In this blog post, we explore the essence of reality and virtual reality through The Matrix, and why humans yearn for the real.
What if the world we live in right now isn’t the actual world? What if everything we see, feel, and interact with isn’t real, but is happening within a virtual reality? Even if this were true, we would never be able to distinguish between such an exquisitely crafted virtual reality and reality itself. The science fiction film that explores this very concept is ‘The Matrix’.
The Matrix, directed by the Wachowski sisters in 1999, is a blockbuster hit starring renowned actors like Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne. The film is set in the year 2199, a time when machines, having won a long war against humanity, now completely dominate humans. The machines mass-produce humans in incubators to use them as an energy source. To suppress human consciousness, they create the Matrix, a virtual reality set in 1999, where humans live without question. Neo, who once lived within this virtual reality, joins other humans who have escaped the Matrix and embarks on a journey to fight the machines and save humanity. This is the film’s central narrative.
In the film, Neo faces a crossroads: choosing between the ‘red pill’ that awakens him from the virtual reality and the ‘blue pill’ that keeps him within it. Ultimately, he chooses the red pill and awakens to reality. However, one of his comrades, Cypher, betrays his fellow agents, choosing to remain in the virtual reality where quality of life is guaranteed, rather than facing the uncertain reality. This scene naturally raises a question: What choice would I have made? Which is truly the right place to live—reality or virtual reality? Answering this question is never easy, but I believe exploring its essence may lead us to a solution.
The public holds a positive perception of virtual reality. In VR, anything is possible, and one can achieve their desires instantly. Free from the constraints of reality, one can live an abundant life in virtual reality, unlike the less fulfilling reality. It’s possible to instantly achieve dreams unattainable in reality, find love, or even become Superman and fly around for a day. Thus, the advantages of living in virtual reality are countless. However, the crucial point is that these advantages of virtual reality obscure the core issue. Generally, people are enticed by the advantages obtainable in virtual reality and fail to recognize the fundamental difference between virtual reality and reality. The most essential difference between reality and virtual reality lies in distinguishing what is real from what is fake. Uncovering the difference between real and fake is the core of the process to find the answer to the original question.
To grasp the core of the problem more easily, we need to consider an extreme and specific scenario. Imagine this situation: you stand at a crossroads, choosing whether to live in reality or in virtual reality. At this point, reality isn’t particularly bad, and virtual reality perfectly replicates reality without the slightest discrepancy. There’s also the condition that if you live in virtual reality, you will never become aware that it is fake.
This extreme assumption allows us to focus solely on the issue of what is real and what is fake. In this situation, what choice should you make? I believe the two worlds are indistinguishable. That is, choosing virtual reality is no different from choosing reality. The reason is as follows. Humans live their entire lives interacting with their surroundings, and this interaction occurs through the senses. All information obtained through the senses is gathered in the brain for analysis and interpretation. Therefore, the brain perceives the scent of a rose as identical whether we actually smell it or receive the same stimulation artificially. Crucially, if we were unaware that our brain was being stimulated when smelling a rose, we would perceive no difference at all. This situation is not fundamentally different from the earlier assumption. Even if we lived in virtual reality, if that life were indistinguishable from living in reality for even a single moment, we wouldn’t perceive any difference. Especially if, upon entering virtual reality, we were forever unaware that we were in a virtual world, it goes without saying. In fact, the world we live in now might just be virtual reality, and we might simply be unaware of it! Therefore, at the crossroads between reality and virtual reality, choosing either path makes no difference. Because both are spaces that ultimately provide the same experience.
However, the above logic overlooks an important fact. In reality, if most people were placed in such a situation, they would likely react as follows:
“If I’m going to live the same life anyway, I’d rather choose to live in reality!”
This statement means that when choosing between the real and the fake, the majority of people will choose the real, no matter how similar the fake is to the real. If such a choice is overwhelmingly common, it leads to the conclusion that the real should be preferred. However, before reaching this conclusion, we need to consider why people might prefer the fake over the real. This article will analyze this from two perspectives.
First, the perspective that the fake exists precisely because the real exists. That is, because the real exists, counterfeits imitating it could emerge, and thus the real holds greater value. If the real did not exist, counterfeits naturally could not exist either. This implies that counterfeits are merely subordinate to the real, and therefore choosing the real, which possesses independent meaning, is rational. However, whether the real holds meaning in and of itself requires further consideration. Does the real possess meaning when existing alone? No. The real can be real precisely because it exists among fakes. The real only becomes real when fakes exist; without fakes, it could not be called real. By this logic, the real is also dependent on the fake and is not an entity possessing independent meaning.
Second, desiring the real is inherently human. To understand this more easily, consider the context of this text: interactions within virtual reality are computer-generated fakes. No matter how similar they appear to reality, they undermine human essence. But what is human essence? Without defining essence, this discussion cannot progress further. Yet, if humans inherently prefer the real, exploring this essence could yield answers to the problem.
What is the essence of humanity? I believe humanity’s essence lies in nature. Humans are one of countless life forms on Earth, a product of evolution. Therefore, whatever humanity’s essence is, it was formed through evolution. To understand it, we must examine the history of human evolution. All evolution occurs through the process where individuals with traits advantageous for survival live on and spread their offspring. Humans, too, evolved into their current form as individuals possessing traits favorable for survival were selected. The reason humans instinctively prefer the real over the fake is that such a tendency was advantageous for survival during the evolutionary process. Why preferring the real over the fake is advantageous for survival is easy to understand. Among human ancestors, there were groups that couldn’t distinguish between fruit that looked fine on the outside but was rotten inside (fake fruit) and fruit that was solid all the way through (real fruit). Conversely, other groups could tell the difference and preferred the solid fruit. Over time, it’s clear which group survived.
Humans thus developed a specific tendency during evolution to distinguish and prefer the real over the fake. They came to prefer the real. This can be considered the essence of humanity. Now, let’s return to the main discussion. If humans prefer the real over the fake not because of rational judgment but as a product of evolution, then preferring the real based on instinct cannot be considered right. While it is true that the tendency to prefer the real helped survival during evolution, evolution is result-oriented, not cause-oriented. We cannot know whether the evolutionary direction taken thus far will continue to aid survival in the future. Therefore, if instincts formed through evolution make us prefer the real more, this is merely a side effect of evolution, not a rational decision.
Thus far, to resolve the question of “Should we live in virtual reality or reality?”, we have examined the difference between the real and the fake for humans. We concluded that while humans inherently prefer the real reality, this preference is merely an evolutionary side effect. Ultimately, when judged rationally, there is no difference between virtual reality and reality. This shifts the question of choosing between virtual reality and reality away from the fake versus real dilemma. The focus should now be on the practical aspects: thoroughly comparing the advantages and disadvantages of living in virtual reality. As mentioned earlier in this article, the advantage of virtual reality is that it makes the impossible easy. Its disadvantages include several factors, beyond the physical difficulty of maintaining virtual reality forever. This issue is an intriguing topic and warrants in-depth discussion. However, the reason such discussion is possible is precisely because there is no fundamental difference between the real and the fake, between reality and virtual reality.
