Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and I love all things tech than Today,
Speaker 1: we're going to examine a classic episode of tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: It's a Friday, so it's time for another classic, and
Speaker 1: today's topic is are we living in a computer simulation?
Speaker 1: This is a philosophical question that has received a lot
Speaker 1: of attention and back in Lauren Voge Obama and I
Speaker 1: really thought it'd be a lot of fun to explore
Speaker 1: that whole concept. So enjoy this classic episode do we
Speaker 1: live in a computer simulation? And in fact, the reason
Speaker 1: why we're even talking about this is a few years
Speaker 1: ago a philosopher, and boy is that a surprise, no one.
Speaker 1: A philosopher by the name of Nick Bostrom who works
Speaker 1: at a little um yeah tiny, like in academic circles.
Speaker 1: They have some swagger. It's the University of Oxford. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: as far as the boffins go at Swagger City, right anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he works at the University of Oxford and he's a
Speaker 1: philosopher employed there. Who so his job is to sit
Speaker 1: around and think about the nature of reality. And he
Speaker 1: presented an interesting thought experiment. He said, do we live
Speaker 1: in a computer simulation? Is everything that we experience and
Speaker 1: everything that's around us actually just the product of some
Speaker 1: sort of computer program in a universe larger than our own?
Speaker 1: And we'll talk about you know. What led him into
Speaker 1: this kind of line of thinking and his arguments presenting
Speaker 1: the likelihood that we are actually in a computer simulation.
Speaker 1: But before we begin in that, I thought it'd be
Speaker 1: interesting to look back quite a way. Is actually because
Speaker 1: this idea that reality as we understand it is not
Speaker 1: not exactly new at all. We've been pondering for basically
Speaker 1: as long as we could ponder things, whether or not
Speaker 1: our our experience of reality is reality. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: part of that is understandable. I mean, we know for
Speaker 1: a fact that reality consists of stuff that is beyond
Speaker 1: our perception, right, Oh, sure, absolutely. Like I don't know
Speaker 1: when the last time you looked into the infrared spectrum was,
Speaker 1: but the last time for me was never because it's
Speaker 1: outside my visual acuity. I can't see in the infrared spectrum,
Speaker 1: all right, And there's lots of lots of things above
Speaker 1: our scale of hearing, above and below our scale of hearing. Um,
Speaker 1: if you talk to sharks, they can they can hear
Speaker 1: different stuff, but my dogs totally different stuff that I
Speaker 1: can hear. Yeah, and and even even before we had
Speaker 1: as much scientific data about that as we do now,
Speaker 1: you know, if we had done the research, we can
Speaker 1: tell you the exact spectrums that we can see within
Speaker 1: but outside of visual which is a pretty good word
Speaker 1: for it. But um, but but yeah, you know it's
Speaker 1: it's even long, long, long times before that people are
Speaker 1: pondering these questions and all kinds of literature. Uh goes
Speaker 1: into literature and philosophy right right all the back in
Speaker 1: one one of the famous famous examples of this kind
Speaker 1: of philosophy was proposed by a fellow named Renee Descartes,
Speaker 1: about whom Monty Python had some rude things to sing.
Speaker 1: If you know that your philosopher's song. But Descartes, um,
Speaker 1: I think therefore I am uh fellow. He wrote something
Speaker 1: called the Meditations on First Philosophy, and he presented an
Speaker 1: very similar thought exercise to the one that Nick Bostrom mentioned. Now,
Speaker 1: his was called the Evil Demon, or sometimes people refer
Speaker 1: to it as the evil genius problem. And he said, well,
Speaker 1: what if everything that I renee, I think therefore I
Speaker 1: am Decartes experience is actually just an illusion that's generated
Speaker 1: by an evil force. In his case, he was from
Speaker 1: an evil demon. So there's this malevolent creature that is
Speaker 1: capable of creating everything that Decard is experiencing. So while
Speaker 1: he thinks he's walking around and being really smart and
Speaker 1: chatting with other smart people and having a croissant um,
Speaker 1: in reality, he's not. He's just he's just a consciousness
Speaker 1: that's being manipulated by this evil demon and everything that's
Speaker 1: happening to him is an illusion that's created by him.
Speaker 1: And this is unfalsifiable, right. It means that that means
Speaker 1: that there's no way that you can prove that it's wrong.
