The difference is NPCs exist only for the main character's experience. Oblivion's Adoring Fan does not have a life outside of interacting with the main character or an existence outside of when the human in the external reality controls the main character in the simulated reality. In our reality there is apparently no main character. Everything and everyone simply is. To learn one is an NPC is to realise that everything one has done is artificial and confined to the boundaries of someone else's experience. A created slave with a hollow origin and no means of escaping a forced purpose.
I mean a cursory glance at your own life ought to show you that you do in fact have a life outside of the experiences of some arbitrary person. If you were told you are an NPC, does your lifetime of personal experiences simply vanish?
Even if you were shown proof that you’re a simulation, can you really just let go of your entire existence like that?
I think denial would be a far more common reaction than existential crisis.
All other people are NPCs from the perspective of one person. That's what "non-player character" means.
You're the player in your own mind, aren't you? That makes the rest of us NPCs.
I just don't see how someone else's perspective of my autonomy should cause such a crisis in me.
The difference is NPCs exist only for the main character's experience. Oblivion's Adoring Fan does not have a life outside of interacting with the main character or an existence outside of when the human in the external reality controls the main character in the simulated reality. In our reality there is apparently no main character. Everything and everyone simply is. To learn one is an NPC is to realise that everything one has done is artificial and confined to the boundaries of someone else's experience. A created slave with a hollow origin and no means of escaping a forced purpose.
I mean a cursory glance at your own life ought to show you that you do in fact have a life outside of the experiences of some arbitrary person. If you were told you are an NPC, does your lifetime of personal experiences simply vanish?
Even if you were shown proof that you’re a simulation, can you really just let go of your entire existence like that?
I think denial would be a far more common reaction than existential crisis.