The other day at our morning staff meeting, I mentioned that The New York Times had just published an opinion piece arguing that we are living in a Matrix-like simulation of reality and that none of this is real. “Isn’t that crazy?” I said, into a computer screen filled with images of other people I have not seen in person for months, some of whom were apparently unable to understand what I was saying because their feed kept freezing up. “What intelligent person could possibly think that?”
It turns out, quite a few, including Elon Musk,Brian Cox,Neil deGrasse Tyson, philosophers at New York University, computer scientists and, most recently, Times opinion columnist Farhad Manjoo. They each point to various things that don’t seem to make sense otherwise, “glitches” like the fact that we have neither discovered nor been discovered by any other intelligent life in the universe or that everything has been just so overwhelming awful for years now, with a never-ending pandemic, escalating climate change, increasingly violent political divisions and the instability of the Trump administration all happening at the same time or—not joking—the fact that “La La Land” was mistakenly given the Best Picture Oscar at the 2017 Oscars when in fact “Moonlight” had won.
There is something soothing about the idea that the world we are living in is not real, especially when things are not going well.
Even the fact that we are at a point where we can just about build such a simulation is posited as a reason to think it therefore must be true. If that is the case, I can definitely imagine me writing the next great TV show, so let’s get on that, please and thank you.
Certainly, as computer technology continues to advance and we continue to find ourselves trapped on Zoom, the difference between fiction and reality becomes harder to parse. While I cannot imagine ever wanting to put on a giant headset and gloves in order to enter some alternate universe (especially one owned by Facebook), I have certainly had the experience of playing video games so immersive that my imagination is still churning in them hours after I have unplugged. During the early months of the pandemic, I was playing so much “Uncharted 4” I instinctively kept looking for handholds to climb buildings when I would leave my room to go for a walk.
There is also something soothing about the idea that the world we are living in is not real, especially when things are not going well. In fact, this way of thinking is pretty similar to a lot of Christian catechesis from not that long ago. My parents definitely grew up hearing that the real world is the one to come, so accept your suffering in the here and now and make sure you do good deeds. (In a weird way, such pre-Vatican II theology actually anticipated the video games of today, with their emphasis on earning points and leveling up.)
The problem with simulation theory is the way in which it further excuses us from any sort of responsibility for one another.
But the problem with simulation theory—beyond the fact that it is just plain silly—is the way in which it further excuses us from any sort of responsibility for one another. The closest we come to life-as-a-simulation today is on social media and in socially connected video games. And often what we find there are individuals treating others in ways they would never treat someone in person. There is something about not just the anonymity of a service like Twitter but also the lack of proximity on Facebook that makes us feel less bound to each other. In a simulated reality, other people easily become little more than the non-player characters in our lives, there to be used in service of our own goals and nothing more. Rather than a living environment that we must nourish and protect, the world around us is just the landscape that we are moving through.
I cannot help but wonder if the rise of simulation theory does not emerge in part from a desire for just that kind of moral “freedom.” Wouldn’t it be easier if I did not have to contend with the questions raised when a homeless person asks me for cash or worry about whether I spread Covid-19 or care how much carbon my plane flights are generating? Wouldn’t it be great if none of that mattered and I could just do whatever I want? Also, does this mean we can have flying cars?
It is horrifying to think that some people would believe we are living in a simulation. But even more horrifying is the reality that we all actually spend most of our lives behaving like we are.
But “Jetsons”-dreams aside, aren’t we kind of living that way a lot of the time anyway? I will talk about how the governments of the world need to band together to stop global temperatures from rising above 2 degrees, decry the social inequities for women and minorities, shake my head at world poverty. But how much am I currently sacrificing personally to respond to any of these situations? I cannot tell you the last time I agreed to pay more when I could pay less or even a time when I refused a plastic cup.
At some point, it sure seems like no matter what I might say, what I actually believe is that my own life is what is important here. The rest really and truly might as well be pixels, fetch quests and programs.
It is horrifying to think that some people would believe we are living in a simulation. (Seriously, if some great intelligent being were constructing all this, “Game of Thrones” would have had a way better ending.) But even more horrifying is the reality that we all actually spend most of our lives behaving like we are, when in fact all any of us have is this one life to live, this one human community, this one fragile planet.
[Related: Online church helped me as a Catholic convert in the pandemic. But I need an in-person faith.]
