Like the video says, we cannot know with total certainty that we aren’t living in a simulation or that reality is some kind of mental construct. It’s a very lonely and isolating feeling that is rooted in some truth, especially considering how truth is a representation of reality and we seem to value it so much. So what then is truth and meaning if the world happens to just be a figment of your mind? What then? How do we deal with not having total certainty of what seems like a foundation for the rest of our knowledge?
As we have been dealing with it pretty much since the dawn of consciousness, we obviously manage.
We make some foundational assumptions that seem to work for us. As long as they work for us, the fact that they might actually be incorrect doesn’t matter greatly.
Look at it this way. If we ARE living in a simulation, it’s so brilliantly designed and so all-encompassing that we’re completely unaware of being manipulated inside it.
Therefore, we can be certain that even if we’re all just part of a giant computer program, we don’t know it, and can live our lives just as if everything were real.
The only time uncertainty is an actual problem is if you have to make a decision based on uncertainty. But since all of our science and engineering works based on principles we can measure and understand, it doesn’t matter in that sense whether we are in a simulation, a real universe, or a multiverse.
It matters a great deal if you want to plan for the afterlife, however.
Live your life under the empowering delusion that there is a higher power who guides you and who will provide you eternal glory after death if you worship him unerringly and proselytize on his behalf.
Are you concerned about the nature of the universe, or about how you feel? I really don’t accept your premise that there’s much direct connection between the two. Feelings come and go, and can be modified with drugs, exercise, sex or doing stuff in general. Take some decent drugs and look at the Grand Canyon for a while, and reassure yourself that if it’s a simulation, it’s pretty fucking cool simulation. Study some cosmology or evolutionary biology, and be amazed and inspired that we can understand things about the nature of the universe billions of years ago - simulation or otherwise. There’s nothing lonely or isolating about this knowledge.
What AM I 100% sure of? I can’t think of a single thing.
The sun will rise tomorrow? Close, but what if a giant asteroid hits the Earth today, changing it’s spin.
That winter will arrive? Again, close, but see above circumstance.
I can drive to the store to get a gallon of milk? Car break down; someone rear ends me; the store is out of milk
It’s all about weighting options and risks, making a choice, and moving on. There’s not a darn thing I can do about it, if my life is a simulation. So I might as well make choices as if it’s real, and go on with living my life. Because tomorrow I might get hit by a falling meteor. Or (more likely) I might enjoy a lovely summer day.
This reminds me of a joke my math teacher told us in high school.
A group of physicists, mathematicians, and engineers went to a party with a bunch of prostitutes. The only rule was that the guys started on one side of the room and the women on the other and the men could only cross half the room at a time (1/2, 3/4, 7/8, etc). Once the rule was explained the physicist and mathamaticians left because they knew they would never cross the room to the women. When asked why they stayed the engineers said it was because they knew they could get close enough for all practical purposes.
While we’ll never know 100% if life is a simulation or a dream we can get close enough for all practical purposes.
Well, not exactly. The question of the OP is not “do I exist” but “does reality exist”.
Which is the point of the Steven Wright quote - there is no difference between an exact duplicate of reality, and reality.
Unless the argument is that we are all interacting and reacting to the models of reality we hold in our heads. That’s sort of a valid point, but since we can detect differences (fairly often) between the models and what we experience, it isn’t an exact duplicate. So we can’t be 100% certain that our models are accurate, but that’s OK because the disparities that we notice tell us that there is something out there that is realer than our models. So we can be 100% certain that reality exists, either because we notice that we are sometimes wrong about reality, or because there are no differences, and therefore reality is an exact copy of itself. And is therefore the same thing.
He does not really answer the question so much as dodge it with meditation and “observe therefor I am”.
I get that for the little things like no knowing about car crashes or where the sun will rise it’s fine. But as for the nature of reality and whether other people exist or are just objects of my mind is a bit more troubling.
