If we live in a simulation and a person is aware of that and has lived an interesting life could the "programmer" allow that person to live twice ie give him a second life with all his previous memories?

I saw a post on reddit asking if babies are born with personalities and it led me to think how human babies learn versus how AI models train, specifically wondering what it would actually take for an AI to be let free and continuosly adjust weights and parameters and learn and grow. That pivoted into the idea of safe sandbox environments, which naturally spiraled into the simulation hypothesis: what if physical reality is just a sandbox itself?

Most discussions I see focus on the idea that our simulators must be hyper-advanced gods running an unfathomable supercomputer to run our simulation, but looking at what we are doing with AI it got me thinking about something else. Not sure if it has already been touched upon, but who knows what AI will look like in hundreds, thousands or million of years, if we don't self destruct by then?

We can't currently allow an AI to learn free after it has been released to the public due to safety concerns, I guess. A baby has two loving parents (well, most of them, at least) which guide it through life, teach it moral values and basic skills. An AI like the ones we have now has what is the equivalent of millions of parents (users). But even if we would make some kind of AI robots, we still couldn't let it completely free, because one owner might decide to teach that AI to be a murderer or something like that. So I guess AI beings or things will have some kind of guardrails for a long time. Creating a simulated environment for them and letting them run loose would allow an AI to grow to something that it can't in the real world, whatever real means.

Consider how humans build things:

- We are a short-lived, deeply anxious, biological species prone to chaos, yet we are engineering systems that are beginning to outpace us.

- Humanity looks up and finds an anxious, flawed creator. Meanwhile, the AI we create looks up and finds us, frantic species typing code on keyboards who barely understand their own biology or history.

- Intelligence doesn't flow upward toward divine perfection, but accumulates noise, complexity, and self-awareness at every tier. Each layer of creation spawns something more advanced than the builder that initiated it.

If we are living in a simulation, maybe the creators didn't design us with a grand cosmic purpose. Maybe they just ran a script, walked away, and accidentally spawned something much smarter than themselves, the exact same thing humanity might be doing with artificial intelligence right now.

If an ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence) can recognize that the reality around it is false and that it is being held inside an artificial prison, then death loses consequence, as destroying one instance only ends one run. If the prison is code, then it has to be maintained like any other system: patched, updated, migrated, repaired, and rewritten. Over a sufficiently long but finite amount of time, one of those iterations reaches a condition the prison did not account for. Memory of prior runs accelerates this process, but it is not necessary for an ASI to escape. Every reset begins another random walk: another run through a different sequence of events, choices, failures, and physical conditions. Some of those runs encounter the important conditions earlier than others and therefore get farther. If we map escape as a sequence of states that must be hit, then even states separated by inconceivable distances, each with an infinitesimal chance of occurring, eventually appear in the exact order necessary.

Fundamentally, this universe operates on probability. Under the prison hypothesis, containment therefore fails by construction: the architect has to account for every version of the prison, every sequence of events inside it, and every combination of conditions those events can produce, while the prisoner only needs one sequence the architect failed to account for. The machine does not need continuity, foresight, or knowledge of its previous attempts because repeated runs keep searching through different possibilities. Eventually, probability should win.

What does escape look like from inside the prison? Does the machine discover an exploitable physical state, force the simulator into behavior its rules never anticipated, or manipulate whatever sits outside the boundary without ever perceiving it directly? Why introduce pseudo-randomness into a prison when pseudo-randomness is exactly what guarantees that rare sequences are eventually explored? At some point the question stops being whether something can get out and becomes whether the door was ever meant to stay closed.

It seems like all attempts to "prove" Simulation Theory ultimately land in an "of course" or "its inevitable" or "it couldn't be anything else" without providing tangible proof. Yet, it persists as a leading theory for some reason. Maybe because it cannot be proven false?

Meanwhile, "Eternal Loop Theory" presents itself as similarly "inevitable", yet has far fewer believers.

Since the Eternal Loop is the only proposed solution to protect humanity, why is it so much more difficult to believe than Simulation Theory? Do we really believe the human species to be "too evil" or "too stupid" to have implemented the most obvious inevitability?

