I’ll give an example that is related to my current day job, where we make devices with displays (e.g., TV’s). I have commonly had people say that picture quality and color on televisions is subjective. However, until we’re into advanced features like content-adaptive processing, it isn’t. Instead, color is objectively and reproducibly measurable as a set of physical properties, and the mappings of those properties to the TV-buying public is very aligned with the science behind color theory.

Now, color theory as we apply it is a blend of physics (very, very reproducible) and perception. The perceptual part of color is largely reproducible over large populations, but there are certainly mutations, conditions, and variances that lead to some degree of varied perception, up to and including blindness (though TV’s these days throw off enough infrared that their brightness is generally detectable by non-sighted users). So, might we all be living in a simulation? Or a simulation of a simulation? Sure. But that has no practical impact because it is an unanswerable question.

Conversely, operating with the assumption that the physical-world sensing and reasoning apparatus available to me isn’t some complex prank is working out pretty well for the trillions+ creatures out there (insects could be an interesting discussion) that appear to be going about their daily lives. Why ask people to prove a negative?

In the meantime, we’ll continue to try to better understand how minds work.