Mixed Results on Living in a Simulation

Jun 3, 2011

What’s the takeaway here? That a quarter of our readers think we’re nuts for even asking this question? Or that almost half of our readers seriously think we probably are living in a simulation?


A recently concluded poll of IEET readers asked whether we are, as Nick Bostrom has proposed, actually living inside a giant computer simulation being performed by a far advanced civilization.

Only about one in six respondents said we definitely are, but almost a third said they think it is possible, even likely. So that means nearly half of our readers take the idea quite seriously.

However, more than a quarter of the respondents flatly dismissed the idea as silly, and nearly another quarter claim that the question is not even worth considering, because the problems of the “real world” matter a lot more. (Note: that last answer was phrased by us as a deliberate irony.)

So, we are left with no obvious conclusion. Further research is necessary.

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