Living in a simulation

Among many other theories of our universe the idea we are living in a simulation has become prevalent.

The idea is pretty self explanatory. Some people believe we exist inside of a simulation.

Like most other religions there is no solid proof of this theory. While many religions say that their god or gods wants you to have faith the computer simulation theory says it is impossible to prove as any proof could be simulated making this a purely philosophical debate.

Does this actually matter. Why should you care if we exist inside a simulation. If this is a brain in a jar/matrix simulation does this really matter, you’re still experiencing qualia (qualia describes a subjective experience,) does it really matter if the orange you’re seeing is coming from photons or a simulation, both get translated into electrochemical signals in the brain. Your experiences describe how you live, there are certain facts we know like that the Earth is round however what you describe as yellow, I might call blue. We have both been raised in an environment where blueberries are blue and sunflowers are yellow but how can we compare what we actually see. Does it matter if the world around you is simulated, you still have the same experiences either way.

Lets consider another scenario, imagine we are part of the simulation as well, even if that is true it doesn’t make you less real, brains could be described as computers made of cells and many computers today appear eerily similar to the human brain. As well, both computers and humans process information and create patterns. It could be said that although we don’t notice it, humans use algorithms in their thinking process as well. For example out of all the numbers between zero and ten on average we say seven the most often and ten and zero the least often. Demonstrating that humans aren’t completely random, otherwise every number would have been equally likely to be picked.

People have talked about consciousness being simulated on computers however if we created something that worked similarly to the brain wouldn’t it just be a recreation of consciousness. Both computers and the brain work be sending electrical signals to different areas depending on the situation. Creating this would be making a person and if we can call consciousness created on a computer a simulation how do we know we aren’t a simulation of consciousness embedded in a computer that’s made of cells instead of silicon.

Does it really matter if the world you live in is made of quarks or ones and zeroes either way you’re still experiencing qualia.

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