Universe A Matrix Computer Game Designed By Aliens, Say NASA

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British philosopher Nick Bostrom says he believes that the reality we perceive around us may be the product of a highly-advanced computer program, much like the plot of the Matrix movies – and surprisingly NASA have said they agree with him. 

Dr Bostrom proposed in a paper he wrote that an evolved race of aliens have imprisoned the human-race in what he refers to as a “digital imprisonment”.

These aliens, or super-humans, are using virtual reality to simulate space and time, according to Bostrom

NASA scientist Rich Terrile, director of the Centre for Evolutionary Computation and Automated Design at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, thinks Dr Bostrom may be onto something.

Speaking to Vice the NASA scientist said, “Right now the fastest NASA supercomputers are cranking away at about double the speed of the human brain …If you make a simple calculation using Moore’s Law [which roughly claims computers double in power every two years], you’ll find that these supercomputers, inside of a decade, will have the ability to compute an entire human lifetime of 80 years – including every thought ever conceived during that lifetime – in the span of a month.”

Express.co.uk reports:

“In quantum mechanics, particles do not have a definite state unless they’re being observed.

“Many theorists have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how you explain this.

“One explanation is that we’re living within a simulation, seeing what we need to see when we need to see it.

“What I find inspiring is that, even if we are in a simulation or many orders of magnitude down in levels of simulation, somewhere along the line something escaped the primordial ooze to become us and to result in simulations that made us – and that’s cool.”

The idea that our Universe is a fiction generated by computer code solves a number of inconsistencies and mysteries about the cosmos.

The first is the Fermi Paradox – proposed by physicist Enrico Fermi during the 1960s – which highlights the contradiction between the apparent high probability of extraterrestrial civilisations within our ever-expanding universe and humanity’s lack of contact with, or lack of evidence for, these alien colonies.

“Where is everybody?” Mr Fermi asked.

It could simply be that Earth and mankind truly is the centre of the universe.

Another mystery explained by Dr Bostrom’s Matrix-like theory is the role of Dark Matter.

US theoretical cosmologist Michael Turner has called the hypothetical material “the most profound mystery in all of science”.

Dark Matter is one of many hypothetical materials used to explain a number of anomalies in the Standard Model – the all-encompassing theory science has used to explain the particles and forces of nature for the last 50 years.

The Standard Model of particle physics tells us that there are 17 fundamental particles which make up atomic matter.

The Higgs boson, which was first theorised by scientists during the 1960s, is amongst these 17 fundamental particles.

In summer 2012, scientists at CERN observed what is now believed to be the elusive “God particle”.

But the Standard Model is as-yet unable to explain a number of baffling properties of the universe – including the fact that the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing speed.

Dark Matter is believed to be a web-like matter that binds visible matter together.

If it exists, it would explain why galaxies spin at the speed they do – something which remains unexplained based only on what we can currently observe.

The Standard Model does not yet hold an explanation for the force of gravity.

The as-yet unproven existence of Dark Matter could be explained by a virtual universe.

But not everybody is convinced about The Matrix explanation.

Professor Peter Millican, who teaches philosophy and computer science at Oxford University, thinks the virtual reality explanation is flawed.

“The theory seems to be based on the assumption that ‘superminds’ would do things in much the same way as we would do them,” he said.

“If they think this world is a simulation, then why do they think the superminds – who are outside the simulation – would be constrained by the same sorts of thoughts and methods that we are?

“They assume that the ultimate structure of a real world can’t be grid like, and also that the superminds would have to implement a virtual world using grids.

“We can’t conclude that a grid structure is evidence of a pretend reality just because our ways of implementing a pretend reality involve a grid.”

“It is an interesting idea, and it’s healthy to have some crazy ideas,” he told The Telegraph.

“You don’t want to censor ideas according to whether they seem sensible or not because sometimes important new advances will seem crazy to start with.

“You never know when good ideas may come from thinking outside the box.

“This Matrix thought-experiment is actually a bit like some ideas of Descartes and Berkeley, hundreds of years ago.

“Even if there turns out to be nothing in it, the fact that you have got into the habit of thinking crazy things could mean that at some point you are going to think of something that initially may seem rather way out, but turns out not to be crazy at all.”

