And I'm not the first. Before "Matrix" many science fiction writers have speculated on this theme, and even of nested simulations; simulations within simulations. I recall vividly the films "Existenz" and "The Thirteenth Floor", the latter based on D. F. Galouye's sensational (and prophetic) 1964 novel "Simulacron-3". In my opinion, these films were much more skillfully presented as art and literature, and much more scientifically convincing, than the "Matrix" series.

The real thought-provoker about these speculations is that even if the universe is a simulation, does it really matter? We have to deal with the universe perceived by our senses, it is the space where our consciousness inhabits. If its not the "real one", does it really matter? We have no choice but to deal with it as if it were the real one.

This is not a new idea by any means, the ancient Chinese sage mused about his dream of being a butterfly, and wondered if perhaps he was not a butterfly dreaming he was a man. There really is no way to tell.

As I've remarked before, we live in a physical universe, a quantum and relativistic reality that appears Newtonian at our scale of space and time. But overlain on that substrate are chemical, biological, psychological, social, cultural and historical layers, like the concentric layers of an onion. Which is the "real" one? The correct answer is that they all are. The universe is fractal. The conflict between Labor and Capital may very well be related (albeit indirectly) to molecular biology, but it can't be resolved by consulting the cellular chemistry of proteins and enzymes. And that conflict is of utmost importance to us in our real world, along with an infinitude of others not amenable to "scientific method".

Consciousness, even a subtle and sophisticated one, builds its own subjective universe by picking and choosing those elements from the other universes that it decides it must include in its life. But it can only include those universes it can perceive, or at least, conceive of.

This is not the same as saying we can create an arbitrary magical world we can escape to and live our life in sheltered from reality. What it means is that we have a great deal of freedom in constructing the kind of reality we live in, and considerable (but not absolute) power to deal with it. And if you don't understand this, viscerally, you haven't got a fucking clue as to what is really going on.