People Are Sharing "Cheat Codes" For The Game Of Life, And Here Are 35 Of The Best Ones

"What are some cheat codes you've found in the game of life?" is a metaphorical question, Rohan Roberts told Bored Panda in an interview via email. Rohan is an innovator, author, entrepreneur, and edtech advisor who was happy to share some insights on the hypotheses that we live in a simulation with our readers.

Rohan explained that there are undoubtedly many people who literally believe life is a simulation or a game, Elon Musk being one of them. “Also, in Eastern philosophy, particularly in Vedanta, a metaphorical perspective they take is to view life as a game. In so far as both games and life have rules to abide by, laws by which the physical universe is governed, and ultimately, that there is no purpose to both a game and to life,” he explained and added that “we play a game for the fun of it.”

“Similarly, the perspective in some Eastern philosophies is that there is no higher purpose in life,” Rohan continued. “Nothing beyond playing the game of life for the sake of playing the game of life. Alan Watts, the famous British-American philosopher from the '50s and '60s often espouses this view. For example, here.”

However, “most reputable scientists don't entertain the notion that we live in a simulation and don't have much to say on this,” Rohan said. At the same time, there are some prominent voices in the scientific community who have voiced their opinions.

Rohan elaborates: “Swedish philosopher and professor at Oxford, Nick Bostrom, has said that there is a 50-50 chance that we live in a simulation; but he has also said that we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. Swedish-American physicist and professor at MIT, Max Tegmark, seems to take the opposite view. In an interview with the Guardian, he says, 'Is it logically possible that we are in a simulation? Yes. Are we probably in a simulation? I would say no.' Harvard theoretical physicist Lisa Randall is even more skeptical. 'I don’t see that there’s really an argument for it. There’s no real evidence.'”

But the real problem with the simulation hypothesis is that there is no way to prove it. “And that's what makes it unscientific,” adds Rohan.“Science philosopher Karl Popper proposed the Falsification Principle as a way of demarcating science from non-science. It suggests that for a theory to be considered scientific it must be able to be tested and conceivably proven false. For example, the hypothesis that 'all swans are white' can be falsified by observing a black swan.”

In the same way, there’s no good way we could falsify the claim that the universe is a simulation. “We don't have a good way of doing that, to the best of my knowledge. If we were, indeed, living in a simulation, it cannot really be tested. Any test we use will itself be part of the simulation,” he explained.

So according to Rohan, whether the simulation hypothesis is true or not all boils down to the evidence. “We must remember that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence—and what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”

“At the same time, however, we would do well to keep in mind that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. That said, if this universe were, indeed, created by a programmer, we’d still be left with the question, 'who programmed the Programmer?’" Rohan concluded.

Bored Panda also spoke to Tim Ventura, a futurist, digital marketing executive, and writer with a passion for the future. Tim explained that in a "perfect" simulation, “there is no way to prove that we live in a simulation. In fact, it has been argued that a 'perfect' simulation can't be viewed as a simulation at all—you might view it more as a parallel universe or another dimension.” This idea goes back to “Plato's Allegory of the Cave, and the easy way of thinking of it is this: if we live in a perfect simulation, then even if it's simulated and there is a 'top level' reality out there, we're still real,” Tim explained.

Meanwhile, “If the simulation has flaws or takes 'shortcuts,' then it may be possible to prove we live in a simulation. There are possible examples of this—for instance, it has been noted that the 'double slit experiment' (along with much of quantum uncertainty) in physics offers similar results to a gaming system that doesn't render map images that won't be seen by the player.”

Tim argues that ultimately, the view that we may live in a simulation is simply another way of expressing that the universe we live in has "structure." “It's best not to take it too seriously, because even if it's true, we're not bits & bytes on a desktop computer,” he warned and added: “The kind of equipment required to simulate an entire world would be very advanced, and different enough to us that it would likely appear to be magical in nature.”

“Speaking of which, that could be one advantage of living in a simulation: if the rules are programmed, then the programmers could change them. Perhaps Heaven does exist because somebody coded it for us,” Tim laughed.