76 Comments

  1. Invoking the idea that the universe is a virtual simulation to explain away things we don’t yet understand isn’t scientific, it’s opportunistic. Who’s to say that the advanced beings that created this supposed simulation weren’t themselves created by even more advanced beings ad infinitum & nauseam? Where does the true reality end and the virtual one begin? Although this kind of speculation may encourage thinking outside of the box, it is likely science fiction not science, much like astronomers gleefully speculating about the existence of multiverses on some infotainment program like “The Universe”. We can’t even explain what 95% of this universe is made of, so let’s jump the gun and speculate about the possible existence of an infinite number of them. Yeah, that’s real helpful. I love both science and science fiction, but it’s annoying when the so-called experts mash them up in a vain attempt to engage the general public.

    • I’d rather have most of people thinking about this than what famous people eat for dinner, what they wear and so on..

    • What you said makes no sense. You are basically saying that this guy is lazy and didn’t want to find out the true origins of our reality so he came up with some half-assed guess? Stop trying to be all high and mighty. They are saying it’s a possibility not a fact.

  2. Invoking the idea that the universe is a virtual simulation to explain away things we don’t yet understand isn’t scientific, it’s opportunistic. Who’s to say that the advanced beings that created this supposed simulation weren’t themselves created by even more advanced beings ad infinitum & nauseam? Where does the true reality end and the virtual one begin? This reminds me of astronomers gleefully speculating about the existence of multiverses on some infotainment program like “The Universe”. We can’t even explain what 95% of this universe is made of, so let’s jump the gun and speculate about the possible existence of an infinite number of them. Yeah, that’s real helpful. I love both science and science fiction, but it’s annoying when the so-called experts mash them up in a vain attempt to engage the general public.

  3. Follow me step by step and tell me if i correct. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. You can destroy matter but it energy will simply burst away from the point. Before there was time there was nothing. Time began at the same time as matter was created. Saying this gives light to the possibility if energy creating matter from the very begining.

    Energy can be messured in frequency just as sound.

    Atoms vibrate. They contain energy.
    Now what if we lived in a atom? The inside of an atom is “Hollow” filled with nothing, other than pure energy. (So when you split an atom you are splitting all the galaxies in another “reality”)

    We are beings made of mass. We have vibe and we can feel other people energy, if we pay attention close enough with the right mind set. objects act differently when veiwed simply becuase all matter is the same as us. They too can pick up on vibes or another energy.

    I am saying there was not a beginning of time. There was no begining of Matter. Becuase we are infinitly in other protons, electrons or neutron Individualy or just at some point in an atom. There was no beggining, world without end.

    -my name is Matthew Rivera i live in Illinois and i am 17 years old and this is my theory

    • You have an interesting theory. The question I keep coming to is, how can something be if it never was?

    • You misunderstand the science. Matter is just energy at different levels. Matter and energy are the same thing.

      The inflation model doesn’t say mass/energy started at the big bang. Remember tbb is about inflation not creation.

      Once inflation happened, things were able to cool down. Then matter was able to form.

      If we were in an atom, how do you account for continued growth. Not only that, but we can split atoms. Yet we cannot escape or universe.

      I don’t understand the last part. Feeling energy etc. Who days we can feel another person’s energy. Where is the data in that?

    • The unmoved mover 😀 This idea is very possible, one researcher calls it pan-experimentalism, which is a fancy way of saying that each individual has the ‘spark’ of consciousness(after all we are the sum of our parts, which is equal to consciousness). Its not that we live “in an atom,” so much as atoms make up the collective consciousness that we in fact are. In essence we are looking at ourselves only the mirror is vastly distorted because of the infinities involved.

