Q: Have you ever wondered whether ideas are thought waves directed at you by an AI supercomputer located in the distant future?
A: I have, actually. I don’t know where ideas come from or why it’s sometimes so easy to forget them; it’s as though someone would hand you a Post-it note and, in case you don’t display an immediate interest, pass it on.
Why does the supercomputer have to reside in the future though? I’m a big proponent of digital physics, Universe as an output of a computer program and all, and I strongly suspect that we and everything around us is a simulation. As soon as I say it, people immediately think Matrix; but what if there’s nothing else but the simulation? What if there’s no real us, or beings like us, outside the program’s boundaries?
The thought, to me, is too sad not to be true.
Yaroslav Barsukov’s story “Memory is a Rumor” was published on Friday, 26 January 2018.
Subscribe to our e-mail updates so you’ll know when new stories go live.
