The Simulated Reality Hypothesis
The simulated reality hypothesis is a simple idea that says that we, and everything in the known universe, is currently living inside a computer simulation. This idea has been talked about by philosophers for centuries and even has some ties to religion. Sci-fi writers have been writing about simulated reality for years and we have seen it visualised on tv shows yet the idea that we may be living inside of a computer simulation is almost unknown to most people.
Perhaps one of the earliest forms of this hypothesis comes from the chinese philosopher Zhuangzi. In the 4th century Zhuangzi wrote one of his most famous stories called “Zhuang Zhou Dreams of Being a Butterfly” In it he wrote "Once upon a time, Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting about happily enjoying himself. He did not know that he was Zhou. Suddenly he awoke, and was palpably Zhou. He did not know whether he was Zhou, who had dreamed of being a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that he was Zhou. Now, there must be a difference between Zhou and the butterfly. This is called the transformation of things."
This is an important story because it brings up the problem that directly challenges reality. If you can tell the difference between being awake and being asleep then how can you tell if you are now dreaming or awake?
Buddhism and other eastern religions believe that existence is but an illusion. That reality is just a big dream. Perhaps these religions are right but didn’t have the technology available to describe a computer simulation at the time.
The idea that we are all living in a simulation was explored in the movie “The Matrix” where everyones brain was directly plugged into a computer and the only w...
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...rays work and we had never noticed before. That is why other tests are required to prove the hypothesis. Another such test would be to measure the magnetic properties of subatomic muon particles. Unfortunately even this would not prove we are living in a simulation. If we were living in a sufficiently advanced simulation that was built on a scale smaller than a planck length then it may be impossible to determine whether or not the reality we experience is real.
If we are living in a simulation perhaps that would explain some of the reasons why we find certain numbers and patterns in our reality. Such as the Fibonacci sequence, pi, the golden ratio, and the fact that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. To a skeptical mind all these things might suggest that the designer of a simulated reality took shortcuts and simply repeated some math to save time.
In chapter ten of the book “Problems from Philosophy”, by James Rachels, the author, the author discusses the possibilities of human beings living in an actually reality, or if we are just living in an illusion. Rachels guides us through concepts that try to determine wiether we are living in a world were our perception of reality is being challenged, or questioned. Rachels guides us through the topic of “Our Knowledge of the World around Us”, through the Vats and Demons, idealism, Descartes Theological Response, and direct vs. indirect realism.
This is idea is shown through Descartes’ Painter Analogy, where he states, “painters themselves, even when they study to represent sirens and satyrs by forms the most fantastic and extraordinary, cannot bestow upon them natures absolutely new…” (Descartes, Meditation I, para. 6). Basically what Descartes’ is saying is that the mind cannot create something entirely new, it must have some sort of memory or experience with whatever they are creating or thinking, even if it may seem abstract. For example, take the human face, which can be recreated during a dream. However, although the face might be entirely new to the dreamer, it is most definitely an amalgam of different faces they experienced while in a waking state. While the eyes, nose, mouth, face and hair may be from all different people put together on one face, the dreamer still had to experience each of those facets to have them in the dream. Experience is needed to dream, and even though we may not be sure if the information we receive is dreamt or experienced, there still has to be some base knowledge where a waking experience is required. While we cannot tell for sure if an individual moment is dreamt, we can say for sure that there is a state of waking, where we experience the world through a more truthful
"BR: In every sense we create our own reality, and this goes much further than most people aware of or are willing to admit. The reason most people can't see this is because everyone is creating their own reality, but 99.9% of them are creating the same one-using
...le to actually say its real. There are three reasons why we study Realism: (1) for the historical significance: (2) for its popularity as a commonsense, or naïve, way of knowing: (3) for its educational importance (Gutek, 2004). The reason we use realism in school is so that we can show the students the five senses and so they can actually have a first hand of what realism actually is. Even though we are thought this in school about things not being real we yet somehow always manage to make things up in our heads and actually make things appear real. One of the things that the schools have been doing for a very long time is something called “show and tell”. This is great for the younger kids to actually understand the concept of what show and tell is really all about because you actually involve the students and they can actually see all the five senses.
