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Green river • Artwork • Studio Olafur Eliasson

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Official website of Olafur Eliasson and his studio: Green river • Artwork • Studio Olafur Eliasson

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Why might I need an EEG?

The EEG is used to evaluate several types of brain disorders. When epilepsy is present, seizure activity will appear as rapid spiking waves on the EEG.

People with lesions of their brain, which can result from tumors or stroke, may have unusually slow EEG waves, depending on the size and the location of the lesion.

The test can also be used to diagnose other disorders that influence brain activity, such as Alzheimer's disease, certain psychoses, and a sleep disorder called narcolepsy.

The EEG may also be used to determine the overall electrical activity of the brain (for example, to evaluate trauma, drug intoxication, or extent of brain damage in comatose patients). The EEG may also be used to monitor blood flow in the brain during surgical procedures.

There may be other reasons for your healthcare provider to recommend an EEG.

What are the risks of an EEG?

The EEG has been used for many years and is considered a safe procedure. The test causes no discomfort. The electrodes record activity. They do not produce any sensation. In addition, there is no risk of getting an electric shock.

In rare instances, an EEG can cause seizures in a person with a seizure disorder. This is due to the flashing lights or the deep breathing that may be involved during the test. If you do get a seizure, your healthcare provider will treat it immediately.

Other risks may be present, depending on your specific medical condition. Be sure to discuss any concerns with your healthcare provider before the procedure.

Certain factors or conditions may interfere with the reading of an EEG test. These include:

Low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) caused by fasting

Body or eye movement during the tests (but this will rarely, if ever, significantly interfere with the interpretation of the test)

Lights, especially bright or flashing ones

Certain medicines, such as sedatives

Drinks containing caffeine, such as coffee, cola, and tea (while these drinks can occasionally alter the EEG results, this almost never interferes significantly with the interpretation of the test)

Oily hair or the presence of hair spray

How do I get ready for an EEG?

Ask your healthcare provider to tell you what you should do before your test. Below is a list of common steps that you may be asked to do.

Your healthcare provider will explain the procedure to you and you can ask questions.

You will be asked to sign a consent form that gives your permission to do the procedure. Read the form carefully and ask questions if something is not clear.

Wash your hair with shampoo, but do not use a conditioner the night before the test. Do not use any hair care products, such as hairspray or gels.

Tell your healthcare provider of all medicines (prescription and over-the-counter) and herbal supplements that you are taking.

Discontinue using medicines that may interfere with the test if your healthcare provider has directed you to do so. Do not stop using medicines without first consulting your healthcare provider.

Avoid consuming any food or drinks containing caffeine for 8 to 12 hours before the test.

Follow any directions your healthcare provider gives you about reducing your sleep the night before the test. Some EEG tests require that you sleep through the procedure, and some do not. If the EEG is to be done during sleep, adults may not be allowed to sleep more than 4 or 5 hours the night before the test. Children may not be allowed to sleep for more than 5 to 7 hours the night before.

Avoid fasting the night before or the day of the procedure. Low blood sugar may influence the results.

Based on your medical condition, your healthcare provider may request other specific preparations.

What happens during an EEG?

An EEG may be done on an outpatient basis, or as part of your stay in a hospital. Procedures may vary depending on your condition and your healthcare provider's practices. Talk with your healthcare provider about what you will experience during your test.

Generally, an EEG procedure follows this process:

1. You will be asked to relax in a reclining chair or lie on a bed.

2. Between 16 and 25 electrodes will be attached to your scalp with a special paste, or a cap containing the electrodes will be used.

3. You will be asked to close your eyes, relax, and be still.

4. Once the recording begins, you will need to remain still throughout the test. Your healthcare provider may monitor you through a window in an adjoining room to observe any movements that can cause an inaccurate reading, such as swallowing or blinking. The recording may be stopped periodically to let you rest or reposition yourself.

5. After your healthcare provider does the initial recording while you are at rest, he or she may test you with various stimuli to produce brain wave activity that does not show up while you are resting. For example, you may be asked to breathe deeply and rapidly for 3 minutes, or you may be exposed to a bright flashing light.

6. This study is generally done by an EEG technician and may take approximately 45 minutes to 2 hours.

7. If you are being evaluated for a sleep disorder, the EEG may be done while you are asleep.

8. If you need to be monitored for a longer period of time, you may also be admitted to the hospital for prolonged EEG (24-hour EEG) monitoring.

9. In cases where prolonged inpatient monitoring is not possible, your doctor may consider doing an ambulatory EEG.

What happens after an EEG?

Once the test is completed, the electrodes will be removed and the electrode paste will be washed off with warm water, acetone, or witch hazel. In some cases, you may need to wash your hair again at home.

If you took any sedatives for the test, you may be required to rest until the sedatives have worn off. You will need to have someone drive you home.

Skin irritation or redness may be present at the locations where the electrodes were placed, but this will wear off in a few hours.

Your healthcare provider will inform you when you may resume any medicines you stopped taking before the test.

Your healthcare provider may give you additional or alternate instructions after the procedure, depending on your particular situation.

Next steps

Before you agree to the test or the procedure make sure you know:

The name of the test or procedure

The reason you are having the test or procedure

What results to expect and what they mean

The risks and benefits of the test or procedure

What the possible side effects or complications are

When and where you are to have the test or procedure

Who will do the test or procedure and what that person's qualifications are

What would happen if you did not have the test or procedure

Any alternative tests or procedures to think about

When and how will you get the results

Who to call after the test or procedure if you have questions or problems

How much will you have to pay for the test or procedure

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The EEG is used to evaluate several types of brain disorders. When epilepsy is present, seizure activity will appear as rapid spiking waves on the EEG. People with lesions of their brain, which can result from tumors or stroke, may have unusually slow EEG waves, depending on the size and the location of the lesion.

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A closer look at the artist's thought-provoking projects within the environmental context

Image credit: CNN News

As creatives, it's undeniable that we propagate ourselves into our work. Our backgrounds, experiences, and beliefs help shape our decisions regarding the projects we take on and the messages we amplify. There's no doubt that with the presence of an audience comes great responsibility - especially in leveraging mediums to stir conversations we find important.

In the case of Olafur Eliasson, a Danish-Icelandic artist known for his installation pieces, art is seen as a platform to share ideas and inspire change. His creations, centered around a theme of transience and elemental materials, motivate viewers to focus on the imminent future - one dependent on the actions and choices we make today.

Image credit: Olafur Eliasson

Olafur Eliasson's The Weather Project is arguably the most iconic installation built for the Turbine Hall in London. Over the course of six months in 2003, this hazy mirage attracted over 2 million visitors...

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How Olafur Eliasson uses art to drive conversations on climate change

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As creatives, it's undeniable that we propagate ourselves into our work. Our backgrounds, experiences, and beliefs help shape our decisions regarding the projects we take on and the messages we...

