If we were living in a simulation you would be a simulation. Would you know if you were a simulation?

The concept of reality being a simulation is sometimes a useful analogy. I prefer to think of reality as consisting of information or what some physicists call a mathematical universe. Either way the real question is how determinist is the universe.

The idea of living in a simulation has popular appeal because it raises God from the dead but excludes the messy personal relationship. What it does is gives the individual an omnipotent author and excludes the responsibility that comes with "freewill".

The question of freewill being compatible with determinism is the philosophical question of our time. An incompatible position ironically allows people the freedom to choose to be nihilistic and narcissistic. That choice is equally ironically incompatible with biology.

Clearly we are not completely in control of our own destiny. On the other hand we do make choices. How much agency we have over those choices is debatable. What is not debatable is the consequences of living as though we have no agency. Making the right choices determines if you live or die. It requires information.

Life defies entropy. Deletion of information releases energy (see the Landauer's principle). It's an odd simulation that would have this property. Look around and you will see a multitude of such unnecessary complication for a simulation.

The utility of the simulation analogy is the opposite of it's intent. It reminds us that we are creatures of habits and are easily manipulated. You can to a very limited degree step out of the simulation if you try really hard. In a way you can be the author of a portion of the simulations code. That this implies an infinite regression can just be shocked up to ignorance I intuit.

Yes we are