Writing

 The survival of ideas is an interesting topic.  I believe this was the original meaning of the word meme as coined by Richard Dawkins.  Ideas that spread are "better" at survival than ideas that don't seem worth passing on to others.  Some ideas are more like living things than others.  Take the idea of a character from a story.  Someone could read the story, or even be told about the character.  They could then take that idea and imagine the character in a different situation.  To do this, the character is partially simulated in the mind of the imaginer.  Does that character exist briefly as the person is imagining being them?  These are similar to thoughts I have had when considering whether we live in a simulation, and if we do, does that matter.  If we do, does that mean that we don't exist?  I don't think so.  We are being simulated with enough fidelity to live out an entire life.  We exist just as much as the c...