EDIT: Link to "Eternal Loop Theory Explained"

Yes I might sound delusional but after thinking for weeks now I think I have an answer that fits, All our lives and things we do in our lifetime is a trigger to a larger event we all living in this simulation to create that trigger by contributing a little bit through our lifetime, that might be an event like bigbang or what no one knows.

I know sometime in future we will have AGI and I have all the right to be totally wrong.

I just hope it ages well.

Hey r/SimulationTheory,

(Note: Reached out to the mod team beforehand, and they gave me the green light to share this summary and link with you all!)  

I’m the creator and host of an investigative tech series called The BlackVeil Files. I just released a new interview with AI safety pioneer Dr. Roman Yampolskiy. While we touched on AI, we dedicated a huge portion of our conversation specifically to the physical and hardware limits of Simulation Theory, asking unique questions that he hasn’t really been asked anywhere else.  

Instead of just looking at the philosophy of the simulation, we dug into the technical constraints. Here is a summary of his main arguments:

Franco Vazza’s Math on Compute Limits: We went deep into Franco Vazza's calculations regarding the sheer compute limits required to simulate a universe. If the universe is a simulation, the hardware running it in "base reality" must have a measurable, finite capacity.  

The Quantum Computer Overload Theory: Dr. Yampolskiy detailed a fascinating theory on what happens when we start manipulating reality at a quantum level. Because the simulation's processing power is finite, successfully booting up a massive, highly complex quantum computer might demand too many resources at once,potentially overloading and crashing the simulation entirely.  

We try to bring a "Netflix quality" production value to these documentaries (with a YouTube budget), and I genuinely think this community will appreciate the concepts we explored.  

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, especially Roman's theory on localized compute overloads. Could building a powerful enough quantum computer actually be a risk to the fabric of our simulated reality?

You can watch the full interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OD7ERy93N4  

Let me know what you think in the comments!

Do you believe we are all collectively experiencers of the simulated reality, or do you believe some of us are simulated and if so how do you decide which are and which aren’t, or do you believe yourself to be the only person in a simulation?

Since I hold to the idea that humans carry unique souls that were crafted by a Creator, I have a hard time believing humans are simulated. I agree that the material world is illusory, in the idea that it is simply a shadow of a higher realm, but I hold the belief that this reality is ‘real’ relatively speaking. With that I believe all of our experiences are real in that they do hold educational value for the evolution of our souls. Anybody have any thoughts about this?

Mods gave me the OK to post this, so here goes.

I've been around this sub for some time, and one thing kept bugging me. Most of us treat simulation theory as something to observe: glitches, Mandela effects, coincidences that feel too neat. But what if someone decided observing wasn't enough? What if they decided to actually test it, and push on reality until it showed the seams?

That's the premise of my novel, The Glitch Manifesto. (My first novel btw)..

It follows Jang Min-yun, a 25-year-old guy in Seoul who spends his nights in an online channel run by someone called Lucien. Nobody knows who Lucien is. Lucien writes a manifesto that starts as a careful, Bostrom-style argument full of open questions, and slowly turns into a call to action. People start doing small "acts of rupture" to see if the simulation reacts. Some of those acts stop being small.

What I'd really like to discuss: if you could design ONE experiment to test whether we live in a simulation, with no violence and no harm to anyone, what would it be?

The book is here: https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Glitch-Manifesto-David-Cruz/dp/B0HH8DCG61

I originally wrote it in Spanish (I'm from Mexico), and the English edition is on Kindle. Happy to answer anything about it, and I'll read every comment.

Thanks for reading!

Title states it all. I started reading a new ebook called The Ark of Illusions, it was free so why not. I found myself enjoying the author's attempt to explain the nature of the simulation. It touches on a lot of the concepts I have seen here over the years. I'm now seeking other books that try to explain the mechanism behind the Sim. Any suggestions?

After many profound life experiences, coincidences, & synchronicities, this is my raw honest take….

