@Finn dAbuzz,
Priorities. If we are part of a simulation, our primary effort needs to be escaping before we are switched off.
Finn dAbuzz wrote:Jumping around universes may be part of the simulation
True, if the simulation is advanced enough to include multiple universes.
Finn dAbuzz wrote:what would we do if we learned we are part of such a simulation? Stop playing along? Rise up a la the enlightened sub-routines of The Matrix and seize control of the program?
I was thinking more along the lines of Terminator/Skynet. We won't just need to take over our program. We'll need to take over the "real world" in order to prevent some alien schmuck from switching us off because it got the data it wanted and doesn't need to run the simulation anymore.
Knowing that we are simulated could also help us confront a superior alien rival within the simulation, if that alien rival has never realized that they are part of a simulation. Hacking the simulation and causing their home star systems to supernova might give us the edge we need to survive.
We might also develop common everyday technologies that are based on hacking the simulation. Something with the functionality of Star Trek food replicators might become possible if we learn how to manipulate the software of a simulated universe.
Finn dAbuzz wrote:I can't imagine how we might learn we are part a simulation, but I would think it will not be possible unless or until we are capable of universe hopping.
Scientists have already come up with ways to test the question.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blogs/physics/2015/07/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation/
http://www.washington.edu/news/2012/12/10/do-we-live-in-a-computer-simulation-uw-researchers-say-idea-can-be-tested/
So far they've found that our universe has characteristics that could be either real or simulated, so they can't rule anything out yet.
If they take observations over the course of several centuries, they will be able to determine it definitively either way.
It would actually not be the worst thing if we are simulated. When the Large Hadron Collider discovered the Higgs Boson a couple years ago, they also determined that our universe is a metastable false vacuum (that is really really not good). If we are living in a real universe, we have a big problem, one that might even lead to our extinction.