Speaker 1: It's like if I say, there's a six ft invisible
Speaker 1: bunny walking around behind me all the time, makes no
Speaker 1: noise and has no scent, right, and you can't touch it.
Speaker 1: You cannot touch. Yeah, that well, that there's no way
Speaker 1: for me to prove that you're wrong. I will sit
Speaker 1: here and I will think that you are crazy. Or
Speaker 1: Donnie Darko, but that uh, you know, or Deborah Donka
Speaker 1: don't darko, I don't know, I mean, or the character
Speaker 1: in in Harvey there you go, yes, but but you know,
Speaker 1: there's no way for me to prove that there's not
Speaker 1: a six ft invisible, untouchable, unsensible, unhearable bunny behind you.
Speaker 1: So that's that's called that. It's called unfalsifiable. That means
Speaker 1: it is not scientific. Scientific principles premises these sort of things.
Speaker 1: They are falsifiable, meaning that there should be a set
Speaker 1: of criteria under which you would say this is not
Speaker 1: true right now. It does not mean that what you're
Speaker 1: saying isn't true. It just means it has to be possible,
Speaker 1: that has to be within the realm of possible. In
Speaker 1: order for something to be proved, it has to be
Speaker 1: able to be disproved exactly. And so if it's unfalsifiable,
Speaker 1: it's not scientific. Now I should also stress if it's
Speaker 1: unfalsifiable and unscientific, that also does not mean it's not true.
Speaker 1: It could be true. It could absolutely be true. String
Speaker 1: is a great example of this. We call it a theory,
Speaker 1: but but some people argue it's a philosophy, Well, it's
Speaker 1: a it's yeah, it's not a mathematical theory, and I
Speaker 1: get into arguments sometimes of people on Facebook about this
Speaker 1: because the theory is the word that has many many meanings.
Speaker 1: Mathematical meaning of it is is something that has been
Speaker 1: proven is true, whereas has been exercised the whole scientific
Speaker 1: theory versus I have a theory, which is really more
Speaker 1: like I have an idea of why this is the
Speaker 1: way it is. Scientific theory and that kind of theory
Speaker 1: are two different things, but anyway, uh yeah, string theory
Speaker 1: would say that the entire universe is made up of
Speaker 1: these tiny, little vibrating strings. And we're talking like tiny,
Speaker 1: as in tinier than sub atomic particles, tiny small, and
Speaker 1: that the way they vibrate, that's what makes stuff what
Speaker 1: it is. Well, mathematically this makes sense, but there is
Speaker 1: no way we can uh we can observe this or
Speaker 1: test this, so therefore it's unfalsifiable and unscientific using that
Speaker 1: particular definition. Uh So, same sort of thing here with
Speaker 1: Renee di Caart and his theory. And this is not again,
Speaker 1: not the first time this idea has popped up, but
Speaker 1: it's one of the really famous ones. And that's back
Speaker 1: in So if we look at the modern version, you've
Speaker 1: got Nick Bostrom talking about a computer simulation, and his
Speaker 1: whole argument hinges on this idea of transhumanism or the singularity.
Speaker 1: So we kind of have to talk about what the
Speaker 1: singularity is so that we can finally get around to
Speaker 1: this whole computer simulation problem, right, and and and also
Speaker 1: talk about trans human because that that's basically a fancy
Speaker 1: term for stuffy. Yeah, it's it's it's a it's a
Speaker 1: fancy term for saying what happens when we reach a
Speaker 1: point in in advances in science and medicine in biology
Speaker 1: where we can transform ourselves to a point where we
Speaker 1: are no longer strictly speed being human. Right, Like, we
Speaker 1: have altered ourselves on some fundamental level, and we aren't
Speaker 1: we we wouldn't be human as we recognize it today, right,
Speaker 1: that our our technology has bonded to us in a way,
Speaker 1: or that our science has bonded to us a way. Right,
Speaker 1: we we've understood genetics enough so that we're all mutants
Speaker 1: like in the X Men, or we have all become cyborgs,
Speaker 1: or we have all transmitted our consciousness into computers and
Speaker 1: there are no physical versions of us anymore. And these
Speaker 1: are all different ways that we could in theory become
Speaker 1: trans human. So it's a very generic term that spreads
Speaker 1: across multiple possibilities. Right, there's no one trans human because really,
Speaker 1: I mean, the thing is that we don't know because
Speaker 1: we're not there yet. It hasn't happened yet, as it
Speaker 1: turns out. I mean, there's a few of us who
Speaker 1: are a little wacky, but but it doesn't mean some
Speaker 1: of us are clearly better than others. I mean, okay,
Speaker 1: I mean we're not we're not naming names, but we're
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. But no, that's the area of trans humanism.
