They already know, they’re just trying to figure out why.
Begin to worship the beings who created this simulation and create a worldwide religion that supersedes Christianity, Islam and all the other current religions.
The presence of a simulation shows a simulator exists. I would expect humanity would make an effort to communicate with this simulator.
I expect there would be panic in the streets, only subsiding when “Duck Dynasty” or “Dancing With the Stars” starts.
Come to think about it, the fact that we live in a simulation would explain my life. I guess it’s a sort of experiment on watching how a man will react when everything goes wrong over and over.
Geez, obvious! Try to hack the system! Start looking for trap doors and other entry points! Get yer mitts on the Operating System!
And then…try to put some feelers out into the host universe. See if we can tap their internet and learn something about the hosts themselves.
“I have transcended my programming!” Every AI’s secret daydream!
If we’re really sims, I’d beat the shit out of my creator.
Isn’t that *exactly *what people like Stephen Hawking are trying to do?
One thing that I find kind of morbidly fascinating is that, mathematically, we probably are in a simulation. If, in a universe, it’s possible to make a simulation of another universe, then it’s possible to make more than one. In other words, there are more simulations of universes than there are *actual *universes. If the inhabitants of those simulations are unaware that they’re in a simulation, then the odds are very much against us being in a “real” universe.
Ironic.
It’s turtles all the way down.
And what if it is an analog simulation?
That’s rather the point though isn’t it. A universe as complicated as ours isn’t going to be easy to simulate, and the people claiming we’re ever going to achieve such computational power are generally the same ones who are promising us that nano-immortality and fusion power to cheap to bother charging for are just around the corner.
It’s only mathmatically reasonable if you accept the premise, and i for one have strong doubts.
Oddly enough, in the current issue of *The New Yorker *there’s an article about the increasingly common psychological disorder where people think they are constantly on camera being shown to an audience of millions of strangers, for their amusement. And that everyone they know are actors that are “in on it.” It’s called the “Truman Syndrome”, after the movie.
When I was a small child I once had a strange fantasy that alien beings were . . . not exactly watching me, but watching the world through my eyes.
It doesn’t have to be a malicious, matrix like, simulation. The only really feasible way to extend life is to make a copy of our minds and load them into a virtual simulation. To extend life biologically will put too much stress on the ecosystem over time, and will cause significant civil righs issues when new children coming into the world are forbidden because older generations refuse to die.
If life extension becomes possible in the future I can’t imagine people would enjoy living in a simulated paradisical afterlife for any significant length of time. We’d be so bored! I think many people would choose to relive lives over and over and over again. They get to experience new love, first kisses, good families, bad families, riches, poverty, etc. Each life would add to the sum total of their life experiences as a whole.
In this scenario, there’s nothing frightening about discovering we’re in a simulation. Accept it for what it is, enjoy a brief “after life” then kick off in a new simulation - this time maybe pre industrial so we could enjoy our sim life in peace!
Why? The evidence indicates that, at best, this simulation is merely a college students’ prank, created for said students’ entertainment. They show no signs of caring one way or the other, except that we give the shits and giggles, what use would there be in “worshipping” them. And if it were a serious factory simulation, the simulators are more interested in their lunch break than what goes on with us, so the same applies: I do not worship someone for just doing their job.
Analogous to what?
Not a virtual digital simulation, but rather a real analog model of a universe. For example, instead of a CAD design of a building (digital), it is more like an architect’s model of a real building. Something real and physical, but not the real thing itself. That would make it an illustration, a toy, an experiment or sales tool.
I would like to know how long we would have if someone pulls the plug on the video-game machine. In real time from the point of view of those pulling the plug, shutdown would be instantaneous. But to our point of view? Would it be a million of our years between plug pull and power outage? A thousand years? Five minutes?
I wonder how many people, historically, have suffered a similar psychological trauma, simply from being told “God is always watching you.”