The Simulation Hypothesis

Guy tries to work out if it’s all just a game.

Transcript

Welcome to the one-hundred-and-twentieth episode of The Undercover Intern podcast, coming to you live from the centre of London Luton Airport. I'm your host, Guy Snapdragon, and today is Monday the 19th of May 2025. Or is it?

We are sponsored this week by The Maywentery Golf Course. Welcoming men of all abilities since 1923. If you like golf and are a man I cannot recommend Maywentry enough. It’s got sand, it’s got water, it’s got short grass, it’s got long grass, it’s got 18 holes. It’s got everything you’d expect from a golf course, really. Their ‘hole in one’ club sandwich bagel tastes as good as it sounds, and pair that with the Rest In Peace Arnold Palmer and, trust me, you’ll be good to golf. 

If you’d have asked me five or six months ago whether we are living in a simulation, I’d have laughed in your face, and perhaps even punched you. But I cannot laugh today, and not only because of the frostbite nibbling away at my lips like a hungry cryogenic rabbit. In today’s episode we’ll discuss the likelihood that we are all just a part of a super-advanced video game created by a highly intelligent civilisation. And if we are just a stimulation, we’ll discuss what this means for interns.

Is it possible that our reality operates on principles akin to a vast computational structure? The simulation hypothesis posits that if civilisations reach a level of technological maturity, they would likely create such simulations, making it probable that we are currently living in one. Empirical evidence from quantum mechanics, such as the peculiar behaviours of particles when observed, hints at an optimised code in which reality renders only what is necessary. Additionally, the fine-tuning of the universe's physical constants, which allows for the existence of life, suggests a designed system rather than a random occurrence. Consciousness, one of our most profound mysteries, can be seen as an emergent property of complex neural computations, which could be replicated within a sophisticated simulation. Philosophically, the problem of other minds and the scripted nature of sociocultural constructs further support the simulation argument. Our interactions, norms, and behaviours often seem pre-programmed, reinforcing the idea of an underlying simulation structure.

Now, I know that most listeners will have understood none of what I just said. It was very intellectual. Basically, what I’m getting at is that this is all just a fake game. But were the 1970s just our controlling civilisation’s equivalent of the Sinclair Spectrum? Everything back then was brown and precarious, like a snail on a rush-hour pavement. How can any advanced civilisation allow a stimulated Gary Glitter, even before his sexual depravities? Ian H Watkins from Steps was born in the 1970s – is a stimulation capable of producing Ian H Watkins? Don’t forget the ‘H’ by the way. Has a middle initial ever been so important as Ian Watkins’ H? It stands for ‘harmless’ by the way. He’s the harmless Ian Watkins, if you like, aside from his swear music. But harmless in the more serious meaning of harm. Like, Ian H Watkins wouldn’t harm a deaf child or animal, if you know what I mean. He’s a largely harmless Ian Watkins, and not all of them are. Some of the Ian Watkins’s really aren’t harmless. But Ian H Watkins is harmless. But still, is he stimulated? 

If the best argument against a simulation I can come up with is Gary Glitter and Ian H Watkins, then I’m not sure I’m winning any argument. The Austin Allegro? That was a swear car. Everything I can think of to argue against the simulation hypothesis comes from the 1970s. The Three-Day Week.

What is the meaning of life if it’s just a simulation, a game? Are internship podcasts just part of the game? If the game is stacked against me, is it still possible for me to play with a kind of joy? If we are indeed living in a simulation, it might profoundly change our understanding of internships, which would need to be redefined as a phenomenon that can emerge from advanced computational processes. This discovery would challenge our perceptions of intern podcasts, perhaps even prompting us to question the very nature of our global internship podcasting systems.

