Regarding the simulation hypothesis, I like Isaac Asimov's take on it in his story "The Last Question", which is supposed to be his favorite piece of his own writing; It's well aligned with the hypotheses you laid out in this article:
I personally subscribe to Spinozian take on this whole idea that runs along similar lines with a slight humanitarian twist; it posits that all of us are essentially fickle pixels trying to recall they're all part of a bigger picture.
The picture reflects the workings of a omni-powerful proto-entity that once decided to create the whole of existence to shake off its boredom and loneliness living in eternity across the timeless void, by creating an infinitely universal MMO comprised of amnesiac particles of itself looking to put together the whole picture through as many eons, individuals, situations, reincarnations, civilizations as it takes. Simply put "What if 'God' was ALL of us?".
This is probably a confusing concept at first sight; for anyone interested, it has been neatly elaborated in more intelligible narrative form in the short story "The Egg" by Andy Weir, which has been adapted into this nice animated short:
As chance would have it, soon after writing this comment I came across this comment elsewhere written by another random Internet person; it included a classic poem and a recent cartoon that I feel work really well together with what I wrote, so here goes for y'all.
I've never seen the torches & pitchforks trope put to better use - and it's really funny because it's really true:
The Poem, on the other hand, is quite scary and hard to swallow because it also rings true; your effort to decipher its meaning yields ample dividends:
"The Door to Compassion" by ~Thich Nhat Hanh
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in africa, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to africans.
I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his "debt of blood" to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
This is something I constantly think about every day. It seems the most basic code of the game is "life" and "death" and from there a universe is not created, but simply exists and always has. At least this code is the "most basic" in the sense of the human understanding of time, etc. I don't know whether to be excited or indifferent about death! I think the journey is to be excited about, and there is no real "destination" (death). Just answered my own question... Anyways, the journey I think is infinite in a four-dimensional sense. The way the universe expands in ALL directions. There is no "path". For there to be a singular path, time would have to be more than what it is: simply a human construct. The universe is much much bigger than time...
Every day I think about this... and I can never quite grasp who I am or what I am or what it means to exist and it seems to be equally annoying and interesting. What I do know is it is quite mentally taxing.
If you game, you would love the Bioshock series based on this. It is really interesting how it addresses the notions the universe and its inhabitants, though the story does take it's time to unfold (over three games and some DLC), it is such a great story and speaks to this sort of thinking.
It is, but it is also one of the best written stories for a game that I have ever seen. If you don't have a console, which unless you have someone in your house that games I would assume you don't, you should be able to play it by making a Steam account and buying the Bioshock Collection there. Any relatively modern desktop computer should be able to handle it no problem. Especially the first two.
I ponder this concept all the time, too- I guess I don’t have to mention how precipitously catastrophic my efforts at talking it over with others go. 😭
I know what you mean by that. It is something that makes people uncomfortable to even think about, so they prefer not to. When you present to them what might be seen as radical ideas, they shy away.
Interesting, and what if God, whatever you call him, is real? What if it's not a game but a creation where being made in Gods image, is his attempt to create more beings like him? Because he was the first or only one of his kind, or both. Maybe we create games as practice for our future when we become like God. What I'm trying to say is that maybe, everything you said is true, but it's not a game.
See I don't know either and I have the same idea about energy as you do. Because you can't destroy energy, it doesn't die, it only changes, so maybe what we call a soul is our personal energy .
Your reincarnation theory is very similar to my own. Another aspect I have considered is that, if time is an illusion(there is good evidence it is), there wouldn't actually be past or future lives, only parallel lives. To me, this additional aspect adds even more credence to the reincarnation theory. If our consciousness is quantum entangled with the consciousness of other versions of our consciousnesses in other universes, then it would make sense that they all effect each other since that's exactly what occurs in quantum entanglement. Concerning the supposed debunking of simulation theory, I also found it to be nonsense. Elon himself lately said on The Joe Rogan Show that simulation theory can't be true because Neuralink hasn't been implanted in humanity yet. That just proves Neuralink hasn't been implanted in humanity within the simulation. He could have been kidding, I suppose. His sense of humor is different because of his autism and intelligence etc (which I like), but he never let Joe Rogan or his audience in on the joke if so. Anyway, that's an obvious logical fallacy. He seemed so adamant about the idea before, including on Joe's podcast. I found his sudden change of mind kind of strange, especially with such minor evidence as he claimed changed his mind.
