[SydPhil] Philorum. 2012-12(Dec)-04 Tue. Bishop Berkeley and the Matrix Movies. (Myles Paulsen)

[John Bentley]

Around 1710, George Berkeley propounded an idealist notion of reality, in 
which matter did not exist, stressing his views were commonsense. We 
experience a bundling of sensations which are the "things" of our world. 
God's creation, the laws of nature, is what makes those bundles come to us 
in regular and predictable ways. Today, Berkeley can be understood via the 
emerging field of virtual reality, a similar bundling of ideas without any 
matter behind it. The computer programmer is the "God", and his program is 
the laws of nature. The Matrix movie was the first sci-fi movie to treat the 
concept of a vast virtual reality, with billions of humans unaware they are 
in a virtual reality game which has displaced their "real" lives. I will 
discuss issues surrounding such worlds (including some other sci-fi films 
such as Thirteenth Floor and Avatar) and the nature of AI. All views 
welcomed.

Dates: 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of the month. Nights.
18:15 for a 18:30 Start. Finish 21:30
(Feel free to come and go at any point during the night.)

The Members Bar, Floor 1
(Keep winding up to the top of the stairs.)
The Gaelic Club
64 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills
Sydney, Australia
(100 metres from a Central railway station exit.)


Cost: $3 donation. (This goes entirely to the venue).

www.philorum.org

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