It's just an illusion, the experts say. 

30 July 2002
Gold Coast Bulletin
19 

IT may seem as far-fetched as science fiction can get, but The Matrix might 
be uncomfortably close to the truth, it's been claimed. 

Just like Keanu Reeves in the hit movie, we could all be living inside a 
computer simulation. 

If so, says one expert, you had better be careful not to get yourself deleted. 

The idea sounds insane. But Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Yale University 
in the US, has done the calculations. His conclusion is that our lives could 
be programs developed by a post-human society living in what we think of as 
the future. 

He is not the only one to take the theory seriously. Robin Hanson, from 
George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, goes further and says the way 
we come across to our 'creator' might determine whether we live or die. 

In a paper submitted to the journal Mind, Bostrom outlines how he reached 
his conclusion. He argues that if it becomes possible to mimic 
consciousness, the future can only lead one of three ways. 

First, an extinction event might wipe us out before it is achieved, in which 
case there is no need to worry. Real life is real life. 

Second, future humans won't be interested in running simulations, or there 
may be laws against it. 

But the most likely outcome is that humans will one day simulate 
consciousness and then go on to simulate universes for it to live in. 

If that is true, the chances are it has already happened and we are living 
in one. 

It has been suggested simulating a mind with a computer program would take 
about 10 to the power of 14 operations per second. While that may seem a 
tall order, such technology could be available by the end of the century. 

Of course, we may be part of the pre-simulation real world or 'original 
history', he says. But given how many simulations there will be, the odds 
are stacked against it. 

Evidence we live in a program may be seen in the strange world of quantum 
particles, a report in New Scientist magazine suggests. 

A simulated universe, while having to be convincing on the large scale, 
would not need to fill in every microscopic detail. 

It might be possible to get away with odd irregularities at the level of 
atoms and electrons. A conscious 'program' looking at these bizarre features 
would be tempted to accept them as 'just the way things are'. That is 
exactly how most scientists view what goes on at quantum scales. 

According to Bostrom, we should simply accept the situation and live life 
normally. 

But Hanson says if your life is a computer simulation, you should do 
everything possible to avoid being deleted. The first step is to work out 
the purpose of the simulation. 

If it is for entertainment purposes, you should be funny, outrageous, sexy, 
violent, strange, pathetic and heroic. If the simulation is for the creator 
to participate in, then it makes sense to 'suck up to celebrities'. 

On the other hand, if the creator is playing God and dishing out rewards and 
punishments for behavior, one should try to live a blameless life. 

Hanson, an economist, warns that it will not do for everyone to realize they 
are in a simulation. 

If that happened the whole model would start to look staged, and the creator 
would be likely to pull the plug. For that reason, says Hanson, keep the 
secret to yourself and just a few friends. 

But Bostrom believes such advice is useless because it is almost impossible 
to work out what our world is for. 

"We don't have direct access to how the simulators have set it up," he said. 
"The least misleading advice would be to just get on with your business as 
you would have done before."