Ship in a Bottle

Posted under Software by Rob

I remember back in the 90’s a Star Trek episode called “Ship in a Bottle“, one of the Holmes related holodeck fantasies which, as usual, puts the ship in great peril at the hands of some holodeck character, and ends with the crew smartly fooling said villain with a holodeck trick of their own.   The Moriarity character flies off in an artificial shuttle craft living his artificial life in a world made up of no more than bits of data flowing through a glowing cube of plastic.

Now, aside from the fact that someone really needs to build a big OFF switch on the outside of the holodeck, or at least have it fused somewhere in the basement, the episode did have a thought provoking ending, in a Matrixy sort of fashion.   Picard surmises that perhaps they too are living in an artificial construct of a world, perhaps even running as a simulation on a box sitting on someone’s desk.

Later in the nineties, a movie came out by the name of The Thireenth Floor, which took this idea a bit further.  Enterprising techno geeks have created a simulation of 1930’s Los Angeles,  where they pop in and out of having numerous adventures.  (If you haven’t seen the movie, spoiler ahead here).  In the end, the hero learns that he is in fact a simulation as well, created by uber geeks from the 21st century.  A simulation running in a simulation.  And who knows how many shells there are.

So that brings us to 21st century now, where a team of a physicist and computer scientist have created a simulation of the United States.  So far, they “only” have about 100 million residents modeled.  Each “synthetic American” has a modest 163 variables assigned to them.  They are currently using the simulation to analyze the spread of disease or fads - I’m not sure what the difference between the two is actually - and hope to have all 300 million of us in there in the next six months.

Now, I’m sure they don’t have any fancy brain-to-computer interfaces just yet, but it does make one imagine a time when we can “jack in” to alternate realities of our own creation.  Already, people get lost in on line gaming, such as World of Warcraft, EVE OnLine, and alternate lives such as Second Life.  As these simulations become more and more realistic, many people will become lost, and may even forget their “true” selves, sitting on their comfy couches, until the cable company cuts of their broadband access.

And such visions of what is possible do make one wonder, if we are not in fact a simulation, running on some super computer in some kid’s room.  I just hope he remembers to pay the cable bill.