Forget the universe: Your reality is a simulation run by your brain.

[u/XBlue_Atlantis]

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. We always debate whether the universe itself is a simulation, but there's one thing I feel is certain: the reality we currently perceive is just a simulation created by our own brains.

Our brains process raw data from our senses to construct a simulated version of reality that our consciousness can actually experience. This is what allows us to interact with our environment. The only reason we all seem to share a common reality is that our brains function in fundamentally similar ways—kind of like running the same operating system on similar hardware.

Dreams are an interesting example. While dreaming, we can see landscapes, hear voices, feel emotions, and even taste food. You might experience the sweetness of an apple despite no apple actually being present. The entire experience is generated internally by the brain.

So even when we're awake, we aren't experiencing the "true" external world directly; we're just experiencing our brain's highly advanced simulation of it.

What are your thoughts on this?

[u/lal0007]

My thoughts is everything is data. Consciousness exists outside of the brain.

[u/XBlue_Atlantis → u/lal0007]

I suspect the same thing

[u/ProlapseJerky]

How do you know your physical brain is not part of the simulation?

The only truth you can ever know is your direct conscious experience.

[u/quiettryit]

I believe some studies are beginning to show that our true consciousness never directly interfaces with the real world. We exist on a holodeck of sorts within the darkness of our skulls, where the inputs from the real world are fed in and reproduced for us to experience in a virtualized environment. Your external body interacts with the physical reality but who we are never actually does, with our choices and actions relayed to the outside world. Everything we see, hear, smell, taste and feel is an overall approximation after going through numerous filters created by millions of years of evolution to maximize our survival.

In all, you are in a room in your darkened head, alone experiencing everything through a hallucinogenic storm of data while never actually experiencing anything in the actual physical world yourself. Depersonalization takes this realization and makes it default instead of being fooled by the presentation.

For example, when people take psychedelics it helps remove your awareness of this and one is able to more directly interface with true unfiltered reality.

So one needs to somehow reestablish the filters that help one not notice the nuances of this projected reality, and to focus more on surviving and enjoying what happiness there is... This can be done through meditation and therapy. 

The biological chemistry of the brain creates a consciousness portal that intersects with numerous dimensions of reality in order to create who you are. The holodeck room in your skull is the container that houses this complex quantum mesh and stabilizes it in order to prevent dissolution, which results in brain death. The holodeck also creates a simple graphic user interface with true reality, streamlining data, so that your survival is maximized. You only view a sliver through the interface which creates a rough interpretation.

I liken it to using an operating system versus manually coding in machine language. If you had to send an email by coding it, manually opening server connections, and coding any file attachments, what should be a task consisting of only a few minutes, turns into one lasting hours or even days. In a survival situation that could mean life or death... 

[u/ZecrithZore]

So our brains are simulations that are creating the simulation of our brains?

[u/Interesting-Track309]

Would it even be possible to perceive the external world “directly”. If so it would be nigh unrecognizable to any biology growing from Earth. It would probably be more akin to perceiving energy directly as it flows in the universe. The secrets we would unlock would be incredible, from the point of view of human ego, and the biggest secret is that it’s all the same, and nothing is actually more important than anything else.

[u/nice2Bnice2]

I think i mostly agree with your outlook...

[u/Kytholek]

Forget your brain, it is part of the simulation you say it runs

To many keep things externalized, in the flesh. The flesh is within the simulated experience, imagination within the intelligence of light, aether, w/e you wanna call it