You may have seen the classic Hollywood blockbuster film The Matrix, in which artificial intelligence (AI) enslaves humans so that our body heat can power its computers. It may sound like science fiction, but a physics professor says we may be living in a Matrix-style simulation.
Melvin Wopsen, an associate professor of physics at the University of Portsmouth in the UK, believes that a series of everyday clues suggest that the world is not what it seems.
He also raised a hypothetical and philosophical question in this regard: if we are living in a virtual simulation, what is its purpose?
Speaking to the Mail Online, he outlined three theories, including that an advanced AI chose to be our characters in the world when we were all born.
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Professor Wopsen told the Mail Online that ‘all of these scenarios operate under the control of a master AI, which is certainly created with a view to the future of human civilisation’.
‘It is possible that no one is awake now and we are trapped in an artificial reality, which is controlled by AI,’ he said.
This so-called ‘simulation theory’ is also popular with figures including Elon Musk, who has said that we are living in a ‘primary reality’ that is ‘one in a billion’ unlike the real universe.
Professor Wopsen, whose research focuses on experimental and theoretical studies of applied and fundamental physics, stresses that all three scenarios are speculation and not backed by scientific research.
But some of his research at the University of Portsmouth has suggested that the entire universe is an artificial construct or a giant computer.
The first theory is that we chose to enter the simulation at birth purely as a form of entertainment to keep our minds entertained and occupied. The real world we left behind is not particularly interesting, so humans created a much more exciting, fabricated, life-like computer simulation, the ultimate VR game.
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Professor Wopson told the Mail Online that ‘we created the simulation as a place of entertainment where we could choose to enter (at birth) and experience a whole new life with all its components.
He said that as far as the question of us having the ability at birth to decide to enter the simulation, it is possible that our consciousness had already made this choice before birth.
The second theory is that the simulation helps humans as a whole to ‘learn something’ that can provide a solution to a real-world problem.
According to this so-called guinea pig theory, we may all be unintentionally trapped inside a simulation for the long-term benefit of humanity.
‘Imagine our society has a complex problem to solve – environmental, economic, energy crises, wars,’ Professor Wopson told the Mail Online.
‘If we have the ability, the best way to solve it would be to run a simulation (or multiple parallel simulations) and see what solution the simulated version of us comes up with.’
‘If any simulation solves the problem, we can adopt it as a viable solution in the mainstream.’
Finally, he proposed a ‘near-immortality’ or ‘Narnia’ theory, according to which time in the real world moves much faster than in simulated time.
For example, a minute in the real world could last 100 years in a simulation, while an average 80-year life in the real world could be the equivalent of 4.2 billion years.
By choosing to live in a simulation, we could experience multiple lifetimes and essentially achieve immortality.
Time works in a similar way when we dream, according to Wopsen.
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‘In a dream, the events we experience can appear to last minutes, hours or days, but in a real conscious state the dream actually lasts for fractions of seconds.’
Professor Wopsen has already given hints that suggest we live in an artificial reality. The fact is that there are limits to how fast light and sound can travel, for example, they can be controlled by the speed of a computer processor. And he says that the laws of physics that govern the universe are also analogous to computer code.
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