      It’s great you are 17, and thinking of these things. Keep it up

    • You’re part of every last bit of the energy around you, atoms, matter, particles, universe. all that doesn’t matter, or it does all the same. It is YOU once you realize this and achieve enlightenment, you can see. You have the spark but don’t gouge the eyes by speaking man-made estimations and definitions of things which we don’t understand because we gave a name to it because of the fact that we don’t know what the fuck it is or does. Speak into existence, Create on your own accord. Thoughts become ideas, Ideas become movements. Move the fabric of reality aside. Unplug yourself. You’ve seen the light before, it was in the beginning, and the end. None of this matters, None of “You” matter. We are on a paradoxical infinite timeline of randomized numerical code to simulate space and time in order for the “observer” to do their research. What If the observer was the self-conscious :O

    • since I was a child my single question has always been “where did the materials for the big bang come from” because you cannot create something from nothing

    • time does not exist as we perceive it, we exist now as we did 10 seconds ago, 100 years ago, or even 10’000 years from now, we exist in all moments and no moment simultaneously and we experience it unidirectionally (just made a new word xD) meaning we experience each of the events in our lives independently from each other but remaining in a single moment to each of who observes it, the present, if one were to travel near the speed of light, that person would age at a far lesser rate to that of someone here on earth, but still experiences life at the same rate as someone on earth does. yet when that person returns, even if it were for a short period of how time is experienced traveling at that rate of speed, hundreds of years would have passed if not thousands, it is simply another form of measurement that man created to understand. a tool. just as speed, and distance are measurements . we as human beings like to understand things so that we may learn how to manipulate it. one thing that is certain to our current understanding, is in this vibrational existence we are in right now, we believe that “time” is one directional and only goes forward. but… i feel time i just another dimension, for instance. in a 1D space there is x ; a single directional plane, in a 2D space there is x, and there is y ; thats two directions lol and in a 3D space there is X, Y and Z ; i believe that in a 4D plane of existence time is just another direction

    • We have had this discussion many times over a smoking warm Bong..aren’t you too young to smoke pot?

    • there cant have been nothing… if there was nothing then what would have been there? obviously nothing.. then what would have spawned something? nothing? god? then what is god? isnt god something? if god is something then how could there have been nothing? look into big bang.. it was created by a priest and i believe it was to help explain the bible and nto anything scientific.. let there be light… bang! oh yeah its a big bang.. and noww theye tricked people into thinking its science for the big bang vs god.. what a bunch of schmucks.. existence is eternal.. if existence is not the universe and if some other form of existence created the universe then that existence was still something that created the universe.. never nothing..

  4. Follow me step by step and tell me if i correct. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. You can destroy matter but it energy will simply burst away from the point. Before there was time there was nothing. Time began at the same time as matter was created. Saying this gives light to the possibility if energy creating matter from the very begining.

    Energy can be messured in frequency just as sound.

    Atoms vibrate. They contain energy.
    Now what if we lived in a atom? The inside of an atom is “Hollow” filled with nothing, other than pure energy. (So when you split an atom you are splitting all the galaxies in another “reality”)

    We are beings made of mass. We have vibe and we can feel other people energy, if we pay attention close enough with the right mind set. objects act differently when veiwed simply becuase all matter is the same as us. They too can pick up on vibes or another energy.

    I am saying there was not a beginning of time. There was no begining of Matter. Becuase we are infinitly in other protons, electrons or neutron Individualy or just at some point in an atom. There was no beggining, world without end.

    -my name is Matthew Rivera i live in Illinois and i am 17 years old and this is my theory

    • You have an interesting theory. The question I keep coming to is, how can something be if it never was?

    • You misunderstand the science. Matter is just energy at different levels. Matter and energy are the same thing.

      The inflation model doesn’t say mass/energy started at the big bang. Remember tbb is about inflation not creation.

      Once inflation happened, things were able to cool down. Then matter was able to form.

      If we were in an atom, how do you account for continued growth. Not only that, but we can split atoms. Yet we cannot escape or universe.

      I don’t understand the last part. Feeling energy etc. Who days we can feel another person’s energy. Where is the data in that?

    • The unmoved mover 😀 This idea is very possible, one researcher calls it pan-experimentalism, which is a fancy way of saying that each individual has the ‘spark’ of consciousness(after all we are the sum of our parts, which is equal to consciousness). Its not that we live “in an atom,” so much as atoms make up the collective consciousness that we in fact are. In essence we are looking at ourselves only the mirror is vastly distorted because of the infinities involved.

