Is Our Reality Just a Simulation in The Matrix?

[HIGHLYTOXIC]

Can "The Matrix" be TRUE?

Hi guys,
I am a really big fan of Keanu Reaves and The Matrix Trilogy.

This question just came to my mind while I was watching the Matrix Revolutions.

CAN WE BE LIVING IN A WORLD WHICH IS DESCRIBED IN THE MOVIE? IF WE ARE, HOW DO WE KNOW WE ARE AND IF NOT, HOW DO WE KNOW THAT WE ARE'NT?

Just Curious to know what u guys speak...

 

[Dissident Dan]

Any fake world would inevitably have flaws (inconsistencies or "glitches", such as the deja vu cat). I have not seen any flaws in this world, so I think that it's pretty safe to say that we are living in the real deal.

 

[chroot]

A fake world doesn't necessarily have to have any flaws. There is no way to discover whether or not the world is "real," because there is no firm way of distinguishing "real" from "non-real." Bottom line: yes, of course, we could be living inside a Matrix.

- Warren

 

[Dissident Dan]

A fake world would be a mere representation. If you were to perfectly recreate a world, you'd have to make an exact copy, in which case it would be real. If the world is not an actual copy, calculations are needed to represent the world. Any calculations required to make a fake world would inevitably have an amount of error to them.

 

[chroot]

Originally posted by Dissident Dan
Any calculations required to make a fake world would inevitably have an amount of error to them.

You're just assuming that; it doesn't have to be true. In fact, it seems like a rather arbitrary assumption to me.

[mentor mode]
By the way, your signature is much, much too long. Please limit it to four lines or less.
[/mentor mode]

- Warren

 

[FZ+]

Of course the Matrix is wrong, for simple reasons of thermodynamics.

But regardless...

Any calculations required to make a fake world would inevitably have an amount of error to them.

An error from what? Presuming we do not have access to a comparison, we would accept the errors as a part of our existence. Magic is a fudge of an explanation - in more ways than we can imagine?

 

[Dissident Dan]

There are always limits to how much accuracy with which we can store numbers. Digital systems are limited by number of digits. Even some sort of analog system would have some sort of precision problem, especially given the HUP (if you consider the HUP relevant).

Also, is it possible to non-discretely model a complex system of interactions as would be necessary to model reality perfectly?

Maybe some people (a lot, actually) would accept or not notice the errors, but people would inevitably notice inconsistencies.

 

[chroot]

Originally posted by Dissident Dan
There are always limits to how much accuracy with which we can store numbers. Digital systems are limited by number of digits. Even some sort of analog system would have some sort of precision problem, especially given the HUP (if you consider the HUP relevant).

Quantum mechanics dictates that you don't need infinite precision to create such a simulation. The HUP itself could be evidence that we're inside a computer simulation!

However, you're missing the fact that even if our universe could not be simulated on a piece of computer hardware that we know about, it doesn't mean the universe couldn't be simulated on a piece of computer hardware we've yet to invent.

There simply is no way to rule out the possibility that our world is a simulation -- none at all.

- Warren

 

[Dissident Dan]

Firstly, a system is either digital or analog. It's pretty obvious that a digital system has precision problems. It's harder to prove that an analog system must have these problems, so I'll have to think about it for a while.

Does anyone know if it is (theoretically) possible to calculate interactions without taking discrete steps?

Finally, if something acts exactly as reality, what is the difference between that existence and reality?

 

[chroot]

It's not at all obvious that a digital simulation would have problems. You're making all kinds of invalid and arbitrary assumptions.

- Warren

 

[hypnagogue]

Even assuming there would be some inconsistencies that would inevitably be noticed, the computer system could always take ad hoc actions to ensure those inconsistencies never had a big impact on the populace. If need be, in principle the computers could rewire a person's brain to be conformist. Or simply have the person killed in a 'freak' accident.

But more to the point, as FZ said, even if people noticed such 'inevitable' inconsistencies and weren't 'corrected' by the computers, they would just try to accept and incorporate such inconsistencies as fundamental aspects of reality. Because as far as they know, the matrix is fundamental reality. Are you suggesting that if you open your drawer tomorrow and find black socks instead of your expected white socks, it will make you suspicious that you're living in a computer generated world that has just experienced a glitch?

