RE: Examining the incentives and purpose of living inside a Simulation
"As far as I'm concerned, the answer is yes"
As far as I am concerned, the answer is no.
Accepting this belief is due to an overemphasis on analogies as automatic realities, and lack of comprehension in language structure and symbolism that elicit imagery in consciousness, whereby the correspondence of X to Y is assumed to determine a "truth", despite it being unverifiable. i.e. no verifiable, not veracious, not "veritas", not truth.
Also, the whole "debate" on causal determinism vs. free will is fallaciously structured in polarized absolutist conclusions to accept one and reject the other, while the reality is not polar to one side only, but dual. Existence is causally deterministic, and free will is a component of the emergence of another aspect of reality, consciousness in existence which has free will. People who fail to honestly account for both realities try to deny one in favor of the others and this results in confusion and polarized beliefs.
Take care. Peace.
I'm sure people will disagree on this - it's not a mainstream "theory". However I wasn't really making a case for it. I just took it further than that because the debate is pretty boring for me.
Regarding consciousness and free will, while I agree that consciousness is a carrier of free will, I believe it is not ordinarily expressed while one's mind is in a mode of reacting to prior thoughts or stimuli. The reactive mind cannot have free will. It can access it when it taps into a larger consciousness stream but normally, no.