Pang Pei ：We Do Not Exist at All

—When Existence Becomes Code: The Illusion of War and the Path to Civilization under the Simulation Hypothesis 
 
Peng Pei (Cultural Committee Member, Central Committee of China Zhi Gong Party) 
 
Suppose you and I are nothing but code, and Earth is merely a projection of cold, impersonal instructions. In this moment, the sensation of your fingertips, the words before your eyes, the beating heart in your chest—could they all be nothing more than an elaborate illusion? This is the ultimate question posed by the simulation hypothesis. It is not mere science fiction; it is a serious philosophical inquiry that traces its lineage back to Descartes’ “evil demon” argument and Putnam’s “brain in a vat,” reaching its logical apex in Bostrom’s “simulation trilemma”: it is highly probable that we are living inside a program run by a posthuman civilization. In truth, *we do not exist at all*.
 
Let us begin with epistemology. Descartes’ famous “I think, therefore I am” no longer holds firm in a simulated universe. If all perception can be programmed, “I think” might simply be a clever response generated by the system. Kant believed that “space and time” are the foundation of experience, but if they are merely initial parameters of the simulator, we are trapped in a cage from which we can never reach the essence of things.
 
Turning to ontology, Aristotle’s concept of “material cause” collapses before the stream of bits. Berkeley’s “to be is to be perceived” becomes “to be is to be computed,” transforming the material world into a structured illusion of consciousness. Max Tegmark’s Mathematical Universe Hypothesis goes even further, suggesting that only mathematical structures are real, and we are merely programmed instances within them.
 
Ethical dilemmas follow. If pain is only a simulated neural signal, does morality still matter? Bostrom warns that if advanced civilizations possess moral conscience, the simulation we inhabit may be more likely to exist, because they would avoid creating suffering “conscious programs.” Nozick’s “experience machine” paradox also evolves: does the simulator have the right to terminate the program? Can the simulated demand “consciousness upgrades”?
 
When existence itself hangs by a virtual thread, the absurdity of grand wars in human history—fought with mountains of corpses and gambled with millions of lives—becomes as evident as a microscopic view of bacteria squabbling. If you and I are code, the contested territories are virtual coordinates, the defended beliefs are pre-scripted narratives, and the thunder of artillery and mutual annihilation are merely logical errors in the program.
 
In this context, the concept of “drone racing” as a form of non-contact warfare reveals a sobering realism. Since existence may be illusory, at least let destruction stay away from flesh and blood. Like replacing real bullets with virtual battles in video games, drone warfare does not eliminate conflict, but offers a relatively low-risk solution for a potentially simulated world, limiting destruction to machines and data rather than consuming real lives. This is not a celebration of war, but a technological demotion of the absurdity of traditional warfare.
 
The simulation hypothesis transcends empirical verification, as Carnap would say, evading the final judgment of science. Yet philosophy has not ceased to respond. Pragmatist William James argued that as long as the “causal efficacy” of the simulated world remains stable—apples still fall, fire still burns—then “reality” is simply an “effective belief” in our actions. Phenomenology, echoing Husserl’s call to “return to the things themselves,” transforms into a pure description of experiential structures, regardless of their ontological foundations. Our experience *now* is the only reality.
 
The simulation hypothesis does not mark the end of existence, but invites us to understand it in a new dimension. Heidegger said, “The question of the being of beings is itself a way of being.” Even if human consciousness is merely recursive code, the very act of doubting our origin, reflecting on the horrors of war, and seeking paths to peace—this self-reflective questioning establishes our real “secondary ontological status” in a possibly nihilistic universe.
 
In the wake of the realization that the universe may be an illusion, the true courage of civilization is not to obsess over absolute proof of “existence,” but to build a world with less suffering through humility. When drones replace trenches filled with blood and flesh on the battlefield, it is not merely a technological upgrade—it is a profound redemption of the value of “existence.” Even if we are but phantoms in a program, we must still imbue this phantom with algorithms of dignity.
 
July 23, 2025