Simulated World Philosophy

Most philosophical schools of thought tried to provide an "explanation" for many phenomenon that are so common as not to require explanation - but are, for the same reason, difficult to explain in terms that are even more basic. Also, most explanations track the scientific/technological progress of the mankind.  When we started to "make" things, it is easy to see how we would postulate a "maker" of us. When we start to tell stories, it is conceivable that we see our life itself as a "story", in the sense it is "made up" and not quite "real" etc. The dominant technological advance of the current times is the spread among general population, of the ability to "create" programmed/virtual worlds.  This makes it easy for us to think about idea that our world itself is "programmed" or "simulated".  While this idea is not a new idea - the current level of knowledge about basic of programming and vir...