Is Matrix real?
-
avortac — 10 years ago(February 22, 2016 09:51 PM)
"Well, those who just say no how do you KNOW we are not living in a simulation? "
How do you KNOW anything?
When you get down to it, nothing can truly be known. Most of what YOU think you know, is just hearsay, text, audio waves that entered your ear, or visual-aural signals from a tube-box.
You haven't experienced every single thing you 'know'. You just take it for granted, that what you have been TAUGHT is the truth, because everyone else believes it to be true, etc..
In any case, do you know how difficult it is to make anything realistic? I mean, any artificial creation? It's possible to learn how to use a pencil to draw 'photorealistic' pictures, but you can immediately detect that they're not actual photos, no matter how skilled the artist. Same goes for computer graphics or even computer-generated imagery, unless it depicts something man-made, that's easy to make look 'realistic'. If you want to render a concrete cube in a 3D rendering program (I hate that "3D" started meaning some stupid colored lenses-gimmick instead of what it has meant for decades - that fad should've died a long time ago permanently), chances are, you can make it look relatively realistic.
But try to make an animated human face that's shown to speak something while the camera zooms around it from many different distances from a close-up to a bit further away, and you hit the 'uncanny valley' before you can make it look so real that you can't detect the difference (I think Terminator: Genisys-creators were very skilled in this, but there's something cold and unreal about the eyes anyway - but even they used a lot of photos and even real Arnold to get it right).
The point here being; it would be SO much work and hassle to make everything 'this realistic', without enough payoff. I am talking about diminishing returns - if this was a simulation, there surely would've been many shortcuts. Maybe distant objects wouldn't be rendered with full detail, or they'd be missing some 'polygons' (or whatever they would be supposedly using, voxels?), etc.
Surely things would GLITCH every now and then, and you'd see this relatively often (7 billion people roaming around all the time, would be sure to bump into these glitches pretty often). And no, dj vu is not a glitch.. (at least not the way they explained it in the movie - seeing the same thing twice in a row is not dj vu - what that phenomenon refers to, is the experience of having experience the same situation A LONG TIME AGO)
So, if it WAS a simulation, it would be way poorer, and there wouldn't be all the painstaking detail downright to the atomic level. Spirituality, meditation, etc. also wouldn't really be possible, because it would require something so subtle.
Also, how do you really create FEELING in a computer simulation? You can create the most complicated simulation that will ever exist, and yet, there's no actual feeling there. You can create a program that 'simulates feeling', you can put 'emotive words' to some Sims-character's speech bubble, but that doesn't mean that it ACTUALLY feels.
Why would they even make atoms as complicated as they are? Why would they make astral projection possible? Why even create souls?
There's no reason for any of that, if this is just a simulation. And did I mention, you couldn't create a 'feeling-simulator', no matter how ingenious you are. That's a spiritual thing, your spirit feels, and that creates all the other 'feel' you have, even what you'd call 'physical'. It all belongs to the same realm, so it's not a sense of the body, but the sense of the spirit (once the spirit leaves, the body doesn't feel anything - but even after you cut off a part of a body, your spirit still feels that body part to be there - ask anyone whose arm or leg has been amputated, for example)..
Where do I think I live? That's a more esoteric thing .. it's not explainable with words. If you've experienced Zen, you know the answer. If not.. well, some day, you will (again). You see, you did experience Zen, when you were a kid. Young children and animals are in perpetual Zen mode .. hence they live in the moment, and are so literal and matter-of-factly.
Adults live in mind-created concepts, in future, in the past, anywhere, besides the moment they actually exist in. Which is why they usually cannot go back to Zen - unless they make a conscious effort to doing so (look at Zen masters, or at least read some Zen koans to know it's possible).
Anyway, the sheer complexity of pretty much everything is a pretty sure sign that it's not a simulation, but a creation of different sorts .. (of course you could call the physical side an illusion, which, in a way, it is - and you can call a creation something 'artificial', but then we drift towards 'when is a form considered artificial, and when created', and 'if all form is a temporary creation, isn't it wrong to call it real'.. but that would make the posts a bit big)
I think the only reason why any entities can create, is because the Un -
memoric — 9 years ago(July 20, 2016 12:12 AM)
[]if it WAS a simulation, it would be way poorer[]
[]So for ALL this to be just a simulation .. doesn't compute.
