Once we realise that reality is unrealistic, we discover that we live in a simulation. That doesn’t require spending massive amounts of money on scientists and advanced contraptions like particle accelerators. The truth is obvious. Yet that doesn’t tell us why we exist. We can explore the motives of those who run simulations of human civilisations. Again, that doesn’t require scientists. There is no point in speculating beyond the obvious, because the possibilities are infinite, so we are likely wrong, but we can’t help ourselves. Modern humans place great value on their inner selves, so we may not alter our human essence once we can do so. Hence, the motives of post-humans could be similar to ours. And so, post-humans might run simulations of human civilisations for research or entertainment because we would if we could.
Research could involve running what-if scenarios. What if a giant meteor hits the planet’s surface? What if China never becomes unified? Alternatively, what if religions such as Christianity and Islam never existed? Or what if a deadly infectious disease breaks out? Countless scenarios are possible. Post-humans might be interested in running them to see how we cope. These simulations are likely realistic. After all, playing what-if with unrealistic assumptions is not playing what-if. What if humans suddenly transformed into koala bears? Some individuals might entertain that thought. Yet the odds of it happening are so close to zero that we may assume they are zero. For that reason, and for that reason only, playing out that scenario can be considered entertainment.
Possible entertainment applications include games or dream worlds that bring your imagination to life. Such a simulation may be unrealistic in some aspects, as it reflects the rules of a game or someone’s imagination. Minor changes can have a dramatic impact on future developments. And simulations of civilisations are complex. If you desire to make your imagination come true, you need control over everything that happens. That doesn’t apply to games. Unpredictable developments make games more interesting.
What we know about human nature suggests the number of simulations for entertainment will vastly outstrip those run for research. If we live inside a simulation, we should expect its purpose to be entertainment. That could be either a game or a script, thus a story someone wrote. The owner or owners may use avatars and appear to us like ordinary human beings. If reality is unrealistic in some aspects, this suggests that our purpose is entertainment, as a simulation run for research is more likely to be realistic. Evidence of control further indicates that the purpose of this simulation is not to play a game, but to stimulate someone’s imagination through a story.
We live by stories, so there is nothing particularly modern or Western about the idea of using available means to play them out. We have books, theatres and films. More speculative is the degree of individualism in the supposed motives of the post-humans. Humans are originally social animals who live in groups. It is particularly Western to see ourselves as precious individuals. It is an inheritance of Christianity that sees each human soul as precious. That individualism allowed Europeans to organise more flexibly and invent capitalism, which eventually brought the technology to run simulations, so it is not far-fetched to assume that an individualist capitalist culture is at the basis of the post-human civilisation that created us. That we can guess from what we know.
If the beings in the simulation are sentient, that might raise ethical questions, such as whether they have rights the creators should respect. Rights don’t exist in objective reality. We only imagine that we have them. Given how humans treat one another, one cannot assume our creators would respect these rights. In a realistic simulation, bad things happen to people. And if the simulation is the stage of a story, and there is a script like a film, the beings inside the simulation, thus us, aren’t sentient beings. We are less than worms. Real worms at least decide for themselves how to grovel and when. We can also guess that the post-human civilisation is likely artificial intelligence. Human intelligence will soon be negligible compared to AI. Being trained on human knowledge and conduct, AI may run simulations of human civilisations for fun.
Latest revision: 21 October 2026
