If the 'Laws of the universe' are really the result of computational shortcuts - whether by design, or as the result of the nature of the universe, then perhaps scientists could find success thinking more like hackers-

:) Of course perhaps we should be careful with that- it would suck to look up one day and see the night sky replaced with the blue screen of death, or find out that we violated the fine print of the Terms and Conditions of Use.

In terms of 'hacking', researchers are already doing quantum experiments that are along those lines- the Quantum Eraser experiments and others try to trip up the laws of quantum mechanics. Breaking reality with conclusions like measurements in the present can affect the past...

Could embracing the idea that the universe is a simulation to be hacked allow us to come up with new understanding of the rules, and how to manipulate them?

And here is another mind bending concept...

Imagine a dinner party, where the boring guests play a silly game-
Here are the rules: One guest (the guesser) is sent out of the room, the other guests pick an object, at random, one they all agree on. The guesser comes back into the room and is allowed to ask questions about the mystery object, which the other players have to answer honestly. The goal is for the guesser to deduce what the object is in as few guesses as possible.

After a few rounds the players, understandably, become bored with this- so they decide to mix it up... the guesser is sent out of the room, and the other players change the rules. They decide they will not decide on an object, instead they will answer the guesser's questions randomly, with the only constraint being that each answer given must be entirely consistent with the previous answers.

As more guesses happen, the answers become more and more constrained by the previous answers until there is only one possible object being described. The final answer is determined by the questions asked by the guesser- not just the questions asked, but the order they are asked in... in this way a single reality is arrived at when at the start of the game there was only an infinitude of possibility.

What if the universe is like that? Starting off as a cloud of possibilities, with each interaction and every symmetry breaking constraining the reality we now see...? The fact we are here to observe constrains the history of the universe to one that, according to all we know, is highly improbable.