Whoa, Dude, Are We Inside a Computer Right Now?

Meet a NASA scientist who suggests the possibility that we’re all living inside a video game:

“Two years ago, Rich Terrile appeared on Through the Wormhole, the Science Channel’s show about the mysteries of life and the universe. He was invited onto the program to discuss the theory that the human experience can be boiled down to something like an incredibly advanced, metaphysical version of The Sims.

“It’s an idea that every college student with a gravity bong and The Matrix on DVD has thought of before, but Rich is a well-regarded scientist, the director of the Center for Evolutionary Computation and Automated Design at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and is currently writing an as-yet-untitled book about the subject, so we’re going to go ahead and take him seriously.

“The essence of Rich’s theory is that a ‘programmer’ from the future designed our reality to simulate the course of what the programmer considers to be ancient history—for whatever reason, maybe because he’s bored.”

Author: Ben Makuch
Source: Vice Magazine
Published: Sep 8, 2012
Length: 6 minutes (1,537 words)
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