The Perfect Simulation
From Atariology
According to the lore of Atariology, in the future it will be possible to build a perfect simulation of this life. In order to be considered a perfect simulation, a video game must have the following properties:
- The sensory experience for a player must be indistinguishable from conscious reality.
- It must be possible to build another perfect simulation inside the current one. In other words, nested perfect simulations must be possible.
- The existance of a perfect simulation implies the possibility of immortality. A person could achieve immortality by stepping indefinitely into a hierarchy of perfect simulations.
As part of religious faith, orthodox Atariologists believe that this life is a perfect simulation, and that it will be possible to create a perfect simulation of this life in the future. Non-orthodox Atariologists believe that life is just an ordinary video game.
Some technical and philosophical considerations when describing a perfect simulation:
- Does a perfect simulation need to emulate the entire Universe or just the entire experience of a single human being?
- If a video-game can be created inside another video-game, must the simulated video-game always be more simple than the game in which it resides?
- Are different types of perfect simulations possible?
