281
Filozofski vestnik | Volume XLII | Number 2 | 2021 | 281–303 | doi: 10.3986/fv.42.2.13
In the chapter “How the ‘true world’ finally became a fable” in Twilight of the 
Idols, Nietzsche enumerates the steps that led from the belief in the accessibility 
of the true world beyond the illusory world of appearances to the dismissal of 
this metaphysical myth. However, Nietzsche deems that the elimination of the 
“true world” brought about the obliteration of the apparent world as well: “The 
true world is gone: which world is left? The illusory one, perhaps? ... But no! we 
got rid of the illusory world along with the true one!”1
In this paper, I will suggest that the philosophical hypothesis that we might live 
in a simulation2 can be considered to be the last and most nihilistic episode 
in the series of narrations about the true and apparent worlds that Nietzsche 
sketched. As David J. Chalmers claims, “virtual reality is a sort of genuine re-
ality, virtual objects are real objects, and what goes on in virtual reality is tru-
ly real.”3 Accordingly, the illusory world of appearances is considered to be 
equivalent to any computational simulation of it since the information that is 
relevant to achieve true knowledge in the physical world can be digitally re-
produced. However, this means that the sensible world is completely lost since 
all the contradictory and chaotic qualities that characterize it as a becoming of 
appearances are dispensable. While the difference between the metaphysical 
1 Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, in The Antichrist, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols, 
and Other Writings, trans. J. Norman, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 171.
2 The philosophical hypothesis that we might live in a simulation has been popularized by 
Nick Bostrom’s paper “Are you living in a computer simulation?”, Philosophical Quarterly, 
53 (211/2003), pp. 243–255. Many philosophers, scientists, and public figures have been tak-
ing the hypothesis seriously, for example: John Archibald Wheeler, “Information, Physics, 
Quantum: The Search for Links”, in W. H. Zurek (ed.), Complexity, Entropy, and the Phys-
ics of Information, Boston, Addison-Wesley, 1990, pp. 3–28; Elon Musk (“Joe Rogan & Elon 
Musk – Are We in a Simulated Reality?”, https://youtu.be/0cM690CKArQ, accessed 25 July 
2021), Silas R. Beane, Zohreh Davoudi, and Martin J. Savage, “Constraints on the Universe 
as a Numerical Simulation”, The European Physical Journal A, 50 (148/2014), pp. 1–9.
3 David J. Chalmers, “The Virtual and the Real”, Disputatio, 9 (46/2017), p. 309.
* Collège international de philosophie, Paris, France
Anna Longo*
How the True World Finally Became Virtual 
Reality
282
anna longo
supersensible realm and the sensible world is overcome, the latter is substituted 
by a computational model that corresponds to true and objective knowledge of 
reality. Hence, we are nothing more than brains in a vat whose true knowledge 
is completely independent of the nature of the beings we interact with: they are 
essentially patterns of information that are truly known once they can be algo-
rithmically reproduced.
It is important to point out that this conception of knowledge is the condition for 
present-day machine learning, an automated system for producing predictions 
based on the recognition of patterns of information. From this perspective, any 
existing entity can be reduced to the algorithmic procedure that is responsible 
for its behaviour, for the specific outputs that are calculated in response to spe-
cific inputs. This allows one to predict the results of interactions (events that are 
determined by the encounter of differently behaving entities) in such a way that 
decisions (to release information) can be made that are suitable for producing 
the desired effects. For example, water can be known as a pattern of behaviour 
that is correlated to temperature variations, such that changes can be modelled 
as depending on a simple rule that allows one to predict the series of phenom-
enal appearances that unfolds ordinately during the process of heating up or 
cooling down. Within this conception, intelligent agents operate according to 
an inductive learning method that allows them to enlarge their knowledge of re-
ality and construct increasingly accurate abstract models. Such models are pre-
dictive hypotheses about the functions that describe the regular patterns that 
identify the unfolding of phenomena (how something changes in relation to the 
changes of some parameter) or the constant spatial relations that characterize 
specific objects despite their apparent variations (for example, if one cannot say 
that all ravens are black, one can recognize all the possible ravens thanks to 
structural invariants). Like artificial intelligence systems, human agents can im-
prove their knowledge by exploring data concerning the behaviour of systems 
in order to make ever more accurate predictive hypotheses. The cognitive proce-
dure that allows humans to build algorithmic models of phenomena (to identify 
systems with rules or functions that determine their structural relations as well 
as the way in which they affect or are affected during interactions) follows the 
rules of probabilistic statistical inference. A hypothesis about this complex pro-
cedure is used to program learning machines. Moreover, the knowledge (not yet 
achieved) of this learning rule, or what we can call the logic of induction, can 
be used to determine the information that the brain considers to be pertinent 
283
how the true world finally became virtual reality
in recognizing the pattern of information that corresponds to the model of a 
phenomenal object (a category or concept): such information can be digitally 
supplied to obtain the desired brain responses, i.e. the recognition of specific 
objects that call for specific actions that are meant to gain the desired effects. 
True knowledge is then the coherent set of predictive hypotheses that ought to 
be believed in order to successfully interact with objects that are identified with 
patterns of algorithmically produced information. Hence, true knowledge is an 
algorithmic rule that allows one to link the most efficient response to the incom-
ing information under the hypothesis that the received data can be interpreted 
as a part of a regularly unfolding series (a specific object “causing” the brain 
stimulation): the recognition of a pattern justifies the expectation of future var-
iations and such expectations justify the selection of specific actions. Since any 
object is but a pattern of information, it does not make a great difference if such 
information is physically communicated to the brain through the senses or if it 
is conveyed by electrodes stimulating neurons. In any case, the cognitive sys-
tem will operate correctly and true inferences can be made in both physical and 
virtual reality, since both material and digital objects are mere patterns of infor-
mation. What Nietzsche called the apparent world, or the reality of chaotic and 
contradictory sense impressions, is then reduced to an ordered set of comput-
able series of information whose truth can easily be determined by checking if 
the rule is able to generate possible variations that have not yet been observed. 
