[visarga]

> "you" could be a program running on a computer

If you are in a sim, then the sim execution is an expensive process, it produces heat and consumes energy. If you are in reality, a material body, then keeping alive also consumes energy. The debates about consciousness often assume a cost-free regime, a platonic perspective. I think this is wrong. We have much to gain thinking about how a process provides its own energy, or how it balances costs and gains. Maybe we can find answers about consciousness too if we chase down the cost recursion path.

[JCTheDenthog]

>If you are in a sim, then the sim execution is an expensive process, it produces heat and consumes energy.

If simulation theory (or similar ideas) are real, it's entirely possible that the "real world" running the simulation operates on completely different physical laws than the simulation.

[pixl97]

Again, this is unknowable if the creator of the simulation doesn't want you to figure out it's a simulation. Simulation or not, this is our reality, and our consciousness would be a simulation inside that simulation. Instead of a weird wobbly space universe, we'd just have an execution platform universe.

[JCTheDenthog]

I agree completely, and I think most debates/arguments around simulation theory and similar ideas are largely pointless, though they can at least be fun sometimes.

[pixl97]

Correct in the sense if we are able to determine that we are in a simulation. That would at least hold the promise that we could escape the VM and play with a deeper reality, though at that point the best chance is we are in nested VMs and reality is a long way away.