In his article “How to Live in a Simulation,” Robin Hanson explains just that, how he believes humans should change their behavior if we discovered that our being part of a simulation was more probable than not. In doing this, Hanson elaborates on why changing one’s behavior would impact us positively by making our simulated life last longer, helping others in the real world, and being viewed well by the simulators.
Hanson believes that there are several reasons that a realistic simulation might happen, including entertainment and research on the past. If this simulation is, in fact, for entertainment, then we, the simulations, should try to be as interesting as possible as if we were on a TV show trying to get viewers. Advertising ourselves would result in an overall better simulated life. As for the historical research possibility, simulations should act in a way that can positively impact the
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The fact is, his idea about changing our behavior if we are actually simulations is based on the idea that we can infer the reason we are being simulated. But thinking more deeply, it is evident that there’s proof in our current world that we could be simulated for both reasons. Our society, and humanity as a whole, have put almost equal emphasis on the importance of intellectual growth and entertainment, so there is no way to tell which one we are currently in. And even if it can be determined which simulation we are currently in, we still don’t fully know for what intellectual reason or what type of entertainment the simulator desires. For example, Hanson discusses the idea that we are in an entertainment simulation we should be dramatic in order to hold the simulators interest; however, if that simulator is viewing the simulation in a God-like way, they may view dramatic behavior as sinful. So this behavior could lead to a worse or shorter simulated life instead of a longer