Musk seems to be rather bullish on the idea of Simulation Theory, and it would make sense to me that he would make that sort of joke. It seems to be in line with his sense of humor.
"It hasn't happened yet, because I haven't caused it"
Yes, Musk weighs pretty heavily in favor of Simulation theory, and that's probably the only thing I disagree with him.
Let's first assume that it's 50/50 - either we live in a simulation, or not.
Now, if we didn't, nothing changes. But if did, what would that change for us?
Absolutely nothing. We would still be left with the same "source code", in the same world, abiding the same rules of the game. And yes, I do agree with your "life = game" analogy - I've believed in it since I was very young, and I still do!
Your point of view is pretty Hinduistic, and I love it. I've also intuitively began my studying with Hinduism, probably because their language is known to be the oldest known language, and due to the fact that is where astrology first came to exist. When you look at it more deeply, you find out it's based on 1 GOD (Brahman) with 3 different NAMES/FORMS: Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu. That TRIMURTI pretty much resembles the Christian Trinity, as well as the trinity in Islam and Judaism, which are simply different forms of Christianity (well, Judaism came first, not sure, whatever).
And the similiraties do not stop there, but there's more to the story. I believe that every religion, in fact everything in existence, holds their own fragment of the Whole Truth, and if we happen to collect all of the fragments, we are ready to evolve to a higher stage. And this is all connected to the concept of Karma, which is btw, part of Hinduism as well.
Now the reincarnation is also connected to the concept of Karma, and yours is the most literal interpretation of that very hinduistic concept of Karma. I, however, believe it is a metaphor meant to represent genetics, or epigenetics, to be more precise. It is through our genes that we inherit the traits/intuitions/drives from our ancestors. It is their upbringing we're going to get, most of the times. It is, thus, based on those two that we choose the 3rd part of us - our environment, and that very environment shapes us and our immediate future - it's a feedback mechanism.
So the levels of the "game" you tied to reincarnation, I think they happen IN THIS VERY LIFE, and those levels are in fact the stages of our life. Interesting the way you ordered the levels, as I would order the levels in my game differently!
Also perhaps the better analogy for "psyhopaths" "Autism" and "NT-.s" would be different classes :D Add to that 4 temperaments, which could be called specializations, and you get the subclasses as well xD
Now you mix a little bit of Taosim (Ying & Yang, also literally what dialectic-behavioral therapy - DBT - is all about, and literally what the philosophy of Hegel's Dialectic theory is all about), bit of Buddhism, bit of other religions...
And BAM, you're ready to take on a new level - in this very life :)
If not, oh well, reproduce, teach your kids what you know and let them have a shot at it xD
If you know the game. you can find the hacks often, so that would be interesting.
I also have a theory regarding Buddhism being founded as an attempt to teach neurotypicals to think more like psychopaths. The reason I think this could be true is due to trying to become less attached and less affected by the world around them.
As a psychopath I have watched neurotypicals drown in their emotions when the same event has no effect on me whatsoever. People who have been around me for a long period of time tend to have the volume of their emotions go way down, and their attachment to things that used to be very upsetting or emotional has lessened considerably.
Of course, I have no proof of this, but the lessons that it tries to convey are very psychopathic in nature. Of course it is written in their language so it can reach them, but if I were writing a religion, I would do that too.
I've always found buddhism counterintuitive, because I was always hyper-sensitive, so a version of what you just said has been in my head, as well xD
Basically, buddhism is about letting go of consummate emotions and living in the here and now, so I guess it makes sense.
