What if Morpheus lied to Neo and we’re not in the “Desert of the Real” and we haven’t been this whole time?! Are you freaking out yet?
If you belong to the Millennial Generation, you probably remember that guy who lived in the dorm next to you whose self-made religion was based on the tenets of the Matrix Trilogy. He believed our entire reality was a non-metaphorical computer program designed from the future. It was a belief that, of course, did NOT result from his deep depression that anime girls weren’t real.
Turns out, despite his overuse of the word “simulacra”, he may have been right.
Researchers at the University of Washington are testing to see whether it is possible to decipher if our existence is real or if our sense of reality actually exists within a version of cyberspace. Physicist Martin Savage theorizes that there may be elements in our universe that possibly indicate we are, in fact, living in a world that our descendents programmed for us.
“… if humans did develop enough time to perform numerical simulations of ourselves and we didn’t nuke ourselves before getting there then it’s more than likely we are a numerical simulation of ourselves,” states Savage.
What? Did your brain melt yet? If not, Savage also hypothesizes the idea that future people also may have programmed more than one simulated universe.
That or he guessed the ending of Fringe.
According to Savage, our descendents (I’m just going to call them Observers) possibly decided that they wanted to see how humanity has evolved. As a result, they created a computer simulation to study human development. It is this simulation that just may be the basis of our entire existence.
MyNorthwest.com states that Dr. Savage has begun designing a preliminary test to find indications that our entire existence is actually a virtual reality wherein we, ourselves, ponder if our existence is actually a virtual reality.
To quote Neo’s infamous epithet:
“Whoa…”
The article doesn’t go into detail about what these tests are, but if it doesn’t involve instantly knowing kung-fu, I’m going to be thoroughly disappointed.
