Hmm.. Does your life seem fake?

[Theocrat]

I know that it's a 'what if' question.
But what do you think about this theory?

http://www.simulation-argument.com/

I know! I know! you are gonna say "The Matrix". But i wonder if there where other writers with these ideas before the matrix hit the silver screen?

[Dead-Air]

Re: Hmm.. Does your life seem fake?

I know! I know! you are gonna say "The Matrix". But i wonder if there where other writers with these ideas before the matrix hit the silver screen?

Well, yeah! We've talked plenty about those themes throughout this board after all. Phillip K Dick comes immediately to mind and he even pre-dates Cyberpunk. He makes me wonder about those type of things way more than The Matrix ever did. I don't feel much like a simulation, but sometimes I do feel rather like a hallucination.

[manmiles]

Sometimes, I feel out of synch with the rest of the world.

[Usheen]

I know! I know! you are gonna say "The Matrix". But i wonder if there where other writers with these ideas before the matrix hit the silver screen?

Plato's Analogy of the Cave (5th century BC) and Descartes Meditations (17th century) come to mind

Descarte:

I will suppose, then, that not almighty God, the source of truth, but rather some evil spirit, one that is at once exceedingly potent and cunning, has set all of his industry to deceiving me. I will imagine that sky, air, earth, colors, figures, sounds, and all external things are nothing other than the mockeries of dreams, by means of which this being seduces my credulity. I will consider myself not to have hands, eyes, flesh, blood, or any of the senses, and to have falsely believed that I have these. I will remain resolutely fixed in this meditation, and thus, if indeed it not be in my power to recognize some part of what is true, I will at least, with strengthened mind, beware of what is in me, so that I do not assent to what is false, and so that that demon, however powerful and however cunning he be, not be able to impose anything on me.

Nothing new under the sun comes to mind ....
:roll:

[Paul]

See Baudrillard - "Simulacra and Simulation".

But as stated, its an idea that has been around since ancient Greece, mainly from Socrates discussion of forms (remember, Plato never says :)).

[Michael Moorcock]

I know when I saw The Matrix it struck me that there was nothing much new about those ideas and they had been familiar to sf at least from the fifties. Phil Dick, of course, was one of the writers asking if, as it were, we were all figments of someone else's dreams and that we were dreaming the same someone else. I also seem to recall the later work of John Cowper Powys had similar themes. Hesse ?

[Theocrat]

I know when I saw The Matrix it struck me that there was nothing much new about those ideas and they had been familiar to sf at least from the fifties. Phil Dick, of course, was one of the writers asking if, as it were, we were all figments of someone else's dreams and that we were dreaming the same someone else.

So can one say that P. Dick was an existentialist writer?
Or at least an adherent to the philosophical direction of existentialism.
I've never read any work of his. But i seem to hear both praise and woe as well as mixed critic when it comes to the writer in question...
What are your views of the writers work that everybody seems so enclined to make a movie out of, as mostly a vague interpretation of it?

And one could say that the P. Dick name has a sort of commercialism involved to it. As other script writers are so inclined to reiterate.

[Dead-Air]

PKD certainly could be called an existentialist, but I wouldn't limit him to any one school of thought. He's certainly worthy of high praise, though some of his writing moreso than other portions. I'd reccomend Valis for the standard you are seeking, though I've enjoyed even some of his one off contractual novels. He's always digging in the high concepts even where he doesn't bother with fleshing out his characters and retreads one of his own plots.'

The Matrix borrowed more directly from William Gibson I think, c.f. Neuromancer, though the whole is it a simulation or reality stems most directly from Dick. The Greek philosophers notwithstanding, I think those points are well made and am not disputing them. There's supposed to be a Neuromancer film in the near future, and it will be ironic how many people will call it a Matrix rip off!

[D_alien]

Well if mine isn't real all I can say is whoever thought of it isn't very imaginitive :lol:

[HawkLord]

I hope the worlds real! Na, I'm pretty sure of it.

[mordenkainen]

I hope the worlds real!

What difference does it make? It is real even if it is a simulation.

[Pietro_Mercurios]

A Midsummer's Fugue (1990)

And, if one morning one should wake up and discover, during the course of an unpleasantly warm day, that the World had really been destroyed in a nuclear holocaust and that everything has actually been reconstructed digitally, by unknown agents, from the last few seconds of time, before the bombs started dropping, don't worry. All that's giving the computer generated Virtual Reality World away is the fact that the scene you're experiencing occasionally pixilates as the programme falters.

Don't worry, it's probably just a hallucination, or teething problems. 8O

[McTalbayne]

No, my life seems extremely real.

I know right. TOO real sometimes.

[DeeCrowSeer]

And you may find yourself in another part of the world... and you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile... and you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife... and you may ask yourself - well, how did I get here?

And you may ask yourself, how do I work this? And you may ask yourself, where is that large automobile? And you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful house! And you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful wife!

Sorry, I just had stuck that in my head... needed to get it out. But no, my life seems mighty real at the moment, thanks for asking. :)

[Dead-Air]

Actually Everquest seems "incredibly real" compared to Zork.