The Matrix may be reality

If this is truth, then it's certainly stranger than fiction. Or could our very existence be a fiction?

f you've ever thought life was actually a dream, take comfort. Some pretty distinguished scientists may agree with you. Philosophers have long questioned whether there is in fact a real world out there, or whether "reality" is just a figment of our imagination. Then along came the quantum physicists, who unveiled an Alice-in-Wonderland realm of atomic uncertainty, where particles can be waves and solid objects dissolve away into ghostly patterns of quantum energy. Now cosmologists have got in on the act, suggesting that what we perceive as the universe might in fact be nothing more than a gigantic simulation.

smh.com.au...

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."
I'm not very keen on the idea that I may be part of some virtual reality - but then, I'll never know for sure. At least, I hope I won't.

Reality is an illusion. From what I've read, all of life "out there" is just some wavelength that our minds decode to create our "reality". It's like a hologram, it requires light and your brain to see what's there.

Like David Icke says, if you think of everything as being inside your brain, it makes a big difference in the way you perceive your reality.

A quote from David Icke: Infinite love is the only truth; everything else is an illusion.

This isn't much more than Buddhist beliefs, really. Reality is an illusion. Satanists believe that, too.

I'm really happy for you guys being so cool with this idea. I must be missing something here, because at the moment, I find it rather disturbing.

Are you saying then that nothing is as it seems? What about science, education, religion, evolving & existing technology, to name but a few? OK, I'll concede religion - for all we know, this one COULD be regarded as theory, belief, & faith etc. But what about the rest?

If everything we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste are just electronic impulses in the brain then ... ??

Who's to say those impulses aren't being misinterpreted, spoofed, or ...

Bastet if you want wierd check out String Theory(or M-Theory)
www.pbs.org...
PS. Quicktime Media Player is Strongly suggested for this 3 hour free online PBS program

It's basically an attempt to unify Gravity(General Relativity) with Electromagnetism, Strong Nuke Force, and the Weak Nuke Force(Quantum Mechanics)

M-theory confirms what quantum hinted at. We live in an 11 dimension universe where everything that exist does so as a hologram, something projected from other dimension and given a false appearance. Our brain have learned to horribly misinterpret this universe as well.

For example, matter can never actually touch other matter, yet our brain and nerver cells feel "touch" even though its only electromagnetic repulsion. Cosmology studies galaxies and stars that are really only old light, bent by gravity, distorted, and just plain ancient. No one can say for sure our maps of known stars are in the right positions, only where we think the light came from.

We see solid things all the time, when in reality, even our own bodies are massive particle-waves made up of over 99% empty space.

So yes, we see a false world. However, now that we know this...what does it change? Unlike the Matrix from the the movies however, you can't leave this reality. This is how we see and interpret reality. Real things effect what we see, even if we see a distorted picture. So in the end, we know more... and nothing changed.

This is the best thread I have read on ATS yet. This is bloody mind boggling.

Matter can't touch matter, its just repulsion? Isn't air (Oxygen (O2)) matter? So we really aren't "breathing" just like the first matrix....lol what a trip

While i was reading the article i crossed this piece of text:

The one they have come up with is multiple universes, or "the multiverse". This theory says that what we have been calling "the universe" is nothing of the sort. Rather, it is an infinitesimal fragment of a much grander and more elaborate system in which our cosmic region, vast though it is, represents but a single bubble of space amid a countless number of other bubbles, or pocket universes.

That really scared me because i also come across a similair-text in a interview called Lacerta files(dont have a link sorry i am at work), only that interview is a bit bizar and dated from 2001 or even earlier, now how come it was allready known at that time?

btw. could somebody give a link to the document?

i have long accepted that what we define as reality is just an illusion. but at the same time it is also real on a certain level. so what makes it real? were the ones that makes it real. we make it real through our own beliefs and ideas. its all about balance in the universe. while everything is an illusion. at the same time everything is also real. if that makes any sense to ya.

I can't keep up with you scientific-type gurus here. As for matter, well I'm thoroughly confused, after reading an article by Wal Thurnbull, a physicist, who says Einstein's Theor5y of Relativity, y'know, E=m c[squared], is erroneously assumed by us ordinary mortals that mass = matter, and this Thurnbull says is not the case.

Oh, and he also says that a lot of science is HINDERED by scientific theory - in other words, that long-held theories are made to fit the facts. He goes on to propouns Velikovsky's "Electric Universe", which my further reading seems to show has been rejkected by modern science.

Too deep for me. I just want the comfort of knowing that I'm real, not some virtual entity in someone's computer game [or something like that.]

Reality is only what your brain is able to interpert. If you have lost the sense of smell then do all smells cease to exist? If you lose the sense of sight, does that mean that all things that someone else sees is just an illusion just because you can't see it? If you are blind, you can still walk into a very real wall and feel very real pain so that can't mean that the wall doesn't exist if you can't see it. It's like that famous question, "if a tree falls in the woods alone, does it make a sound?" How about the fact that no one even saw the tree, then does that tree even exist at all. How could it exist if your brain isn't there to process the senses necessary to make that tree real in your mind?

Scientist can knock you out and attach wires to your brain and make you feel things and experience senses that you are really not experiencing. So, just because you aren't touching a hot flame, but a scientist can make you feel extreme hot pain in your hand, does that mean that the pain is not real? Truly this is a very interesting and difficult topic.

Originally posted by Bastet
Too deep for me. I just want the comfort of knowing that I'm real, not some virtual entity in someone's computer game [or something like that.]

The "brain in a jar" idea used in matrix has no relation to the real world. We are not fed false information, but rather only see a small piece of the picture and interpret that piece in a poor way.

