I think the issue of living in a simulation is "germane" to our existence in the sense that, do we have a completely independent and unlimited existence or do we have a defined existence with a certain set of rules?
I am not using the simulations to give answers here, but I am just using them to think and understand our existence in at a deeper level. (compared to not using them, I am not trying to say I think deeper others do not) So it gives a special perspective.
Some people may believe that our existence starts with our birth and ends with our death. But is this the limits of our existence? Can we exist within a certain set of rules for a while, while we are alive (meaning while we are in the simulation) and then when our experience/test in one simulation is completed do we continue to exist within different set of rules, in a different level.
Secondly answering Thucy
"No, what I am saying is irrelevant to whether you and I are living inside a simulation, because the same questions then apply to whatever broader universe the simulation is housed in. If we live in a simulation, those who created it are not our gods. They have the same god we do - existence itself. "
I am trying to say here that we do exist because of god/programmer/creator, who has his/her/their own reasons to create us but they definitely let us know what it is yet. So I highly doubt that we can actually reach or comprehend this.
Here I try to answer why do we exists, by simply saying we cannot know.
Then you naturally ask why the god exist by saying "They have the same god we do - existence itself."
That is what I did not try to answer.
I didnt do this intentionally or to prove anything. I just thought and wrote. But this leads me to conclude this:
We can ask a general question "Why there is existence?"
We can ask a specific question : "Why do we (humans) exist?"
We can also ask another specific question: "Why does the god existence?"
The simulations theory is just trying to answer the second question. That is why you feel like I am trying to present you a dogmatic theory. But I think it is a little bit unfair to call any theories, whether religious,scientific or science fiction, dogmatic just because they do not deal with the other questions.
That is what religion do, that is what my simulation theory do. We try to explain why humans exist and we take the stance that the existence of god and existence of humans are in different levels.