      It’s great you are 17, and thinking of these things. Keep it up

    • You’re part of every last bit of the energy around you, atoms, matter, particles, universe. all that doesn’t matter, or it does all the same. It is YOU once you realize this and achieve enlightenment, you can see. You have the spark but don’t gouge the eyes by speaking man-made estimations and definitions of things which we don’t understand because we gave a name to it because of the fact that we don’t know what the fuck it is or does. Speak into existence, Create on your own accord. Thoughts become ideas, Ideas become movements. Move the fabric of reality aside. Unplug yourself. You’ve seen the light before, it was in the beginning, and the end. None of this matters, None of “You” matter. We are on a paradoxical infinite timeline of randomized numerical code to simulate space and time in order for the “observer” to do their research. What If the observer was the self-conscious :O

    • since I was a child my single question has always been “where did the materials for the big bang come from” because you cannot create something from nothing

    • time does not exist as we perceive it, we exist now as we did 10 seconds ago, 100 years ago, or even 10’000 years from now, we exist in all moments and no moment simultaneously and we experience it unidirectionally (just made a new word xD) meaning we experience each of the events in our lives independently from each other but remaining in a single moment to each of who observes it, the present, if one were to travel near the speed of light, that person would age at a far lesser rate to that of someone here on earth, but still experiences life at the same rate as someone on earth does. yet when that person returns, even if it were for a short period of how time is experienced traveling at that rate of speed, hundreds of years would have passed if not thousands, it is simply another form of measurement that man created to understand. a tool. just as speed, and distance are measurements . we as human beings like to understand things so that we may learn how to manipulate it. one thing that is certain to our current understanding, is in this vibrational existence we are in right now, we believe that “time” is one directional and only goes forward. but… i feel time i just another dimension, for instance. in a 1D space there is x ; a single directional plane, in a 2D space there is x, and there is y ; thats two directions lol and in a 3D space there is X, Y and Z ; i believe that in a 4D plane of existence time is just another direction

    • We have had this discussion many times over a smoking warm Bong..aren’t you too young to smoke pot?

    • there cant have been nothing… if there was nothing then what would have been there? obviously nothing.. then what would have spawned something? nothing? god? then what is god? isnt god something? if god is something then how could there have been nothing? look into big bang.. it was created by a priest and i believe it was to help explain the bible and nto anything scientific.. let there be light… bang! oh yeah its a big bang.. and noww theye tricked people into thinking its science for the big bang vs god.. what a bunch of schmucks.. existence is eternal.. if existence is not the universe and if some other form of existence created the universe then that existence was still something that created the universe.. never nothing..

  5. And when some one call them infidels ….. they don’t like it.
    IT IS CREATED BY GOD. peroid

  6. And the ones with the highest scores are either the programmers or hackers. They built the Kardashians, Beiber and Mohammed.

  7. And the ones with the highest scores are either the programmers or hackers. They built the Kardashians, Beiber and Mohammed.

  8. All we see, hear, taste, feel, experience, know etc is the internal super mind notion resulting from the question “To be or not to be…”

    The God particle is the only particle there is and it’s why they keep trying to claim (6+ times now) that they’ve discovered it. It can’t be discovered in real time because it exists outside of the time domain and is the one particle that the entirety of the universe is composed of. The real time observation equipment doesn’t exist as the particle appears within the observable field of the sensor. Think pixel, scan lines, refresh rate.

    The galaxies spin as a result of actually being still. The effects of time and the method of “drawing things into existence” by the single particle runs the course of a Fibonacci spiral. make them appear to rotate. Each galaxy is a snapshot of our own galaxy in different stages of development. It is unknown to superior minds the length of time it takes for a snapshot to appear but the last one was 3 years ago. These would be the alternate timelines considered in SCI FI. But when you add up all the nested systems in the universe we know, our speed when seemingly still is infinitely minute a fraction away from the speek of light. The collection of light waves form arcs from the original point of original movement. Go flush a toilet in any house and note the direction and shape of the exiting “water”.

    “The Standard Model does not yet hold an explanation for the force of gravity.”
    No it doesn’t because the standard model still thinks we are pulled toward the center of the earth. We are pushed. Gravity is actually the resistence of material persisting against a vacuum-like neutral “place” that is composed of pure potential, i.e. nothingness. Magnetism is a result of the flux of unrealized potential and realized potential.

    It’s lunch time, I have to head back to NGC 253. 🙂

  9. I can’t believe some of these comments. About as ridiculous, if not more than this article. I’m going to imagine that I didn’t waste my time reading this.

