“Could you be living inside a simulation created by a more advanced intelligence? Where does your unerring belief that you are not come from? The short answer is you don’t. Consider this: with every passing moment, we get closer to creating intelligent machines, maybe even conscious ones. If we can do this, couldn’t someone – or something – else do it too?

“Philosopher Nick Bostrom at the University of Oxford, in 2003, argued that if humans were one day able to create simulations populated with conscious beings, it’s at least possible that we, too, are living in such a simulation. Since then, that possibility has, if anything, become more realistic. There are projects seeking to build entire animal brains from scratch, modelled exactly on living ones, down to individual neurons and the myriad connections that interlink them. When very simple versions were given robotic bodies, lo and behold, they behaved like the creatures they were modelled on. It’s probably only a matter of time before we create virtual beings inside computers.

“In all likelihood, we will never find out whether or not we are simulations ourselves. But one thing is clear, says philosopher Thomas Metzinger of the University of Mainz: each of us has a robust experience that “I exist”. Perhaps a slightly more manageable problem is to figure out where that experience comes from”. (Anil Ananthaswamy, New Scientist)

A simulation creating a simulation? Does it matter? And what is the purpose of it all? To do it because you can do it?

I think this is totally unnecessary, and maybe immoral. Why can’t these people, probably publically funded, work on ways of improving the lives of the huge number of the poor and the sick? Science has done so much good for the human race, but it is also capable of harm. Aside from anything else, simulated humans programmed by humans would, if successful, destroy any idea that we have free will. Maybe, in reality, we don’t, but we do have choices, and one of those choices is to live a life of mutual cooperation, consideration for others, and joyful care for and enjoyment of the world around us. This whole effort might amuse a few scientists anxious to make names for themselves, but I think the idea of virtual humans inside computers is sinister and should be halted. In any event, existence seems real enough to me. What about you?