1. I think simulation is something to do with Alzheimer’s. Yes think about it how can anyone forget their own children as they watch them grow and play they spent most of their energy thinking about them. It means simulation malfunctioning in Alzheimer’s patients And I agree with you simulation starts in the womb there is reference in the Mahabharata that Abhimanyu son of Arjuna learns art of war being in his mother’s womb One more thing people see future events in dreams this also connected to simulation .

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2. Simulation theory has some very compelling arguments that I feel are being dismissed out of hand here.

   If human beings can at some point create a virtual universe that is effectively indistinguishable from the inside from a real universe, then we will have proven we could be in a simulated universe. It is widely believed we will at some point accomplish the technical ability to create such a second reality. If we do, then why could we not be the very thing we created? If our virtual reality can create virtual realities and it's turtles all the way down, the odds of us being in the one and only "true" universe are incredibly slim.

   For us to not be in a simulated universe, either universes cannot be simulated no matter the level of technological advancement, they can but it has not happened yet or we have defied all probability to win the turtle lottery. Given time has no meaning in a discussion of infinite universes, we can't even invoke probability when it comes to how likely it is that there's been enough time for such events to have happened.

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3. Finally somebody with enough knowledge of SciFi and philosophy to realize that "The Matrix" is not the starting point of this idea, but only a recent descendant. "Welt am Draht" blew me away when I watched it as a child in W Germany ~ 1981 on TV. It is sad that Fassbinder's odd little TV show gem is almost unknown and never gets credited. After I watched the show, I immediately checked out Daniel F. Galouye's book from the public library. What radical ideas! I was *shocked*, transformed and my little world wasn't the same anymore.

   I must say that I am extremely suspicious of high profile researchers that get their research ideas from Science Fiction books without even crediting the original sources of the ideas. Well done, Fran! I am subscribed.

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4. Nick Bostrom conjecture was not addressed. The best framing that cuts through all the nonsense – as we approach the technology to create near perfect simulations, we have an ultra detailed simulation of animals in a small room where some water is allowed to flow in we watch as the model works out their every movement, down to fine twitches and we have this same setup in real life, we turn on the water flow using a precise electromechanical valve to match the simulation perfectly, then watch a the animals react in an identical manner down to the fine twitches, we can now be fairly confident that the simulation is able to accurately recreate all the interactions of the nervous systems in these animals, as these tests grow in scale, a simulated habitat of chimpanzees mirrors nearly every movement in a similar real life zoo, once this type of test is successful with a human subject, does that then give the skeptics pause? If we were to actually witness early prototypes of the type of precision simulations necessary to emulate human experience, what kind of odds would you place on us being the first as opposed to one of potentially trillions (imagine base reality having most of its matter converted to number-crunching machines which feed a simulation of nested simulations). Alternatively we move away from attempting to create ancestor simulations, perhaps a major set-back in technology like quantum-scale phenomenon we can’t crunch or approximate effectively, or legislation banning the simulation of human minds as well as neural networks with the capacity to feel pain, then we might be in a better position to say this is base reality and ancestor simulations will not be a concern, or a nuclear and biochemical war sets Earth back 50,000 years … Anyways, skeptics, how would you evaluate our odds in the scenario where you’ve witnessed the types of precision simulation I described above? If you’d still believe we are the first, can you explain your reasoning?

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5. i am a hard-nosed atheist, or have been…
   i think nature has a property of natural complexity.
   from nothing to atoms, to molecules, to complex carbon, to microbial life, to human consciousness.

