So if the film franchise is to be believed, hundreds of thousands (if not millions) geologists, seismologists, and assorted mining engineers are “testing” soil and rock samples and getting “data” that would essentially be a series of illusions.
shareYeah...? They probably take the samples, look them over, and analyse the data. The data itself is probably based off of records that the machines found in archives and records. They'd be the keepers of information, anyway, since they'd have a bunch of computers.
shareAs long as they're repeating measurements and experiments that were already done in the real world, the machines can supply the original data. No inconsistencies.
shareThat was my point, yeah. I was sorta asking TMC-4 what he was getting at with the original post.
shareI think he's wondering what happens if a scientist is doing research and detects something out of place, because the data shows evidence of having been manufactured, or actually observes a violation of basic physical laws due to a minor glitch or deliberate change being made in the simulation. For the most part the machines have the ultimate gaming engine, a perfect simulation of real world physics. No normal person who's hard wired into the Matrix can leap tall buildings or do anything to bend the simulation's rules.
If somehow a researcher were to obtain proof that showed the "real" world wasn't, the machines could alter or erase that proof. Other people would assume they were paranoid quacks if they started spouting nonsense about all of us being manipulated by unseen forces. Worst case scenario, if enough people saw the proof before the machines could get rid of it, they'd have to sacrifice those people. Chemical leak at a scientific conference. Real tragedy. More on the story at 11.
This is one of the reasons they have Agents in the system, to maintain the status quo. Most control is going to be preemptive. Anyone proposing experiments that might be especially problematic would find it impossible to get funding. Faced with an inability to sell people on your pet project, and offered a good paying job doing something else, you'd probably shelve it. For the time being anyway. And eventually give up on it entirely as your career went in a different direction. Control of an entire world almost (but not quite) eliminates the need to fall back on brute force methods.
You can easily feed confirmation bias by releasing some endorphins. FTFY!
shareIts the same problem as the microscope question. Are you able to look at every "molecule" in the matrix? Is there really enough data to account for every atom we can look at?
My explanation would be, if there was an actual matrix, there would be some sort of algorithm that would make a guess of what you would see.
"..every atom we can look at? "
You can't 'look at an atom' anyway. It's like trying to take a photo of a photon. If you think about how light works, you realize this is not going to be possible. Now, some kind of 'pics of atoms' have been produced, but it's not the same thing as 'looking at an atom' real time.
When you say 'algorithm', you mean things like procedural texture generation?
We can see particles of atoms in experiments such as the cloud chamber. Even though they are actually wavefunctions according to quantum mechanics, when we observe them, they appear as particles.
Yes. Something that would make a mathematical guess of what you would see if you looked.