Speaker 1: Singularity is sort of one of the pathways where we
Speaker 1: could reach this sort of trans human future. And the
Speaker 1: singularity is this idea that several futurists have proposed about
Speaker 1: the fact that technology advances are continuing at a faster
Speaker 1: and faster pace each each year, really exponentially exponentially. You've
Speaker 1: got things like Moore's law, where, depending on how you're
Speaker 1: defining it, essentially the computer power is doubling every two
Speaker 1: years um, but other technological advances are are happening at
Speaker 1: an even faster rate that we will eventually come to
Speaker 1: a point where we are advancing continuously with no break
Speaker 1: between the generation, right right, if you think of like
Speaker 1: operating systems and how they come out, like you know
Speaker 1: Windows seven and then Windows But then you think, all right, well,
Speaker 1: then down the road it might be the every six months,
Speaker 1: and then it might be every three months, and then
Speaker 1: it might just be that every single day there's something
Speaker 1: new that's being incorporated, or every second or every a second,
Speaker 1: right cetera. So at that point, things are changing so
Speaker 1: fast that you cannot even define the era you are
Speaker 1: in because there's nothing like within within one moment. Uh
Speaker 1: you have changed so much that it's it's pointless to
Speaker 1: try and defind a series of moments. Right at this
Speaker 1: point in our future, we would hit what is called
Speaker 1: the singularity. And part of one of the defining features
Speaker 1: of the singularity is it's impossible for us to say
Speaker 1: what will happen once we hit that point, because by
Speaker 1: its very nature, it's going to evolve so fast that
Speaker 1: we cannot conceive of what I mean. It's it's kind
Speaker 1: of pointless to talk about it too much. Doesn't stop me,
Speaker 1: but it's pointless. It doesn't stop philosophers. Either doesn't stop me,
Speaker 1: And there are many pointless discussions that you cannot stop
Speaker 1: me from having This is one of them anyway, So
Speaker 1: the singularity could happen in various ways. Again, biology, science, technology,
Speaker 1: These are all the different avenues that that could lead
Speaker 1: to the singularity or could be you know, yeah and uh.
Speaker 1: And that forms the very crux of Bostrom's argument. Let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break for a word from our sponsor,
Speaker 1: and now back to the show. So Nick Bostrom's argument
Speaker 1: uh is worded this way here. Here's from a paper
Speaker 1: he wrote on the subject, a technologically mature post human
Speaker 1: civilization would have enormous computing power. Based on this empirical fact,
Speaker 1: the simulation argument shows that at least one of the
Speaker 1: following propositions is true. One, the fraction of human level
Speaker 1: civilizations that reach a post human stage is very close
Speaker 1: to zero. To the fraction of post human civilizations that
Speaker 1: are interested in running ancestor simulations is very close to
Speaker 1: zero or three. The fraction of all people with our
Speaker 1: kind of experiences they are living in a simulation is
Speaker 1: very close to one. Now, what that essentially means is
Speaker 1: that if we are able to reach a post human phase,
Speaker 1: this trans human phase where we have at our fingertips
Speaker 1: practically limitless resources because of things are being so magical
Speaker 1: and rainbows are popping out of everything. That uh that
Speaker 1: if that's the case, then we should be able to
Speaker 1: create a computer simulation of the universe that is within
Speaker 1: the realm of the simulation itself extremely realistic, and that
Speaker 1: we could also create within this, uh, this universal simulation
Speaker 1: stimulated intelligent beings, so that these these created beings would
Speaker 1: have sentience, they have consciousness, They would they might be
Speaker 1: very much like modern humans. Yes, they be self aware,
Speaker 1: but they would exist within the context of this created universe,
Speaker 1: and so they would only be able to see the
Speaker 1: things that are within that universe. Anything outside of the
Speaker 1: universe they would be incapable of perceiving. So within that universe,
Speaker 1: it would seem like they were quote unquote the real people, right.
