Are We Living in a Computer Simulation, and Can We Hack It?
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Our minds are computational, our minds simulate, are you capable of perceiving and/or comprehending Truth separate from this phenomena? Are we capable of UNDECEIVING the self?
Simple truths are tools of those who undeceive.
Of the mind, inferences are catalogues of symbolic interpretation.
Of the mind senses, perception, and memory are signals and symbolic representations.
Are we capable of perceiving true existential reality apart from simulation of our senses? Or projection of our expectations and experience?
It is for you to spend your whole life developing that it may be so. This is not a solution ever solve once and for all. It must be solved BY YOU for it to be at all relevant, and it must be maintained in EVERY INSTANCE for which it is to be so, FOR EVER.
In this way, those individuals determinate of will to undeceive the self may take advantage (or merely account) of Truth (whatever that may be) and all that comes of it.
Can we hack it? Are not wisdom, experience, and training the ultimate human hack?
Maybe it's not a computer simulation but a simulation nevertheless. What people never think about is that we are living in a world that was created just for us. Anywhere we go things are created and placed for our comfort. Most of us will never have to grow or kill our food. We just go to a shop and get what we want. Some of us, if we want, can live without ever getting out of our home. It's almost magical. Yes, it's a simulation but it wasn't created by some mystical creator but humanity's collective mind. With the exception of the raw materials there is little natural about our daily world. Where in nature can you find a car, a house or, for that matter, a corporation like Google. Everything has been created for us by the collective human mind. It's all a simulation.
Many teachers have put a lot of work into clarifying the particular information you seek, but nobody has succeeded in making it easy.
Now something masochistic for starters ;-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dreaming
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(religion)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Serres
Edit: Thinking about it, what I wanted to say with those links is, these all clash with our common western mindset.
Which is dualistic.
And goes like:
Off or on, in between is gone.
Zero or one, between them is NONE!
Some grey between black or white? Strike! It leads astray from the one true hike!
Good or bad, thinking between would be mad!
Now for something even more masochistic ;-)
The deeper questions concern consciousness. At the core I personally don't believe actors in a simulation can have consciousness, therefore simulations have no bearing on our reality.
What about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculating_Space & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence ?
Things like the
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_the_Dead ,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Life ,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akashic_records ,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popol_Vuh ,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardo_Thodol ,
could be considered as tries to describe emergent phenomena, depending on Occam's mood and fitness of the day, OR as the initial random seed of who/what created these.
As could be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egregore , indepedent of initial origin, just by emergence itself.