   Now, that said, i think in a way we are our own realities, we create reality in our heads, period.
   there is no such thing as "color", no red, no blue…
   we just create these colors in our heads to have a user interface to experience certain reflected frequencies of light.
   so yes, all of reality is our creation. it doesnt mean that everyone elses is any less significant (to them)

   The Matrix is a documentary (LOL)

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6. The reality of simulations breaks down as you look closer. When you look at the universe on the quantom scale, reality starts to break down. Experiments give different results simply by being observed. The laws of physics no longer apply. Things can be in multiple places at once. With no direct evidence, scientists have claimed that there are 7 more physical dimensions because "gravity is too weak". This is just cooking the books to make their math work. Its no different from theologians claiming that the world is ony 3000 years old to make sculptural math work. The idea that reality on a fundamental level may not be what we think it is is not an irrational one. We should not allow our attachment to our beliefs, scientific or otherwise, to dictate how we study and respond to our reality.

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7. What, where did you get this. the simulation theory makes no assumption of individual importance… in fact, it more often leans towards the idea that you are just a point of data, an instance of a much greater whole. The simulation of the big bang, would exist to observe how the uninverse was created and formed over time, and how minor changes might affect things, etc…
   Of course there are any number of reasons why a simulation might exist.
   Even inside a simulation, scientists or their equivalent, would try to figure out an understand the universe of the simulation… doing the very same things you are talking about. you Are not going to convince anyone who doesn't want to believe they are living in a simulation that they are.
   Your assumption about the limited complexity of the simulation is laughably absurd… no amount of living in the woods would make any difference… you seem to be assuming that since we cannot make a simulation to match our own, that something more advanced than us could not achieve this, or simply could not exist… talk about egocentric. you need to step back from that cliff of hubris. All of reality is simply a construct of the Consciousness, in all its forms… but you would like so much for it to be simpler than that [no different than a religious person, except that you seek a simplicity that you can master, not through discipline, but through the acquisition of knowledge…. something fixed and easily managed, something that can be cataloged and edited through means rather than true understanding].

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8. After reaching, and going passed, the heat death of the physical universe, a bunch of godlike beings realise it’s a bit boring having achieved ultimate power and look back with nostalgia, to past times. They hire the best programmers, who turn out to be second rate (there’s no one left that remembers how to code) to create a simulation of the universe. The launch goes off with a bang which accidentally starts existence from the beginning. After reaching, and going passed, the heat death…

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9. FRAN! Thanks for mentioning World On Wire / Welt Am Draht by R W Fassbinder. I happened to have seen the original airing of this 2-part (à 110mins I think) German TV serial production ('Fernsehspiel') classic (probably on a B/W TV set). I've been having a life-long infatuation with this masterpiece eversince. As soon as those white parallel lines started to descend from the top of my screen, I knew what you are talking about.

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10. Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mitch and Titch Legend of Xanadu was the first 45rpm I was bought by my mother. No one cares! Just my world view… no purpose, just a vial… once the loved person is removed from the body being held on the hospital bed, the body is just a bag of complex rotting stuff.
    As Anne Herbert said –

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11. The earth has no begining and no end, if you travel east or west. If you travel North and continue in that direction you will fly to the south and from the south you will eventually arrive in the northern hemisphere. But if you travel east, do you eventually arrive west? And if you travel west do you eventually arrive toward the east? This is where things have no beginning or end. Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons? Which came first? The chicken or the egg? Truth is the creator came first. Between the flower and the bee, which arrived first?

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12. Another thought is our simulation is now requiring more processing power due to population growth and technological advancement. "IF" the simulator needs to reduce processing demand one way would be to wipe out NPC senses (or inputs). Ever heard of a virus wiping out an input? The programmer could not wipe out audio, video or balance because that would disable users or npc capabilities. However, taste and smell would not in our modern world where food has expiration dates. Guess which two an extremely aggressive virus took out? Covid took out the two senses that technically you can live without. It also reduced the population and is possibly manufactured furthering the hypothesis.

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13. I can’t remember where, but I watched a lecture from an actual experimental physics prof who explained various reasons why sim-theory cannot be true. The one I remember had to do with the Hall Effect and related equations. It was a bit beyond me (the physics, not the math) but I think the gist was that it would require more computational power to simulate the observed effects of the Hall Effect than there are atoms in the universe upon which to compute.

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