Such a world, composed of nothing but algorithmic procedures or computation-
al models (anything that is truly known can be correctly simulated by a com-
puter), is believed to be the product of a correct procedure for the production of 
knowledge. Metaphysics is then overcome by proving that true knowledge of the 
empirical world can be obtained independently of knowing the reason why re-
ality is such rather than otherwise. What makes a hypothesis believable, in fact, 
is that it has been produced according to the rational procedure that ought to be 
followed in order to produce satisfactory models of perceived phenomena and 
can be grasped by analysing the predictive theories that are collectively consid-
ered to be true. This analysis of the most trustworthy hypotheses is supposed 
to unveil the cognitive or inductive procedure for constructing efficient models; 
these hypotheses can be tested by simulating learning procedures in artificial-
ly intelligent machines. To put it in another way, metaphysics is overcome by 
showing that the truth about experienced reality can be stated independently of 
its nature (its supersensible origin) but under the condition that reasonable be-
liefs are held as regards the complex inductive rule (or logic) that allows rational 
284
anna longo
beings to construct models to efficiently cope with streams of data by selecting 
the information that is pertinent to classifying the different causes of brain stim-
ulation and by responding appropriately.
Chalmers’s thesis – according to which virtual reality is as true as the apparent 
world we used to call “reality” – is inscribed in the conception of knowledge 
that supports our contemporary automated system of knowledge production 
and that considers any existent being to be an algorithmically generable pattern 
of information. Moreover, as we will see in this paper, Chalmers’s thesis about 
the equivalence between the physical and the digital world can be deemed to be 
the effect of the achievement of the positivist effort for the “elimination of met-
aphysics”4 and an extreme consequence of the effort to establish objective cri-
teria for judging the truth value of propositions about the apparent world. I will 
argue that Nietzsche’s prediction about the obliteration of the apparent world 
has actually been fulfilled by Chalmers, and I will show why his theory must be 
considered one of the many fables that humans have been producing in order 
to organize the world according to their own ends. A fable that is believed to ex-
press true knowledge about reality but which is just an effect of the imposition 
of a non-necessary norm for constructing worlds suitable for the satisfaction of 
human needs. A fable whose necessary condition is the acknowledgment of the 
human creative capacity for lying, which is in continuity with the real as true 
becoming.
The Fable of the True World
That the world we are immediately aware of is an illusion is an old philosophi-
cal assumption. Ever since Plato’s allegory of the cave, different versions of the 
myth have been presented so that the history of Western philosophy can be seen 
as a series of variations on the theme of the relation between the true and ap-
parent worlds. From Nietzsche’s perspective, this is the story of the progressive 
4 I refer here to the paper published by Rudolph Carnap in 1932, “Überwindung der 
Metaphysik durch Logische Analyse der Sprache”, Erkenntnis, 2 (1/1932), pp. 219–241, and 
translated into English by Arthur Pap as “The Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical 
Analysis of Language”, in A. J. Ayer (ed.), Logical Positivism, New York, Free Press, 1959, 
pp. 60–81. The reference to Carnap is motivated by the fact that Chalmers recognizes the 
influence of the Aufbau on his own research program (see David J. Chalmers, Constructing 
the World, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012.)
285
how the true world finally became virtual reality
intensification of nihilism or the imposition of a system of valuation that favours 
the preservation and growth of the human species but which is blind to the real 
value of life as creative becoming.
In Plato’s famous allegory, we are like prisoners in a cave of sensual perceptions 
where we take shadows for real things. The knowledge we have about the pro-
jected shapes is revealed to be false,5 not because the expectations based on the 
observed regularities are incorrect, but because such theories concern phenom-
ena in the apparent world of the cave rather than the objects of the true world 
(ideas). It is important to point out that knowledge here does not merely consist 
in the capacity of addressing the physical objects that pass between the fire and 
the prisoners’ backs and that produce the shadows on the wall (we could say the 
material but invisible causes of phenomena that our science aims to grasp). In 
Plato’s myth, in fact, true knowledge can only be gained by looking into the sun, 
by turning away from any material concern and sensible attraction. The sun 
is a source of truth that is inaccessible to sense organs,6 a brightness that our 
eyes cannot bear: the objects of true knowledge are suprasensible and they can 
only be grasped in thought. The soul, as the non-material inner light, provides 
us with access to the true world and with it the possibility of contemplating 
the real objects of knowledge. The true world is attainable for Plato because, 
as Nietzsche says, “he lives in it, he is it.”7 Such identification with the light of 
truth is possible because the philosopher has detached him- or herself from any 
sensible interference in order to participate exclusively in the true world.
Since Plato, philosophy has been characterized by a progressive distrust in the 
speculative power of reason (the faculty of ideas) and an increasing confidence 
in rationality, the faculty that aims to construct the appearances of the world 
5 As Socrates suggests in this dialogue: “However, what if among the people in the pre-
vious dwelling place, the cave, certain honors and commendations were established for 
whomever most clearly catches sight of what passes by and also best remembers which of 
them normally is brought by first, which one later, and which ones at the same time? And 
what if there were honors for whoever could most easily foresee which one might come 
by next?” Plato, “The Allegory of the Cave”, trans. T. Sheehan, https://web.stanford.edu/
class/ihum40/cave.pdf, accessed 25 July 2021, book VII, 514a–517a. 
6 “But I think that finally he would be in the condition to look at the sun itself, not just at its 
reflection whether in water or wherever else it might appear, but at the sun itself, as it is in 
and of itself and in the place proper to it and to contemplate of what sort it is.” Ibid.
7 Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, p. 171.
286
anna longo
according to objective (universal) rules. While doubting the accessibility of the 
true world beyond the cave (the metaphysical reasons for the world to appear as 
it does), philosophers started to be interested in the mechanism that produces 
the observed regularities in the shadows. The goal was to turn the prison into a 
home that can be fashioned according to the satisfaction of human needs and 
desires (rather than according to spiritual aspirations). Men of knowledge de-
cided to focus on the apparent world in order to discover the laws that organize 
the structure of its appearing and that can be exploited in order to increase the 
efficacy of actions. In the empiricist and positivist version of the story, the dis-
posable world is the ideal or metaphysical one, while useful knowledge is based 
on experience and relates to the mathematizable constant relations among the 
observed facts. The platonic light of reason is now seen as the obscure norma-
tivity of unprovable principles (metaphysical dogmatism) and the real light is 
the rational capacity to produce hypotheses whose truth depends upon their 
practical efficacy. As David Hume suggested, most philosophical speculations 
should be forgotten since they are useless:
If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; 
let us ask: does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? 