Because the Architect/Skynet/God/The Force/Some Alien Hacker Kid/Whatever really
runs this Universe, would rely on our discarded Pentium IIIs to render the simulation.
C'mon -.-
You are making a big mistake here. You are examining the whole thing as a human,
while (because of your physiology) you are both physically & mentally limited (inadequate
even) for such a task. Also you are examining the technical aspects of the matter while
having in mind our (also limited) technology.
You remind me of some folks back in the beginning of the 20th century who, because
they knew only horse-speed, thought that "the crazy acceleration an automobile needs
to reach a speed of 40mph in such a short time will surely kill its passengers".
As for "the painstaking detail downright to the atomic level", again, you are "seeing"
with your "eyes". If we are in a simulation then
there is not
an atomic level. It's like
when you dream that you are on a boat. There is
no
boat, there is
no
ocean, there is
NO YOU
(as in "you aren't physically there really")! There is only your consciousness
that somehow & for whatever reason "thinks" that your real body is on a real boat, on
a real ocean.
Finally, if you want to talk science & since you mentioned atoms, don't you think it's
"weird" that particles are "ghosts"? That we can't know both their speed & their
position at the same time? That we can only calculate "possibilities" about them? That
until we observe them, "they may be there but they may be not". Have you ever heard
of the "Double Slit Experiment" which makes our Universe look like a videogame (in
the sense that in videogames the picture we see when we turn our virtual head isn't
really there, it renders when we turn to look, thus our "observation" affects our
"(virtual) world")?
Below is a link to a video that shows how observation with absolutely no interference
affects the way that an electron beam behaves:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc
The Matrix Has You
-
depastino — 9 years ago(October 24, 2016 09:58 AM)
Finally, if you want to talk science & since you mentioned atoms, don't you think it's
"weird" that particles are "ghosts"? That we can't know both their speed & their
position at the same time? That we can only calculate "possibilities" about them? That
until we observe them, "they may be there but they may be not". Have you ever heard
of the "Double Slit Experiment" which makes our Universe look like a videogame (in
the sense that in videogames the picture we see when we turn our virtual head isn't
really there, it renders when we turn to look, thus our "observation" affects our
"(virtual) world")?
Totally forgot about that experiment! Excellent post.
The thing is, the simulation in the movie is really cut and dried - a little too easy for the freed humans to understand and manipulate.
If we living inside an elaborate simulation, it's easy to assume that our puny human intellect would have a difficult time even comprehending the big picture if we were ever able to go "behind the scenes" - let alone defy the wishes of the entity responsible. -
bsharporflat-50959 — 9 years ago(October 24, 2016 11:45 AM)
the picture we see when we turn our virtual head isn't
really there, it renders when we turn to look, thus our "observation" affects our "(virtual) world")?
You are speaking of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
If we living inside an elaborate simulation, it's easy to assume that our puny human intellect would have a difficult time even comprehending the big picture if we were ever able to go "behind the scenes" - let alone defy the wishes of the entity responsible.
The idea that people like Tank or Cypher can look at pages of symbolic code and see instantaneous action in regard to people (and their hair color), streets, buildings, doors, etc. is only one of many things that make The Matrix unrealistic.
Like Oz and Wonderland (both referenced in the movie), The Matrix is best taken as a fantasy world not a realistic possible future. Like Oz and Wonderland, The Matrix is more of a social commentary on our own real world, rather than a depiction of what the future might actually be like. -
wintermonk — 10 years ago(March 11, 2016 12:55 PM)
"Are we really living in a simulated reality?"
Maybe. There is no way we can know whether or not reality is, in fact, real.
In fact, today could be a simulation, and our entire history could be implanted memories. Could be that the entire universe is a computer simulation that is only a day old, and all our memories are simply implanted memories (like in
Blade Runner
, that one female replicant who "remembered" her past, but her past didn't exist). Ultimately, what we think of reality is taken on faith, not just by the religious, but by everyone. -
dsliquid — 9 years ago(May 21, 2016 06:25 AM)
You know, LOGICALLY it's more likely that we're in a simulated reality than in the real reality.
Reasoning: There will always only be
one
real reality. But at some point, humans or other creatures are bound to create advanced simulated worlds, much more so than the WoW simulated realities we have with today's primitive technology. (Most of the worlds will probably be inhabited by AI's though, and not real-life creatures connected to from the outside.)
So, maybe we live on a fake Earth, made by humans from 2300, or maybe the scientists who made our world are some for us unimaginary creatures! We can't really know, yet.
