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Last week readers voted for today's topic, so today we take a look at how an idea presented in a classic movie may not be as far-fetched as it seems.

In 1999, when the film "The Matrix" was released, a futuristic, dystopian world was presented where, as it turns out, reality is not real at all -- it is a computer simulation. This concept got a lot of people considering the philosophical implications of this scenario.

The movie presented a somewhat absurd justification for this scenario, granted -- that a virtual world was required to keep human bodies intact and alive so that the machines who had long ago overthrown humans could harvest bodies to generate electrical power, as if that were really the most practical means of powering machines, even in the absence of sunlight.

Here I won't discuss the likelihood of us being enslaved by machines to be used as batteries, however there have been some very sophisticated philosophical arguments about the possibility that we are, in fact, in a simulation -- a possibility which is very interesting.

A fairly famous paper written by Nick Bostrom (of the Oxford University department of Philosophy) argues that one of the following is true:

1. We are likely to go extinct before we achieve a certain level of technology.
2. A very high-tech civilization will not bother to create many simulations of the universe.
3. We are almost certainly living in a computer simulation.

I know -- this made my brain hurt the first time I read it too. Basically what this is saying is that we will either soon kill ourselves off with some technology that we can't control (a possibility that isn't pleasant to entertain, and sounds a bit like what happened in "The Matrix"), or that once we have the required technology, we won't use it to create simulations of the universe. If neither of these scenarios turn out to be true, then we probably are actually in a simulation -- right now.

Currently, humanity does not seem to have the capability of creating a wholly realistic simulation that is indistinguishable from reality, but as we have seen for decades, computational capacity and memory are increasing by leaps and bounds, exponentially. Many leading technologists and futurologists estimate that we will have the hardware, and possibly the software that parallels the capability of the human brain within a matter of a few decades. Regardless of when we get there, however, current models and projections make it seem pretty likely that it will happen eventually.

Granted, Bostrom suggests that we probably are not in a simulation if futuristic societies have no interest in creating simulations -- I however think that they will. But why would they create simulations of the universe?

There are lots of compelling reasons for wanting to create simulations. Obviously it is currently immensely popular for entertainment in video games, social networking as seen in Second Life, and all kinds of academic research.

Given the capability of creating a complete virtual universe indistinguishable from a real one, perhaps entertainment in the future could consist of entering such a universe and living an entire lifetimes in a series of alternative scenarios -- much like the popular game franchise "The Sims".

Perhaps future scholars will want to understand the past better by modelling ancient societies, and watching them evolve over time, under varieties of scenarios.

Another possible reason for living in simulations could be that the world has become extremely overpopulated and unlivable because of a great degree of ecological damage, and living in a virtual reality simulating the distant past allows us to better fulfil our psychological needs.

According to Nick Bostrom, we are very likely in a simulation -- but if that is the case, are we then an actual human that exists in a higher level of reality but are "plugged in" to a simulation, or are we merely a construct of the simulation itself, not aware that we are really just a bunch of ephemeral data? If so then how would that be distinguishable from existing in reality if we can't tell the difference. And of course, even within the simulation, once technology gets far enough, other simulations will inevitably occur within that simulation. Is your mind blown yet?

So what all of this mean? Should we reject all known models of the universe, create and follow new religions, and switch to radical new models of ethics? I'd say none of the above. Please proceed with life as normal. But it's quite mind-bending to think about, isn't it?

This article was written because it won last week's Friday article poll. Now you have the opportunity to decide what comes next! Choose from the following topics of interest to select next Friday's article: