Simulated reality
Simulated reality hypotheses proposes that the universe we currently live in is a computer simulation running in an advanced computer. The idea came since the beginning of computer science, particularly with the discovery of stored and modifiable programs. Every epoch uses current science and technology to explain the world. In the Industrial Revolution, the metaphor was the clock and the machine. Now in the era of computers the metaphor is that the universe is a computer program...
This idea is seldom used in fiction. We can find some examples mostly in movies: The Matrix, Thirteenth floor. In writing, there is Plato's cave, Simulacron-3, the Sprawl Trilogy.
Nick Bostrom has made several essays at his website about this topic.
| Title | Author | Year | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accelerando | Charles Stross | 2005 | |
| The Algebraist | Iain M. Banks | 2004 | Posits a religion according to which 'The Truth' is that our universe is virtual. |
| Breakfast of Champions | Kurt Vonnegut Jr. | 1973 | Kilgore Trout, an amateur science fiction writer, writes a story that mocks individualism by suggesting that there is only one human man and one God, and the rest of humanity are robots, made to test the man's reactions; hence, a kind of simulated reality. |
| The Circular Ruins | Jorge Luis Borges | (not simulated reality, but subjective idealism/solipsism). | |
| The Cookie Monster | Vernor Vinge | 2004 | |
| Darwinia | Robert Charles Wilson | 1998 | |
| Diaspora | Greg Egan | 1997 | |
| Discourse on Method | René Descartes | 1637 | |
| Electric Forest | Tanith Lee | 1979 | |
| The Electric Ant | Philip K. Dick | 1969 | |
| Eternity | Greg Bear | 1988 | In particular, his introduction of the Taylor algorithms as a means of determining the simulated nature of an artificial environment |
| Feersum Endjinn | Iain M. Banks | 1994 | Describes a version of Earth with very extensive virtual reality capabilities. |
| Flight: a Quantum Fiction novel | Vanna Bonta | 1995 | Posits that our universe is a virtual metaverse whereby collective and individual consciousness creates reality on the quantum level |
| Forever Free | Joe Haldeman | 1999 | |
| The Futurological Congress | Stanisław Lem | 1971 | |
| Get Real: A Philosophical Adventure in Virtual Reality | Philip Zhai | 1998 | A philosophical speculation on the ontological status of the extreme form of virtual reality that combines with teleoperation, in comparison with what we perceive as the "actual" or "physical" reality. An array of thought experiments is constructed for the purpose of philosophical investigations. |
| The Girl Who Was Plugged In | James Tiptree Jr. | 1974 | |
| Glasshouse | Charles Stross | 2006 | |
| The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | Douglas Adams | 1979–2009 | Earth was designed by an alien supercomputer called Deep Thought to find the Ultimate Question to the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe, and Everything (the Ultimate Answer already established as Phrases from 42), using organic life as part of its operational matrix. However, early on in the first book Earth was destroyed just before the critical moment of read-out, leading to the events of the rest of the series. Later, part of the action takes place in a synthetic universe. |
| Idlewild | Nick Sagan | 2003 | This novel contains a simulated school inside a simulated world. |
| Illusions | Richard Bach | 1977 | A pilot on the Midwest summer barnstorming circuit meets a messiah who shows him that the world is merely "like a movie" designed by "the Master" to entertain and enlighten humanity. |
| Irreversible | Liz Maverick | 2008 | A young woman relives the most perfect week of her life over and over without being conscious of it, the subject of a corporate experiment to create and maintain a time loop. The week is totally manufactured, with actors hired to play friends and colleagues, medication designed to keep her tranquil, and an entire set of "stage hands" working to keep up the authenticity of the sets as they change for various occasions. |
| Loop | Koji Suzuki | 1998 | |
| The Man in the High Castle | Philip K. Dick | 1962 | |
| A Maze of Death | Philip K. Dick | 1970 | |
| Moongazer | Marianne Mancusi | 2007 | A post-apocalyptic underground society pacifies its citizens by plugging them into a simulated version of New York City before the war, meanwhile telling the people that they are actually traveling to an alternate reality where they can escape their constricted lives. |
| Neuromancer | William Gibson | 1984 | |
| Mona Lisa Overdrive | William Gibson | 1988 | |
| Old Twentieth | Joe Haldeman | 2005 | A group of immortal humans sets off on a thousand year voyage to explore an Earth-type planet. To amuse themselves, they use virtual reality to take trips to the twentieth century; but when the trips start to go wrong, a virtual reality engineer discovers that the simulated world is ruled by a self-aware computer...who may be running a more complex simulation than they can ever imagine. |
| Otherland | Tad Williams | 1998 | |
| Permutation City | Greg Egan | 1994 | |
| The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect | Roger Williams | 1994 | |
| The Reality Bug | D. J. MacHale | Is set on a world destroyed by simulated reality. | |
| Realtime Interrupt | James P. Hogan | Is set in the near future, a cyber reality with its creator trapped inside. | |
| The Remnants series | K. A. Applegate | Set on a ship that creates virtual landscapes | |
| Riverworld | Philip José Farmer | 1979 | |
| The Seventh Sally | Stanisław Lem | from the Cyberiad | |
| The Princess Ineffabelle | Stanisław Lem | from the Cyberiad | |
| Simulacron 3 | Daniel F. Galouye | 1964 | |
| Snow Crash | Neal Stephenson | 1992 | |
| Sophie's World | Jostein Gaarder | 1991 | |
| They | Robert A. Heinlein | 1941 | A short story that focuses on a man who believes the universe was created to deceive him |
| The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch | Philip K. Dick | 1965 | |
| The Trouble with Bubbles | Philip K. Dick | 1953 | |
| Time Out of Joint | Philip K. Dick | 1959 | |
| Ubik | Philip K. Dick | 1969 | |
| Valis | Philip K. Dick | 1981 | |
| The Veldt | Ray Bradbury | 1951 | A short story from The Illustrated Man |
| Vurt | Jeff Noon | 1993 | |
| The Wonderland Gambit | Jack L. Chalker | 1995 | |
| Words Made Flesh | Ramsey Dukes | 1987 | |
| You're Another | Damon Knight | 1955 |
External links
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