No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and ex-
istence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry 
and illusion.8
However, the abolition of the true world has not been achieved by the empiri-
cists and the positivists, who were merely sceptical about the possibility of ob-
taining certainty and who thought that absolute truths were just inaccessible for 
us. The true world is a fable that can still be told even when the representation of 
the apparent world cannot be considered to be necessarily true: for sceptics like 
Hume, any theory is, to a certain extent, a fable, even though fables can be eval-
uated with respect to pragmatic criteria. The abolition of the “true world”, on 
the other hand, occurred when the fable was prohibited as meaningless, as the 
product of an uncoherent and unacceptable use of language. The actual oblite-
ration of the true world rests on the belief that logically necessary truths can be 
stated about the apparent world, which, for this very reason, is the only object of 
8 David Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, as quoted by A. J. Ayer in the 
“Editor’s Introduction” to Logical Positivism, p. 10.
287
how the true world finally became virtual reality
true knowledge. That is why I suggest that logical positivism can be deemed to 
be a further step in the trajectory sketched by Nietzsche: the true world is indeed 
abolished together with the elimination of metaphysics and any discourse on 
things whose descriptions are not logically implied by the axiomatic definitions 
of the most elementary items composing the only accessible and true reality.
The originality of logical positivism is that the impossibility of metaphysics as a 
science does not depend upon what can be known, but upon what can be said. 
As Carnap puts it:
A language consists of a vocabulary and a syntax, i.e. a set of words which have 
meanings and rules of sentence formation. These rules indicate how sentences 
may be formed out of the various sorts of words. Accordingly, there are two kinds 
of pseudo-statements: either they contain a word which is erroneously believed 
to have meaning, or the constituent words are meaningful, yet are put together 
in a counter-syntactical way, so that they do not yield a meaningful statement. 
We shall show in terms of examples that pseudo-statements of both kinds occur 
in metaphysics. Later we shall have to inquire into the reasons that support our 
contention that metaphysics in its entirety consists of such pseudo-statements.9
Accordingly, while the “true world” is abolished as the object of pseudo-state-
ments, the apparent world is revealed to be the referent of statements that can 
be proven true or false and can therefore be truly known. From this standpoint, 
knowledge is a process that consists of finding the axiomatic premises that im-
ply the macroscopic and phenomenal descriptions as consequences. This pro-
cess unfolds by testing the hypotheses that are supposed to be supported by 
the available evidence, which allows one to verify the degree of logical impli-
cation between premises (atomic observational statements) and consequences 
(predictions): the aim is to judge the truth value of any scientific hypothesis 
by checking if it can be analytically derived from the definitions of elementary 
terms. Such definitions concern the behaviour (how they are affected and how 
they affect each other) of elementary entities, the interactions among which 
produce more complex objects characterized by specific ways of acting and re-
acting. Beings should then be defined according to their causal role within a 
network of beings. Any being can therefore be identified as a stable pattern of 
9 Carnap, “The elimination of metaphysics through logical analysis of language”, p. 61.
288
anna longo
relations (which does not vary under the action of external forces). Thus, phi-
losophy is no longer the science of the supersensible objects of thought, but a 
critical discipline that analyses propositions in order to assess their truth value 
according to purely logical and rational criteria.
In order to fully understand why Nietzsche claims that the abolition of the true 
world also entails the abolition of the apparent world, I propose to consider 
more recent developments regarding Carnap’s insights. In particular, I will take 
into account Chalmers’s thesis that virtual beings are objects of true knowledge 
in the same way that material entities are.
The Matrix as Metaphysics
I propose to consider The Matrix as a version of the story of the true and the ap-
parent world that completes the series sketched by Nietzsche. As is well known, 
this movie is about the discovery that the world we live in is a computer simu-
lation and that we are actually brains in a vat under the control of intelligent 
machines that use human bodies as batteries. After realizing the truth, the pro-
tagonist decides to fight the malevolent AI and liberate humanity from slavery. 
At first sight, it might seem that The Matrix is a contemporary edition of the 
allegory of the cave; however, the similarities are only superficial. The essential 
difference is that most beliefs about the physical organization of reality are the 
same inside and outside the simulation, so that once we are disconnected from 
the Matrix, we find no “true” knowledge, but a world where most of the truths 
we possessed are still valid. To put it another way, the objects of true knowledge 
are the same inside and outside the cave since such objects are not material be-
ings but regular patterns of brain stimulations. Such patterns can be perfectly 
instantiated by bits of information, which is why we might not realize that we 
are brains in a vat rather than wired to a genuine reality. The hypothesis that 
we live in a simulation without being aware of it can then be considered proof 
that any perceived world is the effect of brain stimulation and that it does not 
make a big difference if the causes of phenomenal representations are material 
or digital objects (streams of data). The “Matrix Hypothesis” is not a sceptical 
argument meant to cast doubt on the truth of our scientific knowledge of real-
ity, but a thought experiment confirming that our knowledge of the apparent 
world is true independent of the nature of the entity our brains are wired to. As 
Chalmers explains:
289
how the true world finally became virtual reality
I think that even if I am in a matrix, my world is perfectly real. A brain in a vat 
is not massively deluded (at least if it has always been in the vat). Neo does not 
have massively false beliefs about the external world. Instead, envatted beings 
have largely correct beliefs about their world. If so, the Matrix Hypothesis is not a 
skeptical hypothesis, and its possibility does not undercut everything that I think 
I know.10
To understand why the hypothesis that we might live in a simulation is meant 
to prove that our knowledge is true independent of the nature of the objects that 
stimulate the brain, it is important to clarify Chalmer’s epistemological perspec-
tive. His main source of inspiration is Carnap’s structuralism,11 i.e. the idea that 
it is possible to understand the most elementary physical relations (how atomic 
elements are defined by their respective mode of interaction) in a way that ena-
bles us to determine all possible macroscopic effects. However, Chalmers does 
not commit to the assumption that the structure of reality is reflected by logi-
cal relations and that the totality of truths can be deduced from the definitions 
of primitive observational terms. Rather, he thinks that acceptable inferences 
should not contradict the set of the most fundamental beliefs and that such 
beliefs constitute a coherent ground of reliable hypotheses that, even though 
they cannot be taken to be absolutely true, are the premises that allow one to 
judge the truth value of the proposed consequences. As a cognitivist, Chalm-
ers believes that the very fact that we represent the world as a coherent set of 
phenomena that can be identified as regular patterns of brain stimulations de-
pends upon the underlying causal structure of reality. Since reality is a network 
of entities defined by the nomic or causal role they play with respect to each 
other,12 brain states are themselves causally determined within the same web of 
structural relations. In agreement with cognitive philosophers such as Thomas 
10 David J. Chalmers, “The Matrix as Metaphysics”, http://consc.net/papers/matrix.html, ac-
cessed 25 July 2021, p. 2. This paper was originally written for the philosophy section of 
the official The Matrix website (2003) and was subsequently published in C. Grau, (ed.) 
