# If I convinced you with certainty that you're in a simulation and offered to unplug you into base reality, would you accept and why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 19, 2024, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-convinced-you-with-certainty-that-youre-in-a-simulation-and-offered-to-unplug-you-into-base-reality-would-you-accept-and-why/1001765 "2024-05-19T06:31:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-convinced-you-with-certainty-that-youre-in-a-simulation-and-offered-to-unplug-you-into-base-reality-would-you-accept-and-why/1001765/21 "2024-05-19T20:32:57Z")
You, **Humans** , could not convince me of anything, having just joined this board 15 hours ago. If we are in a simulation and can be unplugged, you go first. Is Reddit down or something? ---
**Author:** ![Humans](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dfb087/32.png) [@Humans](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humans)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-convinced-you-with-certainty-that-youre-in-a-simulation-and-offered-to-unplug-you-into-base-reality-would-you-accept-and-why/1001765/22 "2024-05-19T20:49:19Z")
Is that how you welcome all your guests? Also why does it say Guest under your name when you’ve visited this site every day for a year and have a 1.5 decade old account ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-convinced-you-with-certainty-that-youre-in-a-simulation-and-offered-to-unplug-you-into-base-reality-would-you-accept-and-why/1001765/23 "2024-05-19T20:59:02Z")
> [@Humans](#): > > Also why does it say Guest under your name when you’ve visited this site every day for a year and have a 1.5 decade old account Your [board profile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humans/summary) says that you joined 15 hours ago. If you are referring to Dallas Jones’s profile, “Guest” is the default tag placed on users by the system (particularly those who weren’t paid members under our old software), though many of us have other tags now. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-convinced-you-with-certainty-that-youre-in-a-simulation-and-offered-to-unplug-you-into-base-reality-would-you-accept-and-why/1001765/24 "2024-05-19T21:04:54Z")
If I assume somehow you’ve convinced me that we are in a simulation (which is likely impossible but I’ll accept the premise), then probably not. I’m reasonably happy with the life I’m living. I’m doing lots of interesting things, meeting interesting people. Why would I trade that for something called “reality”? To what end? Is there something special about “reality”? Meh. This is not really the same situation faced by Neo since he now knows not only is he very likely in a simulation, but that the simulation appear to be out to get him. Now if I were facing certain death in the simulation and oblivion, and I were offered a chance to fight back in the real world, then I would (but this is of course not the OP). ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-convinced-you-with-certainty-that-youre-in-a-simulation-and-offered-to-unplug-you-into-base-reality-would-you-accept-and-why/1001765/25 "2024-05-19T21:10:40Z")
> [@Humans](#): > > lso why does it say Guest under your name when you’ve visited this site every day for a year and have a 1.5 decade old account I have been a guest since 2008. And read the board for several years before then. The tags under a user’s name are pretty meaningless. I could request a new title, like Lord of all Creation, but that one is probably already taken. So I stick with guest. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-convinced-you-with-certainty-that-youre-in-a-simulation-and-offered-to-unplug-you-into-base-reality-would-you-accept-and-why/1001765/26 "2024-05-19T21:12:29Z")
I would want “Not the useful kind of doctor” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-convinced-you-with-certainty-that-youre-in-a-simulation-and-offered-to-unplug-you-into-base-reality-would-you-accept-and-why/1001765/27 "2024-05-19T21:20:30Z")