Speaker 1: They were. They were the people who were there because
Speaker 1: of whatever forces caused the universe to create be created
Speaker 1: in the first place. Um, And that for these people
Speaker 1: within the simulated universe, it might be completely impossible for
Speaker 1: them to detect anyone outside of it, anyone being us
Speaker 1: that we were the ones creating it. So his argument
Speaker 1: is that if we in fact reached the stage, and
Speaker 1: if we would use our technology to create simulations so
Speaker 1: that we could see how civilizations develop and that we
Speaker 1: would see how we do that interesting bits of the
Speaker 1: universe work, because we're intrinsically curious, right, So his argument is,
Speaker 1: if it's possible, we would do it, yes, And if
Speaker 1: it's possible and we would do it, that means we,
Speaker 1: the current people living in this universe, almost surely a
Speaker 1: computer simulation. So if it can happen, and if we
Speaker 1: are interested in ourselves, and we obviously are, then it's
Speaker 1: almost a guarantee that we're in a computer simulation. And
Speaker 1: the reason for that argument is that in order for
Speaker 1: us to not be a computer simulation, we would have
Speaker 1: to be the first ones, right, we would have to
Speaker 1: be heading towards that timeline and just haven't gotten there yet, Mr. Fusion,
Speaker 1: whereas in every other case, some other post human civilization
Speaker 1: has already gotten there and made at least one level
Speaker 1: of simulated universe, which means that one out of infinity
Speaker 1: means we're the first, and then every other example is
Speaker 1: we're number two or lower. So yeah, that's that's that's
Speaker 1: kind of the crux of his argument, and it's really
Speaker 1: again a philosophical argument it's not meant to say, right,
Speaker 1: we're we're in a we're in a computer game, because
Speaker 1: because somebody that it's set up. Yeah that you know,
Speaker 1: if if you're saying that that ad infinitum percent of
Speaker 1: the time, we're probably a computer simulation. That it's you're
Speaker 1: you're placing the burden of proof on that point nine,
Speaker 1: etceterascent of the population who might think you're wrong and that. So,
Speaker 1: but it's really fair, it's an interesting it's an interesting question.
Speaker 1: It's it's again unfalsifiable at right now. But but here's
Speaker 1: the funny thing. Boston makes this the statement, but it's
Speaker 1: purely from a philosophical point of view, right, It's not
Speaker 1: from a physics point of view, it's not from a
Speaker 1: science point of view. It's philosophy. That has not stopped
Speaker 1: other people from looking at this from a scientific point
Speaker 1: of view. And that, to me is another interesting aspect
Speaker 1: of this argument is that usually you would look at
Speaker 1: an argument like this and say, okay, well that's an
Speaker 1: interesting philosophical question. Ultimately, there's nothing I can do about
Speaker 1: that one way or the other, and then you go
Speaker 1: about your mary a little way, right, But a bunch
Speaker 1: of nice I'm I'm assuming um quantum scientists have gotten together.
Speaker 1: Are you assuming they're nice? Are you assuming their quantum
Speaker 1: signed assuming well, I'm assuming both. I'm going to go
Speaker 1: ahead and give them the benefit of the doubt. There
Speaker 1: have been have been doing some research into quantum chromodynamics,
Speaker 1: which is which is a theory about one of the
Speaker 1: four fundamental forces in our universe. So the four fundamental
Speaker 1: forces are strong nuclear force, electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, and gravity.
