

He hand waves the resources required. I made a simple estimate that simulating the world would cost at least twice the resources in the world. A trivial computer program needs at least twice the resources to simulate a logical operator than it needs to directly implement the operator. While those resources might exist, it would seem peculiar that they would be thus employed, whether for entertainment or education. For such vast resources, I can easily imagine better entertainment, better education, or whatever the hypothetical simulators goals are. In our world, misspent resources translate into life and death for the poor. So I humbly ask influencers weigh the quality of life that can be impacted. I don't see simulating our whole world as the way to benefit the most lives.

Part of the hand-waving of resources takes on the optimization that works great in videogames of only rendering what you need. But unless you're making the solipsistic claim that only one being in the world is the avatar, and all the rest of us are merely simulacrums, then a failure to simulate the whole world quickly becomes less expensive than trying to resolve contradictions after two agents in the world have observed something that was never simulated before.

I applaud this book for pushing me to think more precisely about the interpretations of weird quantum mechanics. The quantum world is weird. But saying it's all a simulation short-circuits investigation into how our world might really operate.

[Herman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not impressed, rather surprised by all the four and five star reviews this received it didn’t come close in my point of view. Two stars at best. Just really too much specious linking of disconnected statements creating an illusion of connection. So if the Bible or Koran makes a statement of souls being listed in a book isn’t that like a database? Ahhh no,.. Isn’t God like a super server keeping track of everything that happens,..Ahhh again no,… But in Second life,….F-second life OMG,..your talking about elements of entertainment as if that register them as fact in real life, there is no Matrix, we are not living in a Philip Dick novel, and in my opinion your book while interesting was a complete waste of my time! My bad, I though this was going to be more grounded in reality and not a wishful look at video games as a model for replacing the world with this theory of life being a simulation which is so crazy that even Trump would consider it nuts two stars because you do have some good information buried in here otherwise you have played way to much in virtual worlds you need to look outside once in awhile touch mother earth get a grip on your out of control and unmoored imagination we are not living in a simulation this thesis is nuts.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whoa! If you’re thinking about reading this book, you should do it now.
It takes a surface layer look at a lot of the different ways we could be living in a simulation. It also takes a deeper dive into the computer and physics side of things, as well as a speculative look at some of the more abstract ideas.
If you have a basic understanding of programming & quantum theory, then this will be incredibly easy to follow and equally engaging.
A book I can confidently say I will be reading again.

[Nirali · Rating 4 out of 5]

This took a while but it has been a fascinating read as he diligently brought together computer science, physics, gaming, religion and spirituality to explore the simulation hypothesis. Definitely a lot to learn!

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr Virk believes that we are living in a game simulation or possibly an ancestor sim. While this is nearly impossible to prove, he uses certain areas of science such as quantum physics to show that our universe and existence is not in a continuous realm but one that is pixelated and discontinuous. This is similar to a file or video game that displays at a frame rate. He also devotes some of the book to religion that hints at watchers (angels). Out of the two possibilities (ancestor sim or video game) a video game is least likely. A game requires players, both real and AI, and the real players would know they are from the future. They would never have to slip up, which is nearly impossible. A game would have to be played on a one to one time basis as all of our games are played now. In the last 5000 years of history our future brethren would have had to devote their 5000 years of effort playing. This in not going to happen.

Nearly the same restriction applies to an ancestor sim unless you are just looking for an end result. Watching history unfold for a set of initial conditions needs constant monitoring so again requires a one to one time frame. Mr. Virk mentions the plank length and a plank time, which could be related to the computational clock speed as our computers have now. Using the plank minimum time and converting it to frequency we would have a clock speed of around 1.855 x 10^43 Hz. Using todays CPUs with 4GHz clock it would take 4.638 X 10^33 cores in parallel. Do you think a future version of ourselves would devote such resources and almost infinite computing power to playing a video game or running a sim? The detail required from astronomical to microscopic in our world would bring our best supercomputer to its knees trying to simulate only one town and that at one hundred frames per second. If our "sim" were at any reasonable f/s then a high speed camera would show it.

