The Simulation Argument

Today I may make you happy or sad. Some of you may already have thought about the idea which I will put forward in the following article. “the Simulation Argument” is a thought experiment, in which we may imagine ourselves; that is, our life, our experiences, our friends; to be a computer 

simulation.

What?

Imagine playing PUBG, except you aren’t really playing it, you are in it. You don’t have a character, you are the character. So basically, try imagining everything around you as programmed. The chair you are sitting in is programmed to be there, to look how it looks, your job is a series of tasks you are assigned which you must complete (or not), food is essentially a bunch of code.

Catching my drift? No? Then try this. Imagine that the world you are is a program and just like how you are glued to your phone screen, your “creator” is glued to his screen watching you, maybe controlling you.

This is absurd right? Maybe. I’ll make another attempt at convincing you.

Physics has come to a standstill, because we haven’t come up with a theory which explains everything irrespective of size. The theory we have for planets and stars doesn’t apply to atoms and molecules. “String theory” which you may have heard quite a number of times courtesy of the TV show- the Big Bang Theory, is just an attempt at this unification, but it hasn’t been verified.

But if we are in a simulation, then we can easily explain the discrepancies. We could say, that the “creator” or in this case the “programmer” didn’t make the perfect universe. Rather- didn’t code the perfect universe. This could also explain why things start becoming fuzzy as we dive deeper and deeper into physics.

And finally, you have someone to put the blame on. Not just physics. But all your personal problems too, maybe they are simply syntactical errors. Also you got a way of fixing your stage fright. Think of it as a command from your programmer which you must execute. You are not going up on the stage, because you have to; you are doing so because you were instructed to.

There is an interesting after thought. What about death? If we are in a simulation, then perhaps death is “Quit without saving”. Or death could be waking up in a lab full of scientists, with wires and cables connected to your head which transferred all of your consciousness into the simulator.

Obviously, this is just a theory and we have no way of knowing whether or not we are simulated. But here’s the bizarre thing. If simulations as complex as our universe (we’re talking about everything guys. Right from atoms to black holes) are possible, then this will require a CRAZY amount of computing power. And if that kind of power is achievable, then we must not have only one simulation, but many of these made up worlds with billions of simulated people.

And if that’s true, then there is a very high probability, that you are in one right now.

By Arjun Kulshrestha (Guest Author)

(based on the thought experiment done by Nick Bostrom)

Lights...Camera...VFX !

Starting off in an introspective manner....Think for a second , that would you prebook your next avengers infinity war ticket if there's no more action ,no iron man or even thanos with his huge door-sized arms? Would you go to watch the sequel of Jurassic World (new york attack maybe?) if there were no dinosaurs in the movie? ...Of course not..In fact, 23% people watch these kind of movies because of the unimaginable and fantasy-like action and scenes involved which trigger the adrenaline rush!. Game Of Thrones wouldn't be what it is now ..if it hadn't been for those big green screens,CGI and VFX*. So most of you would already have understood that today I am going to give you everything about CGI , VFX and green (also blue sometimes) screens....

VFX (short for visual effects)

                 First and the most important thing to know for everyone..what is it actually? VFX simply means to put up or create a scene in a film/video which can't be achieved during live shooting. For instance you can't just knock down buildings in New York to shoot a Marvel film..?.

                 How do they do this? First step involves the use of green/blue screens (nowadays green are more preferred though). They are used to provide the background scenes with the actors in the front..the screen should be large enough to cover the entire acting..of course who wants camera peaking out by mistake during a hardcore 'save new york' battle.

Showing this scene at the end would have got atleast a 'comedy' tag to the movie

                     Now how this works is that the software instructs the computer to convert all the green/blue pixels in the camera range to transparent so that a new background can be added easily. To clear of any remaining doubts , pixels of the video use only red,blue or green colour to make up a digital image and red is found in large amounts in the actor's skin tone, hence green and blue are considered the most suitable for vfx.

                    VFX also plays a huge role in advertising a film through it's trailer. What tickles your bones while watching a trailer that you want to book the tickets so eagerly?...yeah that's it the visual effects. VFX makes the trailer look 'wanting' and that's what that makes your adrenaline flowing. A perfect example can be of the film '2012' whose trailer looked amazing just due to VFX:

CGI (computer generated imagery)

Instead of explaining what is CGI...explaining the difference between CGI and VFX would leave you in a much better off position. CGI as it sounds is the imagery generated through special software which is used in the film through VFX...I hope you are getting my point there. 

Your neighbourhood friend without CGI :)

   

Whoops! spoiler for the end game 

What you must be wondering about the above image are the white dots all over captain america.....they are a part of a process called motion capture. It's called motion capture if we're talking body movements and performance capture for facial expressions.Now most of our knowledge regarding this technology is too naive to get it in one go. So, remain calm..as you may not get everything about this particular technique in one go. The white dots are called 'tracking markers' which help the digital artists to track the actor's position in space and successfully assign a digital character to their bodies. This thing I couldn't have imagined myself and the credit entirely goes to this Quora Article .....although I verified that every bit of information is true in there.  Below I am giving some awsome videos by some YouTube channels:

• Mind Warehouse      

                

• Fame Focus 

 

My intention was never to make anyone lose their interest in any of the films/Tv shows shown in the above video but only to provide you free of cost knowledge about what you are watching on the big screens. We hope that CGI and VFX would continue to provide what I call a visual treat to our eyes in the near future with many more sophistication and improvements. Please Follow, Share and comment.

P.S Game of Thrones has it's own VFX team !