The Video Game that Made Elon Musk Question Whether Our Reality is a Simulation

Ohhh, i am...
REALLY a gamer here...
Since Commodore64

a reply to: Jukiodone

As someone who enjoys everything from Mass Effect to Minecraft, WoW to Morrowind, and $2 indie games to $100 AAA games. I am looking forward to this.

Not everything has to be about shoot-em-up combat!

a reply to: kaelci

Agreed..some of my fav games are sports sims or Chess/Poker interfaces.

Not bashing anyone looking forward to it but simply highlighting real gamers havent been let with a country mile of it.
Leading to allegations of paid up journalists and hand coded demos for Artisans/Philsophers who will be simply wowed at the principle.

I play Elite Dangerous on the Xbox now and then. Its a mmo version of the old BBC game, Elite. As far as I know, it has the whole Galaxy mapped out properly (They did the same with Frontier, many years ago, and all on a 1 Mb floppy disk)!

I'm waiting for a bit of space to set my PC up and then I'll be playing that version.

A warning though, it's easy to lose whole evenings when you are exploring.

originally posted by: Miccey
Ohhh, i am...
REALLY a gamer here...
Since Commodore64

Atari woody 2600 here my friend. The com 64 was awesome though.

I have been following this for a while and cant wait to get involved , no mans sky is fantastic with what it aims to be !

Keen software who make space engineers have a similar idea where planets are proceduraly generated and they also have invested millions into developing in game AI to interact with players.



I dont know why this game made elon musk think we live in a simulation though as this game is no where near as complex and wonderful as our reality in the 3rd dimension.

a reply to: 3danimator2014

yeh spectrum 48k for me but gaming didnt really enthrall me until amiga 500

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Dont get me wrong buddy i want it to be great, but i also wanted Elite to be great. Games need plots, sandbox scenarios are great as long as you always have something significant to do.

Well, i still think it will get
pretty boring in no time.

originally posted by: sapien82
I dont know why this game made elon musk think we live in a simulation though as this game is no where near as complex and wonderful as our reality in the 3rd dimension.

Although our reality is glorious, I think the game shows that there could be something to the Simulation Hypothesis. If our current technology is capable of creating such a complex simulation, what will the technology in 100 years be capable of?

Our universe may be a Matrix-like computer game designed by aliens, says NASA scientist

Rich Terrile, director of the Centre for Evolutionary Computation and Automated Design at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has spoken out about the digital simulation.

"Right now the fastest NASA supercomputers are cranking away at about double the speed of the human brain," the NASA scientist told Vice.

"If you make a simple calculation using Moore's Law [which roughly claims computers double in power every two years], you'll find that these supercomputers, inside of a decade, will have the ability to compute an entire human lifetime of 80 years – including every thought ever conceived during that lifetime – in the span of a month.

"In quantum mechanics, particles do not have a definite state unless they're being observed.

"Many theorists have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how you explain this.

"One explanation is that we're living within a simulation, seeing what we need to see when we need to see it.

"What I find inspiring is that, even if we are in a simulation or many orders of magnitude down in levels of simulation, somewhere along the line something escaped the primordial ooze to become us and to result in simulations that made us – and that's cool."

The idea that our Universe is a fiction generated by computer code solves a number of inconsistencies and mysteries about the cosmos.

It's a great topic. Through The Wormhole (Season 1 Episode 1) touched on this, I'd suggest starting there if you're interested in learning more on the subject.

Actually, here's the full episode from Youtube, I tried to link to the appropriate segment (~28mins into the episode), but the whole episode (and series) is worth watching in my opinion.


I've somewhat been following the development of NMS for a little while now. The more details that come out about it the more it blows my mind. My interesting in PC gaming has been waning for the better part of a year now (growing up, I suppose), but NMS is calling my name. Can't wait to give it a try when it finally comes out, just hope my gaming rig can handle it without much upgrading.

seen lots of games like this!
graphics look bad!

Finally got to watch the video. I am sold.

I wonder what the reason for reaching the center is? In the video he hints that something happens and it is sort of a "new beginning". I wonder how intense things get as you get closer.

Surely as more and more players make their way to the center the likelihood of them encountering each other increases?

If all you do is explore and shoot crystals and drones, and discover creatures, well that would be silly IMO. Still pretty fun, but might get a bit redundant.

There is so much more that could be done with this concept.

like, are there planets that have humans? or humanoids? Cities? Can you land on asteroids? perhaps redirect them?