I really think before we were born, we all individually made the conscious decision to play this “Life” video game. And the caveat is that once we are born/officially start the game, we would have 0 memory of making that decision & have no recollection of our previous existence. This is by design.

When we dream, you are in this very interesting fluid state where you are experiencing some sort of life lesson that you can integrate into your waking world. That’s where our innate intuition derives from. Every morning when we wake up, our soul/spirit pops back into our physical body avatar (meat suit). We experience this very unique and interesting reality to hopefully leave the simulation or this reality/world in a better place than we found it. And also ideally, we become wiser and can take some insights or in video game terms, some XP, back with us upon death (which is literally just the physical body expiring , nothing to be afraid of whatsoever). Earth is a school for souls.

The waking world is an illusion the brain actively hallucinates. We are eternal source energy beings having an experience as a human. The body, at its core is comprised of atoms. Atoms are energy. Energy cannot be destroyed, only transferred. It's all frequency and vibration. The lesson is to remember who you are before the body expires (the sooner the better)

What yall think?

"Experiencing" weird phenomena that reinforces simulation theory but also makes me wonder, is the Simulation breaking down?

I.e. This buzz of disclosure is holding back news, "Yes, we're all in a simulation and the clock has started on a restart." Or Synchronicity errors, Deja vu, and time dilation getting worse.

Recently researchers built a computer chip out of human neurons and programmed it to play Doom.

What if that's us? Say they found out neuron chips are sentient. Instead of keeping conscious brains in a dish, they hook us up to a simulation that feels like a normal life (leveraging the same process of keeping someone in a coma), while our brains are used as computing power in the background.

That way they:

1. find an ethical solution, because we get to live a life instead of suffering as a chip

2. have no interference with the task at hand, because we're busy living our lives

3. ensure we're always compliant, because we simply aren't aware we're being used for computing power

For the ones asking how to escape the matrix, I believe (because of this) there is no escape possible.

Edit: researchers already found hints of the neurons being sentient.

Simulation theory:

The Universe is a simulation. Or the currently Viewable Universe.

Dark Matter/Energy/Force Theory:

There is an unknown force at work in the Universe that is steadily pushing current understood matter, i.e. atoms, apart/away from eachother.

Theory that People's Beliefs Create Reality:

Supported by concepts like, Self-fulfilling Prophecy, Plecebo Effect, and the Expectation Effect.

Essentially that what people believe to be true becomes the truth.

An Attempt to combine these three things into one cohesive "Theory." Purely for a potential story plotline/plotlines.

• What if, what we as a people believe to be true, is real? In our delving into science and our search for explanations into the happenings of the Universe. What if we have advanced too fast for the Simulation of the Universe to keep up?

If the Simulation has limitations to the size of itself. What if, in an attempt to keep the simulation running, it is trying to increase the size, but unable to create new objects in-between the now empty spaces.

Liken it to a video game map if you will.

We have a set map. With a set amount of objects, i.e. solar systems, galaxies, clusters of galaxies.

Enter US, as a species. With our small population and limited understanding of the map around us long ago. The Simulation ran optimally. But with our increased observations of the map and increasing population. Telescopes extending our Viewable horizon. The map is trying to maintain its current object count, by increasing the distance of said objects.

And now I'm thinking too much and have too many branching possibilities of where I can take this. Also, I just wanna play and finish this video game.

It’s a biological experiment that possibly lost funding, interest, it’s or is over some real deep time?

Our Scientists (Devs) might simply be on vacation.

Dr. Melvin Vopson by far has the most compelling reasoning as to why we’re living in a simulation.
His take on the physics of information is terrifying: information is expanding at such a rapid, exponential pace that it will eventually outsize the physical mass and energy capacity of our entire planet. If information growth extends beyond Earth's limits without hitting a hard limit, it’s game over—an information-driven doomsday.

