Consider, for a moment, what it would be like if your entire life was a computer simulation. Only, you didn’t know it was a simulation. Everything around was created for you, all bodily sensations, etc, and the “real you” was a body lying in a vat somewhere, or hooked up to cables as a battery, or something like that. It might even just be a disembodied brain. Or it could be that long ago, your consciousness was digitized and uploaded into a vast matrix – and the entire world as you know it was in some huge group of servers.
What if you became aware of this? Would it change how you behave? You couldn’t really change the laws of the place your consciousness resided in, because the program would work the same way, so there wouldn’t be any Neo like abilities to suddenly know Kung Fu or fly a helicopter. But, might that realization change how you face the world?
Might your own habits seem a bit less immutable? Might you live differently, knowing your thoughts and perceptions were under your control? Might you decide to really crack this oyster of a world and learn all there is to know, and gain real influence?
Maybe not… but maybe so.
You wouldn’t have had a way of knowing what this Matrix was beforehand, after all.
Also, how could you know that this isn’t really happening right here and now?
Mindflight 