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The Climate Crisis - A Race We Can Win | United Nations

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In the meantime, nature-based solutions provide 'breathing room' while we tackle the decarbonization of our economy. These solutions allow us to mitigate a portion of our carbon footprint while also supporting vital ecosystem services, biodiversity, access to fresh water, improved livelihoods, healthy diets, and food security.

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Art is an imitation of an ideal. An ideal is a value or moral idea of what life should be like!

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an object is directly perceived
- it is implicit in all facts and knowledge

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Ted Talk - Playing with space, time and dimensions

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Ted Talk - Playing with space, time and dimensions

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Eliasson tries to make a space tangible (perceptible through touch and experience)
A space has a time, dimension and Eliasson tried to adjust how the person changes the space. Ie if you look at a mountain standing still it will not tell you really how big it is. When you move around dimensions will appear and change, you can notice the pace of the waterfall (slower means bigger).

AIM: Making a body part of a space.
Through sharing this space can it bring collectivity and a shared experience. Taking part in the world and showing responsibility.

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Transcript of "Playing with space and light"

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TED Talk Subtitles and Transcript: In the spectacular large-scale projects he's famous for (such as "Waterfalls" in New York harbor), Olafur Eliasson creates art from a palette of space, distance, color and light. This idea-packed talk begins with an experiment in the nature of perception.

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Colabs with scientists and artwork. Is interested in altering people's perceptions and vision.
Ie: Weather Project
Lights made the sun and mist
Room For One colour - explores to challenge people's perceptions and later their vision.
How people engage with qualities of whether - rain, mist, ice, snow humidity - so they can understand how much our lives are a cultural construct.

"Humanity's impression of what they see is susceptible to a variety of outdoor facts"

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If London's Tate Modern suggested extending the run of an exhibition in their iconic Turbine Hall exhibition space, most artists would jump at the chance. But not so for Olafur Eliasson and his smash-hit installation The Weather Project in 2003. The exhibition consisted of a false 'sun', constructed from yellow light behind a semi-circular screen below a mirrored ceiling, and fast became popular with the public for its mood-altering atmospherics and unusual appeal. It's no surprise that the gallery wanted to hold on to a winner - but that wasn't the point for Eliasson.'The time after a show is just as interesting to me,' he said at the time, 'because then it becomes an object of memory, and its meanings change.'

This matter-of-factness is typical of Eliasson, and is seen by many to typify his nationality and scientific-artistic interests. The Danish- Icelandic artist, best known for his large-scale installation art that employs elements of light, technology and scientific theory, was born in 1967 to Icelandic parents living in Denmark's capital Copenhagen. His parents, an artist and a seamstress respectively, split up when he was three years old, and, when his father moved back to Iceland, Eliasson spent much of his time in the countryside there. In such beautiful surroundings and with an artistic father, Eliasson's road to creativity could seem inevitable - but his first artistic endeavours were a little different from his later work.

In fact, Eliasson considers his first artistic work to be breakdancing. He told 032c in 2004: 'In 1984, I was completely convinced it was art. Today, I doubt that. But my belief back then that it was art wasn't bad in terms of the performative aspect.' But soon his creativity was put to better use, graduating from the Royal Danish Academy of Arts in 1995 and beginning his laboratory-cum-workshop in Berlin the same year. It was also around this time that he began working with Einar Thorsteinn, the first of many experts who Eliasson would come to rely on for his complicated projects. Thorsteinn, an architect and geometry expert and former friend of Buckminster Fuller, helped Eliasson create 8900054, a stainless-steel dome 30 feet (9.1 m) wide and 7 feet (2.1 m) high, designed to be seen as if it were growing from the ground.

Since then, Thorsteinn's expertise has been incorporated into many of Eliasson's best-known works, such as his geometric lamp pieces, as well as other projects. And he's not alone - other specialists the artist has worked with include landscape architect Gunther Vogt for The Mediated Motion, and architecture theorist Cedric Price for Chaque matin je me sens différent, chaque soir je me sens le même. Nowadays, Studio Olafur Eliasson is a laboratory for spatial research, employing over 30 architects, engineers, craftsmen and more to construct the artist's high-profile installations. And it's these larger pieces that in recent years have made Eliasson's name worldwide.

One project, The New York City Waterfalls, led Eliasson to create man-made waterfalls in the city's harbour ranging in height from 90 to 120 feet. Running from 26 June to 13 October 2008, at $15.5 million it was the most expensive public arts project since the installation of The Gates in Central Park by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Another of these blockbuster exhibitions was of course the aforementioned Weather Project, part of the Tate's Unilever series. A huge technological undertaking, aside from the lights with which he made the sun, Eliasson also used a humidifier to create a fine mist in the air from a mixture of sugar and water to complete the effect.

This fascination with light, science and the elements is a central theme to Eliasson's work. In Room For One Colour (1998), visitors found their perceptions altered and colours warped in corridors lit by yellow monofrequency tubes. 2002's 360 degrees Room For All Colours took this even further, with Eliasson creating a round light-sculpture that gives participants the sense that they are being engulfed by intense light, losing all sense of space and perspective as they are absorbed into the piece. Eliasson's interest in weather conditions and perception also continued in 2010's Din blinde passager (Your blind passenger), commissioned by the Arken Museum of Modern Art. The piece is a 90-metre tunnel that fills with dense fog as the visitor enters to simulate blindness. With visibility reduced to just 1.5 metres, participants are forced to orient themselves through their other senses, therefore opening themselves up to greater perception more generally.

As noted before, it may strike that Eliasson's work seems better suited to a man in a lab coat than an avant-garde artist - and he agrees. He told 32c: 'That's the major part of the work here in the studio. Experimenting, testing - playing, basically. At the same time, though, always keeping the same question in mind: What effect will this attempt have in a room full of visitors?' However, in the same interview he also made clear that his methods to not diminish the artistic vision of his works. Take The Weather Project, for example: 'I'm not interested in weather as a matter of science. I'm not a meteorologist or a botanist. I'm interested in people: how people engage sensually with the qualities of weather - rain, mist, ice, snow, humidity - so that through their engagement they may understand how much of our lives are cultural constructions.'

However, Eliasson's work may retain more key scientific ideals than he readily admits to. His works are spectacles, big, brash and populist. They entertain and thrill the masses - but they're not conjuring tricks, and he wants people to know that. Before The New York City Waterfalls, Eliasson created a piece in 1998 called Reversed Waterfall, which flows backwards uphill. Quite the spectacle - but Eliasson didn't want it to be a mystery. The awkward, ugly system of troughs, pumps, spouts and more was clearly visible, an act of candour that has continued throughout his work. Similarly, when it came to The Weather Project he was adamant that he was not just creating a convincing illusion, letting visitors see the seams between the mirrors and the screens that created the light effect.

