Meaning of life is… simulation?

The Question

Well, the question we started struggling with as soon as we had more than half a brain.
Or, to be accurate, when we had our bellies full.
What’s next?

Some thought that religion is a good thing until we became smart enough and started to question some random book.
Then we found out about this illusion and understood that God is dead.

But even more so, it is not the end of a prevalent belief of one part of civilization. It is also a mark that any attempt to create a future belief is also futile because everyone would have their own opinion of it.

If God Is Dead how do we find a new meaning?
Individually each has to find their own, but as a collective meaning?
What do we strive for, in such a way that leaves everyone satisfied?

If we consider that some universal meaning of life should accommodate everyone, then it should be universally adaptable to everyone.

Leaving everyone to find out their own without the space for it – is not the answer.
If we consider what somebody finds to be the best way for our meaning, and somebody disagrees with them, then opposing that meaning would become in turn their meaning.
Aaand we are back to how things are now…

Therefore – if no single meaning can satisfy everyone, then perhaps the closest thing to a collective purpose is to maximize each individual meaning-finding capacity.

Reality is futile (and limited)

We could, in theory, create a society where everyone is happy, capable to find their meaning… but everyone?
Maybe 98% if we are really good, but never 100%.
Not everyone is capable to coexist, you can never guarantee that your coverage would not dwindle – strife kept at low levels and all that…

Yet, do you consider this to be a good society when you have even a small percentage of a population being systematically limited in their expression?

Even in the most free society there is a limit of human rights, and ones who see it differently.
Some will be always left behind, forced to conform to some norms, sane for us, majority, insane for them.

Imagine you are someone really nasty, and have a desire to murder, harm and torture people. They will label you as insane.
They will consider you ‘unhealthy’.
You may live with such desire entire life and be unhappy about it, you can’t do it after all. Even you yourself understand that such activity violates your rights too if it was a normal practice.

Nasty example but now – extrapolate that to everything else. One may want to see a world without opposite gender, another – with a certain world order, another – where everyone does thing XYZ… Another – where we aim for the stars instead of bickering over a piece of land on a flying rock.
You don’t even have to imagine something "good/bad" to just know – no reality ever will satisfy your imagination.

Short of total brain rewrite of everyone – no one can ensure that everyone can be happy.
You can’t conform everyone to a single, unified standard.
Even genocide is not an answer – as soon as you remove one part of the population – another will have a different opinion on it.

We, however can try to make it so everyone has a space to live how they want. Without encroaching on others’ right to exist.

Simulation as the ultimate answer.

Okay, the whole problem and premise is that we operate on a single shared space.
Whole ‘society’ is an endless story of compromise.
There always would be some zero-sum game.

It is not even a question of simulation (which conveniently is the answer to it). Its a question of under what condition we can all coexist at the best extent of our wants.

When everyone has their own reality to adjust to how they want?

So far, only the simulation is an answer to both the space problem and the capacity problem.
Because it’s virtual, the physical space it occupies could be optimized. We all could live in a very compact data center.

And the capacity to, because it’s a simulation, you can bend it to however you want.

Small note here, the meanings – that we had before – they do not promise that we achieve our goals. It is just we have the direction and work towards. You could have a meaning to work your entire life trying to break the physics, but you might never achieve it. But simulation allows us not only to immediately jump to it, but also to create a situation where meanings are plentiful.
You only could have one single life to break the physics, but tomorrow you want something different – maybe to have a family. Or something very different. Today you broke physics, tomorrow you want to break the time itself.

Yes, of course, I sneaked in the immortality here, but even without it, everyone would benefit from having their life straight to their ideal.
Even if nobody achieves the idea on the first goal, they still have the ability to switch and bend the worlds at their will.

Let me fight you on this

"Why the infinite vastness of space cannot satisfy us instead?"
Assume we solve problem one, but we can bend our biology, our existence, our world around with technological process in the future. We still have a problem of space. Then, because the cosmos is infinite, potentially we could be happy?

I think not. First of all, we are still presumably bound by the speed of light. And even if you explore absolutely everything, more likely you would be just ultimately unsatisfied by the banality of space…

While one may argue that computers running the simulation would be limited and deterministic to some extent – practically, we may want control over lack of true infiniteness.

"All that assumes we want to change the world but not everyone like that…"
I still say that everyone is like that. We all want our reality to be something. We typically never accept the reality as it is with full acceptance. Even the Buddhist monks who dedicate their lives to it – very few, if any, arrive at full absolute acceptance, and even that is an unverifiable internal experience.
Everyone wants the world to be how they want – a little, to have just some personal stuff, or very big, the big change that entire society is reorganized or the physics reorganized – however they can imagine.

"But you will be aware if its fake still! That will ruin everything!"
Does simulation satisfy? Does it have a meaning if you know it’s a simulation?
Would you be forever unsatisfied as a result because The Experience Machine is fake and you know it?

