I love a series or book that makes me ask questions in particular philosophical questions and about what consciousness truly is. At present we are trying to map the human brain which will supposedly take up around 20,000 TB when complete. As a species, we want to answer the question who am I? With 2020 being such a mad year everyone having lots of time to overthink we are now into the start of 2021 and a documentary focusing on the simulation hypothesis has come out by director Rodney Ascher. The simulation hypothesis is an interesting idea. Computer games graphically are becoming more and more realistic and computing power is exponentially growing year on year. Video games and in particular RPG, MMO games let the player create avatars and play in a CG world. It’s a great way to kill time but computer game addiction is a real thing and with many people in the world being stuck inside due to covid more and more are logging in, their lives in lockdown giving them more and more reason to keep playing.
I’ve watched lots of videos and read books by the likes of Sam Harris & Michio Kaku RE Consciousness and simulation theory is interesting especially when you get down to a quantum level with entangled particles, only when you look at one can you know the position of the other (like the idea of Schrodinger's cat, is the cat dead or alive?) Anyway I’m no physicist but what I’m saying is the film provides absolutely no scientific evidence to back up the theory it relies on interviews with people about their experiences and reasoning behind why they believe the Matrix is real, using examples of mass shootings and joy rides (given in a stollen plane) to justify the theory but that’s the biggest problem for me, you need some kind of hard evidence whether that’s with experimentation or at least get some actual experts in instead of people that have written down some fictional ideas - dreams are not proof.
The one section I found interesting briefly flashed up was of the Mandella effect - I clearly remember in Snow White the phrase mirror mirror on the wall as opposed to ‘magic mirror’ but this was just an alteration in the Disney film when compared to the original book which my nan read to me as a child.
The film uses cheap CGI to glamourize the idea and with dramatic effect, tell the story of a mentally ill criminal, obsessed with the ‘Matrix’ film that shot both his parents in cold blood and with no further evidence of the simulation theory. The interviews had weird CGI over the interviewees to hide their identity (I assume to act as their ‘avatars’) but I found this distracting and generally the film felt like it was a shoddy attempt to discuss the topic of simulation theory to poor effect. I wasted £7.99 & 108 minutes on this. If you want some interesting watching/reading material on consciousness and simulation theory - that isn’t a glamourized pile of conspiracy theorists discussing their experiences of Déjà vu, check out the following:
Michio Kaku - The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond
Sam Harris - Waking Up: Searching for Spirituality Without Religion
