can it be?

smoothie

Then what? All the reality we know currently would be this simulation and we would continue to live in it or research a way to get out.

If it was factually discovered we were in a simulation somehow then it wouldn't create any questions that we already have.

1. Why are we here?

2. Who put us here/created the universe?

Maybe if we were in this simulation we could get out of it somehow and ask, but that has is extremely unlikely considering if it was a simulation we have been living in it for thousands of years and nobody has found a way to "disconnect"

MayCaesar

It very much could be the case. One way to test it would be to look for "glitches" that any computer simulation is bound to have; some effects that contradict everything we know about the world, and that perhaps exhibit some pattern consistent with the idea of the intelligent designer.

The other way would be to learn that we are actually the ones who built this simulation and plugged ourselves into it willingly - it could be that, when we "die", we actually wake up in the original world and get to choose any new character to "play".

We could also try to look for rounding errors, where physical effects become "cropped" as a result of insufficient resolution. Alternatively, we could learn that our world is pixelated, and explore the boundary effects on those pixels.

Granted, all these considerations imply that the simulation is, in principle, similar to the virtual worlds we build on our computers. Perhaps it does not have to work that way, and those who have designed it live in a very different world than the one known to us, with physical laws having very little in common with ours.

RickeyD

@maxx ; Human KIND was placed upon the Earth within "reality" known as Time and this was done for a very specific purpose. If you're interested in why human KIND has been created and placed upon this created Earth, I have provided an explanation via the Holy Spirit and His written word. See: In the Beginning God - Why?  https://rickeyholtsclaw.com/2017/09/27/in-the-beginning-god-why/

Happy_Killbot

@maxx Yes, but not many people actually believe this, they just talk about the theory because it is a rather creative solution to an old religious argument.

The argument goes something like this: Because of all the things that would have to happen by chance in order for us to be here, the odds that it would happen are extraordinarily low. Therefore, it is much more likely that a god created us, and to be religious is just to play the odds.

Before simulation theory, the rebuttal to this argument was: If it is more likely that a god created us, then it is even more likely that one of multiple gods did, because more gods means more chances for us to exist, therefore polytheist religions are more likely than monotheistic ones, like Islam or Christianity.

Not a very satisfying answer if you are an atheist. Then simulation theory comes in: If in any universe it is possible to make ancestor simulations, and it is desirable to do so, then it is likely that a civilization will. Therefore, many more universes will actually be simulations inside of another universe, and it is much, much more likely that we live in a simulation than in reality.

This wouldn't really change anything, but at the same time it would change everything. It implies that whatever we take for granted no longer applies, because in theory everything can be changed, limited only by computing resources external to this world. This is both exciting and horrifying.