I’d like to quote here the late David Graeber who said that, quote, Games are a kind of utopia of rules. Play is freedom for its own sake. Play can create games, it can generate rules, but by definition play cannot itself be intrinsically rule-bound. End quote. While our own reality might be governed by a set of rules, like a game, within those rules there is a vast space for freedom, creativity, and play. This aligns well with the idea that life as we experience it could be a sophisticated and dynamic simulation. It seems to me that a simulated intern should behave as if a real intern: aspire to freedom and creativity. Most importantly, a stimulated intern should still vote for me to win The Interns’ Choice Award. I will end my life, real or simulated, if I don’t win this year because if I can put in this much to the podcast yet still fail to win, then there’s really no point to anything. My character has to die if I am not recognised as the best intern podcaster in the world, that’s just how the algorithm works.

Imagine further if we're just a simulation within another simulation. Picture this: Earth is nothing more than a project of a stimulated 12-year-old, somewhere in an upper layer of reality, tinkering with us on 'emergency mode.' Imagine that we're not even the prime simulation—just an insignificant layer in an endless stack of simulated worlds, each nested within the next. It’s enough to make even a globally successful podcast host feel insignificant, let alone an average listener who has very limited life success and perhaps a bleak future.

What happens if the game is set up so that freedom equals likely death? Dostoevsky says, quote, There has never been anything more difficult for man and for human society to bear than freedom, exclamation mark, End quote. If freedom means freedom for others to attack and murder, then what kind of game do we find ourselves in? Is our controlling civilisation cruel, do they just not like me? I don’t mind admitting that, for the first time in my life, I’m considering buying a rake, as I no longer feel protected by the simulated institutions in our country. I think Leonard Cohen used to say that public institutions don’t speak for us any more. The freedom we seem to have is dystopian: no intern job security, a landlord who can turn my home into a sauna, security guards who can beat me half to death, no offence David. What I don’t get, if this is a simulation, is just how granular the suffering has become. I have frostbite and somehow also heat-stroke from sleeping next to a bedroom-aga. What kind of algorithm allows this? How powerful are their computers? What’s the point, though? If whoever is controlling me can just leave me alone for a few days, please give me just a little bit of peace. Or kill me now, I’ve had enough.

Anyhow, your undercover intern is not currently an intern, because Focgee - where the client’s data is stolen with impunity - deemed last week’s episode gross misconduct, which is fair enough. It wasn’t much of a drama this time, just a short email from the CEO saying that my life will amount to nothing without Focgee to support my development. Before he died, David Graeber also said, quote, Historically, one of the most effective ways for a system of authority to tout its virtues is not to speak of them directly, but to create a particularly vivid image of their absolute negation. End quote. There are too many quotations in this episode aren’t there? It’s like I am lost and just hoping to sound intelligent by using dead people’s clever words. That may be, but we’re all going to be dead soon. I’m not sure what my point is. Oh yes, I lived for almost 44 years without Focgee and I think I’ll be just fine without you, thank you very much. Well not fine. I’m not fine, obviously.

I’m scared, especially about how to develop this podcast. I’m very tempted to become True Crime following my success solving Garry Rafferty’s beheading. But my first love are interns, so maybe I can focus on murders involving interns? Are there enough of them, either as victims or perpetrators, for a weekly podcast show? I would hate to do a true crime podcast that runs out of interesting cases to discuss and goes so far up its own arse that it becomes a hateful parody of itself. Imagine being caught red-handed doing this? I have decided that next week’s episode will be an ‘ask me anything’ and that I will reopen lines of communication to my fans. Therefore, please email me at Undercover Intern Guy all one word, that’s undercoverinternguy@gmail.com with any questions and suggestions. I particularly welcome questions from women or from the evil civilization that controls us.

My own lips are literally frozen together from last week’s Greenland or Canada trip, and I cannot talk or breathe too well, what with the missing lung also, so I have put these words into an OpenAI’s voice generator which has full rights to my past, current and future voice in any case. I just asked GPT4 for an episode about simulations including a couple of bad-taste paedophile jokes and this is the script it came up with. These are frightening and confusing times. Don’t blame me.

I’ve been your host, Guy Snapdragon. My producer is Lee Buckingham. Michael Webb is Chief Legal Officer and Legal support comes from Paul Tout, Simon Warwick, Murray Mackay and Matthew Rook. Accountancy from Graham Cree. Security from David Jarrett. May you use your time wisely, and may your use of wise be timely.