How many simulations deep are we?

One of the big questions of the simulation hypothesis is this: if we indeed exist in a simulation, how many levels deep are we? It would follow that, assuming we have been created from a higher level, those at the higher level were also created by something. How deep does this rabbit hole go?

Nick Bostrom is the first person that comes to mind when considering this concept and Rizwan Virk has also explored the subject in reasonable depth. If we are part of a simulation and past civilizations reached the ‘simulation point’ as termed by Virk, it’s very possible that we are many levels deep, stack after stack of simulations. This idea is also explored in Reality+ by David Chalmers.

As once stated by Bostrom, if civilizations were to run simulations, why would they stop at one? It also is evident given where our society is today that we ourselves are very close to creating life-like virtual realities and it doesn’t seem far-fetched to imagine that we will soon be able to immerse ourselves in them. Once we commit to the alternate reality, it might be difficult to distinguish where it’s being run from (base reality, or the level up), to keep us locked in.

Another idea that comes to mind if we are to consider our existence as dreamlike is the masterpiece Inception, one of the greatest movies of all time. Just like Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu dreamed that he was a butterfly, reality as suggested by Inception, could be comprised of layered dreamscapes. Whatever is being streamed or rendered (whether awake, dreaming or in an altered state of consciousness) is just as valid and real as the next.

There is a chance we are in a lower-level simulation given how deeply conditioned we are to lower states of consciousness. The material world often absorbs us and we become fragmented and divided by issues that are engineered by society at large. We are therefore rooted to a low-level state of awareness. Maybe limitations, such as the speed of light, are reflections of this lower-level state (3D reality) and freedom is much more apparent as you move higher up.

Perhaps, then, what we perceive as Gods may just be higher dimensional entities. Are Gods programmers or prompt engineers that exist from higher stacks/dimensions of reality? Maybe the goal is awareness of where we are, aware of the limitations that have been imposed onto our reality. If that’s the case, maybe we are here to ‘wake up’ and break the loop. The fact you’re here reading this suggests you might be one of the few who understand this.

It follows to question, can we move higher up the stack? If we are trapped in low levels of the simulation, ‘escaping the Matrix’ would be near impossible. Maybe the goal, then, is to accept that we are part of a digital simulation with grace, or as Don Juan (from the Carlos Castaneda collection of books) said, with ‘controlled folly’. Live like it matters while knowing that it doesn’t.

If we are in a simulation within a simulation (and so on), what is our goal besides waking up from the illusion? Maybe the simulations are being run to discover a variable that changes something. What if free will is the catalyst to breaking the loop? The more people that wake up to the illusion of this construct, the quicker the walls will dissolve. Maybe that is our collective goal as a species. Waking up may not mean escaping the matrix as mentioned before but instead becoming lucid and aware of the nature of reality itself and living a life of acceptance.