Are We Living In a Simulation?
By Matěj Voda, November 2018
I first saw the movie Matrix when I was thirteen. Sitting on a couch with my siblings, I was frightened, questioning my very existence. Since then, The Matrix was one of my favourite movies. Many of you have probably seen this late 90s classic already, but for those who haven’t, here is a quick introduction.
So, in the movie, humans in a distant future create a new race of machines endowed with artificial intelligence. Quite unoriginally, machines turn against their masters. In its last effort to overcome the enemy, humankind destroys Earth’s atmosphere so that no sunlight can reach the solar-powered machines. Consequently, making the surface of the planet uninhabitable and forcing humans to live underground. Unfortunately for humans, the ingenious machines soon find an alternative power source – the human body. Machines then establish a sort of human agriculture, growing and harvesting the energy produced by human bodies. Human minds are jacked to a computer program called Matrix to prevent people from awakening petrified in an incredibly disgusting capsule filled with a strange liquid.
I am of course not claiming here that we are some power source for a very smart refrigerator. Instead, let’s contemplate the meaning of the word: simulation. Simulation could be defined as an imitation of the real-world process, operating over a period of time. In 1981, French philosopher Jean Baudrillard wrote a book called Simulacra and Simulation. In his writing, simulation is not run by a computer, but through a net of symbols and signs, which have been constructed by the media, the people around us or, broadly speaking, our culture. These symbols often do not represent reality anymore but sort of have a life of their own. They embody what Baudrillard calls Simulacra.
Baudrillard would ask who created those symbols, and who controls the tools we use to express ourselves. Throughout his analysis, he focused on the role of media in this process. Media and culture give us the building blocks we use to make sense of the world. Famously, Baudrillard wrote a series of three short essays about the Gulf War in 1991. These were called respectively: The Gulf War Will Not Take Place, The Gulf War Is Not Really Taking Place, and The Gulf War Did Not Take Place. In these essays, he shows how the Western experience of the Gulf War was just a simulation of reality, or in his words – a simulacrum. From the perspective of American media, the propaganda images of a quick and crushing victory with almost no casualties were completely disconnected from the real experience on the ground or the perspective of the Iraqi military. Baudrillard asks: was it really a war or instead an atrocity which masqueraded as war?
There is a link to be made between identity and simulacra. The main character of The Matrix – Neo – experiences a sense of identity crisis when he finds out that what he has previously perceived as reality was just a computer program. To Baudrillard, what we call a crisis of identity is a key feature of a post-modern society, caused by the absence of grand narratives like religion or nationalism for people to identify with. For many people, this void has been replaced by material consumption – constructing their identity based on which brands of clothing they wear, what music they listen to or which news they consume. In our society, social media have become one of the tools to express one’s identity. But do you really think that the story people project to the world through social networks is a true representation of who they really are? In many ways, your Instagram profile is also a simulacrum.
In contrast to Neo, most people will never question simulacra. There is something utterly disturbing about leaving our simulation. Just like in Matrix, the alternative usually sucks. In the movie, a character called Cypher sees the real world and understands that he lives in a simulation. Since then, he conspires with the machines, hoping that they will erase his memory and connect his mind back to the Matrix. In our postmodern world, Baudrillard would argue, most people are very comfortable in their social bubble, getting their daily dose of media coverage, further feeding their worldview. People are not victims of media conspiracy; instead, most people are happy to believe their oversimplified, rigid simulations.
Before leaving the Matrix, Morpheus offers Neo two pills. He can choose the red pill and leave the Matrix or the blue pill and continue living in blissful ignorance. Same as Neo, you stand here before a choice: you can take the red pill and try to look beyond your simulation or take the blue pill and be happy inside it. Either way, this is up to you to decide.
