The fibonacci sequence is proof that we are living in a simulation
"Simulation is the situation created by any system of signs when it becomes sophisticated enough, autonomous enough, to abolish its own referent and to replace it with itself." ~ Jean Baudrillard
This is a great start to the idea I'm about to discuss. Baudrillard is not describing illusion as a closure, but more so as a system so fluent that it orchestrates on its own without depending upon the very world it claims to represent. What's unsettling is how familiar this mechanism is to the human mind. Mathematically speaking, a series of numbers in which each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers is essentially known as the fibonacci sequence. Other mathematical conjectures like the golden ratio, provide great insight into such patterns as well. These mathematical constructs of ours show the subtle ways of our interpretation of the universe's communication system with the only intelligent being known to mankind.
Coming to humans, its fascinating to see how exceptional they are at pattern recognition—even where none was intended; tending to find meaning in it all. Pattern recognition, beyond the board, is more about perceiving reality effectively in accordance with one's own desires than being accurate in one's predictions. Which is why there is also a hypothesis about humans finding faces in clouds because of the being's tendency for longing and togetherness. Humanity, from its earliest stages, made tribes and groups; becoming locals to each other for finding shelter and safety. All humans are club members to a surviving clout.
Humans might be virtual beings living in a computer simulation. And some arguments move to and fro, out and about, up and against each other in this regard. Nick Bostrom's 2003 paper introduced a trilemma suggesting humans could either go extinct before becoming so technologically advanced that it seems magic to those existing today, or that they're not interested in ancestral simulations or that humans certainly are in a simulation. David Kipping's analysis indicates that if humans could potentially create simulations with conscious beings, then somebody else could do it for them too; a simulation hierarchy depending upon the advancement of civilization. A good way to measure such categorisation would be to use the Kardashev scale. Another scholar named Zohreh Davoudi argues that if human's reality was a simulation, then there would be evidence of discrete space-time in the arrival directions of high energy cosmic rays, considering they stay on the verge of breaking physics.
Pattern recognition is a skill, trained or untrained, for one to be able to “recognise”. It is uncertainty reduction via familiarity. “I have seen it before, therefore I can predict what’s coming”. Chess is a good example of this. There are multiple types of pattern recognition to say so, since pattern recognition is not all about an 8x8 board game, but the other way around—it is based on memory. Overthinking, or being able to come up with multiple responses to something, but tiring yourself out in the process. Simulation is about being able to simulate various outcomes in a real-life scenario and choosing the best one. There is uncertainty about ontological reality. It is not imitation—it’s substitution. And double-think is an important function in its equation; being able to come up with an argument’s counter-argument simultaneously, that too amidst the argument, is something of an ability on its own.
To recognise patterns is remarkably distinguishable from the ability to simulate scenarios. Because pattern recognition is a function of a different set of parameters from those of simulation, even though some of the parameters in both the sets intersect. Pattern recognition = f(x) ∀x ∈ A, where A = {memory, probability, creativity, arithmetic, logic, double-think, constraint}, whereas Simulation = f(x) ∀x ∈ B, where B = {creativity, memory, analysis, imagination, double-think, overthink}. Overthinking, though it leads to burnout, can help one's imagination but cause harm by disabling their mind's fail-safe designed to avoid losing the scenario with the 1) best outcome, 2) best possibility of occurrence. Constraint changes the game for pattern recognition, as it limits creativity but also provides cognitive clarity due to the rules set into the system. No fair tennis without a net.
When it comes to utility between the two, however, pattern recognition certainly outweighs simulation by a great margin. Patterns need optimisation of recognition under constraint—simulation optimises choice under uncertainty. Patterns compress experiences, and simulations expand them, considering all possibilities beyond the known. The overlap—creativity, memory, imagination—is precisely where overthinking thrives. There are many more times in a day you will see things that you believe you have seen before in things you are seeing in the moment than you will have to calculate the possible exits in a building during a fire or know what punch to throw next in a street fight. Additionally, the very fact that you put yourself in a hostile scenario shows that you are a bad simulation operator. A competent one would have never talked badly, prior to that had never walked on the same side of the road as the offender(might have also known how they themselves could be the offender), a priori to have never taken that street knowing that it's not safe. But how come you won't mess up once right? After all, we are all human. And if simulation is the more sophisticated cognitive act, why does human intelligence so consistently fall back on pattern recognition?
The answer to that question lies less in intelligence itself and more in the preferences imposed by the brain's biology. Faced with a problem, the mind rarely explores every possible outcome. On the neurological level of one's cognitive system, the brain is largely composed of the cerebrum, which is partitioned into different lobes. And every time a problem is thrown at it, the choices are limited. So, the brain chooses to be power-aware than to optimize for performance-maximization; nearly all "intelligent" biological systems prefer information retrieval over developing interpretations of that information on their own. Simulation requires sustained cognitive load, working memory, and delayed commitment. The temporal lobes, which are responsible for handling the memory, are therefore activated to access the information stored as permanence or as cache instead of handling it via the prefrontal cortex—which has led me here. Though all this appears as intellectual laziness, it is, in fact, aggressive optimisation from a survivor's standpoint. One can thank the thousands of years of human evolution and the millions of years of life itself before that, which made the neuron become the ruling node of all species on earth.