I wonder what your opinion is on Existentialism? Because that's also something I've always found counterintuitive - could Jean-Paul Sartre be a psychopath as well?
He was known to be in a long-distance relationship with Simone de Beauvoir, seeing her for like couple of times their whole life. His words go something like this:
"The Germans did not stride, revolver in hand, through the streets. They did not force civilians to make way for them on the pavement. They would offer seats to old ladies on the Metro. They showed great fondness for children and would pat them on the cheek. They had been told to behave correctly and being well-disciplined, they tried shyly and conscientiously to do so. Some of them even displayed a naive kindness which could find no practical expression."
Influence on behavior, practical...no emotions attached. Like Buddhism, his existentialism is also something I've never found intuitively sound.
I realize that this would be guesswork from your side, but I'm still interested as to what your intuition says about that guy.
I enjoy this sort of speculation in that stoner/sci fi sort of way, though I am not really either. But I wondered.....so I sent the link to someone who unlike you and me is a physics/maths/computer guy. The reply was scathing! He acknowledged the fun thought experiment aspect, and the sci fi possibilities, but I had obviously touched on a nerve where actual science people find it irritating when non specialists let their imaginations go wild. Basically he said that the real maths and physics was woo enough, and also that the maths and physics actually supports a lot of crazy stuff but he had no tolerance for crazy stuff not supported by the maths and physics. Well OK, that's fair enough. But I reminded him that this was not an attempted dissertation on the universe, but rather an informal speculation essay on a forum that normally deals with other topics, so go easy! Anyway, it led to a long and involved correspondence, so all good.
My personal objection is that the religious take on things 'might be true'. I utterly disagree. They are subject to the same scrutiny as any other class of ideas, and under that scrutiny, just NO WAY.
It's interesting that he said all of that, when there are physicists that disagree with his position and actually are investigating this as a possibility. If they are the ones actually in that field of study, and specialize in it, and have a more open mind than he does, I would say that is a bit more a "him" problem, than it is a possibility problem.
As for religion, if the Simulation theory is correct, then religion is as well. There literally is a creator of our space, and a system governing it. It may not match with a particular study of religion, but living in a world created by someone else is a defacto creation by more or less a "god".
And this is why it's frustrating to me that I am completely out of my depth here. If physicists are investigating the possibilities you raise then that's pretty cool. My correspondent is himself very interested in the wild possibilities raised by the new physics, multiverses and so on, yet for whatever reason he did not think the simulation idea was legit. Gaps in his knowledge I guess. As I say, I'm out of my depth here.
Fair point about religion, I did not make myself clear. There may well be a creator, that is in the realm of the unknowable, and my dismissiveness applies only to the specifics of actual religions where they are clearly nonsense.
Our objects of perception are neural representations of objective reality based on sensory inputs
So in that sense we are living in a brain generated simulation.
But it’s a matrioshka doll simulation
Because the self, or selfing neural process, is also an object of perception a representation of reality based on sensory or inner imagination neural process.
To self, is a verb, something a brain does.
The sense of persistence of a self, a “me” is also a neural process,, that can be easily disturbed.
Our attachment to the persistence of our “self” is also a neural process, the fear of death, cessation of existence is a instinctual neural pattern for the survival of the individual animal, long enough to have it make more animals.
Even the housefly struggling on the windowsill strongly wants to live, but is incapable of expressing abstract , ornate ideas about this desire.
Regarding the simulation hypothesis, I like Isaac Asimov's take on it in his story "The Last Question", which is supposed to be his favorite piece of his own writing; It's well aligned with the hypotheses you laid out in this article:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7O0ytdM8ew
I personally subscribe to Spinozian take on this whole idea that runs along similar lines with a slight humanitarian twist; it posits that all of us are essentially fickle pixels trying to recall they're all part of a bigger picture.
