JoeGoldfarb.com

Matrix-like virtual worlds “a few years away”

from newscientist:
“Are supercomputers on the verge of creating Matrix-style simulated realities? Michael McGuigan at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, thinks so. He says that virtual worlds realistic enough to be mistaken for the real thing are just a few years away.”
Research available on the arXiv preprint server (pdf)

The increasing power of computer technology capable of rendering life-like virtual reality is coming tantalizingly close.

What is real?

Once immersive virtual worlds are as realistic as this world, boundaries between what is real and what is not will become significantly blurred. Let’s ask ourselves: how do we currently define what is real? By our senses? Do you define a book as real because you can ascertain it’s qualities using all five senses? Then are the words on this webpage less real than the words in a physical book? One can only obtain a web pages qualities via one sense - sight. So does that make this web page any less real than a book? If yes, then I recommend you read Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. If no, then what is the process you go through to determine this website is as real as a physical book when only sense of perception is used? To take this future, how do you know I, the writer am as real as a physical book when you cannot even see me? .. or China? or Christ? What exactly is real? And how exactly do we define what is real?

photo by girlreporter

What this city is built on

The floor beneath us is far from solid. In material reality the floor is not what is appears to be. It consists of mostly empty space, sparsely filled with little atom balls which electrons whirl around at great speeds. Stepping on the floor is like stepping onto a swarm of ants. The solid quality of the surface is relayed from our feet and eyes to our brain via the electricity in the nervous system, of which minute electron particles make up.

A floor in a matrix-style virtual world is far from solid, even though it provides support for our virtual bodies. In reality, that virtual floor is not what is appears. It consists of mostly empty space, where the substance is substantiated by little electrons whirling about at great speeds. The solid quality of the virtual floor is relayed to our brain via electrons, likely emitted from a special helmet that sends electrical waves through our skull.

Is the virtual world an illusion?

A virtual world is made from the same electron particle that makes up this world, this webpage, and even you and I. We perceive and interact with the virtual world in the same manor as we perceive and interact with this world. If the virtual world is an illusion, then this world is also an illusion for both are made of the same substance and perceived via the same senses. The objects which particles build and the reality in which they inhabit are the illusions. The chair is not real. Instead, what is real is the function the chair provides, not the object itself. Similarly, the word “love” is not real. What matters is the connection the word implies.

Personally, I find this subjective viewpoint of reality where form is unreal yet function is real very empowering. This belief must be attached to the knowledge that I am real, as in my consciousness is real for this awareness raising potential of this viewpoint to be realized. This realization allows me to be the active agent in the creation of my own subjective reality. This allows me to decide what is good and bad, what I want in my life and what I don’t, along with the will power to fulfill these choices. I have met many people who had the courage to realize their potential and define their own personal reality for success and empowerment. Maybe this is this is the mental process they followed. Whether they know how the blooming of their mind and life occurred is largely irrelevant. The fact that they “made it” is what’s acknowledged. But I find the path, process and method equally as important.

May you realize your vision and power for action as well.