Okay, the "we're all in a simulation" argument.
"I don't see anyone else like us around here, so our type of intelligence must be rare. I don't know where or how life might evolve elsewhere, but we're here. So with my lack of knowledge I think that life can only evolve in an environment like ours. Since I, with my lack of knowledge, don't see any other worlds like ours around, then worlds like ours must be rare. I therefor deduce with my lack of information, that we are very rare beings that just happen to have evolved in a rare environment. Two things that I decided are rare sounds unlikely."
"Now, since we can simulate things with increasing accuracy, we will of course be simulating things in the future. Since we might one day simulate our past selves, we must be in such a simulation now and this gets more likely as time goes by. Why? Because I think so, me with my absolute lack of evidence. Either that, or we're all being simulated by space aliens. You know, the ones that I said before didn't exist because they're not standing right in front of me or sending me Christmas cards? The ones that couldn't exist so as to make us unique? Yeah, them. And for some reason they must want to simulate beings very different from themselves. Because I said that our type of intelligence was rare before, remember? Beings that must be so different from themselves that the results of their experiments would have no parallel with either their own history or psychology. Because of reasons that I can't bother to go into right now, but trust me, they're good and involve science.......stuff."
"All of this, because I say that we are special snowflakes who I say couldn't possibly exist naturally. We can't be real. I mean, have you met us?"
Ummmmm.....yeah. It's an interesting idea. I however think that the argument of whether or not we are what we believe ourselves to be is better argued by Zhuangzi, the Chinese philosopher who came up the, "I could not tell if I was a man dreaming that he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that he was a man". (
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Zhuangzi)
And no, I'm not that smart. I had to look up his name too.
For the simulation argument, I can poke so many holes in it. Example- Earth wasn't always how you see it now. If you look at early Earth, you get a planet that much like now. Even early life. We're not too clear exactly what kind because very little survived in the fossil record. (Despite what most people think, we don't even have a complete idea that what was up and walking around millions of years later, during the time of the dinosaurs. Think about how many types of animal, plant, insect, and bacteria there are now. Now look in a book about dinosaurs and start counting species.) But very little oxygen. Oxygen is actually a deadly poison. Yes, you can die if you get too much oxygen. It's called "oxygen toxicity". Almost all of the oxygen that we breath today is the result of what is called blue-green algae or cyanobacteria that started to infest the ocean of the early Earth. (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria) Back then they didn't have very many competitors. Also, the oxygen they produce? It's a waste product. It's algae poop or if you prefer, farts. A gas attack of epic proportions that effectively killed off just about about everything that couldn't stand the high oxygen.
If these algae hadn't come along in high numbers, Earth would still have an atmosphere of high methane and carbon dioxide. It's reasonable to assume that some sort of life and possibly intelligent life might exist right now. They too would look around and go, "See all of this, it was made just for us. We are special. We are unique."
Does any of this invalidate reincarnation? No.
This concept is nothing but old philosophy dressed up with new names.
Take a deep breath of million year old farts and have a nice day!
