is reality really real?

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Is this downy woodpecker really real? 
Or the figment, as am I, of someone else's imagination?

OK. We survived that Mayan end-of-world thingy—unless their math was wrong and they were actually two days off—only to have our anxieties wake up to this new shocker. 

"What if everything — all of us, the world, the universe — was not real? What if everything we are, know and do was really just someone's computer simulation?" writes science writer Joel N. Shurkin. His recent article in "Inside Science News" reports on a new thread of research by professors at two universities searching for traces of the simulation in cosmic rays. (And/or mismatched birth marks on identical twins.)

If this is even remotely possible, even remotely, why wouldn't a futuristic simulator do a better job of imagining me? Was he/she/it having an off day?

For more of Shurkin's article go to: Is Reality Real?

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