Fundamentally, Eliasson's remit is to tear down those mirrors. With the help of experts, laboratory conditions and the trappings of scientific discovery, he creates spectacular sights that are pure magic - but his work is truly an investigation of how that magic works. Humanity's impression of what they see is susceptible to a variety of outside factors, from lights and atmospheric conditions to the background that conditions us. Eliasson's work draws out the scientific methodology for why we are the why that we are - all that we see and may think we know. It's no coincidence that this most imaginative of artists is also one of the most practical.

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Olafur Eliasson: Beauty and Science in Contemporary Icelandic Art

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If London's Tate Modern suggested extending the run of an exhibition in their iconic Turbine Hall exhibition space, most artists would jump at the chance. But not so for Olafur Eliasson and his smash-hit installation The Weather Project in 2003.

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Art and Reality pages 118-119
The physical movement and action of painting and creating is real, the depiction is not.

"The grand rhythm of design is a reality; the depiction is not."

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The physical realities of painting are limited to rhythmic movements of line and inter-relations of areas of color on a flat surface-the rest is illusion. The grand rhythm of a design is a reality; the depicted scene is not.

This may be the explanation of the complete satisfaction which many find in abstract or non-objective painting. Their real world is about them, to see and experience at first hand; they desire no pictorial illusions of it. As part of that real world however, they recognize color and design and the inventive genius of the artist. When these are combined to give life to a rectangle of canvas within a frame, a new object-a totally real object-has come into existence for the decoration of a wall. Its freedom from illusion, its concentration on the great realities of rhythm and color relations, become for them the source of a greater esthetic delight than an imitation of nature.

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The physical realities of painting are limited to rhythmic movements of line and inter-relations of areas of color on a flat surface-the rest is illusion. The grand rhythm of a design is a reality; the depicted scene is not. This may be the explanation of the complete satisfaction which many find in abstract or non-objective painting.

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Purple and Black Simple Technology Keynote Presentation

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solipsism - is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind.

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solipsism - is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind.

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THE MIRROR, TOOL OF THE ARTIST

https://www. jstor .org/stable/23202427

Current issues are now on the Chicago Journals website. Read the latest issue.Source: Notes in the History of Art is a scholarly, peer-reviewed quarterly journal dedicated to publishing concise articles on art history. Typical single issues contain seven to nine 2500 word articles with an average of three illustrations each. Occasionally double issues on special topics are also published. The philosophy of Source celebrates scholarly brevity. Subjects include all aspects of western and nonwestern art as well as archaeology.

Since its origins in 1890 as one of the three main divisions of the University of Chicago, The University of Chicago Press has embraced as its mission the obligation to disseminate scholarship of the highest standard and to publish serious works that promote education, foster public understanding, and enrich cultural life. Today, the Journals Division publishes more than 70 journals and hardcover serials, in a wide range of academic disciplines, including the social sciences, the humanities, education, the biological and medical sciences, and the physical sciences.

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THE MIRROR, TOOL OF THE ARTIST https://www. jstor .org/stable/23202427 Current issues are now on the Chicago Journals website. Read the latest issue.Source: Notes in the History of Art is a scholarly, peer-reviewed quarterly journal dedicated to publishing concise articles on art history.

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Does art mirror reality: looking at the art of Olafur Elliasson

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Objective Reality Philosopher David Kelley 

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Objective Reality Philosopher David Kelley 

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Objective reality - can mean something exists independent from our minds. What you can think still means its exists.
- You can SEE and object, and can perceive it differently/
Objectivity - Metaphysical concept (about nature and its existence). This is the belief that we simply exist and our existence in undeniable.

Ayn Rand - We are aware of an object, its there, it exists. Therefore IT IS.
What you percieve has an identity (ie a tree has green leaves, a trunk etc) The Identity of the tree is shared with a table because of its existence.

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Olafur Eliasson: Filling our eyes with the sun

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Olafur Eliasson: Filling our eyes with the sun

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Yayoi Kusama
Her artwork is her own reality. Her obsession with dots is a reflection of her own trauma and hallucination she had when she was young of which she was absorbed in a field of flowers. Her artwork creates infinite rooms using the reflection of mirrors.

Her aim is to make you feel enclosed but also show that you are a tiny being in this universe.

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Who is she?

Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese artist who is sometimes called 'the princess of polka dots'. Although she makes lots of different types of art - paintings, sculptures, performances and installations - they have one thing in common, DOTS!

What's with all the dots?

Yayoi Kusama tells the story of how when she was a little girl she had a hallucination that freaked her out. She was in a field of flowers when they all started talking to her! The heads of flowers were like dots that went on as far as she could see, and she felt as if she was disappearing or as she calls it 'self-obliterating' - into this field of endless dots. This weird experience influenced most of her later work.

By adding all-over marks and dots to her paintings, drawings, objects and clothes she feels as if she is making them (and herself) melt into, and become part of, the bigger universe. She said:

'Our earth is only one polka dot among a million stars in the cosmos. Polka dots are a way to infinity. When we obliterate nature and our bodies with polka dots, we become part of the unity of our environment'.

She also creates environments of dots so that we can experience this feeling of self-obliteration too. She calls these rooms her 'Infinity Rooms', and creates them by installing hundreds of flashing coloured LED lights into mirrored rooms. The pinpricks of light in the dark room reflect endlessly in the mirrors, making you feel like you are in an apparently endless space. The dots surround and engulf you...it's very hard to tell where you end and where the rest of the room begins!

How did she start?

Yayoi was born in Japan in 1929. She loved drawing and painting and although her parents didn't want her to be an artist, she was determined. When her mum tore up her drawings, she made more. When she could not afford to buy art materials, she used mud and old sacks to make art. This is a drawing she made of her mum when she was 10-years-old.

Eventually Yayoi Kusama persuaded her parents to let her go to art school and study painting.

In the late 1950s she moved to New York as lots of the most exciting art seemed to be happening there. It must have been a bit frightening arriving in a big city with such a different culture from what she knew. But she was determined to conquer New York. She later wrote about her feisty attitude: 'I would stand up to them all with a single polka dot'.

She had the first of many exhibitions there in 1959. She met and inspired important artists including Donald Judd, Andy Warhol and Joseph Cornell, and her art was a part of exciting art developments such as pop art and minimalism. She was also one of the first artists to experiment with performance and action art.

As well as being an art pioneer, Yayoi Kusama put her creativity into other things including music, design, writing and fashion.

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Find out who is Yayoi Kusama. Find out about her dots, her art and infinity mirrors with this Tate Kids art homework guide, includes facts for kids.

