What is the right choice between virtual reality and the real world? How do we define the line between real and fake?

In this blog post, we’ll use the movie “The Matrix” to explore the question of choosing between virtual reality and the real world, and examine the value of what’s real and what’s not from the perspective of human-created order and the right to pursue happiness. It comes to the conclusion that life in virtual reality can have the same value as life in the real world.

 

When I first saw The Matrix as a child in 1999, it was a pleasing to the eye movie full of action scenes that I could only imagine in real life, such as people traveling on telephone lines and fighting without knowing why they were fighting. However, just as reading The Little Prince as a child and feeling different emotions when re-reading it as an adult, The Matrix, which I watched again after 10 years, was not just a spectacular action movie, but a classic that made me struggle to find the hidden meaning behind the actors’ lines. One of the biggest draws of the movie is that it constantly poses questions to the audience, the most compelling of which is: would you rather be in the real world or virtual reality? The majority of people who have seen the movie would say that they would choose the real world, because the movie itself is set in the Matrix, where virtual reality is portrayed negatively as a program created by machines to dominate humans, and the character Cypher is portrayed as a villain who kills his colleagues in the real world, and unlike the other main characters, he tries to return to the virtual world from the real world. But what if God created a virtual reality for humans, and it was exactly the same as the real world, what would you do? Cipher’s actions in killing his coworker were clearly wrong. But can we blame him for choosing to abandon the real world in favor of virtual reality?
Let’s go back to the scene in The Matrix where Neo chooses between the red and blue pills. In the movie The Matrix, the protagonist Neo leaves the virtual world he has been living in to pursue the unknown real world. Why does he reject the virtual world in favor of the real world? Even if you don’t have to think about the difficult topic of whether to live in a virtual world or the real world, the problem of choosing between the fake and the real is close to our daily lives. The easiest example is the problem of choosing between real and fake. If you offered people the same price for an authentic item and a fake one, no one would buy the fake one, because people would prefer the authentic one and not the fake one because they think it’s not worth it. But do people choose the real thing because the real thing has more absolute value than the fake thing? The perception that the real thing has value and the fake thing has no value, even though they are both made of the same material, is not derived from the nature of the two substances, but from the order we have created. The human-created order is simply for human convenience, not based on absolute value. For example, consider the chronological order, which is an important criterion for human beings to distinguish between genuine and counterfeit products. If a company A creates a single prototype with a patent and mass-produces a product, we do not say that the first prototype is genuine and the mass-produced product is counterfeit. Also, if a company B illegally copies A’s product, we consider it a counterfeit, but if B legally produces the same product again after paying A for a technology agreement, we call it a genuine product. We can see from the above examples that what we consider to be real and fake can vary depending on the standards of man-made laws. In other words, we may seek authenticity because we have been taught since birth that authenticity is more valuable, and we have lived and continue to live in a world of standards and order. It is pointless to make value judgments and distinguish between the real and the fake before determining the absolute criteria for distinguishing between the real and the fake and which one has the greater absolute value. Therefore, there is no reason to condemn humans for pursuing virtual reality because we only distinguish between the real and the fake to maintain social order and reject the fake, but the fake itself is not inherently bad. Condemning the pursuit of virtual reality is simply the resistance of our closed-mindedness, which believes that only the real world is valuable because we have been living in the real world for so long, which was created with anthropocentric value judgments.
In addition, humans have the right to pursue human happiness under the right to the pursuit of happiness, which means that it is a fundamental human right to want to be happy. For example, when someone chooses between the virtual world and the real world by choosing the red pill and the blue pill in the movie The Matrix, it is similar to how we choose between the real and the fake in our daily lives. When we come to a crossroads, we don’t make a choice without judgment or evidence. We always consider the variables involved and try to make the choice that is in our best interest or that will make us happiest. If I am fully entertained and satisfied in the real world, there is no reason for me to choose virtual reality, and if we translate this into a choice between real and fake, there is no reason for me to buy a fake when I can afford the real thing. Conversely, if I can’t afford the real thing but can get the vicarious satisfaction of having the real thing, then buying a fake might be a smart alternative. Similarly, if the real world is too painful and difficult, we see no reason to blindly reject virtual reality as an alternative and opportunity to be happy.
Of course, it could be argued that virtual reality is dependent on reality, and since reality exists, everything that happens in virtual reality is just an illusion. But that’s a relative position. It depends on which aspect of your life you place more weight on. Who are we to say that someone who has lived their entire life in virtual reality is not living their life in virtual reality? For example, in Korean society, where studying hard in school is a virtue, if a student only practices dancing to become a B-boy, most people would point fingers and disapprove of his passion to become a B-boy. However, this student is not living for the approval of others, he is putting all his energy into what he deems worthy, and no one can say that his choice to practice dance instead of studying is a worthless behavior. Also, the negative reputation of this student is only from the point of view of Korean society, whereas someone from another country might see her in a positive light. In this way, the lack of recognition from others in a particular world does not take away the reward or value you feel in the virtual world, and there are people who recognize your value and support you. In other words, it is up to you to decide whether you want to live your life in the virtual world or the real world. Advocates of the real world might argue that you can’t ignore your reputation because you’re not alone in the world, you have to live with others. But if you are sensitive to the reputation of the majority, is there any reason why someone who has lived in the real world should go to virtual reality and vice versa? If people in the real world believe that a life in virtual reality is meaningless for someone who has lived in the real world, then the same could be said for people in virtual reality, who believe that a life in the real world is meaningless in virtual reality.
In summary, the distinction between real and fake is meaningless when it comes to choosing between the virtual world and the real world, and a life in virtual reality can be an alternative to the real world as a choice for human beings to pursue happiness, and the value of a life is not dependent on space, but can be evaluated by how it is lived independently of space. In human life, there is no such thing as a real or fake life. Over time, you create your life by making moment-by-moment choices in the direction you want to go based on what you see, feel, and experience. It doesn’t matter if you create it in virtual reality or the real world. The most important thing in life is not what space you live in, but that you live it by your own volition. So let me ask you again. Would you rather live in virtual reality or in the real world? The answer is yours.