He also discusses the use of local rendering to reduce computer requirements. This is rendering visible only things which a player can see. This relates to quantum particles which only choose a state when observed. However, with over seven billion humans and billions of animals and insects observing things there would be little to not render.

I think the book is well worth reading because he makes a lot of good points for a simulation but I wanted to show that most of the points require an extreme jump to believe we are in a sim. I believe we are not in one, now you can decide for yourself.

[Michael Dewey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Virk’s “The Simulation Hypothesis” is a thoroughly engaging and entertaining read which presents some compelling ideas about the nature of our reality. While the book has some minor editing issues (awkward paragraph spacing and typos), the material itself was presented in a comprehensible way. Though it is obvious that Virk is clearly enamored with this particular hypothesis, I didn’t get the feeling that he had anything to sell me (aside from a cool book). I enjoyed the way he broke down the history of technology, and explained the inevitable trajectory of where we’re heading. Interesting times indeed!

That said, the material and the language used to present his ideas was sometimes contradictory. Virk vacillates between phrases like “may be” or “could mean” to comments like “what we know for sure is”, despite presenting no real evidence for such firm positions. At best, he presents a compelling argument for why simulation theory deserves an equal seat at the table along with philosophy, science, and religion; and I believe it does. But it remains merely one more incomplete idea among many, one which cannot escape the need for a measure of “faith” to bridge its gaps.

In the end, I remain unconvinced. Interested, certainly. Engaged, absolutely. But ultimately…unconvinced. Despite this, the conversation is far from over, and Virk gives us much to ponder. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reviewed for Foreword Books Indie Awards.

This book is definitely good food for thought, and largely makes its case for how we could be living in a simulation. My biggest gripe comes with how the author essentially says that religions are right. Instead of couching the religion section as a "this is how it could work", like he does the entire rest of the book, it's more of a "look how right religions are!" With a little (or a lot?) more tweaking in that section, this entire book would be extremely compelling, and not derailed by the non-science side of things.

[Lars-Erik Hobber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jeg er overbevist! Fascinerende og gøyalt tankeeksperiment med mange plausible argumenter. Boka blir litt tung når den dypper tåa ned i kvantefysikken, men også det er for det meste forklart på en slik måte at selv en dumrian som meg kan forstå det... vel, i hvert fall nesten. Ekstra cred for en solid historieleksjon om dataspillenes utvikling. Boka er muligens lettere å følge dersom du allerede har kjennskap til informasjonsteknologi/computer science, men også det virker veldig greit forklart så det er nok ikke nødvendig.

[Doug Mackey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is not just a mind blower, it is a mind tornado. It forces you to take seriously the unreality of reality. It plunges you into the wildest dreams suggested by science fiction and the most extreme speculations of quantum physics. You pick up this book, check your skepticism at the door. You’re going to travel on Spaceship Einstein with a stopover in the mystic East as you plunge into the videogame that is your life. Happy landings!

[Daniel Alan Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a great primer to exploring the increasingly popular concepts of the simulation theory, or reality being a simulation similar to “The Matrix”, and includes references to other intriguing areas of study like mythology along with consideration to unexplained phenomena such as UFOs. Virk includes a unique blend of science & spirituality along with themes of modern technological innovation and wisdom from the ancient past to give readers plenty to ponder and research further.

[Christy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've often thought of the possibility that we are all living in a simulation. And considering technological development, the idea isn't all that far-fetched. I highly recommend this read, especially for the skeptics. There's tons of fascinating scientific principles and ideas in here that all come full circle. This really begs the question: do we really have freewill?

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good read. It is a book I'm going to have to re-read a few times I think in order to get all the things I missed this go around. Which is a good thing. The ideas in the book really make you think. So glad I did read it.