Matalon, Nadav. "The Riddle Of Dreams." Philosophical Psychology 24.4 (2011): 517-536. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
As a child, we are raised in an environment where we are taught that our experiences, senses and perceptions tell us that our world is real. Reality for every individual may be different as their experience of life will likely be different to every other person they know. In the perspective of one individual, they might use their senses and beliefs to conclude that the world they are living in is real. This person is living in a world that is real for them, despite the possibility that it is not the only reality that exists. For adults who have gained memories in one world they have known their whole lives, like Neo in The Matrix, it is almost impossible to accept the possibility of another reality. To be able to feel and understand the existence of the things around us through our senses is the closest humans can get to prove the reality of the world in which we live. The human mind is the most powerful thing we know and there is a possibility that it could convince itself of its experiences. When Neo re-enters the Matrix and is able to jump from one building to another, it indicates to him that he was in a false reality. It simply takes the power of Neo’s mind to resist gravity. Neo’s mind told him that he was in the Matrix when in fact his body was in the real world. His brain created an artificial experience. Morpheus mentions to Neo that if somebody dies within the Matrix, they will die in
Realism, in philosophical terms, refers to the concept that there is a reality beyond our perception. This means that how we see things and what we believe about them has no impact on the nature of said things. For example an individual may see an object as blue and another see the same object to be red, this is merely a disagreement between both parties about how they should label the colour. This wouldn’t mean that both parties are discussing different objects, this shows that no matter what individual’s beliefs or thoughts on the real world are only ever approximations and do not accurately capture reality. (O’Brien, M and Yar, M, 2008)
people reading or learning about this sort of topic. Reality is what is real or
With the advances in technology and the growth in understanding of the human brain, it seems that what was once thought to be only possible in science fiction could soon become reality. In the future, virtual reality will become more immersive and trick all your senses into believing the experience is real. Signals can be transmitted directly to a person’s brain which would allow them to see, hear or fell sensory input. This can be achieved through Brain-computer interface. (Grabianowski, n.d.).
Realism claims that what we can review about our surrounding is established in the fact that they absolutely exist. What we believe about gathered information is what we think about the actual world. It states that there is an actual world that assimilates directly with what we think about it.
exist in the real would in an attempt to represent the world of ideas. All of these aspects
Scientific realism states that our knowledge of an object is acquired by the ideas created from our experience of it, not from direct perceptions. Our ideas are not the object itself but a representation of it. The theory states that the world is of mind-independent objects (people, animals, trees, and etc.). It also states that we cannot directly perceive external objects. What we perceive are the copies of the representations of the external objects. Such as what we view on the television are copies of their remote causes (such as a concert or people on a playing field), so the images (who are visual, auditory, and etc.) that are occurring in the mind represent (or when things are not working, misrepresent) the external physical objects.
Wilson, R. A. (1990). Quantum Psychology: How Brain Software Programs You & Your World. Tempe: New Falcon.
In 2004–2005, the Penn Humanities Forum will focus on the topic of “Sleep and Dreams.” Proposals are invited from researchers in all humanistic fields concerned with representations of sleep, metaphors used to describe sleep, and sleep as a metaphor in itself. In addition, we solicit applications from those who study dreams, visions, and nightmares in art or in life, and the approaches taken to their interpretation. We also welcome proposals about the effects of dreaming on the dreamer, and the resulting emotions, behaviors, and actions taken or foregone in response to dreams. In this Forum on Sleep and Dreams, we will see how the diversity of academic disciplines can help answer important questions about sleep and dreaming—questions that may touch the basis of human intellect.
Of this type I experienced and wrote down 352 cases in the period between January 20, 1898, and December 26, 1912. In these lucid dreams the reintegration of the psychic functions is so complete that the sleeper remembers day-life and his own condition, reaches a state of perfect awareness, and is able to direct his attention, and to attempt different acts of free volition. Yet the sleep, as I am able confidently to state, is undisturbed, deep and refreshing. I obtained my first glimpse of this lucidity during sleep in June, 1897, in the following way. I dreamt that I was floating through a landscape with bare trees, knowing that it was April, and I remarked that the perspective of the branches and twigs changed quite naturally. Then I made the reflection, during sleep, that my fancy would never be able to invent or to make an image as intricate as the prospective movement of little twigs seen in floating