 

[jammieg]

An important question is, what good does it do one to take on the view that reality as we know it is a grand illusion?
Even if one doesn't find the real matrix(I hope not), they are likely to not take things at appearance as much after seeing that movie.

 

[TENYEARS]

The movie is somewhat realistic, when I was young, very young I had an experience which would be similar to events which happened in the movie. I am saving it for a book or something I don't quite know yet. This particular event happened a few times in my life.

 

[hypnagogue]

Spill the beans! I promise I won't turn around and write your biography before you get a chance.

 

[darknite]

yeah! what did you do? Dodged bullets?

 

[Dissident Dan]

Originally posted by chroot
It's not at all obvious that a digital simulation would have problems. You're making all kinds of invalid and arbitrary assumptions.

A digital system has a finite number of digits. That means that there is necessarily a limit to the precision. A limit to precision means that there must be error.

 

[chroot]

Originally posted by Dissident Dan
A digital system has a finite number of digits. That means that there is necessarily a limit to the precision. A limit to precision means that there must be error.

And there is a similar limit to an analog system: the charge of the electron.

Besides, as I've already said, our universe does not seem to permit perfect precision anyway, as evidenced by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

- Warren

 

[TENYEARS]

No, I busted a dust collecting device and ate cookies. Just jokin, actually not really, but there is more.

 

[Dissident Dan]

Originally posted by chroot
And there is a similar limit to an analog system: the charge of the electron.

Besides, as I've already said, our universe does not seem to permit perfect precision anyway, as evidenced by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

- Warren

Well, the system of calculating wouldn't necessarily rely on electricity, so number of electrons may not necessarily be a limiting factor.

HUP dictates that we cannot know exactly what the momentum and velocity are. This may be due to the interactions necessary to measure and/or the non-point nature of actual matter. However, over a long time span, the error would make itself more and more obvious through an uncountable number of iterations.

 

[chroot]

More unsupported assumptions. And I should remind you that you're the one who said "a system is either analog or digital." Now you're trying to convince me there could be a system which is neither. Give it up.

- Warren

 

[Canute]

There do not have to be 'faults' in the phenomenal world just because it's an illusion. It isn't a copy of anything.

If there are any faults they would show up in metaphysics, since in the end, if the phenomenal world it is an illusion then it cannot be proved to be real. And guess what, that's just where the faults do show up.

The best essay on the Matrix I've found is here:
http://www.unomaha.edu/~wwwjrf/gnostic.htm (Titled - 'Wake Up! Gnosicism and Buddhism in the Matrix')

The authors point out that the Matrix is not metaphysically complete as a theory of illusion, since it never explores what lies behind the regress of illusions. The Matrix is an illusion, but equally so might be the world outside the Matrix. The film doesn't explore how profound the illusion might be.

 

[Dissident Dan]

Originally posted by chroot
More unsupported assumptions. And I should remind you that you're the one who said "a system is either analog or digital." Now you're trying to convince me there could be a system which is neither. Give it up.

- Warren

I must not have been clear in what digital and analog mean. They do not necessarily have anything to do with electricity. Analog and digital describe how information is coded, regardless of the medium.

Digital means that values are stored in digits. Each digit has a finite number of possibilites (base 10 has 10 possibilities), and there are a finite amount of digits.

Analog is that which is not digital. Perhaps you could somehow represent a value as the distance between two particles, for example. Of course, if you took that route, you'd have to replicate the universe in order to completely "calculate" it, and what you'd end up with is the actual universe, itself.

The finiteness of digital presents error in two ways. Firstly, not all numbers are representable in all bases, no matter how many digits. For example, you cannot represent 1/3 as a decimal in base-10. And there is also a limit to precision in the number of digits.

 

[ewoodlief]

Originally posted by chroot
It's not at all obvious that a digital simulation would have problems. You're making all kinds of invalid and arbitrary assumptions.

