For a while I've been aware of the idea that the reality we are experiencing could be simply a simulation so perfect that we can't notice it.

Given that with time we can create ever more powerful computing devices and with infinite time we could potentially produce infinitely powerful computers, it is then plausible that at one point we may wish to create a simulation for whatever reason, perhaps a simulation of the past for historical research. Then suppose that this has already been done and that we are the resulting simulation, but then suppose that this has been done even before them and that we are a simulation within a simulation, how many layers can possibly exist?

What are the chances that we are the top layer that hasn't yet created a simulation? with an infinite amount of possible realities the chances that we are the first are infinitely low. To me this is an exciting thought, imagine the implications of being a simulated intelligence ourselves, the idea of a soul would be slain right there.

Suppose that there is a limit on the power a computer can possess, suppose that there is an ultimate design that uses all matter and energy in the universe in the most efficient way possible so that it is impossible to build a better computer. What would happen if the second layer of simulation required the processing power to simulate the ultimate machine? The first layer would be using the same machine and it would be impossible to simulate itself in real time. Thus the solution would be to process the second layer at a slower rate, time would run faster in the first layer than in the second. Time would be experienced in the second layer as being just the same as it always was, it would simply require more time for the first layer to process it. This introduces a difference in the speed of time within each layer.

When the second layer becomes the same ultimate machine of the first layer, it would be appropriate for the computer in the first layer to simply assume the processing of the computer in the second layer and move each subsequent layer up one, reducing the amount of layers by one and lessening the amount of processing significantly. As the next layer becomes this ultimate computer the same process can occur. This creates a cycle of new simulations being created at the lower end of the layers (by people) and destroyed at the top end. Perhaps this results in a repetition of all time through a certain amount of simulations each set at a different time of universal history.

Yet none of this takes into consideration the fact that the possibility exists for multiple simulations within one layer that would ultimately have to be processed by a single computer in the layer above. That idea complicates things so much that I need to spend more time thinking about it. And what if one layer failed to produce a simulation? and why would making simulations be so important as to create a single machine out of the entire universe. I guess it just comes down to possibility.

This idea kind of has a resemblance to the multi-verse theory, infinite separate realities and infinite possible variations between them.

Dylan McGannon - peltium -at- gmail.com

PS, This XKCD comic is what got me thinking in this direction: XKCD number 505