Dialectics: Reality and Simulation

      "What is 'real'. How do you define 'real'. If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain... Welcome to the desert of the 'real'." The Matrix's revolutionary leader Morpheus brings this brain convulsing question to mind. At which point does the world around us fail to differentiate the two: Reality and Simulation. When will humanity lose sight of reality and live in a world of simulation, of the unreal? Will our lives ever be the representations of a few lines of code? The fact is, we may never know. Our current reality may be a Matrix, the grandest of all simulations. By definition, the two may seem to be worlds apart, but they are more intertwined than you can ever imagine.

      Reality. It's definition comes as a simple answer to most of us. Most would say that something can be categorized as "real" when it can be observed by the senses, and sense can be made out of that something. However, there is more to reality than this simple definition.Take a stroll in a park for example. The wind feels cool against your skin, the grass sways as a result of that wind, the sun casts shadows in the ways that it should, your feet meet the ground firmly by each step you take. Everything in this picture is real. However, there is more to this picture than the observable things like the sun, wind, ground, and grass. Why do we assume that the grass will sway in the wind? Why do we expect our feet to hit the ground, and not fall through it? These ideas, although not necessarily tangible and "observable", they are as real as the wind and the sun. The same goes for the Matrix.

      In the frame of the movie, the Matrix exists, does it not? It is an actual world, created by the machines to harvest human energy. Here, people will most likely say, "Woah, hold up, the Matrix is a simulation, not an actual world." And to those people I say, "Shut up, you're wrong." If ideas can be entirely real, what is bound by the definition of real? Why are simulations excluded from this categorization? They shouldn't be. In the Matrix, Neo remembered eating some delectable noodles at some diner. But did Neo actually eat those noodles? Hell yeah he did. Sure he didn't eat those noodles outside of the Matrix, or outside of the simulation, but you would be wrong if you said that Neo did not really eat those noodles at all. He remembered eating them and he remembered how good they were because he stuffed those tasty noodles down his throat in the Matrix. Within the frame of the Matrix, he ate real noodles, and you cannot deny that reality. Therefore, the Matrix is an actual world; it is an extension of reality.

     At a glance, the terms Reality and Simulation may seem like antonyms, but they are not. To me, Simulations are merely another Reality. To me, there is no such thing as something that isn't real. Just because something does not exist, it should not be excluded from the all encompassing Reality. Hundreds of years ago, a computer seemed just as laughable as the possibility of a Matrix does now. And yes we may be in an a Matrix at this very moment, it is entirely possible and very real. At first these ideas and concepts blew my brain all over the floor, but since them I've recollected the pieces and accepted this truth. If I'm living in a simulation, it's one hell of a reality.