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Olafur Eliasson: In real life
Some artworks introduce natural phenomena such as rainbows to the gallery space. Others use reflections and shadows to play with the way we perceive and interact with the world. Many works result from the artist’s research into complex geometry, motion patterns, and his interest in colour theory.
"Within the exhibition is an area which explores Eliasson’s deep engagement with society and the environment. Discover what an artist’s perspective can bring to issues of climate change, energy, migration as well as architecture."

Reflects on global climate change The glacier melt series 1999/2019

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In Eliasson 's captivating installations you become aware of your senses, people around you and the world beyond.

Some artworks introduce natural phenomena such as rainbows to the gallery space. Others use reflections and shadows to play with the way we perceive and interact with the world. Many works result from the artist's research into complex geometry, motion patterns, and his interest in colour theory. All but one of the works have never been seen in the UK before.

Within the exhibition is an area which explores Eliasson's deep engagement with society and the environment. Discover what an artist's perspective can bring to issues of climate change, energy, migration as well as architecture.

The kitchen team at Studio Olafur Eliasson have created a special menu and programme of related events for Tate Modern's Terrace Bar, based on the organic, vegetarian and locally sourced food served in his Berlin studio.

Eliasson has a long relationship with Tate Modern. His glowing sun, The weather project, drew more than two million people to the Turbine Hall in 2003. More recently Ice Watch 2018 brought chunks of ice from Greenland to London. This exhibition provides another unforgettable experience for visitors of all ages.

The glacier melt series 1999/2019

In 1999, Olafur Eliasson documented 45 of Iceland's glaciers for a photographic series. Twenty years later - a nanosecond in geological time - he returned to photograph them again. The glacier melt series 1999/2019 places photographs of 30 of the glaciers from 1999 and 2019 side by side, revealing the dramatic changes that have occurred.

Exhibition has been organised by Tate Modern in collaboration with Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Exhibition curated by Mark Godfrey, Senior Curator, International Art, Tate Modern with Emma Lewis, Assistant Curator, International Art, Tate Modern
Recycle for 20% off an exhibition t-shirt

Do you have any old T-shirts you don't wear any more? Bring them into Tate Modern for reuse or recycling and you will get a 20% discount on an Olafur Eliasson exhibition T-shirt. Members will also receive their further 10% membership discount.

Every year in the UK, over 300,000 tonnes of clothing goes to landfill. Much of this could still be worn by someone else and the rest could be recycled, by turning it into cleaning wipes or insulation. As sustainability is a key theme in Eliasson's work, Tate and Studio Olafur Eliasson have teamed up to introduce a system for recycling your old T-shirts that we hope will become part of future Tate exhibitions.

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In Eliasson 's captivating installations you become aware of your senses, people around you and the world beyond. Some artworks introduce natural phenomena such as rainbows to the gallery space. Others use reflections and shadows to play with the way we perceive and interact with the world.

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The state of being aware of ones surroundings

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Fyodor Dostoevsky (Russian Philosopher)Reality represented in Art

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Fyodor Dostoevsky (Russian Philosopher)Reality represented in Art

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"The representation of art is a humanistic approach"

Realit is  a syncreticism - "a merging of diff religion, cultures and school of thoughts"
Reality is embodied by form (pluto)

The Question of Art (1861)
"One may know a fact, see it oneself a hundred times, and still not get the impression one would i someday else stands beside you and point out to you that very fact."

Artist in the artistic representation of art
The particular person (artist) distinguishes an object and gives it form and meaning in his own words. He gives form to reality
The mirror is a reflection of what one perceives

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Dostoevsky's Concept of Reality and Its Representation in Art from Close Encounters: Essays on Russian Literature on JSTOR

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"By the word reality we understand everything that is," observed Belinsky in 1840, "the visible world and the spiritual world, the world of facts and the world ...

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- Neurological view, our reality is a hallucination of the mind Summary notes

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- Neurological view, our reality is a hallucination of the mind Summary notes

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To have a sense of self, one has to be alive to suffer. Two forms of self - through smells and senses and conscious self - as the lead character to your story (which is what we hang onto the most).

Brain: Perception is  a process of the brain's guess work, using given info and prior beliefs to form its best guess about your surroundings.

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Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality | Anil Seth

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Example in Vid: Plays a sound that sounds really muffled. Proceeded to play an audio that could be understood. When playing the first audio back to us we suddenly could understand the muffled noise. The brain then guesses and predicts what is going on with little information it knows.

Actively generate a world of our own.
Hallucinations (psychosis or drug related) are deemed as "uncontrolled perspective to reality". Real life is a hallucination with controlled information.
'When we agree about our hallucination then it makes it reality'.

HOW CAN I BE HALLUCINATING ABOUT WHO I AM AND THE SELF?
Having a body and being a body are two different things too. You have the bodliy self, perspectival self, volitional self, narrative self, social self.

Being an embodied self is more about

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This story is part of BBC Earth's "Best of 2016" list, our greatest hits of the year. Browse the full list.
Are you real? What about me?

These used to be questions that only philosophers worried about. Scientists just got on with figuring out how the world is, and why. But some of the current best guesses about how the world is seem to leave the question hanging over science too.

Several physicists, cosmologists and technologists are now happy to entertain the idea that we are all living inside a gigantic computer simulation, experiencing a Matrix-style virtual world that we mistakenly think is real.

Our instincts rebel, of course. It all feels too real to be a simulation. The weight of the cup in my hand, the rich aroma of the coffee it contains, the sounds all around me - how can such richness of experience be faked?

But then consider the extraordinary progress in computer and information technologies over the past few decades. Computers have given us games of uncanny realism - with autonomous characters responding to our choices - as well as virtual-reality simulators of tremendous persuasive power.

It is enough to make you paranoid.

formulated the narrative with unprecedented clarity. In that story, humans are locked by a malignant power into a virtual world that they accept unquestioningly as "real". But the science-fiction nightmare of being trapped in a universe manufactured within our minds can be traced back further, for instance to David Cronenberg's Videodrome (1983) and Terry Gilliam's (1985).

Over all these dystopian visions, there loom two questions. How would we know? And would it matter anyway?

The idea that we live in a simulation has some high-profile advocates.

In June 2016, technology entrepreneur Elon Musk asserted that the odds are "a billion to one" against us living in "base reality".

Similarly, Google's machine-intelligence guru Ray Kurzweil has suggested that "maybe our whole universe is a science experiment of some junior high-school student in another universe".

What's more, some physicists are willing to entertain the possibility. In April 2016, several of them debated the issue at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, US.

There is nothing in principle that rules out the possibility of manufacturing a universe in an artificial Big Bang

None of these people are proposing that we are physical beings held in some gloopy vat and wired up to believe in the world around us, as in The Matrix.

Instead, there are at least two other ways that the Universe around us might not be the real one.

Cosmologist Alan Guth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US has suggested that our entire Universe might be real yet still a kind of lab experiment. The idea is that our Universe was created by some super-intelligence, much as biologists breed colonies of micro-organisms.