Philosophers Explore the Matrix, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005. The same argu-
ment appears in Chalmer’s book Constructing the World, Oxford University Press, 2012, in 
the excursus “The Structuralist Response to Skepticism” (pp. 431–440). I am quoting the 
text available on David J. Chalmers’s website.
11 See the “Introduction” in Chalmers, Constructing the World.
12 Ibid., p 432.
290
anna longo
K. Metzinger and Andy Clark,13 Chalmers claims that knowledge can be obtained 
through the process of making hypotheses about the structures (i.e. real objects) 
that cause recurrent patterns of impressions. Accordingly, the representation of 
reality is the effect of the recognition of regular relations among received pieces 
of information (phenomenal objects are like virtual maps of the possible caus-
es of recurrent series of stimulations). Scientific enquiry thus consists of mak-
ing increasingly precise hypotheses about the causes of the regularly observed 
patterns, which are supposed to depend upon the rules of interactions among 
unobservable particles. In short, brain states are determined by interaction with 
real objects, while phenomenal objects are hypothetical virtual maps based 
upon regular patterns of stimulation that are supposed to identify the external 
causes of perceived changes in the brain, e.g. the brain state that corresponds to 
the perception of a table depends on matching between the hypothetical pattern 
of stimuli that is supposed to characterize a table and the pattern of present 
impressions (information input). Moreover, the pattern of perceptions that iden-
tify a table can be explained in terms of interaction among more basic entities. 
Perceived patterns can be considered to be the effects of the rules that deter-
mine interactions at the most basic level, rules being the hypotheses as to the 
premises from which all possible true brain states are derived as consequences. 
This means that ordinary concepts – those associated with the representation 
of macroscopic objects or with recurrent patterns of brain stimulation – ought 
to be inferred from scientific concepts about the most basic structural patterns. 
Accordingly, beliefs about the underlying physical structure of the world can 
be used to clarify the relations among the concepts that are associated with the 
brain state caused by macroscopic objects. Normative beliefs, then, are rules of 
inference that allow us to judge the truth value of descriptions of the apparent 
world without supposing a logical structure of reality but which still assume 
that a coherent set of beliefs about reality can be adopted. As Chalmers explains:
The inferential role of a concept can be construed as a normative role, constituted 
by good inferences that the concept might be involved in. On one construal, the 
inferential role will be an a priori role, involving the a priori justified inferences 
that the concept is involved in. On another, it will be a sort of analytic role, involv-
13 See Thomas K. Metzinger “Why Is Virtual Reality Interesting for Philosophers?”, Frontiers 
in Robotics and AI, 5 (101/2018), pp. 1–19; Andy Clark, Natural Born Cyborgs: Minds, Tech-
nology and the Future of Human Intelligence, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003.
291
how the true world finally became virtual reality
ing the trivial or cognitively insignificant inferences that the concept is involved 
in. Either way, inferentialism will give special weight to entry inferences: good 
inferences from thoughts constituted by primitive concepts alone to thoughts in-
volving the concept in question.14 
While learning consists in confirming the hypothesis about the very basic rules 
that support further inferences, knowledge is the capacity to produce correct in-
ferences (to assert true consequences from given premises). This capacity allows 
conscious beings to anticipate future states starting from an observed present 
state in such a way that they can select the actions whose consequences are the 
most desirable in the scenario that will probably be actualized.
Now, the reason why Chalmers claims that we can gain true knowledge in virtu-
al reality is that we can actually control our avatars in order to interact in a satis-
factory way (for example, in a game scenario) and that such knowledge depends 
on the same learning process that we apply in material worlds: in any case, it is 
a matter of making correct inferences about the events that should be expected 
when some conditions are observed. In the same way that we can grasp the 
underlying structure that determines the regular patterns of phenomena in a 
material environment, we can also understand the basic rules of interaction 
among the digital objects that stimulate our brain as streams of data. Moreover, 
when a virtual reality is, like in The Matrix, a simulation of the material world, 
we correctly expect the basic structures of the two worlds to correspond to each 
other, although they are instantiated by different kinds of structures (material 
and digital). Since knowledge is based on patterns of brain stimulations, the 
capacity to make good inferences can be acquired independently of the nature 
of the objects we causally interact with: the structure of digital objects causes 
brain states that are analogues of those caused by the structure of material ob-
jects. As a consequence, most of the beliefs that are true in the material world 
are also true in the simulated world. As Chalmers explains:
Carnap held that all our hypotheses about the external world are in effect struc-
tural hypotheses, concerning the existence of objects satisfying a certain struc-
ture. And he held that we can know in principle whether any structural hypothe-
sis obtains. If so, then we can know that the external-world truths obtain. Even if 
