Living in a "Simulation"?

While reading some of the reader comments on an MSNBC article on the possible future of human evolution, I ran across a link to an article by Nick Bostrom of Oxford University. Bostrom's paper includes many additional references, including one to an article by John Barrow.

Both of these last two articles raise interesting points about the consequences of sufficiently advanced cultures being able to simulate conscious creatures in simulated universes. The parallels with the world models of theology are noted. But there are also those who argue that such an ability to simulate consciousness in computers may never be developed. A summary of some counterarguments is discussed in a thread on Google.

To me, the issue becomes just what one means by the word "simulation". Since it is not clear just what "computer" could actually produce the above simulations, if any, we may be unfairly biasing the argument in advance to even use the word "simulation". In a sense, the shadows on the wall of Plato's Cave noted in a previous post might be called a simulation embedded in a higher reality. This brings us to a generalized concept of a simulation as being a "reality" which is not at the most basic level of reality possible. In other words, it is in some sense an image or a "world" created by a higher level of reality. I think that this concept of a simulation might include the world described by Christianity as the world we now live in, but in order to conclude that, I've stripped the word "simulation" of the mechanistic overtones we may normally associate with it.

In terms of Christian theology, Christianity promises us wholesale proof of the nature of our world in its prediction of the Second Coming. That event is to become the interface to the higher plane of reality of the New Heavens and the New Earth. Or as Paul states in First Corinthians 13, verse 12:

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.