- Warren

Technically, a "digital" world would have precision errors if you classify a precision error as a situation where some quantity required more precise specificity. However, if reality were discrete and the precision of such a digital world were matched to that of reality, then any precision errors would go unnoticed and be irrelevant--which violates the above classification of a precision error in the first place and can no longer be considered as such. It seems to me that his assumption is on the discreteness of reality.

For the moment, I agree that we couldn't know whether or not this was the "real" reality (no pun intended.)

 

[chroot]

Originally posted by Dissident Dan
I must not have been clear in what digital and analog mean.

I understand entirely what you're saying. My response is that you're not clearly thinking about the consequences. First, there is no evidence that our universe really is continuous at all -- it is very possible that at the Planck length, space is discrete. If that's true, then you could certainly simulate our universe on a digital computer.

Like I said, you're making assumptions.

- Warren

 

[Dissident Dan]

Perhaps if our world is a simulation, space could be discrete. But if it is "real", then the idea of discrete space is nonsense. It would mean that infinite forces would be acting on objects as they instantaneously move from one discrete unit to another.

 

[hypnagogue]

Why infinite forces?

 

[ewoodlief]

Originally posted by Dissident Dan
...It would mean that infinite forces would be acting on objects as they instantaneously move from one discrete unit to another.

Gravitational influence is calculated from mass and distance. Distance is discrete only if space (the realm in which we measure distance) is discrete. In your above reasoning, you wrote "... move from one discrete unit to another" which is in direct conflict with "infinite forces".

So if space is discrete, then the forces which are distance dependent will also be discrete. If discrete space still seems nonsensical to you, could you please clarify what you mean?

 

[Canute]

By Chroot
I understand entirely what you're saying. My response is that you're not clearly thinking about the consequences. First, there is no evidence that our universe really is continuous at all -- it is very possible that at the Planck length, space is discrete. If that's true, then you could certainly simulate our universe on a digital computer.
- Warren

Aren't Zeno's paradoxes of motion pretty good evidence that spacetime is continuous? To me they seem to prove it.

 

[chroot]

Zeno's paradoxes are mathematical, not physical. Calculus solved them hundreds of years ago.

- Warren

 

[Canute]

That isn't actually the case. Continuous motion in quantised spacetime is as paradoxical an idea as ever. But I suppose it's a bit off topic.

 

[String Theorist]

Wuzzup peeps,

Nick Bostrom, PhD of the Philosophy Faculty, Oxford University, makes the case that we are living in a real matrix, see http://www.simulation-argument.com/ I have not read it as yet, but looks pretty cool.

 

[Dissident Dan]

Quantized space would mean infinite forces, because a particle would exist at one point for a given amount of time (having zero velocity while there), and then leap instantaneously to the next (infinite velocity), and then have zero velocity again as it stays at that point for some amount of time.

 

[hypnagogue]

You are just arguing here that instantaneous velocity is impossible, essentially a restatement of Zeno's arrow paradox (yup, Zeno again). If instantaneous velocity is a feasible concept in a continuum, why shouldn't it be a feasible concept in a quantized space as well?

 

[Canute]

Do you mean instantaneous travel or instantaneous acceleration to a velicity? Why is instantaneous travel implied by a spacetime being a continuum?

 

[hypnagogue]

I mean instantaneous velocity-- the notion that an object at a particular point in time has a velocity (and is not, as our intuition might tell us, at rest at each individual point in time). The notion of instantaneous velocity might be counter-intuitive, but it is necessary for solving Zeno's arrow paradox and, more importantly, has served as an extremely useful concept in physics.

 

[FZ+]

I wonder...

Perhaps NP-hard type problem can provide a way of dividing real from illusionary? Any computer simulation must take a finite processing time, whilst "reality" should act instanteously, with the observer subject to the same sort of time as the universe. With more complex situations, then, a matrix style computed universe should have time inconsistencies, rather like "bullet time"? Just an idea.

