Movie: A Glitch in the Matrix
- somekindofdruiddude
- Feb 6, 2021
- 8 min read
Updated: Feb 23, 2021
This movie sounded like it would be right up my alley: Philip K. Dick, parallel worlds, and the simulation hypothesis. But it focuses mostly on people who believe they are the focus of a simulated world. This idea has annoyed me since I was in the sixth grade.
There are remote interviews with several people. Some have written objectively about the idea of living in a simulated world. Others have subjectively embraced the idea.
Let's start by discussing the basic theory:
If computers continue to improve, we will have the ability to simulate realities. We already do, but their complexity and accuracy will eventually converge with that of our own universe.
Once we accept that, we have to ask: how many other planets has this happened on? How many of those planets have computers running simulations of universes? (And something this film leaves out: how many of those simulated universes contain planets with computers running simulations of universes?) The numbers quickly balloon into the billions (assuming any cultures can survive long enough to build simulations and not grow bored with them).
Given billions of simulated, digital universes for each original, analog universe, it's almost guaranteed that the universe we occupy is simulated.
In the sixth grade, I read a short story about a man who discovered that his life was a TV show. He caught a glimpse of a set moving, then started racing around to discover that everything was being done to deceive him. It was the plot of "The Truman Show".
I identified with this concept. I'd often felt like the only person in the universe, or so special and different that I must be the focus of it all. I spoke with my Dad about it and he said he identified with that, too, but warned against "solipsism". I looked that up and learned that this was not a new or uncommon idea. Indeed, it was an old idea that a lot of people seem to have when they are young, then grow out of it.
I became fascinated with thought experiments like "how do I know I'm not a brain in a jar being fed simulated inputs?" and "if Descartes proves his existence by thinking, how does he prove he is thinking?"
I realized that any effort to deceive my brain would either succeed or fail. If it succeeded, the simulation was so accurate that I might as well treat it as real. There would be no advantage to worrying about its "inauthenticity".
If the simulation failed, what would I do with that? Brains in jars don't climb out and wrestle their captors. Not usually. So I would be stuck in the jar, knowing I was in the jar, but with the added knowledge that my life was a fake. So I hoped the simulation, if there was one, never failed.
In high school I read Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions", where the protagonist reads a science fiction story that makes him think he is the only real person in the universe, the only person with free will, and everyone else is a robot. The protagonist then goes on a violent rampage. I took this as a clear warning: even if they are all robots, don't be a dick to them.
The movie is interspersed with clips from a lecture Philip K. Dick gave in 1977. It concerns his belief that there are multiple timelines and that he is able to sometimes remember events from other, parallel worlds.
In high school, I also read the "Schrödinger's Cat" trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson. It takes the Everett-Graham-Wheeler hypothesis as its foundation. EGW says every quantum waveforms don't really collapse, but spawn one universe for each possible outcome. The "Schrödinger's Cat" books take place in five of those universes, populated by the same characters with variations. It was a hoot, and made me think quantum physics might be a way to re-inject magic and meaning into the universe that science seemed to be cleansing of magic and meaning.
Years later, I read "Gödel, Escher, Bach", by Douglas Hofstadter. It's a wonderful book that squeezes magic and meaning out of the universe through reductionism. As part of his elegant discourse about strange loops and consciousness, he casually disproves free will. At least any kind of free will that would satisfy our desire for it.
Our brains are made of atoms. The atoms obey the laws of physics. We have the sensation of making choices, but making a different choice would require our brains to violate the laws of physics. Those laws say that what we do next is either deterministic (if classical physics apply) or random (if quantum effects are amplified). But neither option matches our subjective sense of "I could have done this other thing".
Later I read Daniel Dennett, who explains our subjective sense of free will as an important evolutionary advantage. We are constantly reviewing past actions and imagining changes. That's how we can get better at stuff quickly. Our ability to simulate these "what-if" scenarios in our brains gives us the feeling that we could have done something different in the past.
It's vital that we never stop pretending we have that power. Otherwise, we stop learning from our mistakes. But if you look under the covers, you can see we don't really have that power. Our future is either pre-determined or random. What we think can't change that because what we think is also pre-determined or random.
Also, if we use our objective lack of free will as an excuse to be dicks, like by going on violent rampage and whatnot, we really are dicks. No one else in this universe, simulated or not, deserves to suffer our dickishness.
I studied more quantum physics and discovered that, no, the magic and meaning it seemed to inject were just wishful thinking on the part of popular science writers.
