Reality and/or Virtuality

Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?

Queen's questions have driven many an sf story. The love-it-or-hate-it blog io9 offers a dozen fine examples of (un?)successful attempts to escape from a virtual environment in two posts: the first six and then the second six. Take a look. What'd they miss?

The most recent film I've seen that blurs the boundaries between reality and fantasy is Charlie Kaufman's wonderfully eccentric Synecdoche, New York. You wouldn't classify it as science fiction, although it's decidedly speculative! And it doesn't use the idea of a virtual reality at all. In fact, the film's characters aren't ever wrestling with the question of whether what's happening to them is real or not. No, it's the viewers who must grapple with that one. And I still haven't figured it out. If you have, let me know.

Philosophically, this kind of story raises lots of questions. The main metaphysical question is what it is for something to be real. In The Matrix films, for example, we gradually move from thinking that the Matrix is an unreal deception to seeing it as simply another part of reality. We do call it virtual reality, after all! For an intriguing treatment of this issue, see David Chalmers's "The Matrix as Metaphysics."

More familiar is the epistemological question: how do we know what's real and what's not? Or, better, how do we know we aren't being deceived about our surroundings? After all, I could be perfectly aware that I'm in a virtual world, or I could be deceived into believing I'm in a virtual world when I'm not. Christopher Grau gives an elementary account of these issues, Matrix-style with clips, here and here.

Finally, and perhaps most interestingly, we might wonder with Jim Pryor "What's So Bad About Living in the Matrix?" Why do most sf stories depict a virtual reality as a prison or a trap or a trick? What precisely would be missing in a virtual existence? As more and more of our lives happen digitally, this question may become increasingly important.

Are you a Sim?

After watching The Matrix, a lot of us enjoy flirting with the idea that we might be in some kind of simulation. Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom suggests that this shouldn't be a mere flirtation. He argues that the odds that you are right now living in a computer simulation are pretty good. There's a website dedicated to the presentation and discussion of "the simulation argument." A short version of it can be found here.

Essentially, Bostrom argues that one of the following three claims must be true:

1. Almost all civilisations at our level of development become extinct before becoming technologically mature.

2. The fraction of technologically mature civilisations that are interested in creating ancestor simulations is almost zero.

3. You are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.

To the extent that you're inclined to think that 1 and 2 are false, then, you'd be justified in thinking that 3 is true.

Or, to put it another way, if a civilization advances to the point where they're capable of providing simulated environments, and if that civilization is interested in running simulations of the past (ancestor simulations), then there will be many people living in such simulations. And if the set of persons contains a significant number of people in simulations, there's at least some significant probability that you are such a person!

It's not an easy argument to assess. What do you think?

sf humor--The Matrix

We often poke fun at what we love, whether it's a friend or a film. In that spirit, enjoy the following. Or complain that they aren't that funny. Either way.

How it should have ended. These folks have done similar endings for other films, most of which are worth watching...

Chappelle's spoof on The Matrix

Go here to watch "The Meatrix" and its sequels. I'm not sure about all that black leather being used in an animal advocacy compaign...

The Matrix Runs on Windows

The MTV awards spoof

Got any more? Post 'em in the comments section....

Epistemology in The Matrix

For a long time philosophers have looked to science fiction as a source of fruitful examples for thinking about life's big issues. And plenty of good science fiction is inspired by philosophical ideas. As Robert J. Sawyer puts it, "I think a better name for most ambitious science fiction is ‘philosophical fiction.’"

The success of The Matrix in 1999 helped to bring this confluence of philosophy and science fiction to the attention of the wider public. I know of at least four books that explore the philosophy of the Matrix trilogy of films.

Chapter 2 of Mark Rowlands's book Sci-Phi: Philosophy from Socrates to Schwarzenegger focuses on the epistemological issues raised by the Wachowski brothers' film. For the uninitiated, an epistemological issue is one that concerns knowledge. What epistemological questions did this film leave with you? Does the film try to answer these questions? How does Rowlands's chapter help you think about all this? Do you disagree with him anywhere?

The Real World?

The Matrix offers us a virtual world full of people who don't realize the nature of their environment. According to at least some physicists, our actual world may be more like the Matrix world in certain respects! See this article in New Scientist. Hat tip to io9. Some of the essays on the Philosophy section of The Matrix website also explore the similarities and differences between the world of the Matrix and "the real world."