The 1999 science fiction movie The Matrix paints an interesting picture of the reality of our surrounding environment. Or rather, perceived reality. The main protagonist – aptly named Neo – discovers that what he thinks is real, is only his imagination. He lives in an artificial world created by machines, which use humans as an energy source. Most humans (un)willingly accept this world, but a group of renegades led by the – again aptly named – Morpheus has found a way to escape to the real world, where they rebel against the machines.
Nothing new there, I guess – the movie was a major success. It (unfortunately) resulted in several spinoffs, recently re-introduced mobile phones (the Nokia 8110 – https://www.nokia.com/en_int/phones/nokia-8110-4g), sunglasses – even though the original ones were handmade by cult label Blinde, which no longer produces anything, several shops still sell look-alike frames – and of course bullet time, which is now available for you to record yourself with the help of a handy selfie stick attachment (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at-tkCISupU).
Twenty years later
Forward nearly twenty years and the Matrix might just be falling apart, if you are to believe some of our world’s more influential inhabitants. Let’s look at these years chronologically.
Ever since the Matrix was released, philosophers, writers and scientists have researched its theoretical possibility. It is a known fact, however, that the Waschowski brothers (directing the movie) loosely based their movie on philosophical work, such as Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation from 1981. Or Hilary Putnam’s Brains in a Vat. Or the metaphysics from Descartes. But even Plato describes a Matrix-like world in The Republic, somewhere around 380BC. A fixed starting point for a chronological view is therefore quite hard to find. Let us first step back to 1993, because this is when humans and machines are first described in a intertwining context.
Vernor Vinge
In 1993, author and computer scientist Vernor Vinge wrote an essay entitled “The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era”. In it, he states: Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended. The end of the human era (or rather the convergence of the technological and human era) is called Singularity.
Ray Kurzweil
Fast forward to 1999, when author and futurist Ray Kurzweil in his book The Age of Spiritual Machines predicts that in 2020, computers will be as smart as humans – more specifically the human brain. In 2100, Singularity will happen and machines will be an inedible part of society. Anything we currently consider human will become entirely virtual.
Nick Bostrom
A few years later, in 2003, the question on what happens when posthumanity is reached is a central theme in the work of Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom. In his philosophical paper “Are you living in a computer simulation” (https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html), Bostrom argues that at least one of three propositions is true:
1. The human species goes extinct before reaching a posthuman stage;
2. A posthuman species is unlikely to run simulations of their history;
3. We are already living in a simulation.
He then presents a mathematical model which researches all three propositions. One of the last sentences in the paper serves as a good conclusion: “Unless we are now living in a simulation, our descendants will almost certainly never run an ancestor-simulation.” Bostrom assigns a 20% probability to being in a simulation (quoted on https://www.simulation-argument.com/).
John D. Barrow
In 2007, in his paper Living in a Simulated Universe cosmologist and mathematician John D. Barrow suggests that an emulated universe needs patching and that a simulation of everything is unnecessarily expensive in terms of computing power, which possibly means that corners were cut and we should be able to witness these: If the simulators used error-correcting computer codes to guard against the fallibility of their simulations as a whole (as well as simulating them on a smaller scale in our genetic code) then every so often a correction would take place to the state or the laws governing the simulation. Mysterious sudden changes would occur that would appear to contravene the very laws of Nature that the simulated scientists were in the habit of observing and predicting.
Seth Lloyd
In 2010, Seth Lloyd, a professor in mechanical engineering and physics (who calls himself the quantum mechanic) states that the universe is a giant quantum computer, computing itself. He talks about it in this video from the University of Waterloo’s Institute for Quantum Computing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh8QfKVcvFA
Silas Beane
Nuclear physicist Silas Beane states: So if you ask the question: do we live in the one true reality or in one of the many simulations?’, the answer, statistically speaking, is that we’re more likely to be living in a simulation. In a 2012 article named Constrains on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation (https://arxiv.org/abs/1210.1847), which attempts to show how we can observe the fact that our universe is in fact simulated, by measuring high energy particles.
In 2005, Beane already talked about this in a talk at the SET institute, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtPX1XPmIsg
Elon Musk
In 2016, tech enterpreneur Elon Musk suggested that we are most likely living in a computer simulation, as reported by British newspaper the Independent (https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/elon-musk-ai-artificial-intelligence-computer-simulation-gaming-virtual-reality-a7060941.html).
Also see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0KHiiTtt4w. This shows that the theory is becoming more mainstream, to say the least.
James Gates
In 2016, theoretical physicist James Gates published that he found error-correcting codes when studying quarks and electrons. A report of a debate on the topic – with proponents and opponents – can be found here: https://www.space.com/32543-universe-a-simulation-asimov-debate.html
Stephen Hawking
Last week, author, physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking died. A few years ago, he famously stated: One day there may well be proof of multiple universes … and in that universe Zayn is still in One Direction. Hawking was convinced there is not one, but an unlimited number of universes. In this clip from Discovery Channel, Hawking does talk the Matrix, however: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUX6pfXRCLA.
A little bit too far fetched: David Chalmers referenced by Adam Gopnik
In an article in the New Yorker in 2017, Adam Gopnik writes: And so both of these bizarre events [the Trump election and La La Land accidentally receiving the Oscar] put one in mind of a simple but arresting thesis: that we are living in the Matrix, and something has gone wrong with the controllers.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/did-the-oscars-just-prove-that-we-are-living-in-a-computer-simulation. He references philosopher and professor of neural science David Chalmers, but the latter never said such a thing. In his paper The Virtual and the Real (http://consc.net/papers/virtual.pdf) he does state this: I will defend the opposite view: virtual reality is a sort of genuine reality, virtual objects are real objects, and what goes on in virtual reality is truly real.
Pretty much on its way to Mars and beyond: Marty Wollner (discflickerDotcom)
Marty Wollner, also known as Youtube user disckflickerDotcom has the following to say: I have a design for a simulator the I call TheTruth-machine. In it, I specifically state that Seth LLoyd and a guy named Dave Cutler (designer of VMS and NT operating systems) are the only two who can pull this off. To fit our own Universe size data base into space right here on earth, programmatic optimizations must be implemented, as well as having a huge storage unit to hold the lists of particles + waveforms, and a massively parallel array of plank-level cpu-s each /w huge qbit arrays.
http://spikersystems.com/FlashNet_Pointer/www/projects/Martys_World/MartysMessageToTheWorld.htm
Where does that leave us
The last paper that Hawking worked on before his death is called A Smooth Exit from Eternal Inflation (https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.07702), which attempts to provide a testable scientific framework for the concept of a multiverse. The model reduces the alleged infinite number of multiverses to a finite one, which in turn allows it to be tested – probably in due time. At least then we know if there are parallel universes, but are they controlled by one supercomputer? How knows.