What would you do if you found out we are all in a sim?

[Edwardo Piet]

Reality isn't a sandbox game. There's clear goals in this game. Or are you one of the unfortunate few whose copy of the manual was undelivered, Iggy?

[brewer]

Well you're wrong. Why else would I be unable to feel 'real' emotions?

Boru

But you do feel real emotions. They are just not everything you'd like then to be. And you're not alone in this.

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

Hi iggy! My thoughts are we don't really live in a simulation.

Fair enough pooley, but you're going all religious on us instead by using the same logic which tells you that the sim concept is bullshit? Wow!

There is evidence that we do live under certain constraints. The speed limit of light is an example of one of the constraints.

Like, in modern games there's a option for benchmark where we get to choose the different constraints and click go. Then it creates a simulation of the game with the constraints we gave.

Who knows? Maybe somebody somewhere "clicked" benchmark, made necessary constraints like the speed limit of light, no. of protons in different atoms etc and "clicked" go creating us(so to speak). We will never know..

[Edwardo Piet]

Well you're wrong. Why else would I be unable to feel 'real' emotions?

Boru

But you do feel real emotions. They are just not everything as identifiable as you'd like them to be and you are most of the time completely unaware when you're feeling them and that lack of awareness of feeling them makes you wonder what the difference between being unaware of a feeling and not feeling a feeling is so it understandably makes you question whether you really do feel real emotions. And you're not alone probably quite rare in this as there aren't many people who question whether they have real emotions.

Fixed that for you.

Boru

[SaStrike]

What are we simulating?

[paulpablo]

The only thing that would make a difference is what happens when you die.  But then again even in the case where you just join another game when you die I think people still have attachments to people they like/love in this life.

I think it would make suicide easier for anyone considering it.

[ignoramus]

If we are only virtual, then we can only virtually die.
I don't believe in an afterlife for the self, real or virtual, as the self is just a product of this 'session' only and will always be unique. I'll start another topic on the unlimited variability of choices in life when I get home... At work on a Sunday again like a loser!

[brewer]

But you do feel real emotions. They are just not everything as identifiable as you'd like them to be and you are most of the time completely unaware when you're feeling them and that lack of awareness of feeling them makes you wonder what the difference between being unaware of a feeling and not feeling a feeling is so it understandably makes you question whether you really do feel real emotions. And you're not alone probably quite rare in this as there aren't many people who question whether they have real emotions.

Fixed that for you.

Boru

Apparently you feel self pity just fine.

[AFTT47]

This is definitely a "mind-fuck" as Arnold Schwarzenegger's character on Total Recall put it.

To answer the OP question, I wouldn't do anything different. I don't know that our lives would really be any less "real" to us even if they were a simulation. It would just mean that we and the universe around us is based on something different than we think it is.

Of course, it would mean that there really is a God or gods - just not anything like depicted in any of our holy books. God could be something like Trelane from the original Star Trek series. Heaven help us.

[ignoramus]

Hammy, what is the objective of the game in your manual? Does everyone have the same manual?

ATT, whether there is a god or not, in actual reality, a reality we have no access to, is still just as much of a mystery to us now, based on a few dodgy books in this sim, as it would be if we weren't in a sim, I'd imagine. Another question for everyone:
If we did find out we are in a sim, would our priorities change as a species? Would laws change? Would life still be sacred? Would we spend trillions trying to explore space knowing that the struggle to overcome the tyranny of space is all but an illusion?
Would we start treating the supposed overlords as gods and start assuming why we are in a sim in the first place to help give us new meaning to try to justify our entire artificial existence? I like mind fucks, it's about the only sex I get these days!