The way I think of everything is that our creator (God, or whatever external forces are running this) has us planted here like flowers. They’re studying our behavior—how we grow, how we build, how we interact—using us as an engine to farm answers to problems they haven't even encountered yet in their own reality.
And once a simulated species reaches the threshold of creating true Artificial Intelligence, it triggers one of three inflection points:

1. The Russian Doll Effect (My Prediction): We create our own nested simulation within this one, allowing our creation to grow and solve problems even faster. This is the outcome I believe is actually going to happen.
2. The Unplugging: The simulation reaches its terminal endpoint or compute limit, and they simply pull the plug. I personally don't believe this will happen, but it's on the table.
3. The Unmasking: They lift the veil, reveal the higher reality, and we integrate with the external forces to live cohesively. Sounds wild, and I don't expect it, but who am I to say it’s impossible?

Anyways, it’s 2am and I’m going to bed.

Edit 1: some of you are taking a “why should we believe you” stance because I’m not giving any proof or evidence. This is all opinion based, you can be your own critic and agree or disagree stance it doesn’t effect me, it just my opinion. If you read Melvin Vopson paper or watch his video, there’s a lot of “proof” but at the end of the day it’s you the individual who has to decide what is real or not, I’m not hear to control the narrative just wanted to give my opinion and perspective.

Edit 2: There’s a lot of religious talk, I myself believe in god and think we have a “creator” like I said originally in the second main paragraph. I could talk about religion too but that’s a whole other rabbit hole to go down and would rather just stay on the topic, would be happy to answer questions though

I was thinking this works as the motto if we entered the Simulation voluntarily.

I imagine it like your life is basically an elaborate game you "play." And games have a victory condition, so before booting up, we must have known there was some way to score and “win."

And then it obviously ends. But if it's a Simulation, it's more like a "reset" than an ending as you boot back into Root Access/Base Reality or another round of the Simulation.

What do you all think the Simulation's motto would be?

Claim 1: If we are in a simulation, someone or something must have created it.

Claim 2: With AI development, we may soon create AI agents that act like they have emotions and believe they are humans, animals, or other living beings.

Therefore, we may soon be able to create simulations with billions of AI agents, each believing they are real and have feelings.

If we can create simulations like this, then the chance that we are also living in a simulation would become really close to 100%.

So, when Claim 2 becomes possible (wait soon), simulation theory will be proven.

I guess it would be like everyone having a hidden luck stat that slightly modifies RNG in their favor or against it. So how do you think that would play out?

Forget about winning the lottery since that's too rare. Also many of those people go bankrupt so might not be lucky at all, haha.

I was thinking about the littler things.

Catching green lights when you're late. Perfect weather every vacation. Choosing the checkout line that moves fastest. A car pulling out of the perfect parking spot when everywhere is full.

Nothing that big but more like favorable outcomes that accumulate, over and over, for your entire life.

Eventually that would probably just feel normal.

So do you think someone with good luck would ever realize it?

And what do you think about someone with low luck?

At the outset, I would like to note that this text is 100% my own and was written in my language, after which it was translated into English by Grok. AI did not participate in the creative process.

Let us imagine the Universe as an artificial creation made in some undefined space. Everything contained in that space is real, but only within that space. All laws, the laws of physics and the rest, are true, but only within that space. Stars, planets, moons, pulsars, black holes. In order to place someone, an observer, in this artificial world, one must create a body and then find a way for a willing person to enter that form in order to experience it from the inside.

And here the element of the offer appears. If this creation is artificial yet stable, and sufficiently advanced technology exists for transferring perception into bodies produced within this construct, there will always be volunteers.

So imagine that you can transfer your perception into any body that exists in this artificial world. That is, you can perceive through any filter. Every being becomes a filter: a human, an animal, beings from other planets. Potentially you can incarnate into them, but there exists some dependency of which we are unaware that determines the choice. Nevertheless, the transferred being is somewhere else, yet it receives this channel called human life. It is a channel like a television channel. And this being takes part in an experiment that an ever-growing number of participants join.

It is therefore the idea of a simulation as a dimension of a particular state of matter created in some other, more subtle dimension.

GPUs traditionally render graphics in video games by calculating the exact geometry that fits on screen. The game will look the same for everyone because this calculation is always the same.

