In Iain M Banks book 'The Hydrogen Sonata' The culture are considering 'the Simming Problem'.
The Culture are capable of creating simulation civilisation consisting, rather like the World of Warcraft' game, but much more detailed. They use these simulations to game out possible scenarios.
The thing is, the sims are very detailed. To the extent that the characters in them believer they are real.
This presents a moral problem for the Culture. What to do when the simulation is no longer required.
The reasoning goes like this.
...Some Civs, admittedly, weren't having any of this. And routinely bred whole worlds, even whole galaxies , full of living beings which they blithely consigned to oblivion the instant they were done with them, sometimes, it seemed, just for the glorious fun of it, and to annoy their more angst-tangled co-civilisationists, but they-or at least those who admitted to the practice rather than doing it and keeping quiet about it-were in a tiny minority, as well as not being entirely welcome at the highest tables of the galactic community, which was usually precisely where the most ambitious and ruthless species/covs most desired to be.
Others reconned that as long as the termination was instant, with no warning and therefore no chance that those about to be switched off could suffer, then it didn't really matter. The Wretches hadn't existed, they'd been brought existence into for a specific , contributory, purpose, and now they were nothing again, so what ?
Most people though , were uncomfortable with such moral brusqueness., and took their responsibilities in the matter more seriously,. They either avoided creating virtual civilisations of genuinely living beings, or only used sims of that sophistication level of detail on a sustainable basis, knowing from the start that they would be leaving them running indefinitely, with no intention of turning the environment and its inhabitants off at any point.
Whether these simulated beings were really really alive, and how justified it was to create entire populations of virtual creatures just for your own convenience under any circumstances,and whether or not-if/once you had done so- you were sort of duty bound to be honest with your creations at some point and straight out tell them that they weren't really real, and existed only at the whim of another order of beings altogether-one with it's metaphorical finger hovering over the on/off switch capable of utterly and instantly obliterating their universe ... well, those were matters which by general and relieved consent were best left to philosophers.
The Hydrogen Sonata ; Iain M Banks.
So, the thing is. Are we part of some simulation ?
Would this account for us sometimes having the feeling that there is 'more to it' than we actually see ?
Discuss.
HAL.