There is nothing in principle that rules out the possibility of manufacturing a universe in an artificial Big Bang, filled with real matter and energy, says Guth.

Musk and other like-minded folk are suggesting that we are entirely simulated beings

Nor would it destroy the universe in which it was made. The new universe would create its own bubble of space-time, separate from that in which it was hatched. This bubble would quickly pinch off from the parent universe and lose contact with it.

This scenario does not then really change anything. Our Universe might have been born in some super-beings' equivalent of a test tube, but it is just as physically "real" as if it had been born "naturally".

However, there is a second scenario. It is this one that has garnered all the attention, because it seems to undermine our very concept of reality.

Musk and other like-minded folk are suggesting that we are entirely simulated beings. We could be nothing more than strings of information manipulated in some gigantic computer, like the characters in a video game.

We can simulate human societies using rather simple "agents" that make choices according to certain rules

Even our brains are simulated, and are responding to simulated sensory inputs.

In this view, there is no Matrix to "escape from". This is where we live, and is our only chance of "living" at all.

But why believe in such a baroque possibility? The argument is quite simple: we already make simulations, and with better technology it should be possible to create the ultimate one, with conscious agents that experience it as totally lifelike.

We carry out computer simulations not just in games but in research. Scientists try to simulate aspects of the world at levels ranging from the subatomic to entire societies or galaxies, even whole universes.

Who is to say that before long we will not be able to create computational agents - virtual beings - that show signs of consciousness?

For example, computer simulations of animals may tell us how they develop complex behaviours like flocking and swarming. Other simulations help us understand how planets, stars and galaxies form.

We can also simulate human societies using rather simple "agents" that make choices according to certain rules. These give us insights into how cooperation appears, how cities evolve, how road traffic and economies function, and much else.

These simulations are getting ever more complex as computer power expands. Already, some simulations of human behaviour try to build in rough descriptions of cognition. Researchers envisage a time, not far away, when these agents' decision-making will not come from simple "if...then..." rules. Instead, they will give the agents simplified models of the brain and see how they respond.

Who is to say that before long we will not be able to create computational agents - virtual beings - that show signs of consciousness? Advances in understanding and mapping the brain, as well as the vast computational resources promised by quantum computing, make this more likely by the day.

There is nothing to suggest that truly detailed simulations, in which the agents experience themselves as real and free, are impossible in principle

If we ever reach that stage, we will be running huge numbers of simulations. They will vastly outnumber the one "real" world around us.

Is it not likely, then, that some other intelligence elsewhere in the Universe has already reached that point?

If so, it makes sense for any conscious beings like ourselves to assume that we are actually in such a simulation, and not in the one world from which the virtual realities are run. The probability is just so much greater.

Philosopher Nick Bostrom of the University of Oxford in the UK has broken down this scenario into three possibilities. As he puts it, either:

(1) Intelligent civilisations never get to the stage where they can make such simulations, perhaps because they wipe themselves out first; or

(2) They get to that point, but then choose for some reason not to conduct such simulations; or

(3) We are overwhelmingly likely to be in such a simulation.

The question is which of these options seems most probable.

Astrophysicist and Nobel laureate George Smoot has argued that there is no compelling reason to believe (1) or (2).

The best way would be to search for flaws in the program

Sure, humanity is causing itself plenty of problems at the moment, what with climate change, nuclear weapons and a looming mass extinction. But these problems need not be terminal.

What's more, there is nothing to suggest that truly detailed simulations, in which the agents experience themselves as real and free, are impossible in principle. Smoot adds that, given how widespread we now know other planets to be ( with another Earth-like one right on our cosmic doorstep), it would be the height of arrogance to assume that we are the most advanced intelligence in the entire Universe.

What about option (2)? Conceivably, we might desist from making such simulations for ethical reasons. Perhaps it would seem improper to create simulated beings that believe they exist and have autonomy.

But that too seems unlikely, Smoot says. After all, one key reason we conduct simulations today is to find out more about the real world. This can help us make the world better and save lives. So there are sound ethical reasons for doing it.

That seems to leave us with option (3): we are probably in a simulation.

Some scientists argue that there are already good reasons to think we are inside a simulation

But this is all just supposition. Could we find any evidence?

Many researchers believe that depends on how good the simulation is. The best way would be to search for flaws in the program, just like the glitches that betray the artificial nature of the "ordinary world" in The Matrix. For instance, we might discover inconsistencies in the laws of physics.

Alternatively, the late artificial-intelligence maven Marvin Minsky has suggested that there might be giveaway errors due to "rounding off" approximations in the computation. For example, whenever an event has several possible outcomes, their probabilities should add up to 1. If we found that they did not, that would suggest something was amiss.

Some scientists argue that there are already good reasons to think we are inside a simulation. One is the fact that our Universe looks designed.

The constants of nature, such as the strengths of the fundamental forces, have values that look fine-tuned to make life possible. Even small alterations would mean that atoms were no longer stable, or that stars could not form. Why this is so is one of the deepest mysteries in cosmology.

There are limits to the resolution with which we can observe the Universe, and if we try to study anything smaller, things just look "fuzzy"

One possible answer invokes the "multiverse". Maybe there is a plethora of universes, all created in Big Bang-type events and all with different laws of physics. By chance, some of them would be fine-tuned for life - and if we were not in such a hospitable universe, we would not ask the fine-tuning question because we would not exist.

However, parallel universes are a pretty speculative idea. So it is at least conceivable that our Universe is instead a simulation whose parameters have been fine-tuned to give interesting results, like stars, galaxies and people.

While this is possible, the reasoning does not get us anywhere. After all, presumably the "real" Universe of our creators must also be fine-tuned for them to exist. In that case, positing that we are in a simulation does not explain the fine-tuning mystery.

Others have pointed to some of the truly weird findings of modern physics as evidence that there is something amiss.

Quantum mechanics, the theory of the very small, has thrown up all sorts of odd things. For instance, both matter and energy seem to be granular. What's more, there are limits to the resolution with which we can observe the Universe, and if we try to study anything smaller, things just look "fuzzy".

Ultimately, say some physicists, reality might be nothing but mathematics

Smoot says these perplexing features of quantum physics are just what we would expect in a simulation. They are like the pixellation of a screen when you look too closely.

However, that is just a rough analogy. It is beginning to look as though the quantum graininess of nature might not be really so fundamental, but is a consequence of deeper principles about the extent to which reality is knowable.

A second argument is that the Universe appears to run on mathematical lines, just as you would expect from a computer program. Ultimately, say some physicists, reality might be nothing but mathematics.

Max Tegmark of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology argues that this is just what we would expect if the laws of physics were based on a computational algorithm.

