BOOKS

 The definitive exploration of one of the most daring and consequential theories of our time, completely revised and updated to reflect the rapid advances in artificial intelligence and virtual reality

Are we living in a simulation? MIT computer scientist Rizwan Virk draws from research and concepts from computer science, artificial intelligence, video games, quantum physics, and ancient mystics to explain why we may be living inside a simulated reality like the Matrix 

 On New Earth, Epic is not just a computer game, it's a matter of life and death. If you lose, you lose everything; if you win, the world is yours for the taking.

Seeking revenge for the unjust treatment of his parents, Erik subverts the rules of the game, and he and his friends are drawn into a world of power-hungry, dangerous players. Now they must fight the ultimate masters of the game -- The Committee. But what Erik doesn't know is that The Committee has a sinister, deadly secret, and challenging it could destroy the whole world of Epic.

 How do we know we are real and not just some character in an elaborate game?

In the virtual world of Saga, Ghost is a fifteen-year-old airboarding anarcho-punk, with no past, no memories, only a growing realisation of her own strange abilities. But who is she really and why is she becoming embroiled in a battle with the warped leader of Saga -- the Dark Queen? How have Erik and Cindella Dragonslayer fared since their adventures in Epic?

 #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The thrilling sequel to the beloved worldwide bestseller Ready Player One, the near-future adventure that inspired the blockbuster Steven Spielberg film.   

 Days after winning OASIS founder James Halliday’s contest, Wade Watts makes a discovery that changes everything. Hidden within Halliday’s vaults, waiting for his heir to find, lies a technological advancement that will once again change the world and make the OASIS a thousand times more wondrous—and addictive—than even Wade dreamed possible. With it comes a new riddle, and a new quest—a last Easter egg from Halliday, hinting at a mysterious prize. And an unexpected, impossibly powerful, and dangerous new rival awaits, one who’ll kill millions to get what he wants. Wade’s life and the future of the OASIS are again at stake, but this time the fate of humanity also hangs in the balance 

 A life in Permutation City is unlike any life to which you’re accustomed. You have Eternal Life, the power to live forever. Immortality is a real thing, just not the thing you’d expect. Life is just electronic code. You have been digitized, scanned, and downloaded into a virtual reality program. A Copy of a Copy. For Paul Durham, he keeps making Copies of himself, but the issue is that his Copies keep changing their minds and shutting themselves down. You also have Maria Deluca, who is nothing but an Autoverse addict. She spends every waking minute with the cellular automaton known as the Autoverse, a world that lives by the mathematical “laws of physics. ”Paul makes Maria an offer to design and drop a seed into the Autoverse that will allow her to indulge in her obsession. There is, however, one catch: you can no longer terminate, bail out, and remove yourself. You will never be your normal flesh-and-blood life again. The question then becomes: Is this what she really wants? Is this what we really want?From the brilliant mind of Greg Egan, Permutation City, first published in 1994, comes a world of wonder that makes you ask if you are you, or is the Copy of you the real you? 

 Do multiple versions of ourselves exist in parallel universes living out their lives in different timelines?

In this follow up to his bestseller, The Simulation Hypothesis, MIT Computer Scientist and Silicon Valley Game Pioneer Rizwan Virk explores these topics from a new lens: that of simulation theory.
If we are living in a simulated universe, composed of information that is rendered around us, then many of the complexities and baffling characteristics of our reality start to make more sense. In particular the two most popular interpretations of quantum mechanics, the Copenhagen Interpretation and the Many Worlds interpretation, which are thought to be mutually exclusive, can be unified in an information based framework. Quantum computing lets us simulate complex phenomena in parallel, allowing the simulation to explore many realities at once to find the most "optimum" path forward. Could this explain not only the enigmatic Mandela Effect but provide us with a new understanding of time and space? 

Robert Gu is a recovering Alzheimer's patient. The world that he remembers was much as we know it today. Now, as he regains his faculties through a cure developed during the years of his near-fatal decline, he discovers that the world has changed and so has his place in it. 

"As you choose in all matters, you have ultimate free choice, as long as you do not seriously interfere with the choices of other roving personalities... A superior alien intelligence rules over Earth with absolute benevolence and total control. It offers man a future with no seeming limit to time and space--or reality. Any man can have anything he is capable of wanting, forever. Does man really want absolute free will--and what what will he do with it? Has this noble plan gone sour? What is the future of mankind--if, indeed, it has a future?"--Back cover. 

 In the 1960’s, before anyone had even conceived of the concept of virtual reality, before computers were even in main-stream thought, Daniel F. Galouye imagined the unimaginable. In doing so, he wrote one of the most influential science fiction books of the day, and one that continues to not only influence modern writers but continues to resonate with science fiction readers everywhere.

 He conceived of a world that exists only virtually…one of the first stories about virtual reality. This is Matrix, decades before Matrix was conceived. 

 Stories based on Simulacron-3 have been adapted for both television and movies(The 13th floor ), and the book is considered a favorite of many of the masters of science fiction. 

 Strata is a 1981 science fiction comedy novel by English writer Terry Pratchett. 

THE COMPANY BUILDS PLANETS.

Kin Arad is a high-ranking official of the Company. After twenty-one decades of living, and with the help of memory surgery, she is at the top of her profession. Discovering two of her employees have placed a fossilized plesiosaur in the wrong stratum, not to mention the fact it is holding a placard which reads, ‘End Nuclear Testing Now’, doesn’t dismay the woman who built a mountain range in the shape of her initials during her own high-spirited youth.

 Novel by  Phillip P. Peterson

 Captain Jeff Austin and his crew are stranded in the interstellar void after their bomber is destroyed. Their last hope is a giant alien spacecraft floating abandoned in space. But not long after gaining access, the crew’s worst fears are they are not alone on board, and soon their lives are under threat from sinister aliens.  

 Novel by  Phillip P. Peterson 

The wormhole from another universe that Ed and his crew brought back from their last mission was not a gift welcomed with open arms. While conflict brews between humankind and the extra-terrestrials, Ed and his friends travel with their spaceship to explore the most unusual artefact in our universe.  

 The events of Surface Detail take place around 2970 AD, according to Banks. 

 The "War in Heaven", a  simulated war game, rages between civilisations. Its virtual battles  have been fought for decades, and the victors will decide the fate of  the digital Hells - torturous artificial afterlives with horrors beyond  imagination.
 

 The Culture - a human/machine symbiotic society - has thrown up  many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh. Jernau Morat  Gurgeh. The Player of Games. Master of every board, computer and  strategy. Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad,  cruel and incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game...a game so  complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked,  blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh accepts the game, and with it the  challenge of his life - and very possibly his death. 

 Everything comes with a price …

What if you could live in a universe where you were always the winner?

Pushed to his limits by a horrific accident, Liam discovers he has an amazing ability: he can ‘move’ to parallel universes where things always turn out just the way he wants. But every time he moves the fabric of the metaverse begins to tear. And something evil begins to find its way in ...

  There is a contagious psychospiritual disease of the soul, a  parasite of the mind, that is currently being acted out en masse on the  world stage via a collective psychosis of titanic proportions. This  mind-virus—which Native Americans have called "wetiko"—covertly operates  through the unconscious blind spots in the human psyche, rendering  people oblivious to their own madness and compelling them to act against  their own best interests. 

 How to break free from the collective mind parasite of wetiko 

Drawing on insights from Jungian  psychology, shamanism, alchemy, spiritual wisdom traditions, and  personal experience, author Paul Levy shows us that hidden within the  venom of wetiko is its own antidote, which once recognized can help us  wake up and bring sanity back to our society.