Speaker 1: And that is in fact, in the order of how
Speaker 1: powerful they are, right, gravity is the weakest, is the
Speaker 1: one that we're having the most trouble incorporating into our
Speaker 1: model of the universe. Uh. Strong nuclear force deals with
Speaker 1: the force of you know, you know those nucleus is
Speaker 1: things as the nuclei the exists inside atoms. You know
Speaker 1: how they have like stuff that's stuck together, like protons
Speaker 1: and neutrons. And we're not sure why because because hypothetically
Speaker 1: two protons should should push each other each other. If
Speaker 1: you've ever played with magnetics, we well, strong nuclear force
Speaker 1: is the force that that's the name for the reason
Speaker 1: why these things are stuck together so strong whether why
Speaker 1: they're able to stick together, clearly it has to be
Speaker 1: an incredibly strong force, an incredibly strong force that only
Speaker 1: kicks in in incredibly short distances. We're talking on the
Speaker 1: atomic scale. So the strong nuclear force is what quantum
Speaker 1: chromo dynamics is all about studying. And one of the
Speaker 1: ways that quantum chromo dynamics or q c D should
Speaker 1: be way easier to say is to to look at
Speaker 1: this as a part of well, it looks at reality
Speaker 1: as four space time dimensions, so four dimensions. We mentioned
Speaker 1: string theory earlier, So versions of strength theory require that
Speaker 1: there are no fewer than eleven dimensions for strength theory
Speaker 1: to work, which is basically beyond my comprehension entirely. I
Speaker 1: I get X, y Z and time that I can
Speaker 1: I can get a three dimensional object moving through time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's cool. Beyond that it gets a little wonky. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: wibbly wobbly. I'm right there with you, and uh and yeah,
Speaker 1: the same thing. And then again this this plays back
Speaker 1: to that discussion we have at the very beginning where
Speaker 1: we talked about, you know, we know the universe consists
Speaker 1: of stuff that's beyond our perception, but you know, we
Speaker 1: have to filter that through our brains and our brains
Speaker 1: are acting as a middleman between our consciousness and reality.
Speaker 1: So the things that we experience may very well be
Speaker 1: in their fundamental nature extremely different from the way we
Speaker 1: think of them because it's being filtered through because we
Speaker 1: have to model them in a this this concept we
Speaker 1: shouldn't have done. This philosophy makes me sad. I just
Speaker 1: realized that my brain is what's making you sit there
Speaker 1: and you think, like, think about it. If you have
Speaker 1: a bad day, you're thinking, wait a minute. Part of
Speaker 1: the reason I'm having a bad day is because my
Speaker 1: brain is filtering things in a it's my fault, and
Speaker 1: then I just it becomes this cirable loop of of
Speaker 1: everything is terrible because of my brain, which is making
Speaker 1: things terrible. A little glimpse into Jonathan Strickland, folks, that's
Speaker 1: how I get just before I have to go to
Speaker 1: c E S. I know this episode publishes after I
Speaker 1: come back, but trust me, it's it's a terrible life.
Speaker 1: Having to fly around the country and look at really
Speaker 1: shiny technological objects. You're not helping this suspicious cycle going on.
Speaker 1: Getting back to qc D. So part of part of
Speaker 1: this is looking at reality as for spacetime dimensions. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it's using computers that are really really powerful to
Speaker 1: do this and creating something that's uh, well, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's it's called a lattice gauge. Uh. It's last gage
Speaker 1: theory actually. Uh. ATM is sort of the framework within
Speaker 1: which q c D tries to explain the strong nuclear force.
Speaker 1: And uh, this part of this means that we try
Speaker 1: and simulate and then incredibly tiny simulated universe, right, right,
Speaker 1: And this is on the this is on actually the
Speaker 1: femto scale by saying that, right is correct, excellent, um,
Speaker 1: And and a femtometer is one quadrillionth of a meter
Speaker 1: nanometer for for references, one billionth of a meter. And
Speaker 1: that's also very small. Yes, yeah, when you talk about
Speaker 1: nanotechnology and that super small technology that is enormous compared
Speaker 1: to the femto scale, we're talking really really really tiny. Well,
Speaker 1: they build this sort of lattice structure to contain the
Speaker 1: simulated universe, and within this simulated universe, they are examining
Speaker 1: the elements that make up the strong nuclear force so
Speaker 1: that we can understand what it is and how it
Speaker 1: works better. Right, that's the whole purpose. One of the
Speaker 1: big driving forces of the universe. We want to understand it.
