The Virtual Reality Hypothesis: From Parmenides to Einstein and Beyond

Описание: Our next IPI Talk will be on Sunday, 15th of Feb. at 17.00 London time zone. Please watch it live. All IPI members will receive a TEAMS link to join at the end of the talk for Q&A, debates with the speaker and with each other.

Title: The Virtual Reality Hypothesis: From Parmenides to Einstein and Beyond

Speaker: Efthimios Harokopos

Abstract: The nature of reality has puzzled philosophers and scientists since antiquity. We provide a historical account of how various philosophers and scientists have addressed fundamental issues regarding the nature of reality, starting from the Eleatics, through seventeenth-century rationalists and empiricists, to Einstein’s significant revisions of space and time concepts, and finally to contemporary theories, including the simulation hypothesis. We emphasise the fact that scientific inquiry since the time of Isaac Newton has struggled to salvage the reality and autonomy of the world, but it is debatable whether it has been successful. We propose a reality hypothesis based on Cartesian occasionalism, suggesting alternative motion laws that may align with the virtual reality hypothesis, along with a potential corroborating experiment.

Bio: Efthimios Harokopos studied mechanical engineering at SUNY at Buffalo, where he received a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree. He then worked for AT&T, where he was part of a team that researched and developed advanced automation devices, including high-speed robots for electronic circuit assembly. While working at AT&T, he completed the full coursework for a PhD in Engineering at Columbia University and received a second master’s degree in operations research. Then he worked in the finance industry for several years while keeping his passion for the philosophy of science and carrying on independent research in this field regarding the nature of reality and the impact of the digital revolution on human life and evolution. Currently Efthimios is retired and an independent researcher in the field of philosophy of science. He is the author of the book “Beyond Intelligent Design” and he runs the Digital Cosmology blog: https://digitalcosmology.wordpress.com/