Are you actually reading this blog? Or is it just a construct in your mind? Dr. Nick Bostrom, of Oxford University explains... kind of.
First, the straightforward part. It's easily established that taking a pill can alter your perception of reality (just ask most people on a welfare benefit). Likewise, we know that the human body is capable of sustaining life while unconscious (sleep) and that during that time the brain is alert and suggestible (dreams). So far, so Matrix.
Take that tangent just one skew further though, and the potential is uncannily similiar to the classic sci-fi dystopia. "It might be possible to develop more effective ways of directing our dreams," says Dr. Nick Bostrom. "I think that once we have real artificial intelligence, it will soon thereafter be possible to create completely realistic simulations of human life. However, [the way we will interact with AI], will be done not by hooking up the human brain to lots of electrodes, but rather by 'uploading' a human brain. Life as an upload could be completely indistinguishable from your current life."
But it's not happening, right? Computer generated reality would be all weird, would 'beep' a lot and could well involve a paperclip asking us if we were writing a letter all the time, surely? "No," affirms Dr. Bostrom. "It could look exactly as the world currently looks to you."
So, AI could go on to think for itself? "Fundamentally, it does not matter whether cognition is implemented in carbon-based chemistry, as in our brains, or in silicone-based electronic systems. The net result would be exactly the same."
So, Dr. Bostrom, are we currently living in The Matrix? "A probablistic argument that I discovered, the simulation argument, shows that not only is it possible, but we should take the possibility very seriously indeed." Which only leaves one question... "Is there a spoon?" If we are in a simulation, then it would be appropriate to interpret the statement 'there is a spoon' as saying that our simulation contains a simulation of a spoon. So yes, either way you look at it, there is a spoon.
POSTSCRIPT
I walked into Briscoes the other day and told the girl at the check-out, "There is no spoon." "Don't worry sir," she said to me, "we can have some more spoons here by Monday."!!!
Labels: Matrix
