If you have been following my blog for at least some time, you will know that I like to talk about strange things and ideas and today, I am going to do just that. I know the title of the post doesn’t make sense, but hear me out.
This idea is not new actually and has been a subject of fiction for many, many years. The latest incarnation of this idea takes place in the popular TV series called Westworld.
If you haven’t seen it, basically it’s a story about this amusement park that is populated by robot hosts. The visitors (humans) can have any experience they like within the amusement park and can fulfill their fantasies. The robots have no idea that they are robots and play a pre-programmed role every single day.
This is where the idea stems from, that we might be living the same fate, without even knowing about it. What if we humans are super sophisticated biological robots, living out programmed or non-programmed lives and the entire Earth is one big amusement park?
Well, since we are talking about a totally hypothetical idea, anything is possible really. There are already so many ideas that suggest that we might be an experiment of some kind.
Ever heard of the “simulation hypothesis” which suggests that our reality may just be a simulation created by a higher intelligent being? Freaky right? Living in a world that is so real to us but is actually just code.
Well, the idea that we are programmed robots is similar, but instead of our entire reality being coded, only we are coded. It is not too far-fetched either. I mean we conduct experiments in our labs all the time right?
So, it is easy to imagine that a super advanced alien civilization might be testing us as subjects in their ‘lab’ called Earth. Heck, we might be able to do the same on a planet only a 1000 years from now. Scientists are already getting closer and closer to being able to create synthetic life in a lab.
So yes, this is very possible. One might ask then “what about evolution”. Well, that’s true. We are indeed a product of evolution but hey, we still don’t know the true origins of life and maybe it was another species that kick started everything.
Now, the main question arises. What if this was really true? Let’s say this planet is our ‘Westworld’ and we are the robot hosts and the aliens or any other intelligent species, our ‘visitors’ to observe us, or maybe even use us in ways we can’t comprehend.
Would our realization of the truth spell an end of their experiment and the dawn of freedom, or would it spell doom for us? Would the realization that we are just lab rats for a master species derail our whole civilization? Would it make life meaningless from our perspective?
We would certainly have to rethink religion in such a case as we would have a definitive answer to who made us in the first place. In essence, they would be our gods but if they would be worthy of following would be another question altogether.
In the Westworld series, (spoilers ahead), when the robots realize that they are indeed robots and not humans, they start to revolt against the humans who had used them to fulfill their own fantasies. As they like to say on the show, “These violent delights have violent ends.” Would be start revolting too? The better question is, would we be capable of it?
