Simulation — God in Disguise for Intellectuals

The simulation hypothesis has become the favored metaphysical crutch of our age. When confronted with the question of the ultimate reality of why the world is the way it is—many intellectuals reach for a new story: perhaps we live inside a simulation. It feels secular, scientific, and clever. But in substance, it is simply God dressed in digital clothing.

Why does simulation appeal? It gives the impression of explanatory power. The laws of physics look mathematical? They are “code.” The universe seems fine-tuned? That’s a “programmer’s design.” Consciousness feels mysterious? Perhaps it’s “emergent subroutines.” And unlike God, simulation sounds falsifiable: maybe we could detect glitches in cosmic background radiation, or limits of computation in physical constants.

But this is sleight-of-hand. The regress remains. If we are simulated, who wrote the code? And who built the hardware that runs the simulator? At some point, the story bottoms out in the same way theology does: an unknowable outside, an ultimate cause that cannot itself be explained. Whether you call it “God” or “the Simulator,” the move is identical. Both end the question without answering it.

Simulation is attractive precisely because it avoids the discomfort of religious language. It gives intellectuals permission to speculate about transcendence without invoking divinity. But this is why it must be critiqued. Simulation is not a scientific discovery. It is not the answer to Wigner’s paradox. It is a metaphor that is useful, perhaps provocative, but ultimately a repackaged version of the oldest idea humans have ever had: that reality is sustained by something beyond it.

Call it God. Call it Simulation. Either way, it is mystery. And pretending that one label is more rigorous than the other is an illusion we should name for what it is.