Simulations

The other day I was walking down the street

Head hung, stumbling around, eyes on my feet

I ran into a man

A philosopher, damn

And he had this whole plan

To show me what was real

Behind my little reality.

He said, look, son

I know you think you’re the one

I know you think you’re life here is real

But you won’t when I’m done.

You see I’ve been into best buy

Looking at computers

And god damn

It’s like we live in the future

It got me thinking about this simulation theory

And I could see it so clearly

So I asked, are we there?

And he said man nearly.

He said, just wait,

Give it ten twenty years

It will all become exceedingly clear

That our fear of ai is based on a lie.

That were all running scared

Cause when we look inside,

We can see reality a science model applied

That our whole situation could be simulation.

I was like, wow, damn

You’re getting crazy now man

He said, let me explain

Let me get in my lane.

Let’s get off the street and go talk philosophical

I don’t need nothing to eat

I need to think deontological

Throw it on there like seasoning,

Finding principles through reasoning.

He said, sorry for the tangent

Sorry for taking you time

I’ll let you get back to your philosophy rhyme.

And so,

If you allow, I’ll extrapolate

So please, sit down, relax, and contemplate

The idea is this,

If you look at technological progress

And improvements in process

These computers will one day be able to simulate reality

So then it’s not a leap into insanity

To say that if

At some point in the future can create sims that are conscious

That’s to say

We didn’t come all this way

As the little characters inside of a model.

What if we fear ai, because we’re artificial ourselves

Maybe god’s the only metaphor we have

For the coders who programed our universe

You have to ask the question are you a him or a sim

And how do you understand reality

When you know the world could exist

Inside a teenagers computer program.