Is It Real>?

Message Edited by deviljonny on 06.15.2006 05:15 AM

Message Edited by FlaminMathew1 on 06.15.2006 01:28 PM

As Morpheus said in the movie ‘The Matrix’ we define ‘real’ as what we see feel hear touch… and that they are all electrical impulses. It is entirely possible we may only think that it is the year 2006 where in reality it could well be 3012 and we are being kept in human ‘farms’ It can be possible that we are being fed into a ‘Matrix’ not THE matrix we have seen in the films.

The Matrix presents a version of an old philosophical fable: the brain in a vat. A disembodied brain is floating in a vat, inside a scientist's laboratory. The scientist has arranged that the brain will be stimulated with the same sort of inputs that a normal embodied brain receives. To do this, the brain is connected to a giant computer simulation of a world. The simulation determines which inputs the brain receives. When the brain produces outputs, these are fed back into the simulation. The internal state of the brain is just like that of a normal brain, despite the fact that it lacks a body. From the brain's point of view, things seem very much as they seem to you and me.

The brain is massively deluded, it seems. It has all sorts of false beliefs about the world. It believes that it has a body, but it has no body. It believes that it is walking outside in the sunlight, but in fact it is inside a dark lab. It believes it is one place, when in fact it may be somewhere quite different. Perhaps it thinks it is in Tucson, when it is actually in Australia, or even in outer space.

Neo's situation at the beginning of The Matrix is something like this. He thinks that he lives in a city, he thinks that he has hair, he thinks it is 1999, and he thinks that it is sunny outside. In reality, he is floating in space, he has no hair, the year is around 2199, and the world has been darkened by war. There are a few small differences from the vat scenario above: Neo's brain is located in a body, and the computer simulation is controlled by machines rather than by a scientist. But the essential details are much the same. In effect, Neo is a brain in a vat.

Let's say that a matrix (lower-case "m") is an artificially-designed computer simulation of a world. So the Matrix in the movie is one example of a matrix. And let's say that someone is envatted, or that they are in a matrix, if they have a cognitive system which receives its inputs from and sends its outputs to a matrix. Then the brain at the beginning is envatted, and so is Neo.

When the possibility of a matrix is raised, a question immediately follows. How do I know that I am not in a matrix? After all, there could be a brain in a vat structured exactly like my brain, hooked up to a matrix, with experiences indistinguishable from those I am having now. From the inside, there is no way to tell for sure that I am not in the situation of the brain in a vat. So it seems that there is no way to know for sure that I am not in a matrix.

Let us call the hypothesis that I am in a matrix and have always been in a matrix the Matrix Hypothesis. Equivalently, the Matrix Hypothesis says that I am envatted and have always been envatted. This is not quite equivalent to the hypothesis that I am in the Matrix, as the Matrix is just one specific version of a matrix. And for now, I will ignore the complication that people sometimes travel back and forth between the Matrix and the external world. These issues aside, we can think of the Matrix Hypothesis informally as saying that I am in the same sort of situation as people who have always been in the Matrix.

The Matrix Hypothesis threatens to undercut almost everything I know. It seems to be a sceptical hypothesis: a hypothesis that I cannot rule out, and one that would falsify most of my beliefs if it were true. Where there is a sceptical hypothesis, it looks like none of these beliefs count as genuine knowledge. Of course the beliefs might be true — I might be lucky, and not be envatted — but I can't rule out the possibility that they are false. So a sceptical hypothesis leads to skepticism about these beliefs: I believe these things, but I do not know them.

To sum up the reasoning: I don't know that I'm not in a matrix. If I'm in a matrix, I'm probably not in Tucson. So if I don't know that I'm not in a matrix, then I don't know that I'm in Tucson. The same goes for almost everything else I think I know about the external world.

Pfft, Free your mind, to be honest what if the matrix  was just like a documentary trying to make us realise the truth. what about the goverment covering things up, (( ie machines doing))

Its very Possbile

Random thought, what if this thread is deleted by mistake cos were steping on the truth

Message Edited by FlaminMathew1 on 06.15.200601:53 PM

Message Edited by FlaminMathew1 on 06.15.2006 01:54 PM

Message Edited by Katala on 06.15.2006 02:28 PM

Message Edited by Katala on 06.15.2006 02:30 PM

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Katala wrote:
/sigh

No, it's not real, now go play outside in the sunshine.

:smileyindifferent:

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This is exactly what the Wachowski Brothers had in mind when they made the movies. This thread, right here.

This thread is all that is the goal of the Wachowski Bros. Clearly, they have succeeded.

This thread.....IS  the Matrix.

It is not necessary to have a computer simulated environment in order for humanity to be enslaved.  You can be a slave to all kinds of things with very minimal effort.  The Matrix is just a cool story to get you to think along those lines.

"What is MY Matrix?"

"What kind of prison is MY mind in?"

The sooner you ask these kinds of questions, the sooner you'll be on the path to truth.  Probably no Trinity in store for you though, sorry.

The reason the Matrix is so interesting is because there is NO way to disprove any theory you have involving the matrix. This is why religion plays such a big role in the movies. In all honesty, the Matrix is false perception. There is NO way to prove that you arent in a computer simulated program made to look and feel like real life. If a simulation is good enough, there is no real way to tell it apart from the real. Think of it this way...I'm sure a lot of people have played the sims before....

Now when you play the sims, you give them personalities which in turn effect their "lives"...now look at yourself....you were created by something at some point in time. You didnt just appear out of thin air....man was created...just like we "created" our sims...we are just on another level. So yeah, us being in a matrix is a possibility, but so are a lot of other things. For all you know, your entire life could be a dream that you are waiting to wake up from. This might be one big dream...and any second now, your gunna wake up and forget all about it. Its like dark city, if someone came and erased your memory ever day and put you into a new life with a new set of memories...would you ever notice? you might be sitting there right now, with a ton of memories from your life...that NEVER happened, your memories could have just been placed there. You could have been a homosexual prostitute last night, and you wouldnt even remember right now.. how scary is that? lol

• A - The universe we inhabit is real and as it appears to be.
  
  
• B - The universe we inhabit is an elaborate and perfect computer simulation of another world created by a race of self aware machines who have enslaved the human race.
  
  
• C - The universe we inhabit is the subconscious projection of a super-being or deity and we ourselves are only parts of this dream and do not actually exist.
  
  
• D - The entire universe we inhabit is in fact a subatomic particle (such as a neutron or quark) of an atom of a much large universe which in itself is a subatomic particle of a much large universe... ad infinitum
  
  
• E - You are insane or in a state of coma and the entire universe as you know it is infact being played out inside you head.

Message Edited by Katala on 06.16.2006 01:45 PM