How to Hack the Simulation | Mysterious Library #35

Your hosts Dr. Dean Bertram and Jason McLean return to the periodical section of the Mysterious Library to discuss a recent journal article by computer scientist Roman V. Yampolskiy: "HOW TO HACK THE SIMULATION".

(Available online here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364811408_How_to_Hack_the_Simulation)

Yampolskiy phrases the article's key question in the abstract: "Many researchers have conjectured that the humankind is simulated along with the rest of the physical universe – a Simulation Hypothesis. In this paper, we do not evaluate evidence for or against such claim, but instead ask a computer science question, namely: Can we hack the simulation? More formally the question could be phrased as: Could generally intelligent agents placed in virtual environments find a way to jailbreak out of them."

Your Mysterious Librarians will be pondering this question, as well as placing the idea of a simulated reality into broader and much older esoteric traditions.