Eon Musk assures us that it is highly probable that a techno-version of him does in fact exist:
The strongest argument for us being in a simulation probably is the following: 40 years ago we had pong. Like, two rectangles and a dot. That was what games were. Now, 40 years later, we have photorealistic, 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously, and it’s getting better every year. Soon we’ll have virtual reality, augmented reality.
If you assume any rate of improvement at all, then the games will become indistinguishable from reality, even if that rate of advancement drops by a thousand from what it is now. Then you just say, okay, let’s imagine it’s 10,000 years in the future, which is nothing on the evolutionary scale.
So given that we’re clearly on a trajectory to have games that are indistinguishable from reality, and those games could be played on any set-top box or on a PC or whatever, and there would probably be billions of such computers or set-top boxes, it would seem to follow that the odds that we’re in base reality is one in billions.
Tell me what’s wrong with that argument. Is there a flaw in that argument?
Philosopher Berny Belvedere’s take on Musk’s claims:
Here’s the problem: there is a universe-sized metaphysical gap between ruling out andruling in — I can’t rule out that invisible fairies are currently swirling around the room, but I have very little reason to rule it in. I can’t rule out that I am the only thing that exists, but I have very little reason to rule it in. These are reasonable positions to take. Musk, however, rules in that we’re all characters in a video game.