It can be as simple as someone introducing a modification of the laws of physics and their correlates as found in their universe into a simulation just to witness the results. It's possible that the simulation doesn't have to even run for a very long time in their world, and it could still run for an eternity in ours. We could still feel existence, as we do, and be self-aware - if we were programmed to.
So the answer to your thing is, they'd just be setting in motion a simulation to study the results. They might not even comprehend that we are aware or that we experience suffering as conscious beings, or, similarly, they might be so much more evolved than us that our suffering could be to them like ants' is to us(or worse, like we think of trees and plants).
But that is not the point. The point is that if we are to accept the premise that given enough time we will achieve such technological progress that we will be able to create a full universe just like ours in a simulation, then the question becomes how likely is it that our reality is a -core- one, so to speak, and not one created by another civilization who's already been there?
So the answer to your thing is, they'd just be setting in motion a simulation to study the results. They might not even comprehend that we are aware or that we experience suffering as conscious beings, or, similarly, they might be so much more evolved than us that our suffering could be to them like ants' is to us(or worse, like we think of trees and plants).
But that is not the point. The point is that if we are to accept the premise that given enough time we will achieve such technological progress that we will be able to create a full universe just like ours in a simulation, then the question becomes how likely is it that our reality is a -core- one, so to speak, and not one created by another civilization who's already been there?