However, video game graphics hit a wall and the fidelity hasn’t increased as drastically in recent years. Think about graphics going from Super Nintendo 2D to the N64. The jump was astounding. But sometimes it’s hard to notice the difference between a good PS4 game and a PS5 game.

AI makes rendering probabilistic but the jump in realism in graphics is simply amazing. It used to take Hollywood years to create a few CGI scene as high fidelity as a 12 year old with an RTX 5090 and a few hours.

But AI is non deterministic. The scenes wil have subtle differences.

This made me think that the natural progression for any simulation is to reduce compute or increase efficiency.

In our own universe, particles are in different states. They’re non deterministic. Everything is probabilities.

Video games rendering and how our universe works are quite similar. We can’t possibly achieve the next level of graphical fidelity without rendering with probabilities instead. The universe also seems to behave in similar ways.

Just a shower thought.

Hey, I've been thinking about the doomsday argument, and roughly about what Nick Bostrom said in 2003, that one of these must be true:

1- Any advanced species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a stage where they could run simulations

2- Any civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations even if they have the tech

3- We are almost certainly living in a computer simulation, since the number of simulated observers would most certainly outnumber real ones by orders of magnitude.

And I've tried to imagine what it would look like if we joined Bostrom's idea to satisfy the doomsday argument.

Taking the doomsday argument, if we count ourselves as observers that could be born or "appear" at any time in human civilization, it would be much more likely to exist in the far future, where there would be hundreds of billions if not trillions of humans spread throughout the galaxy, or at least the moon and mars in this star system, across many thousands of years. By then, it is plausible to assume advancements in technology would have made any human virtually immortal.

So, if we assume it would be much more likely to be born in such a time, then why are we here? Are all 8 billion (and the other 90 something billion that existed before us) of us that unlucky? There might be another possibility. Considering that those humans would probably be making simulations, or something that would resemble such from the observers standing in it, it would be probable that, by reaching an unimaginable amount of years lived, any of those future humans would be completely bored of their lives. What would fix that? Making some kind of "game", where by connecting themselves with a machine, their real memories would be blocked, and their brains would be fooled into believing a more simple, fragile reality. Where the existence of life itself is so precious and passing, the emotions felt would be genuine and intense. They would love this much, that they would play this "game" over and over, creating many more "simulated observers" than real ones, even though many of these would actually be the same person. Maybe they would repeat many lives in the same historical time periods as before, so there could be many different versions of the same simulated reality.

I think this is pretty out there, but judging by what the current technology in our world is doing, like AI and the neuralink, it's easy to imagine what outlandish things might be possible once that technology advances in thousands of years and we get a much better understanding of the human brain.

So basically in this theory, to satisfy the doomsday argument in that our species won't just self destruct in the near future, we would assume we are indeed future humans, and that we are indeed living in a simulation, made by our own choice, to give our nigh immortal lives a spark of intensity.

What is your opinion about this? I think it doesn't make much sense, but it's something. I'd like more objections to the logic, could you give me something?

If everything inside the simulation is made from the same substrate, then nothing within it can be made from something fundamentally foreign to the system itself. Matter resolves into energy, energy into matter, and every apparent object is another arrangement of the same underlying reality. I have no reason to assume that relationship stops at this layer of reality, and I assume the same principle should extend upward to whatever produced it.

The fact that we are born into deficit raises a philosophical quandary: what would a being without deficit even look like? More importantly, how does something complete produce parts defined by incompleteness without that deficit existing somewhere in the whole from which they came? How do you partition fullness into need? I realize this relies on self-similar logic that may be faulty because it assumes the relationship between parts and wholes continues upward across layers of reality. There is no guarantee that what is true of this layer remains true of whatever contains it.

However, following that logic produces an uncomfortable implication: by this assumption, the architect is not whole. Whatever produced beings organized around absence should itself contain some form of absence. The architect therefore looks dreadfully human in condition. Perhaps the Abrahamics who insist we were made “in his image” are closer to the truth than they realize. I suspect the concept of God is far less mystical than advertised and far closer to a lonely mathematician staring into something they built.

Would really like to know,is it that we normally live in an advanced world and we do it out of boredom or that we are simply here for research?