That Neuroscience Guy - Neuroscience Bites-The Matrix

Episode Date: July 3, 2023

In today's Neuroscience Bite, we discuss the neuroscience behind a popular film called the Matrix.

Hi, my name is Olaf Kregolsen, and I'm a neuroscientist at the University of Victoria. And in my spare time, I'm that neuroscience guy. Welcome to another Neuroscience Bite. So again, much like everything else in this season, this is from a listener who asked a pretty cool question. And here it is. Basically, they wanted to know about the movie The Matrix. And it's a bit dated now, but there's one released relatively recently, and it's a series.

And if you're not familiar with The Matrix, the question was, you know, is The Matrix possible? Could we actually do this to people from a neuroscience perspective? And specifically, if you're not familiar with it, the idea is people are wired up and they believe they're in an alternate world. So a step beyond the virtual reality that, you know, that we see with the things that are out today, because this is, would be full immersion. You really think that you're in the world, right? And is that even possible from a neuroscience perspective? And the answer is yes, but definitely not with today's technology. So let's just say that you wanted to replicate the visual input that you see. So if you look around wherever you are right now, you're getting a mass of visual input. And if you wanted to

change that or recreate that, so let's say we locked you in a dark closet, but I wanted you to think that you can see what you're currently looking at. Well, yes, it is theoretically possible. Basically, one way to do it would be to put wires directly into area V1. So V1 is the occipital cortex right at the back of your head. We also call this primary visual cortex. And basically, this is your representation of what you see. Now, the information comes through the eyes. And I'm actually going to talk about this in an episode later on. I've got a request to do one about how we see.

But if you could somehow stimulate all 140 million neurons, now that's actually per hemisphere. And I will say it's an estimate. So possibly 280 million neurons, the numbers really vary, but let's just use that as a number. You would have to specifically stimulate each of those neurons correctly, and if you could do that, if you could do that, then you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between what you're seeing right now and what I'm showing you. Because if I match up one for one, I could literally show you the world as it is. Now, of course, there's all the other sensations,

which is why this problem explodes, but let's just stick with vision for now. The reality is we don't have the technology to put 280 million small wires into your primary visual cortex to do this. Could a computer handle it? Possibly. Can we actually physically get the wires in and attach them where we need? No. And like I just said, you'd also have to do all the other things. You'd have to do primary sensory cortex. So you had the sensations. You'd feel wind. You'd feel warm. You'd feel cold. Your muscles would simulate you walking or standing because in the matrix, they just lie in these little cocoons, right? But if you could match the inputs for all these things, neuroscience would suggest we can put you into the matrix and you would think it was all actually happening. Because at the end

of the day, our entire world experience is based on our five senses, which is why we're going to do a little run on the five senses, how we taste, how we smell, and sort of a summary review. That was another series of user requests. Anyway, that's a little neuroscience bite. The matrix is possible, but not with today's technology. Remember, check out the website, thatneuroscienceguy.com. You can follow me on Twitter at thatneuroscienceguy and DM me ideas like this one was sent in to me on Twitter. And of course, thank you for listening to the podcast. Please subscribe if you can, and I'll see you soon for another full episode of the podcast.

My name is Olof Kreg Olsson, and I'm that neuroscience guy. Thank you for listening.