[ travisMAKES ]
?

IS THIS
A SIMULATION?

a probabilistic experiment in 6 steps

!

YOU ARE
THE SIMULATOR

// DEV NOTES //

build  13.8e9 yrs
tick  1 planck / frame
render  on-demand only
observers  7,824,341,901
consciousness  stub: TODO
// fix moon glitch (low priority)
// patch 1991 soviet desync
// AI overflow exception (Apr 2026)
checksum  42

click the diamond again to return.

// 01. THE TRILEMMA

01 Almost no civilization like ours ever reaches the stage where simulating conscious minds is possible.
02 Civilizations that COULD run those simulations almost never bother.
03 We are almost certainly living inside a simulation right now.

// 02. BOSTROM'S FORMULA

fsim = (fp · fI · N) / (fp · fI · N + 1)
fp — civs that reach sim-capable tech
fI — those that actually run sims
N — how many sims each one runs

If the numerator is huge, the answer is close to 1. That's the whole engine.

// 03. THE PROBABILITY ENGINE

posterior odds = prior odds × LR

Pick your prior on "we're in a sim." This will scale your final result on Panel 5.

PRIOR =

prior = 0.5  ·  prior odds = 1.00

And Drake-style multiplication tells you the total simulated population:

Nsim = Ncivs · fp · fI · ⟨NI⟩

// 04. YOUR TURN

Q1 / fp
How likely is humanity to reach a stage where simulating conscious minds is possible?
50%
neveralmost certain
Q2 / fI
If they could, how likely is it that they'd actually do it?
50%
never botherrun millions
Q3 / T
How typical is your experience? Are you the kind of mind a simulator would render in detail?
50%
rare edge casemedian observer
BOSTROM RAW
99.2%
UPDATED BY YOUR PRIOR (0.5)
0.0%
YOU PROBABLY EXIST IN A SIMULATION
raw = (0.50 · 0.50 · 1000 · 0.50) / (· + 1)  ·  posterior_odds = prior_odds × LR

// 05. CAVEATS & SOURCES

  • Even if true, it's still real to us. Chalmers (2022): chairs made of bits are still chairs. Virtual doesn't mean fake.
  • Bostrom's own position is the trilemma, not "we're in a sim." The rigorous read is "pick a leg," not a verdict.
  • The typicality slider is an assumption, not a derivation. Eggleston (2020) calls this out as a hidden prior.
  • Termination risk. Greene: trying too hard to prove we're in a sim might get the sim shut down.
  • Physicists push back. Vazza (2025): simulating our universe at full fidelity needs more energy than the universe contains.

// FURTHER READING

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