The Matrix and Simulation Theory (Spoilers)

Spoiler Warning – Maybe wait until after we watch The Matrix to read this post.

I imagine that most people would view The Matrix as a dystopia. The world that Neo wakes up to when he escapes the Matrix certainly seems dystopian to our sensibilities. However, only a very small handful of people experience this world with the vast majority living out their lives contentedly within the Matrix. Is The Matrix then truly a dystopia if all but a few hundred people have an experience indiscernible from ours? Living in the Matrix is likely a superior option to the alternative for those who choose to do so. This alternative that I speak of is not the dystopian world that Neo wakes up too, as this is also likely a simulation—one to satisfy the small handful of people who are not satisfied by the experiences the Matrix has to provide and feel the need to fight against their reality. No, the alternative I am referring to is a future in which intelligent machines have made humans unemployable, and those people too restless to spend there days waited on by machines have opted instead to exist in the simulation indiscernible from reality that is the Matrix and the world Neo wakes up to. The Matrix is their utopia and they have chosen to live in it.

If all that sounded farfetched, you ain’t seen nothing yet—Some would suggest that we too are living in a simulation—our own chosen Utopia. The argument goes as follows: Do we imagine that eventually, we will develop the technology to create a simulation indiscernible from reality? I think the answer to that question is likely yes. It may happen 50 years from now, 500 years from now, or 5,000 years from now, but I think that eventually such a technology will be developed. Now, if we have developed a technology such as this, then we have likely also developed technologies that make all human labor obsolete leaving many people without a sense of purpose, and we may likely also be contending with over population. A logical solution to both of these problems would be to have a large fraction of the population live in simulation. People in a simulation indiscernible from reality wouldn’t care about what they eat or drink, so they can be fed in the most efficient way possible. Nor would they need to consume energy traveling around or feel the need to live in a large house. All of this would help to ease overpopulation while the world of the simulations was a place that they could find purpose. Those who imagine us to be in a simulation contend that inevitably, at some point in the future, a significant fraction of the population will be living in a simulation indistinguishable from reality. Inside of their simulation, a perfect replica of our universe, all of the factors that led to the construction of their simulation will lead to a construction of a simulation within that simulation. This process would continue indefinitely into the future, and, as those who believe us to be in a simulation, indefinitely into the past. Our reality, they would argue, is just one of a series of nested simulations—a simulation within a simulation that will eventually create within itself another simulation. I said earlier that this process of simulation begetting simulation would continue indefinitely into the past (or outward, or however you want to think about it). That’s not entirely true. Based on this simulation theory, if you emerge from sufficiently many simulations as Neo did from the Matrix, eventually you will find your self outside of any simulation—in base reality. Proponents of simulation theory think that there is a minuscule likelihood that our reality is base reality. What do you think?


-Alex