If the environment is included in the simulation, this will require additional computing power – how much depends on the scope and granularity of the simulation. Simulating the entire universe …

Are you living in a computer simulation? Here you can peruse the debate that followed the paper presenting the simulation argument.

If we are living in a simulation, then the cosmos that we are observing is just a tiny piece of the totality of physical existence. The physics in the universe where the computer is situated that …

In my doctoral research, I studied the foundations of probability theory and self-locating belief, and I worked out the first mathematical theory of observation selection effects (Bostrom 2002).

If we are living in a simulation, then the cosmos that we are observing is just a tiny piece of the totality of physical existence. The physics in the universe where the computer is situated that …

If we extrapolate these expected technological advances, and think through some of their logical implications, we arrive at another humbling conclusion: the “simulation argument”, which has …

Nick Bostrom argues that we have reason to believe that we are currently living inside a complex computer simulation of the world. This paper explores this simulation argument, to see if it’s …

examines the idea that we live in an "ancestor simulation", a computer simulation run by some technologically advanced civilization. The original paper, interviews, further research

While the full simulation argument employs some probability theory and formalism, the gist of it can be understood in intuitive terms. Suppose that proposition (1) is false.

The underlying Theory of Everything, if it exists, may require many properties of our Universe to have been selected at random, by symmetry breaking, from a large collection of possibilities …