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I had fun with that in a post here a couple of years ago where in the end they were watching a simulation they had coded and looking at the computer monitor their sims were looking at and on that monitor they saw themselves. :) Paradox is fun.

yup...philosophy/religion...gotta love it.
I prefer the empirical

I do value speculation and imagination. I know you do too. It is a necessary step in the pursuit of answers. It is the hypothesis stage of the scientific method. The danger is when people treat their speculations as fact and forget it began as them guessing at a possible explanation for something they observed, or even worse "simply heard about".

Yup...if the data doesn't support the hypothesis then the hypothesis is fiction.

That's why I'm agnostic in all things. It's not possible to prove something right...it's only possible to prove it to be wrong.

Observe and use reason. :)

reason is essential but it has limits.
If your assumptions are wrong so is your conclusion.

Well if we apply the scientific method a conclusion should never be without challenge. We use what explains the most data until we find something better.

yup..but NOTHING is sacred. Anything and everything should be questioned.
One data point is all it takes to invalidate ANY hypothesis.