What would you do?

What if our universe were somebody else’s hobby. An Oxford University Professor has speculated that there is a reasonably good chance - an almost mathematical certainly – that we in fact are living in someone else’s computer simulation. He bases this on the assumption that technological advances will, perhaps as soon as within 50 years, lead to the development of a superduper computer with more processing power than all the brains in the world. These future people could conceivably run a kind of what he calls “ancestor simulation” of their history and create worlds inhabited by virtual people with complete nervous systems – just like ours. These ancestors would have no way of knowing for sure if they were virtual or real. This is because the feelings and sights they would experience would be indistinguishable. Aside from speculating on the likelihood of this happening – there are lots of practical questions on how to behave in a computer simulation. You might, at first say that, well, nothing matters anymore – nothing’s real. However, your feelings would be very real indeed. You would still want to live as long as you could in this virtual world – and any sequels or continuations thereafter. Perhaps following certain moral principles would lead the designer to reward you – or, possibly it wouldn’t be morality that got rewarded, but people who led interesting lives, who took chances, who maximized their enjoyment of life (cyber, nonetheless), who interacted with the most other beings, etc. etc. Would this change your life? What would you do?