The reason why I mention video games is due to the fact that we are now beginning to integrate the virtual simulations of these games into our own physical space. This is known as Augmented Reality (AR). And in the last few months, AR has finally entered the mainstream thanks to companies like Apple.

Last year, Pokemon Go was one of the hottest AR games on the market. Using nothing more than a smartphone, players were able to visualize actual Pokemon within their own physical environment in order to catch them. If you were a child of the ’90s like myself, it was a 20-year-old dream come true. Even psychologists were noting serious health benefits because of it.

And yet, with the release of the ARKit on all iOS devices, what started off as a mere fad became one of the biggest consumer products. AR is no longer another method of video gaming but is now transforming the way we view our own physical space.

In the next decade or so, wherever we look, there’ll be a virtual simulation somewhere. Whether we’re completely immersed inside of a virtual world or we’ve simply immersed parts of the virtual world into our own physical space, our perception of “reality” will be partially (or completely) simulated. We’ll be living inside of these simulations, having conversations with other people, working inside of them, and even falling in love.

It’s what I call “Two-Worlds Theory,” whereby both the offline world and the online world blur to such a significant extent that we’ll no longer be able to differentiate between the two. They’ll simply become the sum result of our reality. As artificial intelligence advances, our ability to create virtual life will also become possible. The simulations of which we’ll interact with will have a life of their own, no different from the life we interact with today on a daily basis.

Regardless of whether or not we live inside of a simulation today, living inside of one will become commonplace for billions of people in the future. They’ll be simulations of our own creation, and possibly even miniature worlds filled with life of which we’ll simply place on a shelf and forget about. Though the question remains: are we also a forgotten simulation left on some ancient simulator’s shelf?