Plato's allegory of the cave byВ Jan Saenredam, according toВ Cornelis van Haarlem, 1604,В Albertina, Vienna (source: Wiki commons )ДЇast forward 2000-odd years to the modern incarnation of Simulation Theory, which has its origins in 2003 with Nick BostromвЂ™s suggestion that our conception of reality was a computer simulation.Д«ostrom is also a philosopher, who heads the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford. Socrates goes on to argue that a philosopher is like a prisoner whoвЂ™s escaped and realises that the shadows are not reality at all! ThereвЂ™s a fire behind them, so all they have to watch all day are shadows projected on the wall from objects moving in front of the fire. Way back in 375 BC, the philosopher Plato told a story in his Republic about a group of men whoвЂ™ve lived their entire lives chained to a wall of a cave, staring at a blank wall. Aspects of ancient literature and philosophy from the Chinese, Greek, Aztec and Mayan people reflect ideas such as our existence being someone elseвЂ™s dream. The idea of life as a simulation long predates modern thinking about it. Philip K DickвЂ™s books would go on to inform giant pop culture giants like The Matrix, which really solidified the concept that this reality we are experiencing is not real ( frustratingly, that filmвЂ™s red-pill analogy would later be co-opted by horrible internet men to mean something else entirely ).Д«ut the idea of Simulation Theory goes back even further than the Matrix, and I thought it would be fun to break it all down. This was back in the days of the Apple II ! Dick was imagining all this back in 1977 - a long time before we were playing Grand Theft Auto 5 and fiddling with the Oculus Rift.

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