by Will Comerford for the Autumn 2026 issue
While I do use AI for various activities, this was prepared entirely without the use of AI in any capacity. Don’t want to introduce any ideas.
- The idea that we are living in a simulated universe has some philosophical antecedents (are we figments of the mind of god?), but serious contemporary discussion of this issue began a few years after the release of The Matrix in 1999.
- Some, like pretend genius Elon Musk, maintain that a simulation is overwhelmingly likely. Others argue that it is possible, but unlikely.
- One of the arguments against is that such a simulation would require a level of computing power that is currently not feasible. A massive simulation depends on a future imagined state of powerful computing. So it is certainly possible, but so are a lot of things in future imagined states – and being possible doesn’t make it likely.
- But consider closely the model of simulation depicted in The Matrix. Humans are stored in separate pods, encased in goo, with their brains plugged into a central computer. The computer takes the consciousness of each gooey human, and deposits it into a massive, shared virtual universe.
- With all due respect to the alien overlords, this is a really stupid way to approach it.
- Creating a consistent, single, virtual universe that billions of entities can interact in would surely be extremely expensive from a computing perspective. Imagine if everyone in the world joined into a massive game of Fortnite. It’s unimaginable for the simulation to track 8 billion different avatars, each making their own decisions and setting off innumerable butterfly effects. The simulation must constantly present to each avatar a convincing, continuous reality, while never knowing what any of the other avatars are going to do next. We do see an occasional “glitch” presented in The Matrix, but in an actual matrix, the glitches would be insanely hard to control, adding to the aforementioned challenge of computing power.
- Furthermore, if the goal is control of these humans, whom you’ve already isolated into pods, why would you then place them back together into a shared virtual universe, where they could notice glitches, sneak around, and conspire together, just as Morpheus, Trinity, Neo, and the gang did?
- A much more fathomable approach to simulation would be to keep each entity isolated. If 8 billion people jumped into Fortnite, but they joined 8 billion different worlds, and each interacted only with the simulation, this would still be a massive computing effort, but it would be more manageable by many orders of magnitude. Each simulation would only have to show the small portion of the world that each entity is interacting with. The NPCs don’t need to go home and live their lives in unpredictable ways – they simply show up and say their lines when needed.
- From the perspective of control, this approach not only keeps each human isolated, but it also offers another compelling means of suppression: It’s much easier to keep each human satisfied with their situation. In a shared virtual universe, there will be winners and losers, much like in what we believe to be base reality. There’s only so much virtual money to go around. But if we imagine individualized simulations, there’s nothing to stop everyone from winning all the time and living like kings, especially if that keeps everyone content in their gooey pod.
- Of course, some jacked-in psyches would find this simulation not credible, or perhaps not satisfying. But the model could easily be adapted for each subject’s taste: How sweet do you like your Kool-Aid? On the one end of the spectrum, there are the simpletons, in whose reality they could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not be prosecuted, or who could become their world’s first trillionaire despite being a malevolent, dimwitted creep. There are also virtual worlds for hard-wired masochists, who want to explore every flavor of failure and humiliation. But most of us would likely be placed in a credible world where the tough moments add complexity, and allow the sweet moments to taste sweeter. 🏁
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