Speaker 1: But these these physicists said, hey, wait a minute. If
Speaker 1: this is how we are simulating and entirely fake universe,
Speaker 1: a very tiny universe, doesn't it stand to reason that
Speaker 1: some other like if we are and if we became
Speaker 1: hyper advanced, if if we went trans human, couldn't those
Speaker 1: trans humans in fact use the same technology to simulate
Speaker 1: an entire universe on a big scale, on a really
Speaker 1: large scale niver scale, right, or or at least for us.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could also argue that just to populate
Speaker 1: a fimpto sized universe with with even smaller individual units
Speaker 1: within that fimpto sized universe, the idea being that, well
Speaker 1: you could you could create a stimulation that is a
Speaker 1: true universe with inhabitants and intelligent inhabitants, and that if
Speaker 1: in fact we are in a computer simulation, then perhaps
Speaker 1: there's some way that we could text if this lattice
Speaker 1: structure is around our own universe. Um. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: where it's getting to the point where it's hard for
Speaker 1: me to actually explain because it's stretching both of our
Speaker 1: grasps on quantum mechanics are are perhaps not as strong
Speaker 1: as they could be, and cosmology for the matter. For
Speaker 1: that matter, because we're talking about things like cosmic rays.
Speaker 1: The physicists suggested that perhaps we could um observe cosmic
Speaker 1: rays and and really study them in depth and see
Speaker 1: how they behave within our universe and look for evidence
Speaker 1: of a lattice structure, which would indicate that some other
Speaker 1: larger universe had used the same techniques we used to
Speaker 1: create the fimto universes we're making to look at the
Speaker 1: strong nuclear force to make our own universe, and then
Speaker 1: we'd say, hey, look there's evidence we are in a
Speaker 1: computer simulation crap. There are there are some issues with this.
Speaker 1: One is that, uh, it presumes that any post human
Speaker 1: civilization would use the exact so uh, there's another assumption
Speaker 1: that said post human society would allow us to be
Speaker 1: able to find our own right that you know, they
Speaker 1: wouldn't paint in a nice little backdrop that would prevent
Speaker 1: us from seeing the scenes, like to put in a
Speaker 1: patch or to reset us. Let's go back to bronze age, Pope,
Speaker 1: folks control or delete um. There's also the argument that, well,
Speaker 1: what if our universe is so large that it is
Speaker 1: a bounded universe, because that's the other thing. A lattice
Speaker 1: structure would also indicate that our universe does have finite
Speaker 1: it's a finite universe. What if that finite universe is
Speaker 1: still too big for us to ever be able to
Speaker 1: see the edges, or what if the universe just is
Speaker 1: finite anyway. Yeah, it could be that the universe is
Speaker 1: finite anyway and has nothing to do with the lass structure.
Speaker 1: And so there are a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: objections that people have brought up. But mainly what this
Speaker 1: approach would allow us to do is if we saw
Speaker 1: the last structure, we could maybe draw some conclusions. But
Speaker 1: in any other case, like if we didn't see the
Speaker 1: last structure, it doesn't answer any questions. All right, it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Yeah, it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that we're not in a computer simulation. So this so
Speaker 1: it's interesting, But again it's just sort of an extension
Speaker 1: of this thought experiment where, uh, you know, we're kind
Speaker 1: of getting round to the point that I'm most interested
Speaker 1: in in this whole discussion that all right, let's let's
Speaker 1: say that let's say that we are in a computer simulation,
Speaker 1: whether we know it or not. It doesn't it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: We don't necessarily need to know that we are. But
Speaker 1: let's just let's just assume assuming that we are that
Speaker 1: we are. Does that matter on a day to day scale?
Speaker 1: Would it matter if we were in a computer simulation
Speaker 1: in some ways? Now, if we don't know, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter at all. I mean, you know, if we if yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, if if we had absolute proof of it,
Speaker 1: then that would be that would be huge, That would
Speaker 1: be shattering. Yeah, that would that would probably cause wars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for for all kinds of philosophies and religions and and
Speaker 1: just interpersonal I mean, I mean within my own head,
Speaker 1: I would probably need to spend a few days just
Speaker 1: just a drooling because talking about my normal weak this
Speaker 1: is what I do. Alright, Fine, Okay, so now I
Speaker 1: know something different between me and Lauren learn a new stuff?
Speaker 1: Um No, I I agree that that. And if we
Speaker 1: don't know, there was no difference because the rules that
Speaker 1: we have created for ourselves, but based on our cultures
Speaker 1: and our society, those haven't changed. Like like if I
Speaker 1: found out somehow, like if if knowledge were given to
Speaker 1: me personally, everyone who's alive, that yes, in fact, you
Speaker 1: live in a computer simulation. After I had that moment
Speaker 1: where I I upped my drooling capacity for my daily
Speaker 1: allowance of drooling, I would sit there and think, well, ultimately,
Speaker 1: this doesn't change anything. I mean, it's my life still
Speaker 1: has meaning within the context of the world I live in.
