> It just strikes me as tautological.

Pretty much, yeah. There's as much value in it as in any kind of metaphysics, I guess; it makes it easier to get on with being an ape despite the creeping feeling that being an ape doesn't mean anything.

Basically-- I know that my experience of the universe is an interaction of the universe with itself, and that things I perceive also ~perceive me. I create the universe as it creates me, and the idea of "something" "real" "existing" outside of my experience of it doesn't make sense because none of those words make sense outside of my experience.

So my experience is a simulation, but what it is being simulated by is, in fact, my experience. Thus: A simulation of itself. It makes about as much sense as anything else.

In terms of pragmatic value? Eh. My view of philosophy is that the simplest reason to do something besides philosophy is most likely the best.

(I swear I don't sound like a crazy person in real life-- but despite my valediction, I love talking about this sort of thing.)

You're talking about Plato's cave shadows and Korzybski's territorial map as mental simulations of the physical world? They might be called simulations, but in that sense, human perception is a very loose simulation of reality, only good enough for us to successfully inhabit our place in the universe and sometimes not even that (in the case of asylum inmates). The mind's simulation of reality is not a simulation in a scientifically practical sense.

I'm not willing to call the universe a simulation of itself. I agree with the idea of using the universe to simulate itself, though. Computer simulations are limited by accuracy and time, but if you assume arbitrary amounts of time, and if you don't need perfect accuracy (or laws of physics dictate safe time/space steps for the simulation), you can theoretically simulate arbitrarily complex physics for a brief amount of time. Sorry for stating the obvious with that, but I'd like to contrast the typical "computer simulation" idea with the following: I consider physics experiments to be attempts at using the universe (a small part of it) to simulate other parts of the universe. Computer simulations pale in comparison.

I got lost on this part of your comment: "So my experience is a simulation, but what it is being simulated by is, in fact, my experience. Thus: A simulation of itself."

Entertaining mental maps as simulations, for the sake of argument, I agree with the first part: mental (inner) experience is a simulation of sorts of the outer world. I don't understand the second half of your first sentence. The "what" that is providing your perception (inner experience) is your brain, right? I don't understand how you're making the connection that the brain is your experience. That seems like a lazy use of the word "is", and with a narrower replacement, the equivalence would not hold and you would not be able to claim "the universe simulates itself".

Something existing outside of your experience is as simple as two kids in the third world playing together. The abstract concept of events occurring outside of your realm of perception shouldn't be novel or difficult to imagine - just think of the things you do when no one else is around, then reverse that notion.

Simulation, to me, means an approximate recreation. To say that your experience is a simulation leads me to wonder what you're a simulation of. An act can't simulate itself as it's not approximately itself, it is itself.

Words need uniqueness to be helpful as a form of communication, and if we call simulations anything acting like something else OR itself, then by calling something a simulation, you're just stating its existence, which I can't find a reason to do that can't be accomplished in a more direct way.

In other words, yes things exist. Let's not ruin the word 'simulation' trying to say so!