https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znMK2VIUQbA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis
Consequences of living in a simulation[edit]
Some scholars speculate that the creators of our hypothetical simulation may have limited computing power; if so, after a certain point, the creators would have to deploy some sort of strategy to prevent simulations from themselves indefinitely creating high-fidelity simulations in unbounded regress. One obvious strategy would be to simply terminate the overly-intensive simulation at that point. Therefore, if we are simulations (or simulations of simulations), and if, for example, we were to start massively creating simulations in the year 2050, there could be a risk of termination around that point, as there could be a jump in our simulation's required processing power.[8]
Economist Robin Hanson argues a self-interested high-fidelity Sim should strive to be entertaining and praiseworthy in order to avoid being turned off or being shunted into a non-conscious low-fidelity part of the simulation. Hanson additionally speculates that someone aware he might be a Sim, might care less about others and live more for today: "your motivation to save for retirement, or to help the poor in Ethiopia, might be muted by realizing that in your simulation, you will never retire and there is no Ethiopia."[9]
Testing the hypothesis physically[edit]
A long-shot method to test one type of simulation hypothesis was proposed in 2012 in a joint paper by physicists Silas R. Beane from the University of Bonn (now at the University of Washington, Seattle), and Zohreh Davoudi and Martin J. Savage from the University of Washington, Seattle.[10] Under the assumption of finite computational resources, the simulation of the universe would be performed by dividing the continuum space-time into a discrete set of points. In analogy with the mini-simulations that lattice-gauge theorists run today to build up nuclei from the underlying theory of strong interactions (known as Quantum chromodynamics), several observational consequences of a grid-like space-time have been studied in their work. Among proposed signatures is an anisotropy in the distribution of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, that, if observed, would be consistent with the simulation hypothesis according to these physicists (but, of course, would not prove that the universe is a simulation). A multitude of physical observables must be explored before any such scenario could be accepted or rejected as a theory of nature.[11]