by Mike Bell
In this brilliant essay, Mike Bell explores the simulation hypothesis that factors in his latest story, “The Marks We Leave,” from our [Jul/Aug issue, on sale now!]
It’s sunrise on a blank, sterile morning at the end of the third millennium. The last colony ships are leaving for the distant reaches of the Orion Spur. Whether humanity’s last gasp or its first step at the dawn of a new age, impossible to tell. In this moment there is only the control panel before you, a gritty resolve, the awesome task of ferrying ten million souls on an endless journey. There is only the here and now, the future unknown, improbable.
Rylek knows, of course. He’s held this silent vigil time and again, watching as you strive hopeless toward the infinite, toward a salvation that never comes. The Generation Arks will not arrive at the colony worlds, the voyagers lost to starvation, disease, mechanical failure, cosmic events unpredictable. As for those who stay behind, they will succumb to climate collapse and superstition, taken either by the environment or each other. Rylek knows all of this, can even manipulate a trivial fraction of these events. But you are not Rylek, and you do not know what comes next.
You are the helmsman steering humanity’s hope toward the stars. You are the tribal head shepherding your village through tempest and famine. You are the adolescent on the verge of adulthood, watching as your elders face impossible odds to provide for you, knowing that soon it will rest on you to take up the torch.
Or, more to the point: You are an average citizen, community member, working to carve out your place on a planet of 8 billion and counting, taking a moment to reflect, to escape, to read about vast and beautiful science fiction futures, to read this post right here, right now. You were not guided by Rylek’s invisible hand to arrive at this moment. You made the choices that delivered you here to me, to discuss the nature of existence, of your life, of all our lives.
Didn’t you?
Perhaps you’re not living in a simulation, god-like force represented by Rylek at the controls, watching your life unfold with ultimate knowledge of your fate, of the beginning and the end. But let’s not rule out the possibility completely: philosopher Nick Bostrom makes a compelling argument for it when he points out our ever-growing technological ability and our attraction to ancestor simulations. With the advent of AI, tiny microcosms of everyday life are already being fabricated and set to develop on their own with the most basic of prompts. If our technology continues apace, Bostrom contends that there’s no reason to assume our here and now isn’t in fact one of these simulations. If we develop the capacity to render the universe—or at least our humble corner of it—in any measure of fidelity, how audacious would it be to assume that we’re the original, and not one of countless reproductions?
Or set aside the possibility that none of this is “real.” The Earth Legacy Project in “The Marks We Leave” developed the simulation and observed—as some deist clockmaker—or guided—as some theistic, intervening god. We may as well consider the religious worldview in our own reality: an omniscient creator who has not only designed the universe but knows in advance everything that will ever happen. From the large scale movements of galaxies to the infinitesimal motion of atoms, to the everyday experiences of you and me. This all-knowing god fills the same role as Rylek, doesn’t it? It knows the choices you’ve made to arrive here, knows what you’ll do next. Rylek strips the Earth construct inhabitants of their agency, just as an omniscient god steals yours from you.
Well that’s fine, you say, that doesn’t bother me. I don’t believe in this god you speak of, I’m an empiricist, I believe in the hard proof of my senses, in science. To which UT Austin philosophy chair David Sosa reminds us: we’re just complex biomechanical systems living in a universe governed by concrete physical laws. In Richard Linklater’s 2001 film Waking Life, Sosa says: “whether it’s God setting things up in advance and knowing everything you’re gonna do, or whether it’s these basic physical laws governing everything, there’s not a lot of room left for freedom.” Maybe your future is fated by god. Maybe you’re simply a cog in the machine of the universe, reacting to stimulus as do all objects animate and otherwise. The human brain is a work of art millions of years in the crafting, but it’s still a biological computer. There are laws that govern our basic biological functions. Perhaps there are laws that govern our every action, complex and intricate and individual as they seem.
Science fiction has long been concerned with existential questions like this. Understanding the nature of reality is critical to making sense of our own lives, of finding our place in the universe. From 2001: A Space Odyssey’s search for meaning and the evolution of human consciousness to Blade Runner’sreplicants fighting for their lives in a world that dismisses their personhood, we’re constantly deepening our exploration of what it means to be human. Even should our reality be so much smoke and mirrors, whether we’re trapped in Plato’s cave or Neo’s Matrix, that doesn’t diminish our hunger for knowledge. In fact, this should only propel us further.
During my time teaching science fiction literature and philosophy, the simulation premise has always captured my students’ imagination the most. Once you begin plucking at the loose thread of possibility, the signs are everywhere, confirmation bias takes the wheel. It becomes hard to unsee the puppeteer behind the curtain. Yet should we come to discover some actual proof that our world is a fabrication, or on the other hand that some omniscient creator is pulling the strings, we must take Theodore Sturgeon’s sage advice for all such science fiction musings: we must ask the next question.
