I really don't understand what you're saying. I'm saying those inside the Matrix are having real experiences, are facing real choices, and are making real decisions. — Patterner

You said:

I think living in the Matrix would be just as real as living in the real world. — Patterner

Who agrees with you?

Not Morpheus, Trinity, Neo, etc. Not Cypher. He thinks the Matrix is better than the real world, but not "just as real." Not the people who choose the blue pill - they have no way to compare the Matrix to the real world. And presumably no one at all who takes a red pill would say that the Matrix is just as real as living in the real world.

So what basis do you have to say that it is just as real?

By just as real, I mean that, although the impulses reaching the brain do not originate in physical objects, the experiences of them are just as real. Cypher certainly agrees with me. He knows there is no physical steak at the other end of the impulses hitting his brain. But the origin of the impulses isn't important. What's important is the experience. As you say, he actually prefers, and chooses, the experiences he gets from the impulses that simulate physical things to the experiences he gets from impulses originating in physical things.

99% of the Architect's test subjects also agree that the experience of the impulses is more important than their origin.

Picard lived decades of life inn a simulated environment in 23 minutes, and his experiences remained very important to him when he was out of the simulation.

Captain Pike chose the telepathically simulated life offered to him on Talos IV over the life his physical circumstances offered.

How many people play online games like Second Life and Sims, and would play them all the time if they could? How many people would pay such games if they were extreme VR, knowing they are entering a Matrix?

In all of these cases, the person faces options, makes choices, has values, has joy, has regrets, and everything else.

This argument just comes down to our definition of real. This definition of real is that anything that exists is real. Both fake and real are real because they exist. — Hyper

When you are using the definition of real as existing, you must supply what is real after the real.
For example, "Socrates was a real person." This sounds right.

It sounds ambiguous, contradictory and illogical to say, Socrates was real, or fake is real.

I am saying that since both exist as concepts, they both exist. — Hyper

What you're saying seems to vacillate between the circular statement "concepts exist as concepts", and the compositional fallacy "since concepts exist, then also what the concepts are about exist in a sense."

Yet things exist more or less regardless of concepts. For paper to exist, it is neither necessary nor sufficient to have a concept about paper. The existence of money does not depend on a concept about it but on the actual agreements and events on markets.

When we think or talk about things that don't exist, such as 'square circles' or 'nothingness', it is not the case that the things exist in a sense. What exists is our thinking and talking about them.

, you are reading too much into it. I am saying that the concepts exist. And that the target of those concepts also exists, as a concept. And they still have physical presence as neurons in our brain.

Well, it's open to read what you say: that paper and money exist as concepts, and that the target of those concepts also exist as a concept, and that they have physical presence as neurons in our brains.

But why limit the physical presence of concepts to neurons in the brain? Evidently money and paper have physical presence as market events and cellulose fibers. Talk of everything as concepts adds nothing but a veneer of old and crusty philosophical sounding jargon.

By just as real, I mean that, although the impulses reaching the brain do not originate in physical objects, the experiences of them are just as real. Cypher certainly agrees with me. He knows there is no physical steak at the other end of the impulses hitting his brain. But the origin of the impulses isn't important. What's important is the experience. As you say, he actually prefers, and chooses, the experiences he gets from the impulses that simulate physical things to the experiences he gets from impulses originating in physical things. — Patterner

Which is to say that Cypher thinks that The Matrix is more real than the real world, no? If your measurement is experience, and Cypher thinks The Matrix provides the superior experience, then Cypher thinks The Matrix is more real. That is why I said he disagrees with you (although I took you to be saying that the reality of each is equal, which may be different from what you were saying).

Which is to say that Cypher thinks that The Matrix is more real than the real world, no? If your measurement is experience, and Cypher thinks The Matrix provides the superior experience, then Cypher thinks The Matrix is more real. — Leontiskos

I disagree. I don't think Cypher thinks The Matrix is more real. I think he prefers it. I prefer chocolate cake to peas, but they are both real. I prefer chocolate cake to being slapped, but they are both real. Cypher prefers the pleasures that can be experienced in The Matrix to the misery of the constant struggle to survive and constantly being hunted in the physical world. The system you are in and the origin of the impulses that reach your brain are not as important as the experiences you have.

The experiences are equally real. To you.

The issue with the Matrix for any human is that the humans are not in control at all. Suppose the machines discover that human beings not only are less likely to wake up, but also produce more electricity if the entire 10 billion person population exists in the equivalent of a simulation of the worst Soviet gulags. What stops the machines from implementing such a plan?

I suppose the machines have some concern for humanity, since they originally make the simulation a paradise, but there is always the chance they evolve past that sentiment. Similarly, they could just find a non-convoluted source of power, and just decide to cull the whole human population.

The unreality of the "perfect simulation" of the Matrix comes to the fore when you consider that the person in the Matrix is essentially powerless because they are trapped in the illusion. It robs them of, if not all agency, then at least important aspects. Moreover, it robs humanity as a collective corporate body of agency and the ability to pursue its own freedom. What historical progress can be made if history gets reset every 20 years or so?

I feel like there are lots of ways for the metaphor to break down, but an important aspect of it is the way in which the humans of the Matrix are powerless, like an ant colony with a vindictive child's foot perched just above it, or livestock in a feedlot.

Of course, we can assume beneficent machines, and this alleviates the problem, but it would seem to resolve the problem precisely because truly beneficit machines would try to empower their subjects until they could work together to resolve the whole energy issue through some better solution.