We might just be superimposing our current preoccupations onto the laws of physics

However, that argument seems rather circular. For one thing, if some super-intelligence were running simulations of their own "real" world, they could be expected to base its physical principles on those in their own universe, just as we do. In that case, the reason our world is mathematical would not be because it runs on a computer, but because the "real" world is also that way.

Conversely, simulations would not have to be based on mathematical rules. They could be set up, for example, to work randomly. Whether that would result in any coherent outcomes is not clear, but the point is that we cannot use the apparently mathematical nature of the Universe to deduce anything about its "reality".

However, based on his own research in fundamental physics, James Gates of the University of Maryland thinks there is a more specific reason for suspecting that the laws of physics are dictated by a computer simulation.

Gates studies matter at the level of subatomic particles like quarks, the constituents of protons and neutrons in the atomic nucleus. He says the rules governing these particles' behaviour turn out to have features that resemble the codes that correct for errors in manipulating data in computers. So perhaps those rules really are computer codes?

Maybe. Or maybe interpreting these physical laws as error-correcting codes is just the latest example of the way we have always interpreted nature on the basis of our advanced technologies.

At one time Newtonian mechanics seemed to make the universe a clockwork mechanism, and more recently genetics was seen - at the dawn of the computer age - as a kind of digital code with storage and readout functions. We might just be superimposing our current preoccupations onto the laws of physics.

It is likely to be profoundly difficult if not impossible to find strong evidence that we are in a simulation. Unless the simulation was really rather error-strewn, it will be hard to design a test for which the results could not be explained in some other way.

We might never know, says Smoot, simply because our minds would not be up to the task. After all, you design your agents in a simulation to function within the rules of the game, not to subvert them. This might be a box we cannot think outside of.

The Universe can be regarded as a giant quantum computer

There is, however, a more profound reason why perhaps we should not get too worried by the idea that we are just information being manipulated in a vast computation. Because that is what some physicists think the "real" world is like anyway.

Quantum theory itself is increasingly being couched in terms of information and computation. Some physicists feel that, at its most fundamental level, nature might not be pure mathematics but pure information: bits, like the ones and zeros of computers. The influential theoretical physicist John Wheeler dubbed this notion " It From Bit".

In this view, everything that happens, from the interactions of fundamental particles upwards, is a kind of computation.

"The Universe can be regarded as a giant quantum computer," says Seth Lloyd of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "If one looks at the 'guts' of the Universe - the structure of matter at its smallest scale - then those guts consist of nothing more than [quantum] bits undergoing local, digital operations."

This gets to the nub of the matter. If reality is just information, then we are no more or less "real" if we are in a simulation or not. In either case, information is all we can be.

Does it make a difference if that information were programmed by nature or by super-intelligent creators? It is not obvious why it should - except that, in the latter case, presumably our creators could in principle intervene in the simulation, or even switch it off. How should we feel about that?

Tegmark, mindful of this possibility, has recommended that we had all better go out and do interesting things with our lives, just in case our simulators get bored.

I think this is said at least half in jest. After all, there are surely better reasons to want to lead interesting lives than that they might otherwise be erased. But it inadvertently betrays some of the problems with the whole concept.

If reality is just information, then we are no more or less "real" if we are in a simulation or not

The idea of super-intelligent simulators saying "Ah look, this run is a bit dull - let's stop it and start another" is comically anthropomorphic. Like Kurzweil's comment about a school project, it imagines our "creators" as fickle teenagers with Xboxes.

The discussion of Bostrom's three possibilities involves a similar kind of solipsism. It is an attempt to say something profound about the Universe by extrapolating from what humans in the 21st Century are up to. The argument boils down to: "We make computer games. I bet super-beings would too, only they'd be awesome!"

In trying to imagine what super-intelligent beings might do, or even what they would consist of, we have little choice but to start from ourselves. But that should not obscure the fact that we are then spinning webs from a thread of ignorance.

It is surely no coincidence that many advocates of the "universal simulation" idea attest to being avid science-fiction fans in their youth. This might have inspired them to imagine futures and alien intelligences, but it may also have predisposed them to cast such imaginings in human terms: to see the cosmos through the windows of the Starship Enterprise.

Perhaps mindful of such limitations, Harvard physicist Lisa Randall is puzzled by the enthusiasm some of her colleagues show for these speculations about cosmic simulation. For her they change nothing about how we should see and investigate the world. Her bafflement is not just a "so what": it is a question of what we choose to understand by "reality".

Plato wondered if what we perceive as reality is like the shadows projected onto the walls of a cave

Almost certainly, Elon Musk does not go around telling himself that the people he sees around him, and his friends and family, are just computer constructs created by streams of data entering the computational nodes that encode his own consciousness.

Partly, he does not do so because it is impossible to hold that image in our heads for any sustained length of time. But more to the point, it is because we know deep down that the only notion of reality worth having is the one we experience, and not some hypothetical world "behind" it.

There is, however, nothing new about asking what is "behind" the appearances and sensations we experience. Philosophers have been doing so for centuries.

Plato wondered if what we perceive as reality is like the shadows projected onto the walls of a cave. Immanuel Kant asserted that, while there might be some " thing in itself" that underlies the appearances we perceive, we can never know it. René Descartes accepted, in his famous one-liner " I think therefore I am", that the capacity to think is the only meaningful criterion of existence we can attest.

The philosopher George Berkeley argued that the world is merely an illusion

The concept of "the world as simulation" takes that old philosophical saw and clothes it in the garb of our latest technologies. There is no harm in that. Like many philosophical conundrums, it impels us to examine our assumptions and preconceptions.

But until you can show that drawing distinctions between what we experience and what is "real" leads to demonstrable differences in what we might observe or do, it does not change our notion of reality in a meaningful way.

In the early 1700s, the philosopher George Berkeley argued that the world is merely an illusion. Dismissing the idea, the ebullient English writer Samuel Johnson exclaimed " I refute it thus" - and kicked a stone.

Johnson did not really refute anything. But he may nevertheless have come up with the right response.

If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter called "If You Only Read 6 Things This Week". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, Travel and Autos, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

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We might live in a computer program, but it may not matter

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This story is part of BBC Earth's "Best of 2016" list, our greatest hits of the year. Browse the full list. Are you real? What about me? These used to be questions that only philosophers worried about. Scientists just got on with figuring out how the world is, and why.

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Gauging whether or not we dwell inside someone else's computer may come down to advanced AI research-or measurements at the frontiers of cosmology

By Anil Ananthaswamy

It is not often that a comedian gives an astrophysicist goose bumps when discussing the laws of physics. But comic Chuck Nice managed to do just that in a recent episode of the podcast StarTalk.The show's host Neil deGrasse Tyson had just explained the simulation argument-the idea that we could be virtual beings living in a computer simulation. If so, the simulation would most likely create perceptions of reality on demand rather than simulate all of reality all the time-much like a video game optimized to render only the parts of a scene visible to a player. "Maybe that's why we can't travel faster than the speed of light, because if we could, we'd be able to get to another galaxy," said Nice, the show's co-host, prompting Tyson to gleefully interrupt. "Before they can program it," the astrophysicist said,delighting at the thought. " So the programmer put in that limit."

