What If We're Living in a Type Five Simulation? | Unveiled

What If We’re Living in a Type V Simulation?

Good morning, good afternoon and good evening! Welcome to our latest video… maybe you’re already checking out the comments section. Or you’re already writing a comment yourself! But what if we told you that… none of it is real?? This video, your comments, your computer, you… it’s all an elaborate illusion created on a higher plane!

This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; what if we’re living in a Type Five simulation?

On extended versions of the Kardashev Scale, a Type Five civilization is one which has mastered the full energy potential of the multiverse. Not just a galaxy, or even the universe… the multiverse. Multiple universes rest in the palm of its god-like hand, and the all supreme Type Five being can bend and shape them to its will. With total control over many worlds, multiple dimensions and myriad possibilities… the list of things it could do with its power is endless. But probably the one that most interests us, lowly Earthlings, is the potential it would have to build and run countless simulations.

By now, our regular viewers will have done plenty of thinking on the simulation hypothesis. The idea that this world, this life, this universe… isn’t real, and is merely a well-rendered, convincing construction, presided over by some higher power. In this video, we’re imagining that that higher power is a Kardashev Type Five entity. So, what would that mean?

First and foremost, in terms of our everyday lives, it wouldn’t mean much at all.. until such time as either the simulation is revealed to us, or our Type Five overlord changes the rules. The classic comeback to anyone claiming that everything we know is simulated is, “so what?”. What difference does it really make to us, so long as we continue to feel as though everything we believe to be real actually is real? We still feel as though we have friends and family, need food and shelter, like to play sports and watch YouTube videos, so isn’t that all that really matters?

Again, yes, unless there ever comes a moment when the true nature of reality is shown to us. This moment is usually referred to in movies as a glitch in the matrix. It’s when something happens that should be physically impossible… maybe buildings evaporate, gravity fails, or oceans instantly turn to ice cream. From that point forward, humankind could descend into chaos, with people unable to ever again trust their own thoughts. For some, the revelation still wouldn’t drastically alter their day-to-day mindset… but for others, the knowledge that nothing is real would be way too much to take in.

But why would (or could) all of this happen under the watch of a Type Five civilization specifically? A key facet of the proposed fifth level of the Kardashev Scale is that they exist outside of our universe. Outside of time, even. They can see and understand all of the seemingly infinite details that make up our reality. A universe to them is a little like a city to us. It’s the sum of a great number of parts, yes, but it can also be changed at any time. Think of how we’ve treated cities in the past - we’ve made them bigger, improved their technology and destroyed them, in getting to this point. Some cities of history are now no more than ruins, while some of the cities of the future we’ve yet to even begin to build. For a Type Five power the same would be true of whole universes. So, the first thing to hope is that if all of this is a Type Five simulation, then we best not be heading towards destruction ourselves, anytime soon. Not that there would be much that we could do about it.

In this world, destruction of universes roughly equates to deletion of universes, and that’s because simulated realities are usually imagined as though they’re ultra-efficient, digital (or something better than digital) codes. Arguably the first stage at which reality sims even become possible for a species, is when it masters stellar megastructures - particularly Matrioshka Brains. M-Brains are giant, star-sized computers, offering a star system’s worth of computational power. According to the Kardashev Scale, they should also be available to lower levels, including Type Three and Four. But it’s only at Type Five when a civilization gains knowledge of the multiverse… so it’s only then that they could apply M-Brain-type technology to the creation of whole, simulated universes.

So, let’s put ourselves in their shoes for a moment. One day, roughly 13.8 billion years ago - according to how humans understand time, at least - we created the universe. Using our hugely advanced, Type Five, technological know-how, we brought into being all of the planets, stars and galaxies. Maybe we planned for life to appear on Earth, maybe it just happened that way… ultimately, it doesn’t really matter. Universal consciousness is another key attribute to a Type Five civilization, and so this universe will have naturally been a joint, universal effort. And perhaps we were pleased with our creation. Proud of it. Maybe for a period of time afterwards, it stood as the greatest universe ever to be simulated. But… times change.

Between the dawn of the universe and this moment right now, a lot has happened. But we humans can only ever understand that to mean that a lot has happened inside the universe. From our perspective, stars have formed and died, black holes have moved across space, and Earth has tried its best to connect with other planets. From a Type Five perspective, though, all of that may have gone unnoticed. It may be totally unimportant. In the meantime, any number of other universes may have been created. And many may be better or more noteworthy than this one is. Usually, when we consider simulation theory, we assume that whoever created us is still intent on watching us… but, with a Type Five being, that probably isn’t the case. We’d be just one data point to them, within an endless stream of data. And very likely long forgotten.

But, say that actually the opposite has happened, and against all the odds we’re still the biggest, best and most extensive universe that our hypothetically Type Five civilization has ever managed to simulate. Would this be cause for celebration, or just more concern? Well, in this heightened version of reality, our Type Five controllers double up as gods in our own minds. They’re non-human, higher powers that we’re never likely to physically meet during our lifetimes. Instead, we might hope (or have Faith) that we will meet them in the afterlife. But, until then, we can only vaguely claim that Type Five moves in mysterious ways… whenever something in this life doesn’t match with expectation.

In a previous video, we asked what the world would be like if humanity ever reached Type Five… considering that, at the moment, we rank at less than Type One on the Kardashev Scale. It’s difficult, then, for us to imagine having this much power, or for us to imagine living in a civilization so effective and efficient as to be able to create universes in the first place. But, really, we do have lower-level examples of how we’d expect a Type Five headed hierarchy to work. Online, open world gaming, including specifically world-building games, are so often cross-referenced with the simulation hypothesis, because they’re the simplest model we have for how it could look.

If this is all a simulation then somewhere, on another level of reality, there exists the Type Five player… and they exert some degree of control. One version of this mysterious figure has them simply keying in the conditions for the Big Bang to happen, and then sitting back to watch what unfolds. Another is that they’re more closely involved, and are guiding the actions of each and every living thing, each and every day. For so long as this particular, hypothetical reality structure remains hidden from us - and, of course, if it does exist then it is hidden from us - we’ll never know which one is closer to the truth. All that we do know is that the universe does exist right here, right now. Either because it’s seen as a success by its creators, or just because no one’s switched it off yet.

So, what do you think? If we are living in a Type Five simulation, then is this universe still retaining the attention of that Type Five mind? Or has it long been cast off and forgotten about? And which is the better fate, from our perspective? Is it preferable to be the pride and joy of a cosmic superpower, or a one-time object of interest relegated to the back of the cupboard? Or… to the back of whatever they have instead of cupboards! Because that’s what would happen if we were living in a Type Five simulation.