What if everything around you isn’t real? Imagine for a second that the planet we live on, the solar system, our galaxy, and eventually the entire universe we see as infinite is actually no more than a simulation?

According to a new theory by computer scientists, our universe may actually be simulated, and what we perceived as “ghosts” could be small pieces of evidence that suggest the universe we live in is simulated.

It’s called the simulation theory, and it proposes that we are no more than “avatars” in a universe that is entirely simulated.

According to computer scientist Curry Guinn from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, our world may not be real. Although Guinn’s idea is speculative, he argues that reports of phenomena such as ghosts, Déjà vu, and strange coincidences could actually be glitches in the “matrix.”

These glitches could prove to be the ultimate piece of evidence that mankind isn’t part of the universe that’s real, but actually a kind of science experiment where everything is simulated. In other words, imagine mankind as being part of a game like The Sims, only at a much larger scale.

Guinn isn’t the only one who argues three’s a possibility we live in a simulated universe. Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk shares that belief.

As noted by TechWire, Guinn pointed out Elon Musk’s belief in simulation theory to lend more authority to the idea and suggested mankind could build our own simulations in the future.

In the past, Musk has said that “there is a billion to one chance we are not living in a computer simulation.”

The idea Musk acknowledges as a possibility is actually derived from a scientific paper penned down by Nick Bostrom, a professional philosopher in the United Kingdom. Bostrom’s theory suggests there is a very high possibility we live in a computer simulation.

The idea set forth by Bostrom is, in fact, one of three possibilities. The third one that we are part of a simulation follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor‐simulations is

false unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other

consequences of this result are also discussed.

Guinn already knows who will take the first steps: according to the computer scientists, it will be Video Game developers who will catapult us into a new direction where we will challenge the limits of what we have considered impossible before.

“It is inevitable that we will create realities indistinguishable from this reality,” Guinn explained during a speech at a film festival.

So, how do we actually find out whether or not we are part of a massive, simulated game?

According to Guinn, we need to pay attention and look for bugs in development.

“Glitches in the system. Déjà vu, such as in the Matrix movie when a character sees a cat crossing a doorway repeatedly, may be one glitch,” Guinn explained.

“Ghosts, ESP, coincidences may be others. The laws of physics in our universe seem peculiarly designed with a set of constants that make carbon-based life possible. Where are the edges?”

Bostrom has also set forth that in the near future, computer games will become so well-developed that it will become extremely hard to tell the difference between reality and simulation. Characters inside these games may not even realize they are part of the simulation. In other words, we will come to the stage where we will be able to produce realities that will become indistinguishable from this reality.