Such conversations may seem flippant. But ever since Nick Bostrom of the University of Oxford wrote a seminal paper about the simulation argument in 2003, philosophers, physicists, technologists and, yes, comedians have been grappling with the idea of our reality being a simulacrum. Some have tried to identify ways in which we can discern if we are simulated beings. Others have attempted to calculate the chance of us being virtual entities. Now a new analysis shows that the odds that we are living in base reality-meaning an existence that is not simulated-are pretty much even. But the study also demonstrates that if humans were to ever develop the ability to simulate conscious beings, the chances would overwhelmingly tilt in favor of us, too, being virtual denizens inside someone else's computer. (A caveat to that conclusion is that there is little agreement about what the term "consciousness" means, let alone how one might go about simulating it.)

In 2003 Bostrom imagined a technologically adept civilization that possesses immense computing power and needs a fraction of that power to simulate new realities with conscious beings in them. Given this scenario, his simulation argument showed that at least one proposition in the following trilemma must be true: First, humans almost always go extinct before reaching the simulation-savvy stage. Second, even if humans make it to that stage, they are unlikely to be interested in simulating their own ancestral past. And third, the probability that we are living in a simulation is close to one.

Before Bostrom, the movie The Matrix had already done its part to popularize the notion of simulated realities. And the idea has deep roots in Western and Eastern philosophical traditions, from Plato's cave allegory to Zhuang Zhou's butterfly dream. More recently, Elon Musk gave further fuel to the concept that our reality is a simulation: " The odds that we are in base reality is one in billions," he said at a 2016 conference.

"Musk is right if you assume [propositions] one and two of the trilemma are false," says astronomer David Kipping of Columbia University. "How can you assume that?"

To get a better handle on Bostrom's simulation argument, Kipping decided to resort to Bayesian reasoning. This type of analysis uses Bayes's theorem, named after Thomas Bayes, an 18th-century English statistician and minister. Bayesian analysis allows one to calculate the odds of something happening (called the "posterior" probability) by first making assumptions about the thing being analyzed (assigning it a "prior" probability).

Kipping began by turning the trilemma into a dilemma. He collapsed propositions one and two into a single statement, because in both cases, the final outcome is that there are no simulations. Thus, the dilemma pits a physical hypothesis (there are no simulations) against the simulation hypothesis (there is a base reality-and there are simulations, too). "You just assign a prior probability to each of these models," Kipping says. "We just assume the principle of indifference, which is the default assumption when you don't have any data or leanings either way."

So each hypothesis gets a prior probability of one half,much as if one were to flip a coin to decide a wager.

The next stage of the analysis required thinking about "parous" realities-those that can generate other realities-and "nulliparous" realities-those that cannot simulate offspring realities. If the physical hypothesis was true, then the probability that we were living in a nulliparous universe would be easy to calculate: it would be 100 percent. Kipping then showed that even in the simulation hypothesis, most of the simulated realities would be nulliparous. That is because as simulations spawn more simulations, the computing resources available to each subsequent generation dwindles to the point where the vast majority of realities will be those that do not have the computing power necessary to simulate offspring realities that are capable of hosting conscious beings.

Plug all these into a Bayesian formula, and out comes the answer: the posterior probability that we are living in base reality is almost the same as the posterior probability that we are a simulation-with the odds tilting in favor of base reality by just a smidgen.

These probabilities would change dramatically if humans created a simulation with conscious beings inside it, because such an event would change the chances that we previously assigned to the physical hypothesis. "You can just exclude that [hypothesis] right off the bat. Then you are only left with the simulation hypothesis," Kipping says. "The day we invent that technology, it flips the odds from a little bit better than 50-50 that we are real to almost certainly we are not real, according to these calculations. It'd be a very strange celebration of our genius that day."

The upshot of Kipping's analysis is that, given current evidence, Musk is wrong about the one-in-billions odds that he ascribes to us living in base reality. Bostrom agrees with the result-with some caveats. "This does not conflict with the simulation argument, which only asserts something about the disjunction," the idea that one of the three propositions of the trilemma is true, he says.

But Bostrom takes issue with Kipping's choice to assign equal prior probabilities to the physical and simulation hypothesis at the start of the analysis. "The invocation of the principle of indifference here is rather shaky," he says. "One could equally well invoke it over my original three alternatives, which would then give them one-third chance each. Or one could carve up the possibility space in some other manner and get any result one wishes."

Such quibbles are valid because there is no evidence to back one claim over the others. That situation would change if we can find evidence of a simulation. So could you detect a glitch in the Matrix?

Houman Owhadi, an expert on computational mathematics at the California Institute of Technology, has thought about the question. "If the simulation has infinite computing power, there is no way you're going to see that you're living in a virtual reality, because it could compute whatever you want to the degree of realism you want," he says. "If this thing can be detected, you have to start from the principle that [it has] limited computational resources." Think again of video games, many of which rely on clever programming to minimize the computation required to construct a virtual world.

For Owhadi, the most promising way to look for potential paradoxes created by such computing shortcuts is through quantum physics experiments. Quantum systems can exist in a superposition of states, and this superposition is described by a mathematical abstraction called the wave function. In standard quantum mechanics, the act of observation causes this wave function to randomly collapse to one of many possible states. Physicists are divided over whether the process of collapse is something real or just reflects a change in our knowledge about the system. "If it is just a pure simulation, there is no collapse," Owhadi says. "Everything is decided when you look at it. The rest is just simulation, like when you're playing these video games."

To this end, Owhadi and his colleagues have worked on five conceptual variations of the double-slit experiment, each designed to trip up a simulation. But he acknowledges that it is impossible to know, at this stage, if such experiments could work. "Those five experiments are just conjectures," Owhadi says.

Zohreh Davoudi, a physicist at the University of Maryland, College Park, has also entertained the idea that a simulation with finite computing resources could reveal itself. Her work focuses on strong interactions, or the strong nuclear force-one of nature's four fundamental forces. The equations describing strong interactions, which hold together quarks to form protons and neutrons, are so complex that they cannot be solved analytically. To understand strong interactions, physicists are forced to do numerical simulations. And unlike any putative supercivilizations possessing limitless computing power, they must rely on shortcuts to make those simulations computationally viable-usually by considering spacetime to be discrete rather than continuous. The most advanced result researchers have managed to coax from this approach so far is the simulation of a single nucleus of helium that is composed of two protons and two neutrons.