Sensory overload. I have been waiting for this game and didn't even realize it.

a reply to: HawkeyeNation

It just goes to show how easy it is to impress people with large numbers. What you will get is not a simulation of 18 quintillion worlds, but a pretty random numbers generator.

a reply to: HawkeyeNation

Will def read this! Almost anything Elon is interested in i am also fascinated! But hmmm.....this is oh soooo excited! gunna take some time to check all of it out! ty ty ty!

a reply to: Psychonautics

giggidyy!! video games at its finest and maybe even hooman curiosity also at its finest?

originally posted by: Psychonautics

originally posted by: Cobaltic1978

originally posted by: HawkeyeNation

originally posted by: Cobaltic1978
What's the point of all this?

Life's too short for all this kinda crap imo.

Each to their own I guess.

Ya that's kind of my thought. I'm a casual gamer. I have 1 game right now that I play and that is Black Ops 3. I like the idea of this game but just not sure if it can pull me in to play long term. Something I'll look to rent first.

It would take you 4 Billion years to visit every planet, are they having a laugh?

Sure, playing Black Ops until this year's franchise is released, is understandable. This?

Pointless.

Never seen someone say one game is boring and pointless and then in the same sentence advocate playing black ops 3

Hilarious.

And you obviously struggle with the concept of irony.

a reply to: HawkeyeNation

This is already out there, for FREE. Nothing to do though but explore.






I have been "exploring" in this game for a couple years now and its so vast its a bit unsettling, you couldn't see it all in a hundred thousand lifetimes. Does kind of make you wonder about the nature of reality.

a reply to: openminded2011

There is a huge difference between No Mans Sky and that engine. Many of the textures in that engine look hand-crafted and many of the meshes are probably hand crafted too. Also the level of detail provided by that engine isn't enough for a video game, sure flying around above a planet may look pretty but once you get too close the resolution quickly deteriorates. No Mans Sky has to procedurally generate everything, down to every last blade of grass. Furthermore, none of the planets in that engine have life forms on them, No Mans Sky has everything from flying creatures to underwater life forms, all procedurally generated. There is also an economy with space stations and forms of law enforcement in No Mans Sky. It's not just a space simulation engine where you fly around and look at pretty planets, it's a more dynamic world where you have to find resources in order to earn money and buy better ships and gear. If you find that Space Engine software unsettling, then No Mans Sky will blow your socks off my friend.

originally posted by: moebius
a reply to: HawkeyeNation

It just goes to show how easy it is to impress people with large numbers. What you will get is not a simulation of 18 quintillion worlds, but a pretty random numbers generator.

Procedural generation isn't about using random numbers to create content, it's much more nuanced than that. Imagine if you just randomly decided where to place trees, it wouldn't look very good because trees would occur in very odd places. You have to create models which describe where trees are likely to grow. For example they will probably only occur on planets with water, and they will typically grow close to water, and clump together. The shape of the plants and trees in No Mans Sky are also procedurally generated, even their colors are influenced by the elements they absorb from the ground around them.

Once you have vegetation it then becomes possible to create wildlife models. Different types of wildlife prefer different types of environments. Certain types of vegetation attract different types of animals. The density and layout of the vegetation also effects where animals live. The altitude, the temperature, all these things and many more can be taken into consideration to create a realistic wildlife model. There isn't even any true randomness involved, everything has to be deterministic so that when you revisit a planet it doesn't look completely different.

originally posted by: Cobaltic1978

originally posted by: Psychonautics

originally posted by: Cobaltic1978

originally posted by: HawkeyeNation

originally posted by: Cobaltic1978
What's the point of all this?

Life's too short for all this kinda crap imo.

Each to their own I guess.

Ya that's kind of my thought. I'm a casual gamer. I have 1 game right now that I play and that is Black Ops 3. I like the idea of this game but just not sure if it can pull me in to play long term. Something I'll look to rent first.

It would take you 4 Billion years to visit every planet, are they having a laugh?

Sure, playing Black Ops until this year's franchise is released, is understandable. This?

Pointless.

Never seen someone say one game is boring and pointless and then in the same sentence advocate playing black ops 3

Hilarious.

And you obviously struggle with the concept of irony.

Nowt wrong with Black ops 3...Its no modern warfare, but still fun for a while. My sons take the mick out of my K/D and the fact I "play the objective" but as I pointed out to them the other day..."I have more diamond guns than they do"