 

[hypnagogue]

There's no reason in principle why the computer couldn't correct itself to present the illusion of real-time computation, even if some of its computations took longer than they actually appeared to take. Suppose the computer takes 10 minutes of objective time to calculate an event that is supposed to occur over 1 minute in 'simulation time.' The computer could in principle stagger the time perception of the en-matrixed observor such that the 10 minute computation appears to unfold over the course of 1 minute, since it is known that subjective time dilation can occur in a human observor. In principle at least, then, it should be possible to systematically alter an observor's brain activity to produce the desired duration of time perception.

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by hypnagogue
I mean instantaneous velocity-- the notion that an object at a particular point in time has a velocity (and is not, as our intuition might tell us, at rest at each individual point in time). The notion of instantaneous velocity might be counter-intuitive, but it is necessary for solving Zeno's arrow paradox and, more importantly, has served as an extremely useful concept in physics. [/B]

Ah, I see what you mean. But if instaneous velocity assumes instants and points then I can't see how it can help get around Zeno's objections to quantised motion.

I like your computation idea, but managing differences in processing time between different event by altering individual perceptions of time seems like stretching things a bit.

 

[Dissident Dan]

Originally posted by hypnagogue
You are just arguing here that instantaneous velocity is impossible, essentially a restatement of Zeno's arrow paradox (yup, Zeno again). If instantaneous velocity is a feasible concept in a continuum, why shouldn't it be a feasible concept in a quantized space as well?

I am not argueing that, I am argueing that discrete space would necessarily mean non-continuous velocity, which would necessarily mean infinite acceleration.

 

[hypnagogue]

You're basing that claim on a mathematical method that was created with assumptions of continuity in mind. Perhaps in the limit the continuous model would not be a perfect representation of discrete reality?

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by hypnagogue
Perhaps in the limit the continuous model would not be a perfect representation of discrete reality? [/B]

Isn't that true by definition?

 

[BranMan]

I believe it can, however there would be no way to show that we are actually here. What can really prove it, maybe it is true? who knows...

 

[speso72]

Greetings,

Sort of like asking 'Why doesn't a game character know that it's a game character?'

Simply put, it all depends upon the game characters level of A.I. programming and preprogrammed knowledge. Do you program the characters level of A.I. around the programmed game world psychology and physics, or do you program it around our worlds psychology and physics? If you program an A.I. to simulate human's minds with human mental learning capabilities and then put it into a game world, then it would have the mental capabilities (the programming) needed to figure out that the game limits and game flaws are 'extremely bizarre puzzles that don't make much sense' for which the game characters would then dwell on and theorize on until they find a theory that best describes and explains it from their point of view - assuming that you (the programmer) don't intervene and give them 'special' knowledge of our world, which would then give them a basis of comparing their game world's psychology and physics to.

Plus, the amount of flaws and limits to the game world would depend upon the programmers knowledge, the programmers attention to detail, the limitations of the computer that the 'game' is programmed and running on, as well as each game character's level of A.I.

Also, just as games and programs go, when the cpu requires longer processing times (in your example of 10 minutes of real time processing = 1 minute of game time passage), the entire game lags and slows down effecting everything within the game simultaneously, so from the game character's points of view, they do not notice any time differences (sort of like when you are playing Diablo II and a lot of characters come into view, the entire game slows, characters and all). How game programmers reduce this lag time in real life in most 3D games is by making sacrifices - sacrifices in animation and graphics details, physics laws implemented, game world limitis, character's levels of a.i. and character capabilities.

If I myself had the necessary programming skills, psychology and physics understanding needed to create a game world that realistically and truly simulated both our world and the people in it, and the super duper computer needed to processes all of the necessary routines and functions fast enough for me to observe them in real time, and the time needed to write such a program, then yes, I would make it just out of curiosity (and entertainment).

Because of this, I would have to answer the original question 'Could we be living in a Matrix and just not know it?' as yes, I believe that it could be a possibility, however the memory and cpu processing requirements would be so extremely great that it is very unlikely that we are, simply because we (in this world) do not have the super duper computer needed to realistically simulate out world and everything in/on it in such fluidic detail for long lengths of time (long being longer than a few seconds), yet.

