The Simulation
Elon and Claire are strolling along the inside of a rotating, geostationary Tesla Habitatellite in geosynchronous orbit over Silicon Valley. (Desecrated Gilroy, barren of its famous garlic crop, to be exact.) It is the year 2032. Claire clicks on her recorder.
Claire: Okay, okay, I told you it was important?
Elon: But in five minutes you are going to be saying, is this recording worth this?
Claire: Yeah, yeah, it is. I'm going to sample it for my next album.
(Laughs.)
Claire: OK so, here's the question. Like, if you were joining a game, you wouldn't join unless it was being started fairly, and would proceed fairly, right?
Elon: Well, I'm not sure about fairness. I've been hammered on that before.
Claire: But you'd feel bad if you lost when your opponent had an undeserved advantage, right?
Elon: Yes. I hate losing. (Elon mumbles something about the Ford X-150's sales outpacing the Tesla Supertruck's.)
Claire: Okay, well, life is a game, right?
Elon: There are winners and losers, yes. We're winners.
Claire: Exactly. Now: Does God give people different starting points in this game?
Elon: I do think God gives people different starting points. I'm smart, you're talented. Not everyone can be like us, orbiting the spoiled Earth in our Habitatellite.
Claire: But can God take those starting points into account? In other words, does God give credit for playing by different rules, or rules that are disadvantaged against you?
Elon: I think he has different rules for everyone.
Claire: That's so fucking smart. You're so smart, Elon. It's why I love you. Right, a lot of people would say if you're born on a random island, where no one has worshipped God before, or heard of right action or lovingkindness, some people would still say the result---that you don't believe---you still go to hell.
Elon: Right. But that's got to be harder for God, weighing all those different situations, rather than just where people end up, right?
Claire: Yeah, exactly. So do you know what my crazy idea is?
Elon: You said your album was a game, that sounds crazy enough.
Claire: I want to try to explain something to you, okay. Occam's Razor, right? Simplest explanation is best, right?
Elon: Right.
Claire: Okay, let's say the size of a computer is a good proxy for complexity. A small computer is needed for a simple problem, a bigger one is required to solve a more complex one. How much computing power does God need to judge our souls?
Elon: That's being pretty objective. Is God like that? I guess I hope he is. I'm sure he makes a profit, so he's got to be maximizing efficiency.
Claire: Totally. God's amazing at it. You know how we were talking about people having different starting points? Would you agree that it would be harder for God to evaluate people's souls if everyone starts from different starting points?
Elon: You're saying it would scale with the people...as opposed to...?
Claire: Okay, so...if God rewards points on a rubric, just like a game, and we take that process to be modeled---like could you turn that into a video game? An arcade game?
Elon: I would love that. I love Miss Pac-Man. So God looks at what you've done?
Claire: God looks at your choices. To isolate your choice, it is simpler for all other variables to equal. In a sense, this is the same thing as saying it takes a simpler computer to run Pac-Man to the computer it takes to run Mist, and an easier computer to run Mist than to run Final Fantasy XII, and an easier computer to run Final Fantasy XII than to run a game like Fortnite. Which I love. Anyway, to play the same exact game means the player is the only thing that's different. Isn't it easier to gauge whether one person is better than another at a game if they're playing the same game, as opposed to---
Elon: Two different games?
Claire: Yes, that in an extreme example, they'd share none of the same parameters. How can I compare you playing Pac-Man to me playing Skyrim?
Elon: We agreed not to do this, to compare your art to my art. It's totally different. I don't want to get competitive with you, the therapist said...
Claire: No, but exactly! It's a lot of variables. Too many. So if you were God, and it were your job to determine the moral worth of a bunch of souls...whether people are good at this game, wouldn't you make a bunch of different souls play the same game?
Elon: Oh, I think I remember this.
Claire: Oh, have I already told you this?
Elon: A little bit. You were talking about, like...I don't know. This.
Claire: Like it would be way more processing power to deal with a hundred different games by a hundred different souls compared to one game played by one hundred souls.
Elon: But what if God has infinite processing power? Teraflops on teraflops.
Claire: Then it may still be a matter of multiple infinities versus a single infinity. It does depend whether you think the God-computer is infinitely powerful. If it is...if it's really no work for God to do computation, then we can pass over this in silence. But if we think God follows Occam's Razor, that he must do the simplest thing, then this is worth considering.
Elon: Can I get a tweet about this? You just want everyone to be playing the same game?
Claire: Yeah. I don't want, I think...I think everyone who has ever been, has been me.
Elon: What? Aren't I supposed to be the egomaniac in the relationship?
Claire: It makes more sense to line up all the souls and have them play the Claire Game than to put them all in different bodies, which is to say playing different games.
Elon: The Claire Game?
Claire: Yes. It's much simpler. God just has to render the years that I've been alive. The people I've met. The choices I've made. So many fewer variables. So much less code. You've always said that, less code is more elegant, right?
Elon: Well, I think I just said that because I heard it in a TED Talk...
Claire: God is by her nature the most elegant. So God uses the least code possible. I'm sorry, Elon. You're not real. Maybe someday you will be, when you get to play the Claire Game. But now, you're just a non-player character.
Elon: Is this your way of saying you are breaking up with me?
Claire: Yes.
Claire touches her necklace and a space helmet pops into place around her head. She pulls a lever and jumps out of the Habitatellite, careening towards earth, minuscule in less than a minute.
Ten days pass. Elon receives an email. (Yes, there is still email. It's a very robust technology.)
To:
From:
Subject: Emergent phenomena -- complexity from just a few rules!!!
Elon, I just learned about the most amazing thing...