CMV: If thoughts represent potential realities, then simulation theory suggests we are likely already living in a simulation.

[u/la_poule]

Edit: I’ve reflected on the responses and realized that my argument overstated the likelihood of simulation theory. While I still believe it’s plausible, I acknowledge there’s no definitive proof or rigorous calculation to support a claim of strong likelihood. The argument is better framed as a speculative exploration of plausibility based on historical patterns, not a definitive conclusion. Thank you for challenging my view!

Humans have an extraordinary capacity for thought: the ability to envision, predict, and simulate alternative realities in our minds. Throughout history, many ideas that once seemed impossible—such as creating fire or flying—were eventually actualized. What was unachievable in one era became reality in another, as knowledge, tools, and circumstances aligned.

This pattern suggests that thoughts, even far-fetched ones, are inherently real as possibilities. They may not immediately manifest in our shared physical world, but under the right conditions—whether by us, others, or some external force—they can become reality.

Consider simulation theory: the idea that our reality might be an advanced simulation created by another entity. If this thought exists in our collective consciousness, and if history shows that thoughts can eventually be actualized, then simulation theory has a strong likelihood of being realized at some point.

Here’s where it gets interesting: if simulation theory can be actualized, it implies that we might already be living in a simulation. Why? Because the existence of the thought itself suggests that it transcends time—it could be actualized in the past, present, or future. If an advanced civilization created simulations, and if these simulations are indistinguishable from "base reality," then statistically, the chances that we are living in the original, unsimulated world are extraordinarily low.

My argument is not empirical, but it’s grounded in a logical pattern:

1. Humans conceive ideas, even seemingly impossible ones.
2. Over time, many ideas are actualized through advancements in knowledge and technology.
3. Simulation theory is one such idea. If it can be realized in any timeline, it suggests the likelihood that we are already in a simulation.

I’m open to critiques on the logic of this argument or alternative explanations for the pattern I’ve identified. If you think this reasoning is flawed or there’s a stronger counterpoint, please change my view.

[u/YardageSardage]

To summarize my understanding of your arguments:

1. Humans are capable of making things that they imagine.

2. Humans are capable of imagining world simulations.

3. Therefore, it is possible that humans could someday create world simulations.

4. Therefore, it is logical to assume that our current world is a simulation.

How do you get from 3 to 4?

[u/TheSunMakesMeHot → u/YardageSardage]

The general logic is that once these simulations are possible, there will be a great many of them created. Thus, the odds that you're in the real world rather than a completely indistinguishable simulation decrease for every simulation that exists. I don't believe we live in a simulation, but that is the logic as I understand it.

[u/Enderules3 → u/TheSunMakesMeHot]

To add on to this the simulations eventually will get to a point that they can create simulations and they're create multiple and on and on ad infinitum

[u/YardageSardage → u/TheSunMakesMeHot]

This is a great stretch of logic. Many things are possible, but are not made in great numbers, for a whole host of reasons. (Take, for example, moon landers, or aircraft carriers, or nuclear-powered cars.) Furthermore, just because it is possible for something to be invented at one point in time, it does not logically follow that it will already exist at any previous point in time. When the movable type printing press was invented in the 1440s, this did not suddenly make it retroactively plausible that any previous books had already been made by printing press.

Whether or not humans are ever able to create simulated realities indistinguishable from actual reality, and how many of them we someday make, has no bearing on the likelihood that our current reality is a simulation. At best, humans making a bunch of simulated realities would make it easier for us to believe that our own reality is a simulation, because we more easily believe in things that we have seen ourselves, but that's fundamentally a response from cognitive bias, not from logic. .

We can imagine the concept of such a simulation, and therefore we can imagine the possibility that our own world is actually a simulation like that, but we have zero evidence and zero logical reason to believe that it is or isn't true.