In an influential 2003 paper, University of Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom laid out the possibility that our reality is a computer simulation dreamed up by a highly advanced civilization. In the paper, he argued that at least one of three propositions must be true:
- Civilizations usually go extinct before developing the capability of creating reality simulations.
- Advanced civilizations usually have no interest in creating reality simulations.
- We’re almost certainly living inside a computer simulation.
Now, Columbia University astronomer David Kipping took a hard look at these propositions, also known as Bostrom’s “trilemma,” and argued that there’s essentially a 50-50 chance that we are indeed living in a simulation, Scientific American reports.
Kipping collapsed the first two propositions into one, arguing that they both would result in the same outcome — we are not living inside a simulation.
https://futurism.com/columbia-professor-50-percent-chance-simulation
I am OK with 50/50, unless a simulation actually becomes possible, anywhere in the future of our planet, then it becomes almost certain.
Destroy technology to stop it happening?
No, that would only stop us from making a simulation within our simulation.
