In one of those great moments in science fiction, Neo is asked whether he should take the red pill or the blue pill.
The Matrix quite rightly doesn't go down this particular rabbit hole, but if you're familiar with binary arithmetic, you'll spot this as an example of a false dichotomy.
If each pill represents a binary digit (ie a "bit"), Neo actually has four possible choices rather than two, which leaves two that are not mentioned.
Given that it's fiction, we can only surmise, but what would happen if Neo took neither pill? Perhaps nothing would change so that it's the same as taking the blue pill.
Or, an even more trippy option would be if he could take both pills, in which case the blue pill would be mixing it with the red pill. Neo's world would be both fake and real at the same time.
This raises the deep philosophical question of how we know.
Consciousness is a convincing facade pasted over the top of a vast and confusing universe. Are you actually reading this column right now, or are you being tricked by a deep fake?
While it's a pretty good guess that you actually are reading Ask Fuzzy, there's no doubt that part of your awareness is an elaborate fabrication whose construction begins well before any signals hit your brain.
Your eyes, for example, only report a limited portion of the visual scene around you.
The acute area of your vision only comes from the centre of the retina called the fovea. You have a small blind spot where the optic nerve joins the retina, and yet you never notice it.
Your brain constructs a sophisticated model of "reality" in which you have an awareness of the objects around you even though you're not directly seeing them.
Maybe this feels like you're being short changed, but it's actually an extremely clever way of handling impossible volumes of information.
You don't need to see the cover of the book to your left so, rather than overloading your brain, it gets filtered out.
This kind of simplification occurs through all levels of your brain, not just in vision.
Your brain constructs a reasonable approximation of people, places and situations.
Doing so inherently means you have to ignore a stupendous amount of information, so that you are filtering the things that are important from those that are not.
That begs the question of what "important" means, what information matters enough for you to give it attention?
That's a big topic, but the short answer is that you live long enough to contribute to the gene pool.
- After taking two Red pills last week, your columnist decided that insects have two pairs of legs. The correct number, of course, is three pairs.
The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@Zoho.com; Podcast: FuzzyLogicOn2xx.Podbean.com
