The Simulation Hypothesis — Are We Living in a Virtual World?

The Simulation Hypothesis gained popularity in 2003, when philosopher Nick Bostrom proposed a now-famous paper. He laid out a trilemma — three possibilities: Advanced civilizations never reach a point where they can run large-scale simulations of their ancestors. They reach that point, but choose not to run such simulations. They do run them — and there are so many simulations that simulated beings vastly outnumber real ones.