Are We in a Matrix?

Today’s post is a guest article written by anonymous under the pen name “Neo”

Recently I have joined the internet in saying that Keanu Reeves is officially a national treasure. And yes, that does mean I have watched The Matrix. I am not a huge fan of science fiction, but the movie was amazing and quickly made my top favorite movies list. In case you haven’t seen the movie, let me give you a brief summary. Neo, our iconic Keanu protagonist, is a hacker who realizes that the world he lives in is a simulation called The Matrix. He fights some bad guys, pulls some awesome kung fu punches, and blah blah blah but we are going to focus on the concept of the Matrix. So down below are ten pieces of evidence I have collected that we might possibly be living in a sort of Matrix.

Deja Vu: What’s up with that? The science that seeks to explain it states that the experience is a neurological anomaly that creates the strong sensation that an experience currently being experienced has been experienced in the past. That’s a mouthful. Fans might remember that during the first Matrix our protagonist Neo sees the same cat twice and labels it as deja vu, but his snarky girlfriend Trinity says that deja vu is associated with a reload in the Matrix. A Matrix theorist would say that machines replay that “scene” so from a distant part of your memory it might seem the same though you have technically never been there before.
When you walk into a room and forget what you meant to do: Again, a Matrix theorist might hypothesize that there is a glitch where the machines wipe your memory and you can’t remember your intentions. Who knows what you were going to do? Maybe you were on your way to cause a glitch in the Matrix. The Matrix is only code after all.
What if death isn’t actually the end? A far off thought but a Matrix theorist would say if we are indeed hooked up to machines in the real world, what if death is just the machines deciding you’ve had enough time in the Matrix? Then you get to live in the real world?
The Mandela Effect: How is it we remember something differently than how it exists in reality? Trippy. The machines are changing the past ever so slightly, but perhaps some of us are smart enough to remember. Perhaps all of us thinking that it was the Berenstein Bears and not the Berenstain Bears are just mini Neos.
Weird Events: Some events in history are argued by Matrix theorists to be highly unlikely to happen in real life. One classic example I have read? The 2017 Oscars envelope mix up. Who else was shocked that Price Waterhouse Cooper guys put Emma Stone’s envelope in the hands of poor Warren Beatty? Glitches in the code, a theorist would say.
Paranormal Activity: What if every time we think we see a ghost or even an alien it is really just a glitch in the Matrix? These are quickly hushed by societal rules as a way to suppress machines’ errors.
Sims: The population’s obsession with Sims has already shown humanity has an obsession with simulated life. I read an interesting theory stating that people in the future created the Matrix after total anarchy overcame the Earth, or environmental issues (which does sound much more likely). They made a fully augmented reality so humanity could continue to exist forever. Hey, the little mucus-covered hairless humans (still not over that scene by the way) lived in their pods on an Earth with no sunlight, so who’s to say we couldn’t do that?
Yanny v Laurel: It’s confirmed, the theorists echo in the background. We are individually living in our own perception of the Matrix. It’s a classic psychological theory that we all live in our own perception of the world. This is the flaw in the “Creator’s” plan. (What’s up with the second Matrix movie, by the way? Let’s just say I was not impressed)

To be clear, I am not a Matrix theorist, but I am intrigued by the theories that have emerged as a result of the 1999 motion picture. The movie had a pop-culture footprint almost as momentous as Keanu Reeves playing a tumbleweed in the upcoming Spongebob film. I only have one question remaining regarding the ethics of the possibility of a Matrix:

Should we attempt to escape this Matrix if it indeed exists?
Or should we be grateful that we are living in a “dream world”? (Though clearly not perfect because of environmental issues). Why would the Matrix be created in the first place if not to escape the reality of things?

-Neo

Comment below your thoughts on this. See you next week, and happy sciencing!