[smac8]

Because they are interesting and fun to think about?

Because they may create new ideas which impact models, frameworks, directions, and analogies of thought in experimental and theoretical disciplines of the same or differing subjects?

Because not everything is testable, or even when it is the number of variables simply makes controlling the experiment for accurate causal derivations difficult to impossible? (increasingly true as science progresses, often leading to false levels of confidence).

Hmm......

[duaneb]

> Because they may create new ideas which impact models, frameworks, directions, and analogies of thought in experimental and theoretical disciplines of the same or differing subjects?

How do you figure? Whether we are in a simulation is a) unknowable by definition, or it's not a very good simulation, and b) doesn't change anything about how our universe works from our perspective. Why would speculation about "why" impact anything about the decisions we make?

[pmoriarty]

If someone thought they were in a simulation, they might try to find a way out of it, or might start not taking life seriously.

If, as most people, you think that one's beliefs shape one's actions, then it should be pretty clear that a belief that we live in a simulation could lead to some people acting differently based on that belief.

Only if one did not have free will or if one's beliefs did not shape one's actions would such a belief have no potential impact.

[duaneb]

> If someone thought they were in a simulation, they might try to find a way out of it

This is completely nonsensical.

> or might start not taking life seriously.

People already do this just fine.

> Only if one did not have free will or if one's beliefs did not shape one's actions would such a belief have no potential impact.

Free will is a pretty thought, not anything to do with a simulation theory. Why does it matter whether you are forced to bow down to physical laws vs simulated physical laws? You can tell yourself whatever you want, but you gotta bow.

[pmoriarty]

> > If someone thought they were in a simulation, they might try to find a way out of it

> This is completely nonsensical.

It really depends on the nature of the simulation. For example, if the simulation was something like what was depicted in The Matrix, where one's experience or senses were being simulated while one's real body was outside the simulation, then it could be possible to find a way out.

Of course, if your entire existence was simulated and you had no existence outside the simulation, then it would be more difficult, but perhaps even then not impossible, depending on whether you believed that a copy of yourself was still you. For instance, one could conceivably "upload" a copy of one's mind/brain in to a robot that was external to the simulation and that robot could then potentially have access to sensations/experience outside the simulation. Of course, then it could be argued whether that's another simulation.

But the potential for whatever is "outside" the simulation being just another simulation (ala Inception) is always there. And I'm not sure how one could ever be certain one was ever really "outside" and not just in another simulation -- though it might be possible that one really is "outside" without being certain of it. Or one could be certain and mistaken, or certain and correct. But then one could always be mistaken.

> > or might start not taking life seriously.

> People already do this just fine.

I meant people who took their life seriously because they thought it was "real" and then finding out that they and everyone/everything around them was simulated might decide, as a result of this realization, to no longer take life seriously. For example, they could have valued human life before, but when realizing that the beings they thought were alive before actually weren't, then they could start not valuing them anymore.

Of course, some people don't value their own lives or those of others regardless, and don't take their life seriously anyway.. but I'm not talking about them.

> Free will is a pretty thought, not anything to do with a simulation theory.

The point of bringing up free will was to show under what circumstances one's beliefs would not have any impact on one's actions. Those circumstances are ones in which one does not have free will.

If one does have free will, and one's actions really are shaped by one's beliefs, then the belief that one is in a simulation could have an effect on what one does.

If one does not have free will, or one's actions are not shaped by one's beliefs, then the same belief would not have any effect one what one does. One would do what one was determined to do regardless.

[wruza]

>the potential for whatever is "outside" the simulation being just another simulation (ala Inception) is always there

Original scenario of The Matrix had it until some businessman decided to turn it into another happy-end hollywood crap, afaik.

[viraptor]

> doesn't change anything about how our universe works from our perspective

It possibly does: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis#Testing_...