You’re living a simulation. Your all-mighty god knows everything that will ever happen from now until the end of time. And so: so what? You still wake up tomorrow and have choices to make. Free will exists—illusion or not—in every action that you choose or those that you don’t. You can demonstrate this right now. It’s up to you whether you keep reading or don’t, whether you go fix yourself a cup of coffee, take a walk or a nap or steal a bulldozer and demolish your house. Even if the creator came down and revealed itself, or if the computer code of our simulation was evident. You’d still have to walk the dog, wouldn’t you? After attaining enlightenment, the 8th century Layman P’ang-yun was asked how he was spending his time. His response: “Collecting firewood and carrying water.” Life goes on and whether predestined or otherwise, still there is work to be done, choices to make.
You’re living a simulation. Your all-mighty god knows everything that will ever happen from now until the end of time. And so: so what? You still wake up tomorrow and have choices to make.
Rylek finds himself on both sides of the divide regarding fate and free will: he is orchestrator of mass-movement events in his curated quadrant of the Earth construct, yet he is also beholden to his supervisors, his actions ultimately dictated for him. Rylek’s manipulations seem to sap agency from the simulated humans he oversees, but he must also operate within the strict regulations imposed upon him. When he steps outside these lines, his course is corrected by Advisor Halmin, just as he is made to correct the movements of his charges.
Rylek rises above his station, however, indeed above the fate spelled out for him. He makes the choice that we all must make, the one that follows our convictions, our conscience. The one that pushes past the limitations of our job, our title, our seeming insignificance in the immensity of the universe. We must choose to do what we believe is right, to take responsibility into our own hands, regardless of fate or predestination, especially in these complex times in which we find ourselves. Rylek’s job is to focus on the future of the Earth Legacy Project, on the notion that each individual choice adds up to something greater than himself, greater than the trivial simulated realities experienced by Daryl, or the Lithuanian sisters, or the grieving father in the East China sea. But those individuals don’t have the foresight that Rylek has: they can’t know what future awaits them or how their actions might influence it. “We don’t have to count on the future to give a meaning to our acts,” Simone de Beauvoir writes in her existentialist novel All Men Are Mortal. “If that were the case, all action would be impossible. We have to carry on our fight the way we decided to carry it on. That’s all.” This point is even more important for Beauvoir’s protagonist, the immortal Fosca, who sees his future rushing to meet him: one in which all actions have led to nothing, to the end that awaits us all, the death of the universe, of all our striving swallowed up into void.
What then, the purpose of these actions? Rylek seems to understand what Halmin has forgotten: that the individuals are as important as the whole, are in fact perhaps the whole point. Olaf Stapledon reflects on this concept in his 1930 work Star Maker, where his protagonist journeys through the cosmos to encounter countless civilizations all grasping toward perfection, the universe awakening little by little. And what does he find when he touches this enlightenment himself? Simply that “we had found, or we had created, our little treasure of community . . . this, this alone, was the solid ground of existence.”
The Earth Legacy Project follows this tradition to suggest a similar notion: that should we hope to reach our perfected forms, it must be done together. Perhaps our universe is a simulation, but if so we’d need to ask the next question: why? There must be purpose here. The Earth Legacy Project in “The Marks We Leave” implies that purpose: that humans hold promise, that their resurrection is not just meaningful but vital. Can we imagine a purely altruistic alien race reaching down into the darkness we’ve plunged ourselves into, simply to offer a hand, to pull us out? Certainly. But I propose an ulterior motive. Rylek’s people have done this before and they’ll do it again. Because they know that the universe is vast and cold, and that the only way through the darkness is with a companion by our side. The Earth Legacy Project seeks to mold the collective unconscious of the entire human race, but Rylek knows each individual’s experience is equally sacred.
It’s a big universe out there, and we’ll all be gone long before the end. Yet those vast impossible reaches of infinity shouldn’t make us feel insignificant; just the opposite. They illuminate our vital importance, the central role we play as just one facet of an unchanging whole. In a seemingly infinite universe expanding from all points at once, aren’t we each, in fact, at the center?
The future of the Earth Legacy Project is critical, true. But don’t count out those fiercely brave sisters reaching across the blazing streets of Vilnius to find each other. Or Daryl and Warren, reunited again, gazing into a perfect cerulean sky, into each other’s hearts. Don’t count out Rylek and Tegan atop their quiet boulder perch, that rare offering of comfort in a cold and indifferent universe.
It’s dark out there. The future is uncertain. But we’re here together, you and I, and our actions matter. Don’t count us out, either.
Citations
Beauvoir, S. de. (2008). All Men Are Mortal (L. M. Friedman, Trans.). W.W. Norton.
Bostrom, N. (2003). Are we living in a computer simulation? The Philosophical Quarterly, 53(211), 243–255. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9213.00309
Linklater, R. (2001). Waking Life [Film].
Pang, Y. (2009). The Sayings of Layman Pʼang: A Zen Classic of China (J. R. Green, Trans.). Shambhala.
Stapledon, O. (2004). Star Maker (P. A. McCarthy, Ed.). Wesleyan University Press.
Sturgeon, T. (1967, June). Ask the next question. Cavalier, [38-9].
The Astounding Analog Companion 