---------------------------------------

'Only you can live your life, and only your life you must live'

 

[Dissident Dan]

I was just thinking about something.

If consciousness signal are taken from the "real" world and implanted into "matrix" world, then there would be inexplicable changes in the world as the computing system reads your thoughts and inserts their effects into the matrix world like magic. If we could detect changes, which would probably be very hard, we could disprove the world's authenticity.
----------------------------
If all the people are actual people, and you are interacting in a causal manner with this world, what is the different, actual or effective, between such a world and the real world?

Couldn't you consider the whole universe as one big computer?

In order to do calculations to recreate a universe, wouldn't you need a calcuation system with at least as many objects as that which you are modelling?
---------------------------

Also, with the timing thing as it relates to not being able to compute stuff fast enough, if you were to slow people's thoughts down to compensate, then you'd have to slow everyone down at the same rate if each person isn't existing in a vaccuum.

 

[London Kngiths]

You would never know unless there was something from the outside that contacted the inside, much like the movie. Even if there were errors in the system that was created you wouldn't know of them as errors leading to a fake world, but as odd experiences. Then you could go out and say everything that we cannot explain is a glitch in a program.

 

[MacTech]

Originally posted by HIGHLYTOXIC
Hi guys,
I am a really big fan of Keanu Reaves and The Matrix Trilogy.

This question just came to my mind while I was watching the Matrix Revolutions.

CAN WE BE LIVING IN A WORLD WHICH IS DESCRIBED IN THE MOVIE? IF WE ARE, HOW DO WE KNOW WE ARE AND IF NOT, HOW DO WE KNOW THAT WE ARE'NT?

Just Curious to know what u guys speak...

I think really your question should be, should it matter if we are or are we not.

Reality is really the perception of reality and therefor doesn't have to be a real reality to have a state where ppl believe that it is reality.

imho

 

[FZ+]

Hello MacTech, haven't seen you in... ages...

You would never know unless there was something from the outside that contacted the inside, much like the movie.

Hypothetical question, then. When Neo "woke up", did he in fact wake up, or did he simply go to sleep? How can it be proven one way or the other? How would Neo know if Morpheus was in fact inviting him into the Matrix, into a world where his delusions can be satisfied?

 

[MacTech]

Originally posted by FZ+
Hello MacTech, haven't seen you in... ages...


Hypothetical question, then. When Neo "woke up", did he in fact wake up, or did he simply go to sleep? How can it be proven one way or the other? How would Neo know if Morpheus was in fact inviting him into the Matrix, into a world where his delusions can be satisfied?

*** WARNING ***

FZ+ = Agent of the system.

lol, I know I have been off of PF and elsewhere for a while but I'll try to come back again, hehe.

oh and about the matrix in general, There actually is no movie ever called the matrix it is just part of a mass dream and state of being in this computer driven world that is called the xirtam. Yep.

 

[Dissident Dan]

Originally posted by MacTech
I think really your question should be, should it matter if we are or are we not.

Reality is really the perception of reality and therefor doesn't have to be a real reality to have a state where ppl believe that it is reality.

imho

That's along the lines of what I said:

Originally posted by Dissident Dan
If all the people are actual people, and you are interacting in a causal manner with this world, what is the different, actual or effective, between such a world and the real world?

Couldn't you consider the whole universe as one big computer?

 

[Nice coder]

Can "the matrix" be true? Yes...
Would we know it? No...
Because the computer running it (probably distributed computing, like the grid)
Would detect a sizable amount of distortion (between a perfect simulation and its simulation, usually in small areas and only large enoough to be noticed)
And correct it (and possibly wipe all memory of it, by lowering the brainwaves of the person, more of the delta and theta waves, so that when they are concus again, (after a few seconds) they would never have the memory of the event (only a fraction of a second memory, while unconcious)

At most, they would think they have a memory problem.

You do not need to simulate more of the universe then is needed (just the earth, small calculations based on velocity (only on visible stars) and positions; not that much overhead involved)
For optimisation, if no-one is in the room, and nothing will happen there; it can be left out of most calculations; meaning less processor time needed, lowering the computer/person ratio.