The picture reflects the workings of a omni-powerful proto-entity that once decided to create the whole of existence to shake off its boredom and loneliness living in eternity across the timeless void, by creating an infinitely universal MMO comprised of amnesiac particles of itself looking to put together the whole picture through as many eons, individuals, situations, reincarnations, civilizations as it takes. Simply put "What if 'God' was ALL of us?".
This is probably a confusing concept at first sight; for anyone interested, it has been neatly elaborated in more intelligible narrative form in the short story "The Egg" by Andy Weir, which has been adapted into this nice animated short:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6fcK_fRYaI
Sounds interesting, I will watch them both.
Addendum:
As chance would have it, soon after writing this comment I came across this comment elsewhere written by another random Internet person; it included a classic poem and a recent cartoon that I feel work really well together with what I wrote, so here goes for y'all.
I've never seen the torches & pitchforks trope put to better use - and it's really funny because it's really true:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sIcnw5hYnPgyhz5DFHG8yILS-Mqf7TVT/view?usp=sharing
The Poem, on the other hand, is quite scary and hard to swallow because it also rings true; your effort to decipher its meaning yields ample dividends:
"The Door to Compassion" by ~Thich Nhat Hanh
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in africa, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to africans.
I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his "debt of blood" to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.
I watched The Egg and while it doesn't touch me personally I thought it was pretty good so thank you. Asimov, yeah, LEGEND!
This is something I constantly think about every day. It seems the most basic code of the game is "life" and "death" and from there a universe is not created, but simply exists and always has. At least this code is the "most basic" in the sense of the human understanding of time, etc. I don't know whether to be excited or indifferent about death! I think the journey is to be excited about, and there is no real "destination" (death). Just answered my own question... Anyways, the journey I think is infinite in a four-dimensional sense. The way the universe expands in ALL directions. There is no "path". For there to be a singular path, time would have to be more than what it is: simply a human construct. The universe is much much bigger than time...
Every day I think about this... and I can never quite grasp who I am or what I am or what it means to exist and it seems to be equally annoying and interesting. What I do know is it is quite mentally taxing.
If you game, you would love the Bioshock series based on this. It is really interesting how it addresses the notions the universe and its inhabitants, though the story does take it's time to unfold (over three games and some DLC), it is such a great story and speaks to this sort of thinking.
Bioshock sounds really fun, actually
It is, but it is also one of the best written stories for a game that I have ever seen. If you don't have a console, which unless you have someone in your house that games I would assume you don't, you should be able to play it by making a Steam account and buying the Bioshock Collection there. Any relatively modern desktop computer should be able to handle it no problem. Especially the first two.
I will check it out- I am no gamer but maybe…?
Thank you for the suggestion.
I ponder this concept all the time, too- I guess I don’t have to mention how precipitously catastrophic my efforts at talking it over with others go. 😭
I know what you mean by that. It is something that makes people uncomfortable to even think about, so they prefer not to. When you present to them what might be seen as radical ideas, they shy away.
Keep these musings going- it helps me not to feel as solitary in my own thinking, I appreciate your thoughts a lot.
It is always interesting to consider. I think I will do one on ghosts in the near future.
This perfectly describes my existential opinion of it all.
To a precise tee.
I, however, could not have strung the words together so adroitly.
Thank you for posting this!
Thank you for reading it
What a great subject, I would really get into that.
Interesting, and what if God, whatever you call him, is real? What if it's not a game but a creation where being made in Gods image, is his attempt to create more beings like him? Because he was the first or only one of his kind, or both. Maybe we create games as practice for our future when we become like God. What I'm trying to say is that maybe, everything you said is true, but it's not a game.
See I don't know either and I have the same idea about energy as you do. Because you can't destroy energy, it doesn't die, it only changes, so maybe what we call a soul is our personal energy .
Quite possible, and if true, it will be very interesting.
