Article Analysis: Whoa, Dude, Are We Inside a Computer Right Now?

The article "Whoa, Dude, Are We Inside a Computer Right Now?" written by Ben Makuch was published in the Vice Magazine. One could argue that the magazine isn't a scientific journal but as the interviewed person, called Rich Terrile is a well-regarded scientist who works simultaneously for the NASA and is writing a book about this subject, we can assume his credibility. Furthermore, Rich Terrile corroborates his arguments by naming respected scientists who already dealt with this hypothesis, for example Ray Kurzweil or Nick Bostom and at one point he also quotes Einstein to support his argument. As the magazine is trying to attract younger audiences, the colloquial language could be seen as intrinsic ethos. Logos is also present in the article. For example, Rick Terrile says that the universe is pixelated and that the pixels can't be broken down into smaller entities, thus the universe is logically finite. The other logical assumption we can find in the text is the reference to Moore's Law, which assumes that the computing power doubles every two years. If the universe is finite and the technical advances keep accelerating, then at some point in time the universe will be computable. Pathos is used several times in the article. Already in the introduction we can feel an appeal to the audience's sense of identity, because he writes:"It's an idea that every college student with a gravity bong and The Matrix on DVD has thought of before ". Always when he compares real life with video games he tries to affect the reading audience as they can draw an analogy to something that they might very much like. This also requires the readers to have some kind of knowledge about video games.