re: Question about intentionally altered reality.
All questions like that become essentially moot and unprovable.
Anyway, if everything you see is part of some manufactured reality, why change your behavior at all? If everyone in the Matrix movie had been informed that they were actually living in glass jars hooked up to tubes, and the choice was being released into a starving post-apocalyptic world or go on that Hawaiian vacation after all, I suspect most would go for the mai tai.
Cypher: You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize?
[Takes a bite of steak]
Cypher: Ignorance is bliss.
- The Matrix
There was an anime show on TV called "Ghost in the Shell," where cybernetic implants were so common that almost everyone had artificially-enhanced eyes for computer interfaces and communication. A person who "hacked" these systems could, within limits, control what people saw. For example, the hacker could walk the streets and become "invisible."