Your reincarnation theory is very similar to my own. Another aspect I have considered is that, if time is an illusion(there is good evidence it is), there wouldn't actually be past or future lives, only parallel lives. To me, this additional aspect adds even more credence to the reincarnation theory. If our consciousness is quantum entangled with the consciousness of other versions of our consciousnesses in other universes, then it would make sense that they all effect each other since that's exactly what occurs in quantum entanglement. Concerning the supposed debunking of simulation theory, I also found it to be nonsense. Elon himself lately said on The Joe Rogan Show that simulation theory can't be true because Neuralink hasn't been implanted in humanity yet. That just proves Neuralink hasn't been implanted in humanity within the simulation. He could have been kidding, I suppose. His sense of humor is different because of his autism and intelligence etc (which I like), but he never let Joe Rogan or his audience in on the joke if so. Anyway, that's an obvious logical fallacy. He seemed so adamant about the idea before, including on Joe's podcast. I found his sudden change of mind kind of strange, especially with such minor evidence as he claimed changed his mind.
Musk seems to be rather bullish on the idea of Simulation Theory, and it would make sense to me that he would make that sort of joke. It seems to be in line with his sense of humor.
"It hasn't happened yet, because I haven't caused it"
Seems right up his alley.
Yes, Musk weighs pretty heavily in favor of Simulation theory, and that's probably the only thing I disagree with him.
Let's first assume that it's 50/50 - either we live in a simulation, or not.
Now, if we didn't, nothing changes. But if did, what would that change for us?
Absolutely nothing. We would still be left with the same "source code", in the same world, abiding the same rules of the game. And yes, I do agree with your "life = game" analogy - I've believed in it since I was very young, and I still do!
Your point of view is pretty Hinduistic, and I love it. I've also intuitively began my studying with Hinduism, probably because their language is known to be the oldest known language, and due to the fact that is where astrology first came to exist. When you look at it more deeply, you find out it's based on 1 GOD (Brahman) with 3 different NAMES/FORMS: Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu. That TRIMURTI pretty much resembles the Christian Trinity, as well as the trinity in Islam and Judaism, which are simply different forms of Christianity (well, Judaism came first, not sure, whatever).
And the similiraties do not stop there, but there's more to the story. I believe that every religion, in fact everything in existence, holds their own fragment of the Whole Truth, and if we happen to collect all of the fragments, we are ready to evolve to a higher stage. And this is all connected to the concept of Karma, which is btw, part of Hinduism as well.
Now the reincarnation is also connected to the concept of Karma, and yours is the most literal interpretation of that very hinduistic concept of Karma. I, however, believe it is a metaphor meant to represent genetics, or epigenetics, to be more precise. It is through our genes that we inherit the traits/intuitions/drives from our ancestors. It is their upbringing we're going to get, most of the times. It is, thus, based on those two that we choose the 3rd part of us - our environment, and that very environment shapes us and our immediate future - it's a feedback mechanism.
So the levels of the "game" you tied to reincarnation, I think they happen IN THIS VERY LIFE, and those levels are in fact the stages of our life. Interesting the way you ordered the levels, as I would order the levels in my game differently!
Also perhaps the better analogy for "psyhopaths" "Autism" and "NT-.s" would be different classes :D Add to that 4 temperaments, which could be called specializations, and you get the subclasses as well xD
Now you mix a little bit of Taosim (Ying & Yang, also literally what dialectic-behavioral therapy - DBT - is all about, and literally what the philosophy of Hegel's Dialectic theory is all about), bit of Buddhism, bit of other religions...
And BAM, you're ready to take on a new level - in this very life :)
If not, oh well, reproduce, teach your kids what you know and let them have a shot at it xD
If you know the game. you can find the hacks often, so that would be interesting.
I also have a theory regarding Buddhism being founded as an attempt to teach neurotypicals to think more like psychopaths. The reason I think this could be true is due to trying to become less attached and less affected by the world around them.
As a psychopath I have watched neurotypicals drown in their emotions when the same event has no effect on me whatsoever. People who have been around me for a long period of time tend to have the volume of their emotions go way down, and their attachment to things that used to be very upsetting or emotional has lessened considerably.