“If I convinced you with certainty that you’re in a simulation and offered to unplug you into base reality, would you accept and why?” We’re _all_ in a simulation. Not one of us has direct access to reality. What we choose to designate as “reality” is simply an agreed-upon construct that for the most part is made up of shared observations–observations we make through the instruments we call ‘our senses.’ So that would be my answer to you. I’m already in a simulation. If you have a different one to offer, I’d require details of it before agreeing to start experiencing it–and I’d make that requirement because you have no leverage over me. In other words, you’re not telling me anything I don’t already know, and you haven’t offered consequences of any decision I might make that could lead me to conclude that accepting your proposal would make much of a difference to me. ( > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > the world I live in is made from inputs to my senses and the subjective impressions they give rise to. That’s the layer where things matter—where we think, hope, dream, love, plan, and so on. That’s really what’s real, and whether the base layer is bits and bytes or quantum fields or strings or something entirely different doesn’t really make any difference—these are not the things we ultimately derive value from. So being told that base layer ‘really’ consists of some computer hardware isn’t any different from being told it ‘really’ consists of spin foam. Yeah, that. I realize we’re basically working off _The Matrix_ idea of a shared illusion, and isn’t it better to put aside the illusion, etc. But after Neo took the red pill he _still_ wasn’t seeing “reality”–he was just experiencing what his brain made of his sensory inputs…just like **before** he took the pill. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-convinced-you-with-certainty-that-youre-in-a-simulation-and-offered-to-unplug-you-into-base-reality-would-you-accept-and-why/1001765/28 "2024-05-19T22:46:34Z")
The most plausible way to prove we’re in a simulation is to do things that are impossible according to apparent physics by some kind of hacking/override. There’s not actually some rule that simulations _have_ to be impossible to distinguish from reality, it’s just usually postulated that way because our existence _is_ indistinguishable from reality. If somebody started walking though walls, transforming things, transported me to the Moon without suffocating me and so on while claiming they were “hacking the simulation” I’d be inclined to provisionally believe them given that the alternative explanations are at least as implausible. The refusal to explain anything about “base reality” is actually more disturbing, since it strongly implies that either the person is being dishonest or that reality is so alien as to be beyond description. And since “it’s to alien for you to understand” is easy enough to say, that implies it’s the former. So for _that_ reason I’d say no. It feels like some sort of trap. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-convinced-you-with-certainty-that-youre-in-a-simulation-and-offered-to-unplug-you-into-base-reality-would-you-accept-and-why/1001765/29 "2024-05-19T23:02:53Z")
I’ll play. Here’s the thing, everything and more importantly everyONE I care about is here in the simulation, real (a la the Matrix) or entirely simulated (not made explicit in the OP). So, quite literally everything that makes me, well ME, is tied to the simulation. If I unplug, then I’ve lost almost everything that has made up me until now: knowledge, experiences, and people. Fundamentally, I’m -blindly- choosing to die in this world, to be reborn as a new person in a new world, albeit with my memories. I have lots of complaints about this world (oh boy), but the people I care about are not included. And given either possibility about said people, they’re either real and being abandoned, or sufficiently advanced simulations to the point that they’re still _people_ as far as I’m concerned, even if they’re “just” some sufficiently advanced AI or other equivalent. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-convinced-you-with-certainty-that-youre-in-a-simulation-and-offered-to-unplug-you-into-base-reality-would-you-accept-and-why/1001765/30 "2024-05-19T23:19:56Z")
To dumb this down a bit: Would you trade all your personal assets for all my personal assets, sight unseen? ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-convinced-you-with-certainty-that-youre-in-a-simulation-and-offered-to-unplug-you-into-base-reality-would-you-accept-and-why/1001765/31 "2024-05-19T23:46:35Z")
I think you will find most people will not unplug from the Matrix. People in general tend to be loss-averse - even giving up the potential of big gains when there is any risk of losing what they already have. I’d stay in this life. I like this life. I don’t care whether it’s “real” or not. I’m an existentialist. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-convinced-you-with-certainty-that-youre-in-a-simulation-and-offered-to-unplug-you-into-base-reality-would-you-accept-and-why/1001765/32 "2024-05-19T23:49:32Z")
