Elon Musk went full-on epistemological at Recode's Codecon conference, suggesting that we might be in a videogame kind of simulation! Wow! This, you might know, is a theory originally posited by Descartes, then by the Matrix, and most recently, by some dude in a dorm room down the hall who just took an aggressive bong rip.

Here's the quote, per Recode:

The strongest argument for us being in a simulation is the following: 40 years ago, we had Pong. Two rectangles and a dot. Now, 40 years later, we have photorealistic 3D with millions playing simultaneously. If you assume any rate of improvement at all, then the games will become indistinguishable from reality, even if that rate of advancement drops by 1000 from what it is now. It's a given that we’re clearly on a trajectory that we’re going to have games that are indistinguishable from reality. It would seem to follow that the odds that we’re in base reality is 1 in millions.

Elon wasn't done. Assuming, for the moment, that this isn't all some simulation, Musk said of his company SpaceX that he's "going to send a mission to Mars with every Mars opportunity from 2018 onwards," an event, based on the relative orbits of Earth and Mars, that occurs every 26 months. That means people on Mars starting in 2024 or so, a plan that he has elaborated on before and which involves nuking the planet to make it habitable.

“I believe [it] is important to the future, ultimately be out there among the stars,” TechCrunch quotes Musk from the talk, “It’s not being a single planet species and moving planets, it’s about being a multi-planet species and have life extend beyond the solar system and ultimately to other star systems. That’s the future that’s exciting. You need things like that to be glad to wake up in the morning. Life can’t just be about solving problems, they have to be inspiring and make you glad to be alive.”

Or simulated! Being simulated is fun too.

The whole Recode ramble-sesh is here:

Previously: Video: New Werner Herzog Doc About Tech Features Elon Musk, Other Luminaries