Oxford University: 20% Chance We Are in a Computer Simulation

Published yesterday in the New York Times Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy's Couch

You have this little tidbit

Dr. Bostrom doesn't pretend to know which of these hypotheses is more likely, but he thinks none of them can be ruled out. "My gut feeling, and it's nothing more than that," he says, "is that there's a 20 percent chance we're living in a computer simulation."

In essence the theory is that future humans will improve technology to the point where they can run simulations on entire civilizations.  Think: The Sims meets the Matrix.

If this theory is correct, we would not be "plugged in" to a matrix with real bodies and stolen minds, we simply would only exist in 1's and 0's.

If you think about it, we already run very complex simulations on biological development, weather patterns and many other "natural" occurrences.  Perhaps in 50 or 100 years we will have the processing power (the only thing we currently lack) to run these full civilization simulations.

Here is one last quote, to read the whole article Here's the link

But now it seems quite possible. In fact, if you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom's, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else's computer simulation.

This simulation would be similar to the one in "The Matrix," in which most humans don't realize that their lives and their world are just illusions created in their brains while their bodies are suspended in vats of liquid. But in Dr. Bostrom's notion of reality, you wouldn't even have a body made of flesh. Your brain would exist only as a network of computer circuits.

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