--- title: "Reading · further reading · Simulation Hypothesis" url: https://simulation-hypothesis.com/reading description: "An annotated reading list on the simulation hypothesis, with difficulty tags." license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ credit: "Ross Allan Dahl, Simulation Hypothesis (simulation-hypothesis.com)" --- # Reading · further reading The site doesn’t try to teach the literature. It points you to it. The difficulty tags are rough. easy is one sitting. medium takes real study. hard assumes a technical background, or the Library open beside it. ## The argument itself [Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?](https://simulation-argument.com/)medium Nick Bostrom · Philosophical Quarterly, 2003 The original paper, and where the trilemma comes from. Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophymedium David Chalmers · W. W. Norton, 2022 The fullest book on the subject. It argues that simulated worlds can be truly real (simulation realism). [Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation](https://arxiv.org/abs/1210.1847)hard Beane, Davoudi & Savage · arXiv, 2012 Asks what we could observe if spacetime were simulated on a lattice, such as a directional bias in cosmic-ray spectra. ## Where the numbers come from [Ultimate Physical Limits to Computation](https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9908043)hard Seth Lloyd · Nature, 2000 Where the 5 × 10^50 operations per second per kilogram limit comes from. It’s the ceiling on every ladder on the site. Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmapmedium Anders Sandberg & Nick Bostrom · Future of Humanity Institute technical report, 2008 Where the mind-model figures come from, level by level. Simulating Physics with Computershard Richard Feynman · International Journal of Theoretical Physics, 1982 The argument that ordinary computers can’t efficiently simulate typical quantum systems. Irreversibility and Heat Generation in the Computing Processhard Rolf Landauer · IBM Journal, 1961 The least energy it takes to erase a bit. The Power tile is built on it. ## Is the universe a computation? Rechnender Raum (Calculating Space)hard Konrad Zuse · Vieweg, 1969; English translation MIT, 1970 The first proposal that physics is the output of a cellular automaton. It was digital physics before the name existed. Digital Mechanicshard Edward Fredkin · Physica D 45, 1990 Physics as a reversible universal cellular automaton, where information is the thing that’s conserved. A New Kind of Sciencemedium Stephen Wolfram · Wolfram Media, 2002 Simple programs that produce complex behaviour, and the claim that the laws of physics may be one of them. Programming the Universeeasy Seth Lloyd · Knopf, 2006 The universe as a quantum computer, by the author of the limit behind the site’s ceilings. [The Mathematical Universe](https://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0646)medium Max Tegmark · Foundations of Physics 38, 2008 A stronger claim: physical reality is a mathematical structure, whether or not it’s computed. ## Tests and objections [Astrophysical Constraints on the Simulation Hypothesis for This Universe](https://doi.org/10.3389/fphy.2025.1561873)medium Franco Vazza · Frontiers in Physics 13, 2025 The energy it would take to simulate this universe, or Earth at different resolutions, compared with what a universe like ours holds. Summarised on the Tests page. [What Computer Science Has to Say about the Simulation Hypothesis](https://doi.org/10.1088/2632-072X/ae1e50)hard David H. Wolpert · Journal of Physics: Complexity 6, 2025 A formal treatment. Under the physical Church–Turing thesis a universe can simulate itself, and some questions about simulations can’t be decided. [Quantized Gravitational Responses, the Sign Problem, and Quantum Complexity](https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1701758)hard Zohar Ringel & Dmitry Kovrizhin · Science Advances 3, 2017 Some quantum systems resist one kind of classical simulation. It’s often wrongly reported as disproving the hypothesis. It doesn’t. ## Minds What Is It Like to Be a Bat?medium Thomas Nagel · Philosophical Review, 1974 The classic argument that experience is subjective in a way that can’t be reduced to anything else. Epiphenomenal Qualiamedium Frank Jackson · Philosophical Quarterly, 1982 The knowledge argument: Mary the colour scientist, and the claim that knowing every physical fact still isn’t knowing everything. The Conscious Mindhard David Chalmers · Oxford, 1996 Lays out the hard problem and defends property dualism. Consciousness Explainedmedium Daniel Dennett · Little, Brown, 1991 The main opposing view: that the hard problem breaks up into a set of solvable problems about function. ## Doubt Meditations on First Philosophymedium René Descartes · 1641 The evil demon, an early scenario of radical doubt, and the cogito as the thing that survives it. Brains in a Vathard Hilary Putnam · in Reason, Truth and History, 1981 Argues, from semantic externalism, that the vat hypothesis can’t be coherently stated from inside it. Anarchy, State, and Utopiamedium Robert Nozick · Basic Books, 1974 Chapter 3 has the experience machine argument. ## Look things up [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy](https://plato.stanford.edu/)medium plato.stanford.edu Peer-reviewed and free. Good entries to look up include consciousness and skepticism. [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy](https://www.iep.utm.edu/)easy iep.utm.edu A free, gentler counterpart to the Stanford Encyclopedia. [PhilPapers](https://philpapers.org/)hard philpapers.org An index of philosophy papers. Search “simulation argument”. [arXiv](https://arxiv.org/)hard arxiv.org Free preprints in physics. The Lloyd and Beane et al. papers above are hosted here. To see what each experiment and physical bound found, go to [Tests](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/tests). ## Start with the people 14 short pages, one per thinker, each with its matching sandbox dial. [Plato’s cave](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/plato)[Zhuangzi’s butterfly](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/zhuangzi)[Vasubandhu’s dream](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/vasubandhu)[Shankara’s māyā](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/shankara)[al-Ghazali’s doubt](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/ghazali)[Ibn Arabi’s imagination](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/ibn-arabi)[Calderón’s life is a dream](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/calderon)[Descartes’ demon](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/descartes)[Berkeley’s perceiver](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/berkeley)[Borges’ circular ruins](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/borges)[Nozick’s experience machine](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/nozick)[Putnam’s brain in a vat](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/putnam)[Bostrom’s trilemma](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/bostrom)[Chalmers: virtual worlds are real](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/chalmers)