Books that make life seem magical and meaningful sell because we are all narcissistic. We all want to be at the center of the universe. Subjectively, that feels like the way things ought to be. Our cosmology, philosophy and religion have long reflected that desire. The stars and planets used to orbit the Earth. We used to be the last things God created, and we were the reason for Him to create all of the other stuff. The universe was filled with love and purpose.
That's what I was taught when I was very young. It was comforting.
But the more humans learned about the universe around them, the less focused it was on them. Earth is just one planet out of hundreds of quintillions. We are just one species on this planet out of millions. Our universe might be one of some very large number of universes.
This doesn't sit well with the kind of nervous system evolution produced in humans. It drives some of us to crazy theories that would put the focus back on us: flat earth, QAnon, "The Matrix", creationism, etc. It drives others to cynically profit from this kink in human brains.
One of the interviewees in this film became convinced he was living in a simulation like "The Matrix". To break out of it, he decided to kill his parents. It wasn't just his belief that the world was inauthentic that led to this decision - he was also abused by his parents and bullied at school. The belief that murder wasn't really murder, though, probably made murder more likely.
His view (and that of several of the other interviewees) is not just that this universe is simulated. They also believe there are "real" people "playing" them in the universe that hosts this one. This was the part of "The Matrix" I found disappointing (and dangerous) all those years ago. Neo isn't just a brain in a jar, he's a hero in a vat being used as a battery! The focus really is on him! He really is special! He is the chosen one and has a mission to free everyone from the meaningless, non-magical existence foisted on us by Them!
I accept that I'm probably a simulation, but I don't imagine anyone is playing me in another universe. I'm just a by-product of the simulation, like everything else in here. I'm not that important. I'm a non-player character. I doubt any humans are being controlled by beings outside our universe. None of us are that important. My current guess is that something is running simulations of different possible universes, starting with different laws of physics. There are so many constants to tweak that the temptation to tweak them would be overpowering. I imagine our universe is probably running much faster than the host universe, so fast that any entities out there would view us as blips.
If they cared to look.
Some of the interviewees describe their desire to communicate with the entities in the host universe. One describes flashing lights that they could "see" somehow. One describes how sad it would be if our simulated universe was running in some discarded tech, sitting in a trash can.
The saddest outcome for them is that we don't matter.
Several of the interviewees in the film describe their confidence that when they die the simulation will end and they will learn "the truth". They will wake up in a video game arcade and put another quarter in. They are all very important and can't really imagine ending.
I do not believe this. I think of myself much like a wave moving through water. When a wave moves across the ocean, it does not bring the water with it. The water is constantly replaced. Likewise, most of the atoms in my body are replaced every year.
What happens to me when I die will be similar to what happens to the energy of a wave when it reaches the beach. I will lose coherence. My energy will dissipate. My material will be available for other reactions.
The movie attempts to link the simulation hypothesis to Plato's theory of Forms. That's the one where we know a horse is a horse because there is some perfect, ideal horse in a higher dimension, and all of our imperfect horses are shadows of that perfect horse, projected on a cave wall we are all unable to look away from.
The theory of Forms is dualism. My early religion taught dualism: that this world is owned by Satan. It's false and imperfect, and should be shunned. The real world is the spirit world, the place we are going as soon as we can die (without suicide!) while accepting Jesus Christ as our savior.
The theory of Forms is also an inversion of truth, like phlogiston theory. We don't know a horse is a horse because there is an ideal horse in a higher dimension. We know a horse is a horse because our neurons build connections that create categories for horses. The ideal horse is inside each of our brains.
Dualism is poison. It tells us that this world doesn't matter, but another world does. It excuses awful behavior. It strips experience of flavor. It distracts us from existence. It is worse than nihilism.
I'm not sure how this movie could have been more satisfying to me. The probability that we live in a simulation is ultimately useless information. We can't escape it. We can't step sideways into another simulation. Either the simulation is good, and we can never know, or it is bad, and we are doomed to know.
I read an interview with an ex-QAnon follower last week. She said her faith in God ultimately led her to break away from the cult. She worried that she was putting Trump above God. Her need for meaning transferred from Q back to her religion.
I lost my belief in gods, spirits and souls way back in high school. I feel like nihilism (and materialism, monism, determinism, fatalism) inoculates me against all of these dangerous ideas that promise to put me at the center of the universe. I'm convinced I don't matter to anything outside this universe. I matter to my family and friends inside this universe. I matter to the people I help or hurt. The fact that none of them have any bigger purpose doesn't change that.
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