Of course, I have no proof of this, but the lessons that it tries to convey are very psychopathic in nature. Of course it is written in their language so it can reach them, but if I were writing a religion, I would do that too.
Interesting idea!
I've always found buddhism counterintuitive, because I was always hyper-sensitive, so a version of what you just said has been in my head, as well xD
Basically, buddhism is about letting go of consummate emotions and living in the here and now, so I guess it makes sense.
I wonder what your opinion is on Existentialism? Because that's also something I've always found counterintuitive - could Jean-Paul Sartre be a psychopath as well?
He was known to be in a long-distance relationship with Simone de Beauvoir, seeing her for like couple of times their whole life. His words go something like this:
"The Germans did not stride, revolver in hand, through the streets. They did not force civilians to make way for them on the pavement. They would offer seats to old ladies on the Metro. They showed great fondness for children and would pat them on the cheek. They had been told to behave correctly and being well-disciplined, they tried shyly and conscientiously to do so. Some of them even displayed a naive kindness which could find no practical expression."
Influence on behavior, practical...no emotions attached. Like Buddhism, his existentialism is also something I've never found intuitively sound.
I realize that this would be guesswork from your side, but I'm still interested as to what your intuition says about that guy.
I am not familiar with Existentialism, so I can't comment. on it.
I enjoy this sort of speculation in that stoner/sci fi sort of way, though I am not really either. But I wondered.....so I sent the link to someone who unlike you and me is a physics/maths/computer guy. The reply was scathing! He acknowledged the fun thought experiment aspect, and the sci fi possibilities, but I had obviously touched on a nerve where actual science people find it irritating when non specialists let their imaginations go wild. Basically he said that the real maths and physics was woo enough, and also that the maths and physics actually supports a lot of crazy stuff but he had no tolerance for crazy stuff not supported by the maths and physics. Well OK, that's fair enough. But I reminded him that this was not an attempted dissertation on the universe, but rather an informal speculation essay on a forum that normally deals with other topics, so go easy! Anyway, it led to a long and involved correspondence, so all good.
My personal objection is that the religious take on things 'might be true'. I utterly disagree. They are subject to the same scrutiny as any other class of ideas, and under that scrutiny, just NO WAY.
It's interesting that he said all of that, when there are physicists that disagree with his position and actually are investigating this as a possibility. If they are the ones actually in that field of study, and specialize in it, and have a more open mind than he does, I would say that is a bit more a "him" problem, than it is a possibility problem.
As for religion, if the Simulation theory is correct, then religion is as well. There literally is a creator of our space, and a system governing it. It may not match with a particular study of religion, but living in a world created by someone else is a defacto creation by more or less a "god".
And this is why it's frustrating to me that I am completely out of my depth here. If physicists are investigating the possibilities you raise then that's pretty cool. My correspondent is himself very interested in the wild possibilities raised by the new physics, multiverses and so on, yet for whatever reason he did not think the simulation idea was legit. Gaps in his knowledge I guess. As I say, I'm out of my depth here.
Fair point about religion, I did not make myself clear. There may well be a creator, that is in the realm of the unknowable, and my dismissiveness applies only to the specifics of actual religions where they are clearly nonsense.
We do not have direct access to objective reality
Our objects of perception are neural representations of objective reality based on sensory inputs
So in that sense we are living in a brain generated simulation.
But it’s a matrioshka doll simulation
Because the self, or selfing neural process, is also an object of perception a representation of reality based on sensory or inner imagination neural process.
To self, is a verb, something a brain does.
The sense of persistence of a self, a “me” is also a neural process,, that can be easily disturbed.
Our attachment to the persistence of our “self” is also a neural process, the fear of death, cessation of existence is a instinctual neural pattern for the survival of the individual animal, long enough to have it make more animals.
Even the housefly struggling on the windowsill strongly wants to live, but is incapable of expressing abstract , ornate ideas about this desire.