Evidence We Live in a Simulation

In the 1999 film The Matrix, Thomas Anderson (a.k.a. Neo) discovers a truth to end all truths—the universe is a simulation. While this premise provides fantastic sci-fi fodder (and explains how Neo can learn kung-fu in about five seconds), the idea isn’t quite as carefully relegated to the fiction section as one might expect.

University of Portsmouth scientist Melvin Vopson, who studies the possibility that the universe might indeed be a digital facsimile, leans into the cinematic comparison. In an article published on website The Conversation this past October, Vopson invoked the Wachowskis’ sci-fi masterpiece, and around the same time, he published a book on the subject—Reality Reloaded, a subtle hat tip to the title of the less successful Matrix sequel. While he is just one among many who’ve contemplated the idea, Vopson claims to have one thing that those before him lacked: evidence.                READ MORE...

The Metaverse

Silicon Valley has been anticipating virtual reality for more than three decades, and keeps running into the same problem: people mostly like actual reality

Maybe this will be my Paul Krugman moment. The Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist was famously the winner of a study to establish which op-ed commentator was most consistently correct. 

In 1998, he also famously claimed, “By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.” 

I am not nearly so storied in accomplishments as Krugman. But I do make my living offering predictions and forecasts. 

So I might as well say it: I predict that the metaverse won’t happen.

The “metaverse,” for those who don’t know, is a still-mostly-hypothetical virtual world accessed by special virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technology. 

The idea is to create a sort of next-level Internet overlaid on our physical world. People plugged into the metaverse exist in our physical world like everyone else but can see and interact with things that others can’t. 

Think The Matrix or the Star Trek Holodeck or the Fortnite-esque brandscapes of Ready Player One.  READ MORE

Overlooked Matrix Themes

The Matrix is a 1999 American science fiction action film written and directed by the Wachowskis.  It depicts a dystopian future in which humanity is unknowingly trapped inside a simulated reality, the Matrix, created by intelligent machines to distract humans while using their bodies as an energy source.  When computer programmer Thomas Anderson, under the hacker alias "Neo", uncovers the truth, he "is drawn into a rebellion against the machines" along with other people who have been freed from the Matrix.

The Matrix is an example of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction.  The Wachowskis' approach to action scenes was influenced by Japanese animation and martial arts films, and the film's use of fight choreographers and wire fu techniques from Hong Kong action cinema influenced subsequent Hollywood action film productions. 

The film popularized a visual effect known as "bullet time", in which the heightened perception of certain characters is represented by allowing the action within a shot to progress in slow-motion while the camera appears to move through the scene at normal speed, allowing the sped-up movements of certain characters to be perceived normally

THEMES:

1. Freedom
2. Free Will
3. Positive Thinking
4. Belief in One's self
5. God as the Matrix Architect
6. Oracle as the intuitive soul
7. Neo as savior Jesus

The special effects of the trilogy of movies overshadowed most of the themes that the movies could have explored but did not, leaving the viewers to simply be amused and amazed and if thoughtful enough explore the deeper meanings that the movie was also trying to convey.  These themes were lost and we as an audience collectively abandoned all of the controversial themes in lieu of being entertained.