Comment by neuroticfish

>So you see that every base reality can contain a vast number of nested simulations, and a simple counting argument tells us we're much more likely to live in a simulated world than the real one.

>But if you believe this, you believe in magic. Because if we're in a simulation, we know nothing about the rules in the level above. We don't even know if math works the same way—maybe in the simulating world 2+2=5, or maybe 2+2=.

>A simulated world gives us no information about the world it's running in.

I don't buy into the theory for practical reasons, but this is not consistent with its proponents' argument. The simulation in question is necessarily an "ancestor simulation" and the counting argument is based on the acceptance that if we are able to simulate our _own_ reality, we will. So in this case, we would have meaningful information about the world it's running in because that's the entire point.