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"there is an observer who believes that they are having a direct, unmediated experience with an outside material reality. In actuality, the observer has been interacting with a televised simulation. They discover this through a relatively simple observation: that the interference pattern they perceive in a certain situation seems to have no source. They conclude that since interference patterns are always the result of at least two sources, the second source must be from the very mode in which they perceive their world. The key point here is that it may indeed be possible to construct a physical test for this kind of simulation. More significantly, this means that at least in this kind of case, one can detect a simulation from within the simulation itself."

Intriguing, in several different ways. Among them is that one doesn't need anything quite so elaborate as interference patterns or televisions to discover that what one sees is influenced by "the very mode" one uses to see. Optical illusions suffice to make this point. What implies a "mediated" existence is our awareness that there are at least two different ways to see the television set (one with an interference pattern and the other without). The same holds, with different sets of alternatives, for optical illusions (the lines could be straight or curved). The implication, in both cases, is that what we see is influenced by something other than the thing itself, hence it is "mediated". What we see is always influenced, in less and more dramatic ways, by our own brains. Hence we are all, all of the time,"experiencing a mediated ... existence."

"Simulated" implies, though, more than that. Most importantly, it implies not "real," not the thing as it actually is. The television set without the interference pattern is the "real" thing; the one with it is not only mediated but results from a "simulation," a process that obscures or entirely hides "reality." The notion of "simulation" also raises the question of an agent and its motivations: who is responsible for the simulation and why are they creating it?

While the notion of "mediated" follows fairly directly from the awareness of two different ways of seeing the same thing, its less clear to me that "simulated" does. How does one decide that it is the television set without the interference pattern that is the "real" thing rather than the one with it? One could, I suspect, come up with an equally good though quite different story of the latter sort (particularly if one were genuinely inside the "simulation" instead of having conceived it oneself). And why presume that all of this involves an external agent with its own motivations?

Here the parallel to optical illusions is particularly relevant. One sees curved lines because of the mediation of one's brain. One is aware of the possibility of seeing straight lines because of the mediation of one's brain together with something else, perhaps a ruler. The point, of course, is that both ways of seeing are "mediated." Neither is "unmediated" nor "real." And the same could, of course, hold for the television sets with and without the interference pattern. There is, on the face of it, no reason to presume one or the other is "real, and the other affected by the "simulation." They could equally well both be mediated. That in turn would obviate the need to raise the question of an external agent, to say nothing of wonder about its motivations.

All this raises some very interesting questions not only about an essential premise of the television/interference pattern story, but about our ways of making sense of the world in general. "there is an observer who believes that they are having a direct, unmediated experience with an outside material reality." Perhaps though there is actually no such thing as a "direct, unmediated experience with ... an outside material reality"? Maybe the notion of "unmediated" and "reality," together with the puzzling/troubling features of the "brain in a vat" scenario and the analogous Matrix situation, are themselves "mediated," the product of our own brains rather than something that exists independent of them?

With that thought in mind, let's start over. Suppose one has a suspicion that all human experiences are always and inevitably mediated, in the sense that they depend not only on what's out there but other unknown things as well (including things involving one's own nervous system). One might well want to do away with the inherent uncertainties and insecurities of such a situation. And so it might make sense to fantasize something like "having a direct, unmediated experience with an outside material reality." At least then one would know for sure what is going on (or thinks one would). But that in turn raises the awkward possibility that one is being systematically deluded by someone (or something) out there, and the awkward question of whether that someone or something is in turn being deluded by someone/something else.

Perhaps one is better off simply accepting that all experiences are inevitably and unavoidably "mediated," by oneself if not also by things outside oneself, that there is no such thing as "having a direct, unmediated experience with an outside material reality." That would, of course, leave us with inherent uncertainties and insecurities, but maybe that's not actually such a bad thing? Maybe one could get used to the idea that all experiences are mediated, maybe even enjoy it? There is, after all, some appealing adventure in being able to count on there being a way to see things other than the way one has been seeing them. Maybe the adventure of exploring the (infinite?) variety of mediated views more than offsets the uncertainties and insecurities of failing to achieve an "unmediated experience"? One may certainly find less appealing ways of seeing things, but may also find more appealing ones.

But where does that leave us with the "simulation" problem? Is there an observation we could make that would show we're REALLY a "brain in a vat"? We can certainly make observations that established that what we see is "mediated," perhaps even by something outside ourselves (a blur gets clearer when we put on our glasses). But if we take seriously the idea that everything we see is "mediated" then all observations, those included, will fail to meet the test of "having a direct, unmediated experience with an outside material reality." From which it follows that we can't ever establish based on observations that we are REALLY "a brain in a vat" or REALLY not a brain in a vat, for that matter. We can show that there is a second way to see things, perhaps better for some particular set of purposes, but never that there aren't some additional ways to see things that haven't occurred to us yet.

What all of this suggests is that the "brain in a vat" and Matrix problems might not actually be questions about "reality" at all but rather questions about our own brains and their mediated interactions with ... whatever is outside them which we cannot see in an unmediated way ("Of that which we cannot speak we must remain silent" ... Wittgenstein). From this perspective, what's important is not the answer to the question of whether we are in fact living in a simulation but rather that the question itself can occur to us. That it can means we (our brains) have the capacity to conceive new ways of understanding ourselves and our relation to the world. And hence the incentive to further explore additional ways of being and relating to the world. Maybe that's enough, more than enough? Who needs "reality"? We may not be able to "detect a simulation from within the simulation itself" but we can certainly detect mediating influences on our perception and use those to conceive new worlds.