Well, first – nobody built yet even a good enough simulation.
Create and test it first – then start asking if it matters if ‘reality’ is not perfect or they would be more than happy to live in there…
What if its advanced enough? Rich enough so inside its absolutely the same as outside, just you know it…
Even imperfect one may be more than good enough for majority.

Fakeness is not a bug, but also a feature! Knowing you can experience any world – anyhow you like – would give a new meaning for some.
Even so, one can choose to not be aware of a simulation itself.
Wipe their memories beforehand, or better – isolate.
Live a completely new life – their choice too. They define HOW and just live in it, not even aware they made such choice.

Haters will say "but that’s a death!" But did you consent to be born here in the first place? You never chose to exist – you were thrown into conditions you didn’t pick. A simulation, by contrast, is the first existence you actually consent to. That’s not death – it’s life on your own terms, for the first time.

You did not make a choice to live here, you just at some point happened to realize what you are aware and exist, and the conditions of your life are already decided by your environment.
You did not make a choice, but maybe in future you can. Who are you to deny people choice to exist how they like?

This is not a death of an individual if they define how they want to continue to exist.
The identity they pass into their new world is still their own will.

A person who doesn’t know they’re in a simulation, experiences real stakes, real fear, real consequences within that world… by what measure is that NOT real?

"But their choice to exist in a particular simulation is already dictated by existing conditions!"
And so what? Alternative would be either to make everyone to conform to some standard OR to just continue to exist in a cruel world that already is.
We always have some bias, even inside same reality they will choose based on previous lives. There is no purity in the first place.
Regardless of whether they are happy or unhappy, denying anyone the right to move into a simulation is the very same as denying them the right to move into some other piece of land to live in there. Deny them the right to switch homes, to switch countries, to switch their living conditions. Because it is exactly what it is.

Subside follows the same principle – someone who has to face a reality of existence – has any right to do with own life as they want – to exit into the void or wait for a simulation.

"But what if we are already in a simulation?!"
Does it matter? Aware or not, able to escape or not – we may come to same conclusion: if our fake/real reality is fundamentally unsatisfying – then we have to build one.
Some will resort to new meaning – break it apart and change, while others may still want to create own cozy space.
And in any sub-simulation they would come to same conclusion, provided you granted them intelligence enough.

"But thats just worst pessimistic nihilism!"
Is it tho? Yes, we accept that nothing matters, but we choose to not give up until we can guarantee that we can build it ourselves.
Escapism? I see it as empowerment. World is not made for everyone, but we can make it!
The entire history of humanity is riddled with our desire, our strife – to change our environment.
How this is not the next logical step?

Even if you believed in reality as the most canon – how can you live with fundamental physics limitations?
You reality already has a bug with a lightspeed limit!
You will never see either birth or death of the universe, or unable to visit every galaxy there is…

"But… this great escape is just sad and lonely. Are we all destined to be each alone with ourselves?"
Aren’t we already?
Question is how you define loneliness – do you need real physical presence? (what is real anyway…).
Can a virtual copy be just the same? It’s a whole other can of worms. A whole can of worlds even.
What if you use a simulation to live along with someone already dead and be less lonely in the process?
Loving something not always require to possess it, sometimes it requires letting go.
It is your own personal matter anyway, how you feel about it, what love is for you, how do you yourself sense belonging or connection. This is very individual and not something anyone can figure out except yourself.

"Maybe religion has some answers…?"
Oh, they do – a concept of the afterlife: a life somewhere else, away from this physical world. Sounds familiar?

They too, may want to build it tho – do you have anywhere written what the heaven is, could it not be a human creation?
Can you argue that God did not help humans to create the simulation software and infrastructure for it?
Or it is a miracle that God guides humans indirectly…
Who is to say it is not the heaven they wanted? (I here equate heaven as anything of afterlife)
If you deny them the entry to heaven, you offend their entire beliefs and religions at once.

"What if we do it and still be unhappy?"
I would dismiss the claim that everyone would find themselves unhappy because somebody may enjoy it. And even if it is ultimately a flaw, it is still worthy to do it to discover a wrong path.

Alternatives, anyone?

Popular alternative would be to achieve immortality and… then do what exactly?
Yes, and of course we are not talking here about changing your biology, because changing your biology changes your motivation instincts, and that dramatically changes what even be considered as a meaning. If you lobotomize yourself, nothing matters. If you just change the parameters of brain operation, you still have some sort of motivation system.
Then the entire question of meaning has to be reconsidered again.

Ok yes, you are immortal. You are able to make yourself busy by exploring vastness of space, but even within an infinite lifetime you will essentially reach the hard limit of what you can explore.

We are still assuming you cannot break the light speed limit, therefore the amount of space for you is shrinking and you are essentially being in a limited space. Which again warrants for you to create yourself a simulation to actually be able to find yourself new stuff to get excited about.

