Simulation theory, very shortly explained, is the idea that our reality is a simulation. It is not a new thing, the resemblance to Descartes' "evil demon" or "brain in vat" is definitely there. Perhaps the biggest difference is that this new form has attracted new types of intellectual support over the last decade with a lot of credentialed supporters in the form of scientists, philosophers, authors and other thinkers. It's not a generally accepted thing by any means, but it has definitely gained intellectual traction.
Why is that? Well, the backbone of the idea is that the universe is information and a lot of things seems to fit this idea. The universe in a lot of cases seem to behave a lot like information, and it fits formal languages and formalized theories very well.
Personally, I have some issues with information theory.
Information systems tend make things play by their own rules. If you look at a ball with maths and physics, it will behave with maths and physics (F=m*a). If you look at it with words, it will behave with words ("the ball bounces"), if you look at it with paint, it will behave with paint.
"Ceci n'est pas une pipe" as Magritte famously wrote on his painting, "this is not a pipe", in the aptly named "The Treason of Images". Or as one might say in an 101 introductory science class: The study model is not the study object. And sure, this is criticism we could also make of less positivistic ideals like instrumentalism, but the key difference is that such ideals do not hinge on claims of knowledge of the study object, merely that the models seemingly work.
In this we find somewhat of a philosophical paradox, the closest relative to simulation theory might very well be scientific realism. Both views hinge on the ability to objectively model an assumed underlying framework of the universe. And just like scientific realists will ultimately struggle to show that we model a reality, simulation theory supporters will ultimately struggle to show that we model a program.
And sure, we can wind up in an argument of precision and prediction and end up at the point where we will have to concede that maths and physics make for better predictions than words and oil paintings, but even the former operate with boundaries of error. Perhaps those boundaries grow smaller as our theories grow more solid, but they're still there.
Last edited by tame_deuces; 12-28-2016 at 02:11 AM.