Imagine you are people in a painting, you see yourself and other and the scene around you, but in other dimensions you have the thickness of the paint, the canvass you are painted on, a frame, and a whole 3d world streching out. You are no less real, but in your little 2d world you miss the big picture.

What we see is our interpretation of the REAL world, its just a bad interpretation. We see whole 3d objects when the truth is we are surrounded by 10d wave-particles.

While you can't touch other matter, like the example of O2 from above, at some point you have to say that O2 is part of you and not "other" matter. For example, the O2 bonds to your blood cells and is carried to other cells and used to build molecules... is it then a part of you?

Remember, matter includes our bodies...NO matter actually touches other matter, only interacts with it through forces. This means your entire body are atoms that don't touch. A living cell is made up of billions of atoms none of which actually touch, they only are bound together by forces of chemical bonds. Then we are made up of billions of these cells. We are just a collection of wave-particles.

Some people say this is where a soul comes into play, once you start looking at our bodies as nothing more than a collection of wave particles with frresh atoms moving in and out of our bodies... however i have no problem believing we are just this matter...or rather the organization of matter. We are not the things we are made of, but rather the order they are in. We, our thoughts, our feelings, are information, that information is just stored in the same matter that makes up air, the earth, the stars.

While all this may indeed be true, it's nothing to get wireded out over. The reality that we see/know, is our reality and is real to us, to our senses. Isn't it neat think about though? Perhaps somewhere in the future, someone will come up with a way to use this, I have no idea how, for good or evil, who knows. What about a huge entertainment center somehow where "our" reality doesn't exist....

reality:

Love = phenylethylamine
Sight = We only see the past we never see the NOW. Even if just a millisecond, but it does take time for the light to reach our eyes. Technically we only see what has already happened.
Mind = is it a hologram? Check out the Holographic Universe. Great book that really makes you think.


Most everything is just electrical and chemical reactions... Break the human down to it essentials and we are just a bunch of atoms stuck together with chemicals zooming around. Reality is stranger than fiction..... If you get a chance, see the 13th floor... pretty cool movie. But, for all we know, we could be microbes floating in a river on a distant world. This whole reality could just be a moment in time.

Maybe this is just a one night dream in another reality or even dimension.

Fascinating stuff.

Regarding matter not being able to touch matter, this maybe true on an atomic level but as we're not conscious of this level in our everyday reactions then the electrical impulses caused each time you come into contact with other matter is in fact 'touch'.

At this level, the reality of the universe is basically just matter, anti-matter and void configured in different patterns and with different spacing.

At our level of comprehension, we see the overall patterns as gases, liquids, organics, minerals, etc, etc.

Both are reality but from very different perspectives at different ends of the obsverable scale within our dimension.

As for the matrix theory, I don't see that it makes any difference.

From my reading of the links posted earler in this thread (www.simulation-argument.com...) the theory depends on the theory of multiverses.

I.e, if the multiverse (an infinite number of universes) exists in which everything is possible, then a virtual reality universe must therefore exist somewhere.

Because the inhabitants of each 'real' universe could, in effect, make an inifinite number of virtual reality universes then there must be vastly more VR universes than real ones.

Therefore, statistically, any sentient being advanced enough to ask the question is much more likely to be an inhabitant of a VR universe than of a real one.

Therefore, our universe is much more likely to be a VR universe than a 'real' one.

However none of this alters our reality, it just provides an answer to the question: "What is our universe?".










[edit on 22-7-2004 by harrisjohns]

[edit on 22-7-2004 by harrisjohns]

[edit on 22-7-2004 by harrisjohns]

a milliinium of watching a blinking cursor on a black screen would be worse

I know this might not really may be relivant with this thread, but I once saw something that said that instead of reality being what we are told its meant to be, each person creates a different vision of reality for themselves, thus meaning what a person looks like to me, might look different to someone else. I guess thats where the saying beauty is in the eye of the beholder could come from. I guess its just another take on reality thats all.

Originally posted by harrisjohns


From my reading of the links posted earler in this thread (www.simulation-argument.com...) the theory depends on the theory of multiverses.

I.e, if the multiverse (an infinite number of universes) exists in which everything is possible, then a virtual reality universe must therefore exist somewhere.

Because the inhabitants of each 'real' universe could, in effect, make an inifinite number of virtual reality universes then there must be vastly more VR universes than real ones.

Therefore, statistically, any sentient being advanced enough to ask the question is much more likely to be an inhabitant of a VR universe than of a real one.

Therefore, our universe is much more likely to be a VR universe than a 'real' one.

However none of this alters our reality, it just provides an answer to the question: "What is our universe?".

If this is true, than of course I can't do anything about it. But I still find it disturbing even though I can't say why.

Up until now, the theory of our universe that perturbed me most, went something like this - it is known that we humans are each of us hosts to microscopic creatures that "graze" on our skin cells. And the hypothesis was that we in turn are infinitisemally microscopic creatures grazing on a "giant's" skin, which we believe to be both our universe & our deity.

Wow, fascinating stuff. I couldn�t read the article because I refuse to register, but the replies have been very interesting.

As far as the mechanics of a �Matrix Universe� is concerned, I have no idea. There are much better educated scientific types that could answer that question better that I.

The question I have always had is �so what?� These are the environmental stimuli that our brains are given and this is the coherent reality that they produce. Whether they are real or not seems to be a moot point. What matters is what we do with what we are given. The fact that my �real� body maybe floating in motor oil somewhere powering machines really makes no difference in my life today. I still have to get up and go to work to support myself or my body (both real and imaginary) will die.

Not that it isn�t a cool idea, but until Morpehus shows up offering me a red pill, it doesn�t make much difference.


EDIT - Is this the Lacerta file?
www.anomalous-images.com...


[edit on 7/22/04 by para]