The Simulation Hypothesis: Evidence from Mental States.

There are many lines of evidence leading to the conclusion that we are just virtual reality beings 'living' in a computer programmed simulated universe. There is evidence from fine-tuning, from design, from causality (or the lack of causality), from violations of basic conservation laws, from various paradoxes, inconsistencies and contradictions within the realm of Mother Nature, from probability theory, from computational theory and even from mythology. The paranormal rates a mention too as potential evidence. Here's a few examples from the realm of the human mind.

The Simulation Hypothesis and Mind / Body Duality

It's obvious from experience and from experiment that there is a body-brain / mind interface that operates in both directions. Therefore there is no mind / body-brain duality. It is also obvious that your mind is separate and apart from your body-brain since no one can find any trace of your mind (your personality, soul, psyche, essence, etc.) anywhere inside of your body or your brain. So there has to be a mind / body-brain duality after all. It can't be but it is. Can virtual reality solve the paradox? With software all paradoxes can be resolved.

The Simulation Hypothesis and Free Will

Now one of the most obvious as well as one of the most common of the "it can't be therefore it isn't" vs. "I know what I saw" anomalies is with respect to your alleged free will. The most obvious of all obvious facets about you is that you have free will. That's the "I know what I saw" bit. However, free will is generated somewhere / everywhere in, of and by the brain. Yet you have absolutely no free will control over those external laws, relationships and principles of the physical sciences that influences the brain; you have no control over your brain's chemistry; you have absolutely no control over how your neural network is hardwired; and of course you have absolutely no control over your genetics which must surely play a major role in all of this. Finally, there is absolutely no explanatory mechanism that can explain how free will arises from those external laws, relationships and principles of the physical sciences.

Now no single brain cell has consciousness or free will. So therefore, how can the sum total of your brain cells have consciousness or free will? Further yet, how can all of your brain cells (involved in consciousness / free will) act together in unison to form a coherent state of awareness or of consciousness or of free will? What happens if a third of your brain cells opt for choice X; a third opt for choice Y; a third opt for choice Z? Is your brain a democratic system where the choice made by the majority of your brain cells is ultimately your free will choice that rules that scenario? The elephant in the room here is that both consciousness and free will have no causal explanatory mechanism in place. One might just as well put consciousness and free will down to magic. I sometimes think it is easier to opt for the explanation that consciousness and free will are really an illusion than to have to try and explain them.

So, your alleged free will "can't be and therefore isn't". Special effects to the rescue? On the other hand, the definitive demonstration and ultimate proof of free will would appear to be the only real way to refute the Simulation Hypothesis since any programming involved would almost of necessity have to negate the free will of whatever is being simulated.

The Simulation Hypothesis and Medicine

Since there is no brain or heart activity present during a cardiac arrest (you have flatlined) and you are not breathing, you are considered to be clinically dead. Your mind and consciousness cannot be functional. Yet a goodly percentage of cardiac arrest and clinically dead patients who are resuscitated in time can relate exactly what was occurring to them during the time while they were clinically dead! How can you have awareness while undergoing cardiac arrest and when your EEG has flatlined? This issue is quite separate and apart from the OBE facet of the NDE (see immediately below).

The Simulation Hypothesis and Near Death / Out of Body Experiences

Either there is an immaterial / non-physical component to the human species or there is not.

If there is not, there can't be any such thing as Near Death Experiences (NDEs) or Out of the Body Experiences (OBEs). Yet these aspects part and parcel to the death and dying process have been postulated and recorded by nearly all societies / cultures over nearly all of recorded history. How does that make any sense?

There seems to be here another case here of "It can't be therefore it isn't" relative to one of "I know what I saw / experienced." No matter what side of the fence you're on, you're damned if you're on one side and you're damned if you are on the other side. That said, the obvious alternative explanations are 1) experiences are all in the mind and just mental delusions, or 2) people are deliberately perpetrating frauds and hoaxes. IMHO I don't think either one of these explanations are entirely credible.

Let's examine the NDE and the OBE categories in turn and ask whether or not special effects might be in play here.

Near Death Experiences (NDEs): An NDE does not of necessity include an Out of the Body Experience (OBE) but that doesn't reduce the anomalous condition of the NDE which basically translates into human consciousness / spirit / psyche / essence, etc. surviving at least between your clinical death and your irreversible death. You sense things even though you are clinically dead, although some would suggest that the mind / consciousness sees what it wants to see during that clinical / irreversible death interval, and what it wants to see are visions of the good afterlife. The eyes may be the visual organs but it's the brain that does the actual seeing. Neither eyes nor brains are present and accounted for in NDEs. Nor are any other sensory organs. So how can a person relate an NDE if that person in that immaterial state can't experience anything external reality, being 100% deaf, blind, etc.? And by the way, if humans have NDEs, then presumably the higher animals - apes, dolphins, elephants, etc. - must also experience NDEs. In other words, even higher animals (mammals / birds) probably have an interval between their clinical death and irreversible death.

Out of Body Experiences (OBEs): As with NDEs, and closely enough related to NDEs to include them here, OBEs suffer from the exact same sort of impossibilities that NDEs suffer from. In an OBE you are in a non-physical state and lack any and all of the sensory organs and sensory processing abilities that would give you the ability to actually relate your OBE to others after-the-fact.

The Simulation Hypothesis and Deja Vu

If the flow of time is linear - past to present to future - you can't have a Deja vu experience. Yet nearly everyone has experienced at least one Deja vu episode in their lifetime. This is explainable when one realizes that a simulation can be rerun just like you can play and replay a video game again and again. Now and again the exact same chain of events will unfold. If that happens, then perhaps the virtual being that experiences an identical chain of events gets this uneasy sense of Deja Vu.