  10. I can’t believe some of these comments. About as ridiculous, if not more than this article. I’m going to imagine that I didn’t waste my time reading this.

  11. Think the best part of this article was the advertisement about 10 selfies gone terribly wrong. Its been awhile- my apologies

  12. The Matrix actually exists in the mind and the mind creates time and space internally. It is simply a projection to project that reality onto the outer and then make aliens the scapegoat for our own mental state of imprisonment!

  13. The Matrix actually exists in the mind and the mind creates time and space internally. It is simply a projection to project that reality onto the outer and then make aliens the scapegoat for our own mental state of imprisonment!

  14. Once again, human arrogance comes to the forefront..Could it be we are not as smart as we think we are? Could it be that we just don’t know everything, or there are some things we just will not ever figure out? Mathematicians think everything can be solved through equations, if not, we get mysterious new particles, dark matter, etc…Same stupid, arrogance that led to the greatest killing machine in history, Atom Bombs. Thanks for that…

  15. Once again, human arrogance comes to the forefront..Could it be we are not as smart as we think we are? Could it be that we just don’t know everything, or there are some things we just will not ever figure out? Mathematicians think everything can be solved through equations, if not, we get mysterious new particles, dark matter, etc…Same stupid, arrogance that led to the greatest killing machine in history, Atom Bombs. Thanks for that…

  16. Hope their anti-virus software is up to date. There is a black virus destroying this program and all its data. Believing they are just like us is how this virus started and now look what has happened. Cities on this hard drive burn over dead criminal thugs who have been policed by the programing. Delete the bugs before all is lost and unrecoverable.

  17. Hope their anti-virus software is up to date. There is a black virus destroying this program and all its data. Believing they are just like us is how this virus started and now look what has happened. Cities on this hard drive burn over dead criminal thugs who have been policed by the programing. Delete the bugs before all is lost and unrecoverable.

  18. It’s called the evolution of Karma in the midst of Alchemy. Science calls it a generated simulation…cool! But it’s PERFECT in that it KNOWS when we need to see EXACTLY what we need to see. Religion calls it sumthn different. Let’s stop dividing what’s the SAME…and become strong…knowing the truth.

  19. It’s called the evolution of Karma in the midst of Alchemy. Science calls it a generated simulation…cool! But it’s PERFECT in that it KNOWS when we need to see EXACTLY what we need to see. Religion calls it sumthn different. Let’s stop dividing what’s the SAME…and become strong…knowing the truth.

  20. that’s lot of comments and discussion i have experienced something many times and too many people around me experienced the same that some time they have felt the few sec’s moment they have just felt they have felt earlier too the same situation has happened earlier with them so what you all like to say about it ?

  21. that’s lot of comments and discussion i have experienced something many times and too many people around me experienced the same that some time they have felt the few sec’s moment they have just felt they have felt earlier too the same situation has happened earlier with them so what you all like to say about it ?

  22. Bostrom published some math that intended to prove either we are a simulation, or humanity will destroy itself. I found some errors in his logic and wrote a paper in response (available as “Simulations and Reality in WYSIWYG Universes”, published in the SFWA Bulletin and online here – http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004PYDOJQ ). His logic does lead to some interesting questions and fascinating possible conclusions, even if not the ones he’s arguing for.

  23. Bostrom published some math that intended to prove either we are a simulation, or humanity will destroy itself. I found some errors in his logic and wrote a paper in response (available as “Simulations and Reality in WYSIWYG Universes”, published in the SFWA Bulletin and online here – http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004PYDOJQ ). His logic does lead to some interesting questions and fascinating possible conclusions, even if not the ones he’s arguing for.

  24. so again islam is right and already explains all this. It says that we belong in heaven, but were placed on earth as punishment, thus why you find we dont really belong here, the cause of the space race, the fascination wuth whats “up there”.

    Islam also says that the time you spend on earth even if you lived 200 years, will be less than a speck of paint in the entire worlds oceans.

  25. so again islam is right and already explains all this. It says that we belong in heaven, but were placed on earth as punishment, thus why you find we dont really belong here, the cause of the space race, the fascination wuth whats “up there”.

    Islam also says that the time you spend on earth even if you lived 200 years, will be less than a speck of paint in the entire worlds oceans.

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