Even just mere knowing of the finality of your space where you can exist already is a warrant to make simulation your primary focus – knowing that eventually you may want that as an option – why not start doing it now?

That could be an answer to Fermi Paradox – we can’t find anyone advanced enough because they considered and found out the same thing – that withdrawing inside may be a better idea to looking outside.
At any stage, faced with inevitable limits of the universe – they are probably sitting inside their own perfect simulations already.

The honest limit.

"But a simulation is ultimately a creation of our mind, therefore, it is limited to our imagination, while the true universe can surprise us eventually."

Yep, that’s a whole major hole we have here.
It breaks when you create your own meaning by the desire to be surprised every day with a new way previously unseen.
Scale it to a trillion years, and you will eventually lose that meaning to boredom.
(actually faster way would be to remove boredom itself lol)

Yet, it is one of the examples where the simulation fails you – if you want to keep same human nature. Tho, I suppose sanity loss arrives much faster here, hehe.

Even if you explored whatever space you have where the expansion has not caught up yet, you still have no awareness of the surprises it may have beyond that barrier.
Or, to put simpler: if somebody wants to explore absolutely every universe ever, every corner of it, they can try to do it in simulation, but actually cannot do it in practice because we based the simulation only by the knowable thing.

Yes, eventually every simulation is authored by someone, and that author is us.
Even a third party would have their own biases, whether it is humans or aliens – you could have practically infinite variety by allowing yourself to exist in others worlds where everyone has own vision. But still limited to some species limited brains.

Or a very smart ass algorithm that promises you the true variety, but in fact, it is still somebody’s creation.
You might tap into some fancy quantum field, but we might still encounter that it is still kind of boring.

Still, theoretically limited system against the potentially infinite universe.
Because every simulation is finite and calculable, but the whole universe is unknown – we may never know the actual ceiling, and therefore, we cannot honestly say that if you wanted to push the ceiling – that is the answer for you.

Practically? Simulation is much better, but we never know what the other existence entails.

Yet, we cannot simulate the new universe itself, because that means we have to know it completely. And at this point, it is game over anyway.

If a simulation is by someone design, therefore it is premised as knowable, even if designed so smartly you practically see no difference. 
While the universe by default is nobody’s design – unless we prove it that it is not simulation itself (does not matter anyway).
And it is unknowable in a practical sense because we are currently experiencing physics limit (the observable horizon). There is still a potential this physics limit we could overcome at some point.

If your desire is to know the unknowable – then sim fails you – go exist in the real world instead. You still fail, but the meaning can be to set yourself into conditions that allow endless exploration.

Simulation solves what we can imagine, but cant solve that we cannot.

Freedom is the prerequisite

(have to sneak in my angle too)

Yet none of this matters without the fundamental liberty to create and exist in any world you like.
Unless you have it, the very existence may become meaningless.
What is the point to continue to exist when, even if such technology exists, you would not be able to live in that world that you like and instead being forever forced to exist in the current one?

See how things are today already. Everyone is racing to restrict your rights to self-expression, to censor the human creations, all the time.
It is already happening. Already governments interfering with how we build our games, our sandboxes. They try to police what we are doing inside and how we share it with each other.
They are already a foot in a door in our escapism technology. You think they’re not gonna do it when we have better simulations?

Therefore it is rational to fight for freedom even if you may not like it – to create a world without liberty you first need the main world to be free.
So even if you absolutely hate humanity, if you want to live in a literal nazi world, you still must support freedom because this is exactly the system which allow you to satisfy your vision in a simulation. Without it, there would be someone with their own morality dictating what is allowed.

Currently, nobody offers you a tailored world. Nobody offers you a specific way of things. We are all struggling in endless compromise.
But once the capacity exists: withholding it isn’t oppression in the old sense – its something worse.
It’s forcing you to not exist – because the only existence on offer is one you didn’t choose and can’t leave.

Once we have capacity to create a world for each one, denying such capacity is denying existence in itself, a denial to have a life you want.

Which is a paradox that to be able to provide a simulation for everyone, you have to have a society developed enough to have compassion for everyone. Even for ones you hate. Even for ones who hate you.

Conclusion

You thought of a Matrix as a nightmarish dystopia, but it may actually be an answer. Just not forced one.

I would suggest its actually a moral imperative – to ensure that everyone has a chance for a good life.
Remember Roko Basilisk? By not helping to build a god you condemn yourself…
Here same principle: by refusing to build a simulation you are condemning everyone to live forever unhappy life!

Now because we are just nice. A consistent response to a universe where meaning is self-generated. And yet, at its core it is being nice – an ultimate compassion for everyone.
Neatly, this solves every philosophical and political question at once – as each one of them is its own multiverse for you to live in.