3 The whole world is living in a real [Truman show](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truman_Show "The film is set mostly in a town wholly dedicated to a continually running television show. All of the people present in the town are actors or film crew except protagonist Truman Burbank, who is unaware that he lives in a constructed reality filmed for the entertainment of those outside. Central characters simulate friendship or familial relations to Truman. Truman was chosen out of six unwanted babies to be a TV star, whereupon film producer Christof built a gigantic studio to encapsulate Seahaven, the artificial town in which Truman lives. The enclosed studio allowed the producers, directors and crew to control every aspect of Truman's environment, including the weather. To prevent Truman from trying to escape and discover the truth underlying his artificial world, his father is "killed" in a staged boating incident so as to make Truman afraid of water. Because Seahaven appears to be an island, this fear removes Truman's every chance of escape.")/ [Matrix](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix "The world which Neo has inhabited since birth is the Matrix, an illusory simulated reality construct of the world as it was in 1999 developed by the machines to keep the human population docile in their captivity. Morpheus and his crew are a group of free humans who "unplug" others from the Matrix and recruit them to their resistance against the machines. Within the Matrix, they are able to use their understanding of its nature to bend the laws of physics within the simulation, giving them superhuman abilities. Morpheus believes that Neo is "the One", a man prophesied to end the war through his limitless control over the Matrix."). What people know of the real world has nothing to do with real life experiences but is second hand from books, TV and the Internet. People tend to visit the same places over and over again. On the Truman show the main character is imprisoned in a massive television [sound stage](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_stage) that contains his entire home town. He fights to escape when he realises his world is fake. His world had defined boundaries, the walls of the sound stage. <object width="500" height="315"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/uTxnZaH3mB0&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0xcc2550&color2=0xe87a9f&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/uTxnZaH3mB0&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0xcc2550&color2=0xe87a9f&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="500" height="315"></embed></object> Intuitively we think that we understand our own natural behaviour. People are creatures of habit. We tend to have a travel routine, work or school then home. We go on holiday. We can imagine the entire world and we know it is real because we see and experience it. So we "know" we are not living in some sort of Truman Show or in a Matrix virtual world with defined boundaries. These virtual worlds are obviously fiction as we, in the real world, can go where we like. We go on holiday. I could go to China next month, if I really wanted to, and visit the Beijing Olympics stadium. We perceive that everyone except the very poor or disabled has the freedom to travel. The longer we live the further we travel. It is the cumulative sum of our friends and relatives knowledge of foreign places gained from travel that tells us that the rest of the world is real. We read books and watch TV etc. but we don't just believe what is written or broadcast about the wider world. We rely on first and second hand evidence from our trusted friends and relatives. However, recently published scientific [research](http://www.barabasilab.com/pubs/CCNR-ALB_Publications/200806-05_Nature-MobilityPatterns/200806-05_Nature-MobilityPatterns.pdf "Understanding individual human mobility patterns; Marta C. Gonzalez, Cesar A. Hidalgo & Laszlo Barabasi - Despite the diversity of their travel history, humans follow simple reproducible patterns.") states that most people don't have first hand evidence of distant places. People only travel in a small area around their work and home. What the researchers had been expecting was "Levy flights". Which is a "normal" pattern of travel, in other words, mostly around home and work; less often further away and as time goes on further and further away from home and work. What was actually found when tracking 100,000 mobile phone users was that the normal pattern was - ONLY around home and work and NEVER further away even as time went on. Travel away from the nest and work did not happen - it was **statistically** ABSENT. For the vast majority of the world's population the real world outside of home and work does not exist first or second hand. People's natural behaviour imprisons them in a defined area. For them the wider world outside is a Media created virtual world. A fake world created by advertisers, spin doctors, writers, big studio moguls and television producers. It is all fake. <object width="500" height="405"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/rscmiZzM5qM&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0xcc2550&color2=0xe87a9f&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/rscmiZzM5qM&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0xcc2550&color2=0xe87a9f&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="500" height="405"></embed></object> <iframe src="http://issuu.com/ezzye/docs/understanding_individual_human_mobility_patterns?mode=a_p&wmode=0" width="420px" height="552px"></iframe> 3 2 2009-04-08T20:14:48+01:00 401 http://www.click2edit.com/articlesimages/608/200904101239344833_422.jpg 77 0 1 0 The whole world is living in a real [Truman show](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truman_Show) / [Matrix](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix). What people know of the real world has nothing to do with real life experiences but is second hand from books, TV and the Internet. People tend to visit the same places over and over again. 48 11 2010-03-10T05:31:42+00:00 3029