14 Chalmers, Constructing the World, p. 463.
292
anna longo
we are in the evil-genius scenario, or the Matrix scenario, the relevant structure 
among our experiences obtains.15 
In the Matrix scenario, a computer is simulating the structure of the world and, 
even though this structure is made of data, the brain states obtained and their 
relations are exactly the same. For example, the brain state corresponding to the 
perception of a table will be the same when the table is touched by my organic 
hands or by my avatar’s hands. The material and the virtual are both appar-
ent worlds since they are the phenomenal effects of the interaction between the 
brain and the structure of the elements that stimulate it. That they are both ap-
parent worlds means that the qualities that we attribute to things, for example 
colours or smells, are but the effects of the interaction between regular causal 
patterns and the brain: a material apple is not red; it is the non-coloured struc-
ture of the apple that causes the brain state of redness, in the same way a digital 
apple is a pattern of data that produces the conscious state of redness.
I think it is much better to hold that even after Galileo, ordinary claims such as 
“The apple is red” are true. The apple is not Edenically red, but it is structurally 
red: that is, it has the property that plays the structural role associated with red-
ness in causing experiences and the like. Likewise, ordinary claims such as “The 
apple is round” are true. The apple is not Edenically round, but it is structurally 
round: that is, it has the property that plays the structural role associated with 
roundness, in causing experiences and the like.16
Thus, it does not make a real difference if the redness of the apple is caused by a 
material object or by a digital object. In both cases, we can obtain the knowledge 
necessary to predict the future states of the apparent world in order to interact 
efficiently. Any apparent world can be truly known and the truth of this knowl-
edge rests on the fact that, in order to be a coherent set of phenomena, a world 
must be a pattern that emerges from the rules that determine the behaviour of 
its fundamental elements.
The inferences that are correct in the material world are valid in its simulation as 
well: rather than a sceptical argument casting doubt on the truth of our knowl-
15 Ibid., p. 431.
16 Ibid., p. 439.
293
how the true world finally became virtual reality
edge, the Matrix Hypothesis can be considered to be a thought experiment that 
proves that true knowledge concerns the formal aspects of the underlying struc-
ture of the world and that such knowledge is valid independent of the qualita-
tive nature of this structure. This entails that a virtual object can be considered 
to be a real object rather than a fictional object:
Simulations are typically designed to replicate the abstract causal organization 
of an original system. A property such as being a calculator depends only on this 
organization, which is also present in a simulation, so a simulated calculator is a 
calculator. The same reasoning explains why a virtual calculator is a calculator.17
However, the question as to the actual nature of the underlying structure, i.e. if 
it is material or digital, cannot be answered by science, since the latter can only 
access the fundamental functions (the respective roles played by fundamental 
elements) that characterize the structure. Such a question is then, according to 
Chalmers, a legitimate metaphysical question:
Where physics is concerned with the microscopic processes that underlie mac-
roscopic reality, metaphysics is concerned with the fundamental nature of real-
ity. A metaphysical hypothesis might make a claim about the reality that under-
lies physics itself. Alternatively, it might say something about the nature of our 
minds, or the creation of our world. […] In particular, I think the Matrix Hypothe-
sis is equivalent to a version of the following three-part Metaphysical Hypothesis. 
First, physical processes are fundamentally computational. Second, our cognitive 
systems are separate from physical processes, but interact with these processes. 
Third, physical reality was created by beings outside physical space-time.18
Accordingly, the Matrix Hypothesis is an acceptable metaphysical claim and, 
even though it is not possible to verify it from within the simulation (it does not 
produce true knowledge), the proposed speculation does not contradict most of 
the normative beliefs we are rationally committed to. As Chalmers explains, the 
Matrix Hypothesis is equivalent to other metaphysical theories about the nature 
of the structure that is the object of scientific knowledge from the perspective of 
its functioning (science knows how elements work independent of their qualita-
17 Chalmers, “The Virtual and the Real”, p. 325.
18 Chalmers, “The Matrix as Metaphysics”, p. 3.
294
anna longo
tive being: a lever, for example, is defined by its function rather than by the mat-
ter it is made of). For instance, the hypothesis that the world has been created by 
a god standing outside space-time is equivalent to the hypothesis that our reali-
ty is a computer simulation that has been programmed by intelligent machines. 
However, metaphysics is not considered to be a real science that produces true 
knowledge of the supersensible realm in which the phenomenal appearance of 
the objects of experience is grounded. Metaphysical speculations are irrelevant 
with respect to the justification or invalidation of the scientific construction of 
phenomenal reality. Following the positivist endeavour of liberating scientif-
ic enquiry from philosophical justification, metaphysics can be considered to 
be overcome as it is no longer needed to legitimize the truth of our statements 
about experienced reality. Moreover, metaphysical discourses are now judged 
according to the criteria of science as statements whose truth value cannot be 
assessed. Yet, while Carnap defined them as meaningless, Chalmers claims that 
they can be considered to be meaningful even though they do not convey any 
useful information. After all, scientific hypotheses can be judged to be true or 
false independent of metaphysical assumptions.
If one believes that God created the world, and if one believes that God is outside 
physical space-time, then one believes the Creation Hypothesis. One needn’t be-
lieve in God to believe the Creation Hypothesis, though. Perhaps our world was 
created by a relatively ordinary being in the “next universe up”, using the latest 
world-making technology in that universe. If so, the Creation Hypothesis is true. 
I don’t know whether the Creation Hypothesis is true. But I don’t know for certain 
that it is false. The hypothesis is clearly coherent, and I cannot conclusively rule it 
out. The Creation Hypothesis is not a skeptical hypothesis. Even if it is true, most 
of my ordinary beliefs are still true.19
Metaphysical reflections, then, do not provide any access to a true world with 
respect to which the reality we are immersed in would be a mere appearance. 
