[…] explores the Recursive Virtual Simulation problem by having Hunt’s neural cortex […]

Great matrix-world philosophical problem you pose there. With the poor design decisions we currently see everywhere, I’m sure the the exit routine would be “kill yourself”… :)

In any case, the only way to be sure that you are on level 0 is to figure out a limitation in the simulation. At least you can safely test any idea you have for such a limitation with the (possibly simulated) matrix machine in your room in whatever level that you are on right now. If your machine has the limitation, then the “outer” machine would have it as well – and if it doesn’t – you are finished.

Here is one thing to try that could *possibly* be one such limitation: find two computers that is on par with your matrix hardware in computational power. Run a hard task on both of them, e.g. video compression. In a simulation the simulated computers should not be able to keep up the speed when both run at the same time.

I would also assume that a Matrix-like environment that is plugged to you would have, build in per default, a couple of routines to check your health and plug you out or call 911 (USA) or 112 (Europe) if you get dehydrated or starved.

We don’t currently don’t have any kind of simulator available, but there’s something that can provoke a similar effect: lucid dreaming. There even ways to induce them and prolong it’s duration.
The difference is that our brain doesn’t produce a good simulation, so there’s some good reality checkers like turn a light switch on or looking at a watch

@Matt: of course, any simulation should have an indicator, but if someone can alter the EXIT routine they could probably eliminate any kind of reality checker from the simulation.

I don’t think there’s a fool proof way to be certain if we’re experience “real” sensations and we would probably accept it as real and continue with our lives until some projector falls from the sky.

For the recursive Matrix one, to be sure that the exit process is, in general, working, I would exploit the fact that in every universe up the chain, I’m sat in a chair and jacked in, whereas in the simulation I can be doing something else. So you do anything to change your position/the world around you, attempt the exit routine and if it goes away and you’re back in the chair then you successfully exited that layer of the simulation.

Knowing when to stop would be a harder thing, since you could never quite be certain of the difference between failing the routine and being in the top layer. But if I’d had a reasonable success rate at exiting all the other layers then after a while I’d assume there was no more exiting to be done. If the failure rate was high then it’d get tricky…

I suggest that any full-world Matrix simulations be designed with a simple means of testing whether or not you’re in the simulation; something that’s not complex that lets you know for sure whether you’re in reality or simreality. Could be anything – for example in simland you could always have a big blue dot on the back of your hand, or the word “Sim” hovering on the edge of your vision (although that last one might get annoying)

For the false memories… I’m not sure how such a thing would work – it’s designed to insert a couple of memories of some fun experience, but if you take it to an extreme and insert half a lifetime’s worth of memories then there’s going to be some conflict with your existing memories. If it overwrites conflicting memories then there’d be very little left of you by the time they shut it off.

On the other hand if it doesn’t then you’d be left with a horrific mess of patchwork/overlapping/conflicting memories limited only by the number of memories you’re physically capable of storing. You couldn’t sensible have full memories of 2 completely different lives all at once, much less so an even larger number of lives and I suspect it would do you immense psychological damage and leave you with some kind of disassociative disorder.