The latest weird documentary from Room 237 director Rodney Ascher, A Glitch in the Matrix, premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival and is now in theaters and on-demand. It offers a deep dive into simulation theory, asking how we got to the point of believing that the world could very well be an artificial reality constructed by some higher intelligence.
In this exclusive clip io9 is sharing today, you’ll hear Oxford University Professor Nick Bostrom, a simulation theory expert, dig into history with some musings on 17th-century philosopher René Descartes—with an appearance from Descartes’ “malicious demon” to explain the idea of a world wrapped in illusion.
Then it gets into the more modern idea of—how do you know you’re not just a disembodied brain, plugged in and hanging out in a vat somewhere? If you can’t prove it, isn’t there a chance it might be true? It’s pretty far-out, but so is the film, and you get a pretty good idea of what to expect from both the style and that wild segue seen here.
A Glitch in the Matrix is now playing in theaters and on-demand. You can check out our review here.
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