Dear Brian,
I'm happy that you take time to think about comments before replying.
You say "The VR conjecture is not a theory about God or one that requires a God to exist etc."
I agree. I was addressing your statement that "The theory is that this world is created entirely by information processing, as an output" combined with your hope to "reverse engineer" this output to decode the information processing architecture. Based upon my considerable hardware and software design experience I think the probability of success in such a venture is vanishingly likely. And if one proposes a theory of something outside of our local reality (in an 'extra' dimension not perceivable by us) that accounts in some unknown way for all that we see, then I find this indistinguishable from (not identical to) speculation about God. What is the difference between
God creates everything that we see
and
Information processing creates everything that we see
if there is no hope (as I contend) of discovering the architecture (of either) through reverse engineering.
As for the "properties of an information simulation", I have not begun to comment on these [yet] because I am addressing the key points, which I see as Bell's inequality and the hope of reverse engineering a processor that is sufficiently complex to create the universe we perceive [including, I suppose, our very awareness] considered as process output from another dimension.
I believe you are straying into the other arguments about this world ["The Evidence"] and I prefer to postpone these points. Your theory [conjecture] is of such magnitude and consequence [it essentially overthrows all physics] that I prefer to take it step by step. Otherwise we may lose all coherency in these comments, as is very often the case on other threads. Of course if I state things poorly you may simply be responding to what you think I said.
Again, you say this extra dimension ["something outside the physical universe"] is not defined except to say that "it can create processing, and need not be of the nature of what it outputs." I'm sure that you must have some image of what you're saying, but to one not vested in this idea, it sounds no different from conjecturing: "God creates it."
You say that Many Worlds postulates something beyond what we can ever perceive, but does not postulate God. I agree, but my point is that one might as well postulate God, since this is not physics. As a physicist, I am opposed to the claim that either God or the Multi-verse is part of physics.
But, unlike the Multiverse, you have a back door, an escape route, in your claim that we can 'reverse engineer' the processor architecture from its output. I believe that I can design a counter example [I'm not offering to do so] that would use entirely different architectures [including analog, digital, and mechanical parts] that would provide identical output, thereby preventing even the possibility of such reverse engineering. Instead, for the moment, I'll just state that my professional opinion is that reverse engineering is not feasible, and almost certainly not possible. But that's just my opinion.
So, working down the list, I see Bell's inequality and reverse engineering as the two most critical arguments.
Finally, because you several times state that certain theories "go outside the universe" but do not postulate God, I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not saying that you are postulating God. I am saying that, if reverse engineering is not possible, then you might as well be postulating God, because there would be no physical or logical testable difference between your theory and one that postulates God.
I'm enjoying this because you really have identified the limits to some approaches and beliefs that are showing up in physics, to what I believe will be our detriment.
By the way, I've posted on my thread [on Jan. 30, 2011 @ 00:46 GMT] a comparison of Verlinde's information-based approach to Newtonian gravity with my approach. You might find it interesting.
Edwin Eugene Klingman