Agreed. Take both seriously or neither seriously. From God, Cartesian skepticism, to brains in vats, to the simulation hypothesis—there are infinitely many unpr

Agreed. Take both seriously or neither seriously. From God, Cartesian skepticism, to brains in vats, to the simulation hypothesis—there are infinitely many unprovable metaphysical theories we could posit about the world. There doesn't seem to be much sense in favoring one over the other. We have a good understanding of the origins of religion via archaeological, historical, and anthropological accounts. Insofar as supernatural claims about God from religious texts can be made sense of, they are inconsistent with physics (or if you prefer, false). This leaves room for a more abstract "God", or a God-falsified history, but even if we ultimately know the genealogy of the idea, we should consider the possibility. We could say similar things about the simulation hypothesis. It arrives in the information age, at at time when the high-performance computing, The Matrix, and virtual reality are culturally salient. Out of context, the simulation hypothesis looks like just another metaphor/myth about the creation of the universe. Proponents of the simulation hypothesis suggest that the proof of the simulation can be found by examining inconsistencies in the universe's structure, as if that will eliminate all other improvable explanations. Hint: it doesn't, and even if you think it does, you can't infer anything about the "real world" without assuming it tracks with the simulation. Again, there is no reason to believe this. Some would say the simulation hypothesis is testable and that this marks an important distinction. But are any conceivable tests specific to simulation, and not generalizable to alternative metaphysical theories or to misunderstood features of the universe? Either way, I predict the simulation hypothesis will live on after the "tests" have failed time, and time again. Sound familiar?