Is the Matrix real?

 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/11/simulated-world-elon-musk-the-matrix

Is the Matrix real? This is another interesting scientific study. Some scientists have hypothesized that we might be living in a simulation.

Something to get you thinking is the argument related to probability. As our ability to recreate the human brain and artificial intelligence increases the quantity of this technology we will create. Shortly we might get to the point where the amount of simulated realties and A.I.s surpass the amount of what we consider “real” realities when this happens the probability of being in a simulation becomes higher then not being in a simulation.

There are individuals who argue against and for the idea of a simulated Universe. Is this allowed? Are people allowed to question science?

Direct Quotes

A swath of technologists and physicists believe that ‘simulation theory’ will be proved, just as it was proved that the Earth was not the center of the universe

When Elon Musk isn’t outlining plans to use his massive rocket to leave a decaying Planet Earth and colonize Mars, he sometimes talks about his belief that Earth isn’t even real and we probably live in a computer simulation.

“There’s a billion to one chance we’re living in base reality,” he said at a conference in June.

According to this week’s New Yorker profile of Y Combinator venture capitalist Sam Altman, there are two tech billionaires secretly engaging scientists to work on breaking us out of the simulation. But what does this mean? And what evidence is there that we are, in fact, living in The Matrix?

Oxford University’s Nick Bostrom in 2003 (although the idea dates back as far as the 17th-century philosopher René Descartes). In a paper titled “Are You Living In a Simulation?”, Bostrom suggested that members of an advanced “posthuman” civilization with vast computing power might choose to run simulations of their ancestors in the universe.

This argument is extrapolated from observing current trends in technology, including the rise of virtual reality and efforts to map the human brain.

If we believe that there is nothing supernatural about what causes consciousness and it’s merely the product of a very complex architecture in the human brain, we’ll be able to reproduce it. “Soon there will be nothing technical standing in the way to making machines that have their own consciousness,” said Rich Terrile, a scientist at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

It’s a view shared by Terrile. “If one progresses at the current rate of technology a few decades into the future, very quickly we will be a society where there are artificial entities living in simulations that are much more abundant than human beings.”

Reasons to believe that the universe is a simulation include the fact that it behaves mathematically and is broken up into pieces (subatomic particles) like a pixelated video game. “Even things that we think of as continuous – time, energy, space, volume – all have a finite limit to their size. If that’s the case, then our universe is both computable and finite. Those properties allow the universe to be simulated,” Terrile said.

“Quite frankly, if we are not living in a simulation, it is an extraordinarily unlikely circumstance,” he added.

Not everyone is so convinced by the hypothesis. “Is it logically possible that we are in a simulation? Yes. Are we probably in a simulation? I would say no,” said Max Tegmark, a professor of physics at MIT.

Harvard theoretical physicist Lisa Randall is even more skeptical. “I don’t see that there’s really an argument for it,” she said. “There’s no real evidence.”

“It’s also a lot of hubris to think we would be what ended up being simulated.”

“For decades it’s been a problem. Scientists have bent over backwards to eliminate the idea that we need a conscious observer. Maybe the real solution is you do need a conscious entity like a conscious player of a video game,” he said.

For Tegmark, this doesn’t make sense. “We have a lot of problems in physics and we can’t blame our failure to solve them on simulation.”

First, it provides a scientific basis for some kind of afterlife or larger domain of reality above our world. “You don’t need a miracle, faith or anything special to believe it. It comes naturally out of the laws of physics,” he said. Second, it means we will soon have the same ability to create our own simulations.

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