No idea The Simulation Argument

[Deebs]

Well - that's a distinct possibility, eh @Deebs ?

You could well be, my nose is big enough....

 

[Tom]

Iain M Banks' last book contains an interesting section on something similar to this idea. He describes how, in their pursuit of knowledge, various Minds create whole virtual worlds, populated with sentient, simulated beings. The Minds then have a dilemma - once the simulation has done it's job, should it be terminated - effectively killing countless trillions of beings, or should it continue? IIRC the general view was that it was rather bad form to kill them off, so most Minds just let the simulation run, or perhaps copied it to a more secure place where it could be left alone to do whatever.

I love Iain Banks. Damn shame he's dead