Rather, metaphysical hypotheses are acceptable when they do not contradict the 
truth of normative beliefs about the perceived world. These normative beliefs re-
fer to the functions of the elements that compose the world as a mechanism that 
causes phenomenal representations in the brain. Everything is thus considered 
to be part of a machine whose structure determines illusory qualitative images 
19 Ibid., p. 5.
295
how the true world finally became virtual reality
in the brain, a machine with which the brain can interact to bring about desired 
effects (rewarding brain states). Knowledge of the causal structure of reality al-
lows conscious beings to engage in practices that depend upon the recognition 
of the possible functions that a being can assume within a network where other 
beings express a specific mode of reacting in response to incoming inputs and 
acting by releasing outputs. Here, truth is a matter of formulating inferences 
that allow one to efficiently interact with the environment by anticipating the 
results of the actions that are supposed to bring about the desired reactions. 
Hence, true knowledge is independent of any metaphysical assumption about 
the nature of known beings that are known merely as expected series of actions 
and reactions.
However, even though truth no longer depends upon belief in the true world 
(the exterior cause of the being of the apparent world) and true knowledge is 
supposed to concern the world we are immersed in, this makes of the scientific 
representation of reality nothing more than a fable, a fable about the mathe-
matical structure that characterizes beings and makes their digital simulation 
possible. As Nietzsche claims in The Will to Power, it is because we simplify 
appearances by reducing them to the repetition of identical cases that we are 
justified in believing that they depend upon a logical or mathematical structure.
Our psychological perspective is determined by the following: 
1. that communication is necessary, and that for there to be communication 
something has to be firm, simplified, capable of precision (above all in the iden-
tical case). For it to be communicable, however, it must be experienced as adapt-
ed, as “recognizable”. The material of the senses adapted by the understanding, 
reduced to rough outlines, made similar, subsumed under related matters. Thus, 
the fuzziness and chaos of sense impressions are, as it were, logicized.
2. the world of “phenomena” is the adapted world which we feel to be real. The 
“reality” lies in the continual recurrence of identical, familiar, related things in 
their logicized character, in the belief that here we are able to reckon and calcu-
late.20
20 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. W. Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale, New 
York, Vintage Books, 1968, § 569 (Spring-Fall 1887), pp. 306–307.
296
anna longo
Accordingly, the idea that the world consists of a series of facts that can be ob-
jectively inferred from knowledge of the basic mathematical structure of reality 
is a consequence of the falsification of sensible events. As Nietzsche puts it:
Our subjective compulsion to believe in logic only reveals that, long before logic 
itself entered our consciousness, we did nothing but introduce its postulates into 
events: now we discover them in events – we can no longer do otherwise – and 
imagine that this compulsion guarantees something connected with “truth”. It 
is we who created the “thing”, the “identical thing”, subject, attribute, activity, 
object, substance, form, after we had long pursued the process of making iden-
tical, coarse and simple. The world seems logical to us because we have made 
it logical.21
The mathematical reconstruction of reality is certainly useful in order to survive 
in the reality we are part of, but the usefulness of a hypothesis with respect to 
human ends does not prove its truth. According to Nietzsche, the abolition of 
the metaphysical world as the real source of truth merely resulted in making 
logic the new criteria for establishing what ought to be considered true: “logic 
would be an imperative, not to know the true, but to posit and arrange a world 
that shall be called true by us.”22 It is because propositions regarding reality 
must be evaluated with respect to the posited rational rules (the formula that 
describes how fundamental entities behave) that any world that can be correctly 
described is considered real, even though such reality remains nothing but a 
non-necessary construction. This construction, however, is useful, so its value is 
relative to human goals: rationality imposes the arbitrary demand of construct-
ing the common world as a norm, but does not provide any true knowledge of 
the sensible world, whose sensual appearance exceeds the artificial simplifica-
tion that is imposed on it. Moreover, it is because rationally constructed worlds 
are environments in which we can actually make successful decisions that we 
think that the truth of our knowledge about them has been proven. However, as 
Nietzsche observes:
In valuations are expressed conditions of preservation and growth. All our organs 
of knowledge and our senses are developed only with regard to conditions of pres-
21 Ibid., § 521 (Spring-Fall 1887), pp. 282–283.
22 Ibid., § 516 (Spring-Fall 1887; rev. Spring-Fall 1888), p. 279.
297
how the true world finally became virtual reality
ervation and growth. Trust in reason and its categories, in dialectic, therefore the 
valuation of logic, proves only their usefulness for life, proved by experience – 
not that something is true.23
Since stable beliefs are needed in order to survive and endure as defined iden-
tities, we project in the real world the existence of stable beings (which can be 
recognized by observing the regularities of the events that are supposed to be 
the effects of their interactions). Nevertheless, this useful construction of the 
world is a falsification of reality, an apparent world that we ought to believe to 
be true because we cannot actually live without this kind of a lie. That is why 
the abolition of the true world as a meaningless fable brought about also the 
dismissal of the apparent world: with the apparent world being reduced to a ra-
tional construction based on idealized elements, we have lost the overwhelming 
sensual excess of which appearance actually consists.
The Unbearable Truth of Reality or Why We Need Lies
If the true metaphysical world is a fable and the apparent world has been sub-
stituted by a useful construction, what is truly real? According to Nietzsche, the 
truth is that there is no truth because there are no stable beings (about which 
something true can be said): the world is a pure becoming and becoming is a 
pure appearance without underlying appearing beings. As he claims, “the an-
tithesis of this phenomenal world is not ‘the true world’, but the formless infor-
mulable world of the chaos of sensations – another kind of phenomenal world, 
a kind ‘unknowable’ for us.”24 The world in itself is the same as it is actually per-
ceived: a chaos of sensual properties and qualities that cannot be known with-
out being betrayed and reduced to a collection of simplified entities or constant 
and quantifiable relations. However, knowledge of the world as pure appearing 
(rather than as the appearance of some idealized set of elementary and math-
ematized beings) is not possible, since nothing actually true can be said about 
it. Hence, “the world with which we are concerned is false, i.e., is not a fact but 
