Skepticism And The Matrix

The Matrix gave people a new version of this age-old simulation theory. What if, instead of us being virtual humans in virtual reality, we’re instead real humans living in virtual reality. With VR technology reaching new heights towards the late nineties, people started to see this as a real possibility. What if the reason that they question their realities is that they are humans who are living in a false version of the real world, one based on an idyllic past. After the release of the film, hundreds of new ideas about real people living in a simulated reality have been brought to the page and screen. Most of these involve the masterminds become a more advanced version of the human race, who use this reality as a testing area. There have been numerous cases of murders and suicides arising from the film and its related works, so many that there is an actual legal term known as The Matrix Defense.

In 2003, as a response to the panic left in the wake of the film, Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom, one of the top 100 global thinkers in the world, published his educated response. While lengthy and detailed, it can be dumbed down to three simple rules. Bostrom posits that one of the following must be true;

1. The human civilization will go extinct before achieving the required technology.
2. A posthuman society will most likely not want to run the simulation.
3. If the following are untrue than all of society must be living in a simulation.

When narrowed down to three options, all that is left is to argue them one by one, until there comes one that cannot be disputed. In response to the first point, it is very likely that humanity has already developed technology sufficient enough to achieve this task, and if not, likely will within the next few decades. The second is the most flimsy of arguments, in saying that advanced beings will be uninterested in the simulation. In the movie, this problem is easily resolved, as the reason that the Matrix exists is to keep humans docile, while the machines use them for energy.

So, when examined thoroughly, it would seem that the most likely scenario would, in fact, be the third. While the idea of reality being false has existed since the dawn of man, it was not until after The Matrix that the theory gained traction. The film opened the door for many to hypothesize about whether life as they knew it was even real, or whether it was all a simulation. When presented with Nick Bostrom’s three fundamental rules on the simulation, it becomes evident that the idea of a simulated reality is not only possible but perhaps even probable.