Historically, the brain in a vat argument has troubled numerous thinkers. This thought experiment goes as follows: imagine a brain is kept alive artificially in a jar. Electric signals are provided to the neurons by a computer in such a way that the brain actually believes it’s experiencing something.

 

 

 

The simulation hypothesis goes on step further and imagines that all of us live in a (computer-)simulated reality, where we believe we exist but really are just a few lines of codes on a higher power’s computer. As you might have guessed, Elon Musk is a fan of this idea, and many science-fiction writers have used it, from Isaac Asimov to the creators of “The Matrix”.

 

Critics have argued that this doesn’t explain who’s behind the simulation. And if “they” are simulated too, who’s creating their reality, and so on and so forth, the problem keeps getting pushed back. What’s more, ethicists and moral philosophers have considered the implications of scientists finding out that we live in a simulated Universe: if it were true, harming someone else wouldn’t be a problem as they’re not really real, right?