a fable and approximation on the basis of a meager sum of observations; it is 
‘in flux’, as something in a state of becoming, as a falsehood always changing 
23 Ibid., § 507 (Spring-Fall 1887), p. 275.
24 Ibid., § 569 (Spring-Fall 1887), p. 307.
298
anna longo
but never getting near the truth: for—there is no truth.”25 As a consequence, the 
scientific representation of the apparent world is a useful lie. The problem, ac-
cording to Nietzsche, is that this lie, which allows the human species to preserve 
itself, also prevents the expression of humankind’s highest values. Even though 
scientific knowledge as an attempt to dominate nature by reducing it to a set of 
repeatable simplified beings is an expression of the will to power, it is an inade-
quate expression that limits the creative forces of becoming by imposing forms 
whose value is relative to the satisfaction of human needs rather than being 
equal to the absolute value of creative forces. The nihilism of positive knowledge 
depends on the fact that the world is conceived as a dead mechanism deprived of 
“life” and “will”, a mechanism without meaning that tends toward a final state 
of equilibrium or entropic dissolution (the final death of everything rather than 
eternal self-creation through self-destruction). Moreover, the representation of 
reality as a set of parts defined by their respective functions includes humans 
whose performances (practical and cognitive) are judged with respect to the ra-
tional norms that are supposed to ensure the dominant role of the species and 
its growth rather than the expression of the fundamental Dionysian instincts. 
The rules governing the construction of the scientific world are imperatives that 
establish the correct or valuable inferences that rational beings ought to make 
in order to preserve an order of the world that is suitable for the welfare of the 
population. As Nietzsche claims:
The task is to make man as useful as possible and to approximate him, as far as 
possible, to an infallible machine: to this end he must be equipped with the vir-
tues of the machine ( – he must learn to experience the states in which he works 
in a mechanically useful way as the supremely valuable states; hence it is nec-
essary to spoil the other states for him as much as possible, as highly dangerous 
and disreputable).26
Such an “economic evaluation” of human beings is, according to Nietzsche, 
the most extreme danger, the real expression of nihilism as the negation of the 
will to power, the suppression of the truth that men are not defined by their 
preferences and social roles but by being equal to the anti-identitarian forces of 
becoming. Rather than being brains in a vat that are mechanically compelled 
25 Ibid., § 616 (1885-1886), p. 330.
26 Ibid., § 888 (Spring-Fall 1887; rev. Spring-Fall 1888), p. 474.
299
how the true world finally became virtual reality
to behave according to the laws of rationality to maximize individual utilities, 
men ought to aspire, according to Nietzsche, to be artists, to embrace the real 
sensible chaos of becoming and celebrate being part of the irrational power of 
the whole.
The extreme point of nihilism is reached when humans are “truly” known or 
rationally constructed as automatons that perform correct calculations of the 
actions needed to achieve the given goals in a world reduced to the virtual re-
ality of a game. The extreme point of nihilism corresponds to the reduction of 
the human to a pattern of information that can be known or modelled in the 
same way as any other system is known and modelled, i.e. as a series of opera-
tions that can be simulated by an algorithm. This stage corresponds, in fact, to 
the total obliteration of the difference between representation (the constructed 
phenomenal world) and reality since the representing subject has been finally 
reduced to a constructible phenomenon whose value is that of a means like any 
other. In particular, humans – like anything else – are reduced to exploitable 
resources of information and are thus an object of evaluation according to eco-
nomic criteria: that is why, according to Nietzsche, a hero or a new species of 
men is now needed to reverse all values.
The reduction of man to an algorithmic procedure is the condition for creating 
a perfect virtual reality. In fact, comprehending the functioning of cognition is 
necessary in order to provide the brain with all the information necessary to ob-
tain the representation of a coherent reality where one can act efficiently while 
holding true beliefs. The understanding of cognition concerns the elucidation of 
the rules of rational decision-making, which are based on the correct anticipa-
tion of the unfolding events (since the whole process was generated by the algo-
rithmic rules that identify phenomena). Knowledge of these rules can be used 
in order to predict individuals’ behaviour in such a way so as to select the best 
decisions with respect to expected strategies: this is, for example, what the pre-
dictive algorithms we interact with on digital platforms do. However, the reduc-
tion of humans to rules on decision-making based on predictive models of phe-
nomena and specific preferences make them not only predictable by machines, 
but also models for constructing intelligent machines. We are about to reach the 
point at which humans are no different than their artificial simulations or arti-
ficially intelligent systems. However, in order to become models for the efficient 
behaviour of machines, humans have to submit to the norm of constructing the 
300
anna longo
kind of reality where utilities can actually be maximized and where intelligent 
algorithms can be successfully used to improve strategies and to produce useful 
knowledge. The infinite possible states of such a reality – the market reality is 
a good example – can be computed by accessing the rules that determine the 
respective actions and reactions that produce observable events. An apparent 
world in which anything that can happen can be anticipated (even though it is 
not always correctly predicted) and therefore simulated, a world where types of 
agents are modelled as algorithms that compete to satisfy a given set of prefer-
ences by learning the preferences of others, is a lie that is so strongly believed 
that it comes to be the formula of any possible reality. If any possible objectively 
known world can be reduced to a computer simulation, then any immersive and 
coherent virtual reality game can be correctly believed to be real since one can 
learn to interact efficiently by learning its rules. We believe so strongly that the 
world is truly a network of encounters among beings defined by their behaviour 
(algorithmic rules) and that such knowledge sets us free to satisfy our prefer-
ences that we no longer feel the chains that force us to construct the world as 
a rational game that can be successfully played. It no longer matters whether 
we know the origin of the structural laws that organize the world we are im-
mersed in, as far as they are perceived as the necessary conditions of any ra-
tional world-making. It seems even more acceptable to speculate that such rules 
have been made by a foreign AI and that we live in a computer simulation than 
to admit that the rules have been made by us and that we are the authors of the 
lie that we believe to be the true structure of reality. Against the type of man that 
takes the lie of the algorithmic definition of beings to be the only true condition 
of any apparent world, Nietzsche opposes the artist, who knows that we cannot 
survive without lies and that the only authenticity consists of being faithful to 
the creative power of lying by contributing to the ever-changing appearance of a 
world where no identity appears.
