Why Do We Live in a Simulation?

Joon Sung Park thinks we live in a simulation because any civilization will recreate itself to understand itself. People ask him often because of the technology he is building, and the experience still has to feel real and true to who we are.

Humans and societies like ours always want to understand themselves better. The best way to understand something is to recreate it. A simulation is a portrait of who we are as a society, and making one is an innate desire for a civilization like ours. Any civilization will create a simulation, and at some point we likely live in one.

A society rests on quantum building blocks of people's tastes and behaviors. Inherent characteristics might be among them, and people's risk tolerance is not really known to change. A person holds certain aesthetics they really enjoy. The traits come together as individuals, and individuals are the building blocks of larger societies. Simulations start with individuals, built to faithfully and accurately represent a diverse persona and the characteristics and behaviors of a person. A civilization-scale simulation puts the people into one environment and lets them interact with each other.