Point is, when looking at the numbers, there will be lots of simulated worlds and only one real world, making it more likely we're in one of the simulated ones. -
RockerJohnny — 9 years ago(May 25, 2016 07:13 AM)
However likely due to statistic theory if we look at what we got I think most can agree a better simulation could easily be achieved. To much imperfection and hardship here to argue that someone set it up just like so on purpose, then they must like to revel in our toiling and suffering. Why code in virus and diseases as an example?
-
dsliquid — 9 years ago(June 09, 2016 02:19 AM)
RockerJohnny: The viruses and diseases might just have evolved by itself, just like everything else. UNLESS of course they were coded in to keep the population low. Which would make a lot of sense. "Ooops, those humans are overpopulating the planet very quickly! Better introduce a disease to slow down the pace."
-
RockerJohnny — 9 years ago(June 09, 2016 03:15 AM)
If it is a simulation variables can just be changed. Why not then set the probability of conceiving a child to 1% and we'd have no overpopulation problems. Virus and bacteria is an important part of nature and such needed in a real world and their evolved cousins that cause severe afflictions are a "side effect". In a simulation however we wouldn't need these viruses and with a low prob of conceiving children we could beep around as we'd please. I mean if I made a simulation I make it awesome and pleasureable. If I'd make a new universe, logically founded reality i would understand the nred for viruses and evolution.
-
dsliquid — 9 years ago(June 09, 2016 10:49 AM)
RockerJohnny: Well, we don't know what the programmers/scientists want with their project! Maybe its point is to build a program that does evolution as efficiently as possible. Maybe it's about trying to make the inhabitants as intelligent as possible, while still not having them realize that they are artificial. In that case, maybe they introduce "believable" solutions to potential disasters, because if they just pressed the "let's have only 1% get pregnant", we humans would wonder what the heck is going on.
All just speculation of course.
-
RockerJohnny — 9 years ago(June 09, 2016 02:15 PM)
Damn your point is valid. I could argue against that of course but then we could go on like that, what if, what if, what if
I still believe this is "real" though, as in necessary and that our history will be remembered, still just a step on the way though towards creating heaven which is the real goal. I guess I believe that cause it makes the story better.
I believe in God myself. And I would have to argue why he set it up like this just as a scientist in control of a simulation. I reason it is cause a reality founded on logical relationships can be considered good. We ultimately like order, cause and effect. We don't like when things just happen out of the blue, as you say we would become skeptic and couldn't trust our own existence maybe? I reason a stable foundation is built from the ground up. From nothing to chaos, to order in galaxies and star systems, to life, to man, to culture, faith and love. Maybe God is restricted, maybe "this" is needed to foster emphatic understanding free spirited individuals. If we consider it as a simulation, a mere dream, that we later wake up in paradise from (which I believe we all will) I believe the dream was to teach us empathy and understanding. I really can't know the creators ultimate motives but I believe in what is good, love, evolution, progress and the written word that rings true in me. -
KingCobra686 — 9 years ago(July 25, 2016 06:10 PM)
Better is a very relative term. What if we actually are in a simulation and the true reality is that you are the last living creature in the universe who is on a spaceship slowly getting sucked into a black hole and living out your last few weeks living in a simulator and posting on IMDB? That would make things seem pretty good here.
Also, look at all the popular video games that sell well. Most involve a lot of action and exciting stuff that isnt very utopia like. -
bsharporflat-50959 — 9 years ago(May 26, 2016 05:32 AM)
Reasoning: There will always only be one real reality.
This is a false statement. It seems right to you, but it is only the opinion of a human mind. There is surely much that we don't know and even more that we can never know. We are trapped in the limited perspective of an evolved ape and can't go beyond that. -
spambag — 9 years ago(June 21, 2016 05:24 PM)
Yes, you are all living in a simulated reality - my reality. It only exists in my head and I made all of you up.
Sometimes I ask people if they like my reality, but I am just talking to myself anyhow and the answers make no sense.
If you are wondering what will happen when I die, my reality will go to the same place bubbles go when they pop.
When I first read this post I thought "I should have said that' but I already had. Again.
My reality has a lot of holes in it - sorry, I think it is because I was just made up in someone else's head and don't actually exist. -
ez_fx — 9 years ago(June 22, 2016 02:12 PM)
I don't think the Matrix deals with solipsism.