Is it true alot of well known physicists are now thinking that the world we live in is a virtual one?

Answer 1

Perhaps you speak of the methods scientists use to measure physical properties, which are restricted by the Heisenberg concept of uncertainty. The very act of measurement changes the thing being measured, and thus we cannot have direct knowledge, only reflected knowledge of the universe we observe by scientific means. We can put together a picture of the universe, but we cannot recreate it in its first state, lest we change it in the creation. In that way, we can be said to live in a virtual state, one step removed from virgin reality, untainted by man's footsteps.

Socrates' allegory of the Cave deals with men who have seen only shadows and heard only voices of men all their lives; one of them is freed and emerges from the cave, only to be blinded by the reality that he has never seen--men in their true forms, nature, the Sun . Slowly he gets used to it and realizes how limited was his sight while he was confined in the cave. Kind of like Neo's new sight after he wakes up and is flushed from the Matrix.

But this is not to say we live in a false world, only that our understanding of the world is incomplete; we see only parts and shadows, not the fullness of reality as it would be to an omnipotent observer outside the human experience. Scientists are ever striving to complete that world view, but since they still reside inside the Cave, to some extent, they must measure shadows and use logic to draw virutal "pictures" of the completeness of the universe.

Answer 2

Stop watching the Matrix. This is a though experiment originally proposed by Socrates (The Cave), which has a great deal in common with the Matrix.

We live in a virtual world in so far as alot of what we are told by the media is just not accurate. The Iraq war for instance is a study in illusion. The state of the economic conditions of the bulk of humanity is another. Humans it seems tend to hide in the pleasant delusions we can access rather than face and fix the realities we have created. So in a way, we are in a virtual world.

Answer 3

It is true that no serious physicists at all think this.

Answer 4

well since our eyes see only a tiny part of the light spectrum, there could be all kinds of reality's around us that we are unaware of

Answer 5

I am here and if anyone trys to tell me otherwise they are just stupid....

Answer 6

No

Answer 7

Don't know where you heard that, but..........no!