The film includes Descartes' famous assertion "I think, therefore I am" as an epigraph. How is it appropriate here? Do you agree with the statement?

The first line spoken, however, is from Hannon Fuller's letter to Douglas Hall. He writes, "They say ignorance is bliss."  What does this line contribute to the film? Would you finally agree with Fuller that ignorance is bliss or not?

Why simulate 1937?
Is simulation tourism? Wish fulfillment?
What does Hannon Fuller use the simulation for?
How do Fuller's actions cause pain to Mr. Grierson?
Consider Grierson, Ashton, and Ferguson. How does the design of these program link units speak to the nature of their creators? Why would Whitney create and Ashton in his image and so on?
Do you find it curious that all of their program links look nearly identical to them? What if Douglas's link had been Bridget Manilla rather than John Ferguson?
How does Douglas react upon first entering the simulation? Do his actions foreshadow Ashton's attempt to drown him?
Ashton says that what he sees at "the ends of the earth" terrifies him to the "depths of my miserable soul." Does he have a soul? Is his reaction (insanity, murderous rage, etc.) to this revelation valid?
Ashton asks Douglas, "Why would you put us through this." What do you make of this question?

What is McBain's role in this film?
How is this story similar to and different from the traditional murder mystery?

Who do you suspect? When and why?

McBain jokes with Whitney so you think something "crawled up an extension cord and killed its master." What about this statement is evocative?

Why simulate 1999?
What does meeting Natasha Molinaro reveal to Douglas?

What does David use the simulation for?

Why would Jane design Natasha Molinaro?

Why does Jane enter the simulation? What does she want Douglas to do?

Any guesses as to how Fuller figured out the nature of their reality?

Why might Ashton think that Douglas's world is pictures? Is our world pictures and images?

Are Jane's actions in the simulation murder? Are David's?

What does McBain ask Jane to do one she returns to her own reality?

How is this film linked to works we have read so far? To Frankenstein? To "Helen O'Loy?"

What are the responsibilities of creators to their creations?

At what point do creations cross the line from playthings to beings in their own right with their own rights?

Whitney tells McBain that the units are "modeled after us." Made in our image?

Douglas tells Whitney that the color is off in the 1937 reality but the units don't seem to notice. How would you know if the color was wrong in your world?

Why are Jane and David upset that their simulation has a simulation?
Jane wants Doug to unplug the 1937 simulation. If those in the simulation are, as Doug puts it, "as real as you and me," would it be mass murder to pull the plug?

How do characteristics seem to bleed from one layer of reality to another? Why does Doug start smoking? Is Douglas is becoming more like Ferguson is he also becoming more like David?
If your world is unreal, what makes you real?
Douglas tells Jane, "I'm not even real." Can this statement ever be true?
Can "a puppet" have a soul?
How do you define a soul?
Is Jane's love for Douglas similar to Dave's love for Helen O'Loy?
Is Douglas, as David's creation and tool, culpable for David's crimes?
Are David's actions even crimes if committed in a simulated world?

What is the Los Angeles of 2024 like? How do you know this?

Does this reality represent a kind of heaven for Douglas where he is reunited with his deceased friend Fuller and his lover Jane?

Does the desirability of this world falter is it too is a simulation (as the closing seems to suggest)?

What if your sims could feel? What if the simulated beings in your video game felt real pain? Would you be responsible for protecting them?

Do you feel guilt for forgetting to feed your Tamagotchi or your virtual goldfish, or do you simply restart the program?

Consider the comparison of real life experiences (like combat, for instance) to video game simulations. Does simulated experience degrade real world experience? Does experience lose its "aura" as Benjamin would put it? Are affairs conducted online less serious or harmful than physical infidelity?

Between 1997 and 1999 a whole host of films were released dealing with the concepts of identity and constructed realities (1997 - Abre los Ojos [which was remade as Vanilla Sky], 1998 - Dark City, The Truman Show, eXistenZ, 1999 - The Thirteenth Floor, and, most famously, The Matrix). Do you think that there was something about the late 1990s that made this topic an attractive one? Is there a kind of millennialism at work here?

How does each film approach the topic differently? What does The Thirteenth Floor have to say?

Consider how the stylistic elements of the film including editing choices, shot style, music, and mise en scene contribute to the telling of this particular story?
Why so many helicopter and crane shots looking down at the grid of Los Angeles from on-high?

Notice the abundance of vertical and horizontal lines (in the architecture, in the characters' clothing, etc.). What is going on here?

How and why is the cinematography different in the three realities?

Note the abundance of clockworks and games. Explain.

How and why is the texture of the living spaces different in each reality?

Why is "Easy Come, Easy Go" sung is both in the 1937 reality and the 1999 one?