robinpike

Perhaps the following example shows how science and philosophy can be different. When we consider quantum mechanics, science is able to model reality with QM maths, matching what is observed with what is calculated by the model. Note that science doesn't have to answer the question: How does the mechanism of quantum mechanics work? Or what is QM? If we do ask, 'How does quantum mechanics work?', this perhaps leads to philosophical reasoning. For example, on trying to explain QM, we note that it has aspects that are very difficult to explain in physical terms, such as quantum spin, quantum entanglement, etc. So philosophically, we could use the inexplicable physical aspect of QM to arrive at the conclusion that we exist in a simulation! ...since a simulation could have QM in it without the necessity to have a physical mechanism for that QM (which of course reality must do).

And to make it clear on the above point, it is not about the likelihood (or belief) of what we are, but what can be proved absolutely. Just to be clear, if you mean day by day the 'person simulator' experiencing the same stimuli, bear in mind that the 'person simulator' would be a learning program, in the same way that when we learn, we may change our response to the same stimuli.

But in the example given, how would the computer know that it is not a living thing?

Take this example. All the inputs that feed into a computer inside a driver-less car are recorded and these are then input into another computer sitting in a lab somewhere, running the same driver-less car software. Can that computer tell that it is not in a driver-less car, controlling it down the road? Suppose all the inputs that a person receives during their life were to be recorded and then played back to a computer running a 'person simulator'. Would that 'person simulator' think that they are alive and real? How would the 'person simulator' know that they are a simulator and not a living creature?