There are many representations of a simulated ‘life’ in movies and fictional ideas, or at least where that is where they used to be. It seems these days, and possibly for a while, that the idea is not contained within just the thought of a simulation, it has instead escaped and created its own. People now talk about (or at least online they do), about how real life has become a simulated version of what it once was, as discussed in Virtually Real Life. But this article is more a second instalment to Sim City, where I briefly mention some of the films listed here as a point of reference, but shall do so again with a bit more of why they are important for their representation of the idea.

The Matrix – the quintessential go to now when discussing that simulation, and in fact, people now use that word instead, talking about how we are all ‘stuck in The Matrix’. Programs exiled (prison), replicating of their own accord (breeding) – all bound within a simulated reality (society). I can see why it gets likened to it. Did it get its idea from society, or did society get its ideas from there?

The Island – Clones for spare body parts, developed and ‘born’ straight into adulthood and kept in a simulated reality with holograms and lies. A conditioned and monitored existence, farming them for their ultimate purpose as replacement parts. Just a side-step over to what we have now, and getting closer all the time, as discussed in such articles as Perhaps and Med Bed or Death Pod.

Free Guy – programs that ‘evolve’ and create life, also in a simulated reality. Set in a game, like Ready Player One but that was about people on the outside saving that outside, while on the inside. Hackers being in a similar vein although earlier, but thwarting real life villains and plans, by just playing on the computer. I think War Games might be the ultimate one there though, inadvertently causing a disaster instead of discovering it. And I guess an upgrade on Lawnmower Man, although that was a human who ended up integrated and became part of it, so maybe not.

Dark City – simulated reality, memories swapped like a ‘reincarnation’ process, but the city and all its inhabitants and their experiences based on those memories, so that there is something tangible about them. But they are jumbled and distorted, with no-one really knowing who they are, where they are or where they are from, and just getting on with that as if it has always been so. It’s a strange film, and quite disturbing really.

And I always then start thinking of the Orphan trains, mentioned in A Train of Thought – where I wonder about it being a collective start or a cover story. Is it possible that, too, is a false reality that started the simulation? We were given a collective story about a flood, next time a ‘black plague’, the next batch were told of a war, a natural disaster, a godly smiting, a virus, and so on. Where each time memories resurface or a knowing comes back, it’s time to shake it up again, to cause confusion and mayhem like in So Simple, to stop people having time to think, to settle or to look beyond what has been laid out in front of you. And maybe there isn’t anything else to know, and we are just where we are through good old fashioned fate and fortune, we shall see…

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