![]() “ Fundamental behaviours emerge from simulations of a living minimal cell” could well be one of the scientific touchstones of this century. That changed in January, with the publication of a landmark paper in Cell. Unless you can simulate everything connected with life, you can’t simulate anything much of life at all. Take one bit away, and the structure changes. Simulations tend to abstract away all the messy bits, simplifying the complex – but that won’t work for life, where everything deeply depends on everything else. Until recently, life has been considered far too complex and rich in its organisation to be amenable to simulation. Why does life exist at all? Why does life work the way it does? Simulation can now address some of life’s biggest questions. It appears that this philosophical liberation operates in both directions: we can use the philosophy of simulation to work toward a deeper understand our lives and we can also use simulation to work toward a deeper understanding of the philosophy of life. ![]() Maybe the question isn’t whether the smartphone has become a “ dummy for adults” – as recently pronounced by The Washington Post – but, rather, why does my phone make me feel good or bad? Can we question the relations between ourselves, our perceptions and our technologies without getting caught up in how we feel? That’s always been the great promise of philosophy – it offers understanding as a path toward liberation. ![]() We can learn something about ourselves by interrogating our world of perceptions. That’s good advice for any human living in any era, but it feels curiously meaningful now. In the 21st century, philosophers encourage us to “peel back” the shiny surfaces of our perceptions to get at the truth underneath the image. That strong statement from a prominent philosopher points toward a new relationship between ourselves, our tools and our understanding. ![]() “Even in an age of multiple realities, I still believe in objective reality.” David Chalmers, Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy author Even in an age of multiple realities, I still believe in objective reality.” There are truths about reality, and we can try to find them. While it’s important to know where the real ends and fake news begins, does a philosophy of simulation really help us to discern that essential difference? Or does it just loop back on itself, leaving us in a world where nothing can be known? Chalmers says yes it can. That’s one reason that the film has remained popular in all the years since its release: Neo mirrors our own philosophical exploration of a world that has become so crowded with screens that our experience has become a confused mixture of simulation and reality. Neo’s journey toward the real across the arc of The Matrix represents our own journey into integrating our own perceptions and understanding in a hyper-connected world. Plato’s famous “ Allegory of the Cave” insists that all phenomena offer little more reality than shadows on the walls of a cave, a play of lights providing only a distorted and partial view of the real. In his recently released book Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy Chalmers draws a line between perception, cognition and philosophy, one that stretches all the way back into the Classical World. NYU philosopher David Chalmers reckons they do. While such questions seem well-suited for a session in an Amsterdam coffeehouse, do they have much meaning in our day-to-day lives? One of them opens with, “Have you ever wondered whether all of this is just a simulation?” That’s a question never asked before the release of The Matrix, but it feels like it’s suddenly popping up everywhere. A few conversation topics lead me to an almost involuntary eye-rolling.
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