Metaphysics, morality, religion, science – in this book these things merit con-
sideration only as various forms of lies: with their help one can have faith in life. 
“Life ought to inspire confidence”: the task thus imposed is tremendous. To solve 
it, man must be a liar by nature, he must be above all an artist. And he is one: 
metaphysics, religion, morality, science – all of them only products of his will to 
art, to lie, to flight from “truth”, to negation of “truth”. This ability itself, thanks 
to which he violates reality by means of lies, this artistic ability of man par excel-
301
how the true world finally became virtual reality
lence – he has it in common with everything that is. He himself is after all a piece 
of reality, truth, nature: how should he not also be a piece of genius in lying!27
Nietzsche’s conception is the perfect reversal of Chalmers’s. For the latter, any 
fiction is “truly real” under the condition of being logically coherent, of depend-
ing on a knowable structure that causes its correct representation in a rational 
mind, i.e. a brain that performs the calculations that are needed to preserve 
itself in any environment, while for Nietzsche no constructed world is real, and 
thus any reality that is believed to be truly known is a fiction. Hence, there is 
only one reality and nothing true can be said about it. Nevertheless, besides 
“whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent,” there is another op-
tion. This option is not available to men of logic but only to the artist, for whom 
the chaos of becoming appears in the form of an artwork, a form that does not 
make it knowable as a defined being but does make it sensible. An artwork is a 
form imposed on becoming as an affirmation of the will to power, a lie that does 
not pretend to be the truth but is sincerely offered as a lie, as a pure appearing 
(rather than the appearance of something defined or simplified). The artist is 
faithful to the truth of the impossibility of truth and he or she offers his or her 
lies to contribute to the creativity of always changing forms through which the 
highest power of the will is expressed: “art is worth more than truth.”28 In creat-
ing forms as true lies, the artist aspires to be identical to the will to power rather 
than to be an identity acting in agreement with human valuable ends. In an art-
work, the unrepresentable becoming of which reality consists is embraced for 
what it is, without any ambition to provide a true image of it, but with the pride 
of being part of the flux in which any stable form is, at the same time, a transi-
tory expression of the whole and which will come back eternally as an instant 
whose value cannot be compared or measured.
Conceived as becoming or will to power, the apparent world is finally liberat-
ed from the fable of the “true world”, from the “metaphysical hypothesis” that 
somebody or something might have created it from the outside as a determinate 
being (a structure). As we have seen, this hypothesis cannot be ruled out by 
Chalmers and by all the philosophers who conceive of reality as an effect of 
the being of a structure, of a set of rules that cannot explain their own coming 
27 Ibid., § 853 (“Art in the ‘Birth of Tragedy’”), pp. 451–452.
28 Ibid., p. 453.
302
anna longo
into being. For Nietzsche, on the other hand, the metaphysical hypothesis of the 
eternal recurrence excludes the possibility of believing in a creator of the world. 
As eternal recurrence, reality is a circular becoming that has neither a beginning 
nor an end, an infinite flux limited by nothing and constantly producing and de-
stroying anything it can produce by reproducing itself. As Nietzsche poetically 
describes in the last pages of The Will to Power:
This, my Dionysian world of the eternally self-creating, the eternally self-destroy-
ing, this mystery world of the twofold voluptuous delight, my “beyond good and 
evil”, without goal, unless the joy of the circle is itself a goal; without will, unless 
a ring feels good will toward itself – do you want a name for this world? A solution 
for all its riddles? A light for you, too, you best-concealed, strongest, most intrep-
id, most midnightly men? – This world is the will to power – and nothing besides! 
And you yourselves are also this will to power – and nothing besides.29
While the man of knowledge evaluates the states of the world with respect to 
utility and himself with respect to the efficacy of his inferences, the artist-phi-
losopher evaluates the states of the world according to their incomparable value 
of necessary manifestations of becoming and himself as becoming equal to the 
will to power, thus contributing to the creation of sensible appearances.
References
Ayer, A. J., “Editor’s Introduction”, in A. J. Ayer (ed.), Logical Positivism, New York, Free 
Press, 1959, pp. 3–28.
Beane, Silas R., Zohreh Davoudi, and Martin J. Savage, “Constraints on the Universe as 
a Numerical Simulation”, The European Physical Journal A, 50 (148/2014), pp. 1–9.
Bostrom, Nick, “Are you living in a computer simulation?”, Philosophical Quarterly, 53 
(211/2003), pp. 243–255.
Carnap, Rudolph, “Überwindung der Metaphysik durch Logische Analyse der Sprache”, 
Erkenntnis, 2 (1/1932), pp. 219–241.
Carnap, Rudolph, “The Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Lan-
guage”, trans. A. Pap, in A. J. Ayer (ed.), Logical Positivism, New York, Free Press, 
1959, pp. 60–81.
Chalmers, David J., “The Matrix as Metaphysics”, http://consc.net/papers/matrix.html, 
accessed 25 July 2021.
29 Ibid., § 1067 (1885), p. 550.
303
how the true world finally became virtual reality
Chalmers, David J., Constructing the World, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012.
Chalmers, David J., “The Virtual and the Real”, Disputatio, 9 (46/2017), pp. 309–352.
Clark, Andy, Natural Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technology and the Future of Human Intelli-
gence, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003.
Metzinger, Thomas K., “Why Is Virtual Reality Interesting for Philosophers?”, Frontiers in 
Robotics and AI, 5 (101/2018), doi: 10.3389/frobt.2018.00101, pp. 1–19.
Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Will to Power, trans. W. Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale, New 
York, Vintage Books, 1968.
Nietzsche, Friedrich, Twilight of the Idols, in The Antichrist, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the 
Idols, and Other Writings, trans. J. Norman, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 
2005.
Plato, “The Allegory of the Cave”, trans. T. Sheehan, https://web.stanford.edu/class/
ihum40/cave.pdf, accessed 25 July 2021.
Wheeler, John Archibald, “Information, Physics, Quantum: The Search for Links”, in 
W. H. Zurek (ed.), Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Information, Boston, Addi-
son-Wesley, 1990, pp. 3–28.