We Probably Live in a Programmed Reality Says Jim Elvidge
_Featured_, Science Sunday, December 5th, 2010
Evidence suggests that we live in a programmed reality like The Matrix, says author Jim Elvidge.
Earlier this week on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory, Jim Elvidge, author of The Universe – Solved!, said that his book presents compelling evidence that it is “definitely possible, and actually very probable” that our world is a computer simulation that is controlled by a program. The phrase “programmed reality” was coined way back in 1977 by a science fiction writer named Phillip K. Dick, who said, “We are living in a computer programmed reality.” The basic idea is that everything we interact with and everything that we see could be generated by some sort of computational mechanism.
After Dick in 1977, there have been others that have postulated that reality is not what we think it is. In 1999, there were several movies about our reality being a simulation of sorts, including The Matrix and The Thirteenth Floor. In 2003, Nick Bostrum, a professor at Oxford University, wrote a white paper on the subject called “The Simulation Argument.” The concept has gone from science fiction to pulp culture and into academia.
Elvidge’s main argument for a programmed reality is that our technology is very close to creating one now. So, how do we know we are not already in one? When you examine where we are going now in terms of video games, virtual reality, simulations, and brain-computer interfaces – all of these things are possible within 20-30 years. In fact, the way technology is advancing, Elvidge believes that “it will happen sooner rather than later that we will be able to create a completely different reality that is indistinguishable from what we think as real reality.”
Further reading:
The Simulation Argument website
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Posted by Ross Pittman
on Dec 5 2010. Filed under _Featured_, Science.
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