I would require a fair bit of knowledge about the other side. On one hand, if I knew for certainty that this was a simulation then I’d probably find a lot less meaning in life. On the other, if I switched over and found out I was a potato, I’d probably have preferred staying in my semi-meaningless fake world. Just the fact that I’m trapped in Simulation Land makes me skeptical that things are going great for me in Real Land so I’m gonna need some answers first. If no answers were available, I’d probably stay put based on the assumption that I’m a potato-battery in the Real World, otherwise I wouldn’t be in a simulation. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-convinced-you-with-certainty-that-youre-in-a-simulation-and-offered-to-unplug-you-into-base-reality-would-you-accept-and-why/1001765/33 "2024-05-19T23:51:56Z")
Also a good point. People don’t go into simulations because their lives in reality are going swimmingly. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-convinced-you-with-certainty-that-youre-in-a-simulation-and-offered-to-unplug-you-into-base-reality-would-you-accept-and-why/1001765/34 "2024-05-19T23:57:01Z")
So I’d need.two answers: - First is this a Matrix situation where everyone is in the same simulation and interactions with people in the simulation are with real people who are also in the simulation. - Second is the “real” reality actually better? Like is this the equivalent of a 1990s flight sim? Do we have a bunch of senses and experiences IRL that can’t be simulated? If the answer is yes and no respectively then hell no. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-convinced-you-with-certainty-that-youre-in-a-simulation-and-offered-to-unplug-you-into-base-reality-would-you-accept-and-why/1001765/35 "2024-05-19T23:57:06Z")
> [@Humans](#): > > include your justification for your choice Is there something wrong with the simulation or any other reason for a Platonist to leave it ~Max ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-convinced-you-with-certainty-that-youre-in-a-simulation-and-offered-to-unplug-you-into-base-reality-would-you-accept-and-why/1001765/36 "2024-05-20T00:22:10Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > You, **Humans** , could not convince me of anything, having just joined this board 15 hours ago. If we are in a simulation and can be unplugged, you go first. > > Is Reddit down or something? This is a bit hostile for a fairly mundane MPSIMS thread. Dial it back, please. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-convinced-you-with-certainty-that-youre-in-a-simulation-and-offered-to-unplug-you-into-base-reality-would-you-accept-and-why/1001765/37 "2024-05-20T02:24:48Z")
> [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > This is not really the same situation faced by Neo Neo got to read the script before taking the red pill. In fact, the Martrix turned out to be a simulation written by two humans who were out to make money. Neo gladly joined them. They had a great idea and knew how they wanted to realize it. (For one movie. _The Matrix Reloaded_ stunk on ice. Even they couldn’t handle the implications of their idea.) In turn, that simulation put the idea of living in a simulation into huge numbers of people who unfortunately had no similar great ideas and couldn’t even produce one successful vision. I rue the day _The Matrix_ ever appeared. Hey, maybe if going to a real world where _The Matrix_ was never made was one of the options in the poll I’d consider it. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-convinced-you-with-certainty-that-youre-in-a-simulation-and-offered-to-unplug-you-into-base-reality-would-you-accept-and-why/1001765/38 "2024-05-20T03:01:23Z")
If it’s just a simulation, why can’t I have super powers? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2024, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-convinced-you-with-certainty-that-youre-in-a-simulation-and-offered-to-unplug-you-into-base-reality-would-you-accept-and-why/1001765/39 "2024-05-20T03:34:55Z")
This reminds me of a story I read many years ago, about a young man who is very dissatisfied with his life is visited by a man claiming to be a wizard. The wizard tells him that the people that raised him were not his real parents, and that he was kidnapped from a magical land. When the wizard asks him if he is ready to return home and fulfill His True Destiny, he immediately says “Yes!”. The wizard casts a spell, a shimmering door appears and the wizard tells him to step through to his new life. On the other side of the shimmering door they are suddenly in an enormous, and very stinky, barn. The wizard hands him a shovel and says, “When you get done mucking out the hippogryph stalls, see what you can do about the giant rats that are tearing holes in the fence over there.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-convinced-you-with-certainty-that-youre-in-a-simulation-and-offered-to-unplug-you-into-base-reality-would-you-accept-and-why/1001765.md?page=1)