Taking the red pill

I’ve noticed, in recent discussions with my students about the potential future of virtual reality, that the “Matrix” question comes up rather frequently.

I mean, the question of whether there is any way to know if you are experiencing an excellent computer simulation of reality, rather than reality itself.

In the original film, Neo was given the choice of taking a blue pill or a red pill. If you take the blue pill, then you remain blissfully aware that you are living within an illusion. But if you take the red pill, then you end up waking up to the reality outside the emulation.

Which leads to the following question: It you suspect you are in the Matrix, and you really really want to take the red pill, what would be your best strategy to figure out whether the world you see around you is just a simulation?

I suspect the answer would have something to do with the topics I discussed yesterday. Some things are much much harder to emulate than others, so your best bet might be to figure out what is the most computationally expensive thing to emulate, and then test for flaws in that.

Then again, if there is an A.I. agent monitoring your experience, intent on keeping you on a blue pill diet, then it can simply warp your perception of whatever experiment you try to perform, thereby maintaining the illusion of a perfect emulation.

So maybe you would need to design an experiment that takes such an A.I. agent into account. Which might not be so easy. 🙂