"Naturally, you start to ask, if you simulated an atomic nucleus today, maybe in 10 years, we could do a larger nucleus; maybe in 20 or 30 years, we could do a molecule," Davoudi says. "In 50 years, who knows, maybe you can do something the size of a few inches of matter. Maybe in 100 years or so, we can do the [human] brain."

Davoudi thinks that classical computers will soon hit a wall, however. "In the next maybe 10 to 20 years, we will actually see the limits of our classical simulations of the physical systems," she says. Thus, she is turning her sights to quantum computation, which relies on superpositions and other quantum effects to make tractable certain computational problems that would be impossible through classical approaches. "If quantum computing actually materializes, in the sense that it's a large scale, reliable computing option for us, then we're going to enter a completely different era of simulation," Davoudi says. "I am starting to think about how to perform my simulations of strong interaction physics and atomic nuclei if I had a quantum computer that was viable."

All of these factors have led Davoudi to speculate about the simulation hypothesis. If our reality is a simulation, then the simulator is likely also discretizing spacetime to save on computing resources (assuming, of course, that it is using the same mechanisms as our physicists for that simulation). Signatures of such discrete spacetime could potentially be seen in the directions high-energy cosmic rays arrive from: they would have a preferred direction in the sky because of the breaking of so-called rotational symmetry.

Telescopes "haven't observed any deviation from that rotational invariance yet," Davoudi says. And even if such an effect were to be seen, it would not constitute unequivocal evidence that we live in a simulation. Base reality itself could have similar properties.

Kipping, despite his own study, worries that further work on the simulation hypothesis is on thin ice. "It's arguably not testable as to whether we live in a simulation or not," he says. "If it's not falsifiable, then how can you claim it's really science?"

For him, there is a more obvious answer: Occam's razor, which says that in the absence of other evidence, the simplest explanation is more likely to be correct. The simulation hypothesis is elaborate, presuming realities nested upon realities, as well as simulated entities that can never tell that they are inside a simulation. "Because it is such an overly complicated, elaborate model in the first place, by Occam's razor, it really should be disfavored, compared to the simple natural explanation," Kipping says.

Maybe we are living in base reality after all- The Matrix, Musk and weird quantum physics notwithstanding.

Anil Ananthaswamy is author of The Edge of Physics (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010), The Man Who Wasn't There (Dutton, 2015), and, most recently, Through Two Doors at Once: The Elegant Experiment That Captures the Enigma of Our Quantum Reality (Dutton, 2018).

More by Anil Ananthaswamy

This article was originally published with the title "Do We Live in a Simulation? Chances Are about 50-50" in SA Space & Physics Vol. 3 No. 6 ()

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Do We Live in a Simulation? Chances Are about 50-50

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Gauging whether or not we dwell inside someone else's computer may come down to advanced AI research-or measurements at the frontiers of cosmology

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Your internal organs give messages out to the brain and regulate the body which keeps it alive. We do not perceive our insides as an object and we do not predict our internal organs as we do with the mind. Our controlled hallucination = predict ourlseves into existance and this essentially helps us survive.

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Botvinik & Cohen (Nature) 1998 - Neurological Experiment: The brain assimilating an object as part of the physical body

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Botvinik & Cohen (Nature) 1998 - Neurological Experiment: The brain assimilating an object as part of the physical body

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Rubber hand and real hand - Research participant looks at the fake hand being brushed with a paintbrush and suddenly stabbed with a fork. The brain assimilates the fake object and believes its part of the body.

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Donald Hoffman - leading scientist behind the idea of which we are living an illusion and Suzanne O’Sullivan.

Notes:
WHAT IS NEEDED TO STAY ALIVE?

Our reflection of reality isn’t reality

shaped by natural selection to keep us alive for a few decades and then it turns out what is needed to stay alive in our perceptions. Truth isn’t part of it.

Do organisms that see reality for what it is ahve a greater chance of survival than those that do not see reality for what it is.

Example: jewel beetle (western Australia) dimpled, brown males fly around looking for a female he alights and mates. In outback also beer bottles dimpled glossy and brown they are just about the right shade of brown that the rule beatles try to mate with them. With that the species went extinct.

Just enough to stay alive, turns out the truth isn’t needed to stay alive

SS: Neaurological perspective we trust the brain way too much. Our perception is constantly tricking us no matter how smart we think we are.
Ie: Studied people who had seizures and filmed them whilst they wore eeg electrodes that measures the brain’s activity. and wait to ahve seizures and explain it to them

70% who were unconscious were not actually unconscious according to the brain. People who appear to be unconscious but actually not. Brain waves showed a normal pattern as to someone who was wide awake.

Emily dickens, the brain is wider than the sky and deeper than the sea. SS: the degree on understanding our brains is so small.

DH: cortex of the brain has 86billion neutrons, trillions of synapses connecting all of these. Even with a simple diagram we still don’t understand what the system is doing. What problem is the brain trying to solve?

ARE WE JUST MACHINES?

DH: Answer is no. Consciousness is fundamental to reality, but we aren’t machines. Computer science turing machine, are we an equivalent. Are we being programmed by our brains?

Smelling coffee, raw sensations, no way on how to say a machine can have the conscious experiences we have.

Suzanne O’Sullivan

If an idea can trigger a movement, why is it not possible that if you believe you cannot move then why don’t we move. Our brain triggers our movement

We don’t have enough control in our brains as much as we think we do.

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We move through the world responding to the objects and stimuli around us. We believe that they are real; comprised of physical properties we can perceive through sensations interpreted by our brains. But to what degree is our understanding of reality shaped by our consciousness? And what does science have to say about the line between perception and reality?

Cognitive scientist Donald D. Hoffman and neurologist Suzanne O'Sullivan delve into these questions based on their respective research into fundamental questions about the existence of consciousness, and the ways it shapes our interactions with the world. They're joined in this discussion by Wisconsin Public Radio's Steve Paulson.

This event was the third and final segment in our series, Conversations on the Nature of Reality, co-presented with The Nour Foundation and Wisconsin Public Radio's nationally-syndicated program To the Best of Our Knowledge.

Intrigued? Watch video from the other events in this series: "When Will Machines Start Thinking Like Us?" and "The Beauty and Limits of Math."

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Is Reality Real? | The New York Academy of Sciences

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To what degree is our understanding of reality shaped by our consciousness? And what do the sciences have to say about the line between perception and reality? Cognitive scientist Donald D. Hoffman and neurologist Suzanne O'Sullivan delve into these questions and more.

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What is Real - Article - Can we trust our brains

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What is Real - Article - Can we trust our brains

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https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/finding-purpose/202008/how-do-we-know-what-is-real

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What does it mean to be me? We cannot be reduced or uploaded to a software programme. We are biological flesh and blood animals that are shaped by the biological mechanisms that keep us alive. (the physical internal self).

"Ourselves and the world isunique to each of us but they're all grounded in biological mechanisms and this is shared with many otherr living creatures"