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The simulator would just need to simulate your mind such that it believed that stuff existed. For example, if you looked in a telescope at a distant star the simulation wouldn't need to simulate the distant star and all the photons and wave length shifting and gravitational lensing and whatever, it would just need to draw a little picture for you.

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You'll basically end up at solipsism if you follow this reasoning. There are good arguments against solipsism, e.g. that people smarter than you exist, and you forget where things are, only to rediscover them, then remind yourself you forgot, and so on. You have to play increasingly tortured games to keep believing that nothing exists outside your mind.

Another one against solipsism: Language evolves in groups. A true solipsist would be mute therefore. Source: Wittgenstein.

And you only need to simulate a single brain to be simulating it's entire perceived universe

Exactly right. The Sim is computing Physics itself. It's not computing brains, but only the atoms making up brains. Atoms do what they do, ergo brains form.

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