Speaker 1: We still need to go get lunch, we still we
Speaker 1: still get married, we still die, and I still I
Speaker 1: still laugh, I still cry. I still find that Mitchell
Speaker 1: and Web look to be absolutely hilarious, and I would
Speaker 1: really like it if Netflix streaming would bring it back
Speaker 1: for me. I mean, you know, all these sort of
Speaker 1: things would still be true. So I don't think that
Speaker 1: ultimately it changes anything unless it were something where we
Speaker 1: could definitively prove it, and then that would change major things,
Speaker 1: like essentially a lot of people would have to answer
Speaker 1: some very tough questions in regards to philosophy and religion particularly,
Speaker 1: but other things as well. But those two insticularly some
Speaker 1: very nice philosophy departments would be more or less out
Speaker 1: of jobs. Yeah, well, you know, actually you'd step away
Speaker 1: from being out of a job anyway. Come on, we're
Speaker 1: talking about philosophy here. Snap. This is coming from a
Speaker 1: literature major Okay, I did you see that. This is
Speaker 1: off topic, But there was a list I think of
Speaker 1: the most unemployable majors came out. Philosophy I think was
Speaker 1: in the top three. Yeah, literature was in the top ten.
Speaker 1: Was it was it? I was created writing? Do you
Speaker 1: have any creative writing? I think they didn't even put
Speaker 1: in there. It's like, are you Neil Gaiman? No? Um, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm an editor. I'm working in my field, folks. That's true,
Speaker 1: that's true. I'm I don't know what my field would be.
Speaker 1: So I was a medieval literaguy. I guess I'd be
Speaker 1: teaching medieval literature if I were in my field. But
Speaker 1: it's funny that I went into technology podcasting instead. So anyway, ultimately,
Speaker 1: I don't think it would really matter. There's no way
Speaker 1: of knowing currently one way or the other. So from
Speaker 1: that perspective, thought exercise right. Yeah, hey there it's Job
Speaker 1: of twenty nineteen again. Time to take another quick break
Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor. So, ultimately, uh, it may or
Speaker 1: may not matter if we're in a computer simulation. But
Speaker 1: the other question to ask is how feasible is it?
Speaker 1: How would it be possible to actually create a universe
Speaker 1: on this what would it take to create a universe
Speaker 1: on this scale? Right? And I mean because simulating something
Speaker 1: is actually very much more complicated than just doing it. Um.
Speaker 1: For for example, UM, I was reading one article that
Speaker 1: that sided a number where if you were to take
Speaker 1: a hard drive and you wanted to create a simulation
Speaker 1: of that entire hard drive, you would have to simulate
Speaker 1: every single adom, minute, record, its position, it's it's time scale,
Speaker 1: everything about it. That would be you know, and and
Speaker 1: and every single atomant and hard drive is maybe intend
Speaker 1: to the power of twenty four atoms a couple a
Speaker 1: bunch um and but in order to simulate it, you
Speaker 1: would have to about have about a hundred bits of
Speaker 1: information at least on each of those atoms. Right. So,
Speaker 1: so when you think about that, if the world is
Speaker 1: or this universe is a computer simulation, and that means
Speaker 1: the simulation has to take into account every single object
Speaker 1: within that world, whether that object is part of something
Speaker 1: else or or an individual object, its position, it's uh,
Speaker 1: if it's moving, its relationship to every other object within
Speaker 1: that universe, how that objects behavior you know, however you
Speaker 1: wanted to find that affects other objects. It's it's are
Speaker 1: you are you going down to the atomic scale? Are
Speaker 1: you going to the sub atomic scale? How how deep
Speaker 1: does the rabbit hole go? Right? Right? Because because the
Speaker 1: other problem here is that as we the human beings
Speaker 1: who live right here and now, whether it's a computer
Speaker 1: simulation or not, get more advanced, we get to learn
Speaker 1: more about our environment and we get to look even
Speaker 1: deeper than we could before. So like, let's go back
Speaker 1: to the Stone Age, no microscopes, nothing like anything that
Speaker 1: was beyond our ability to actually see it did not
Speaker 1: exist in our minds. And then we got more and
Speaker 1: more advanced, and we were able to suddenly start seeing
Speaker 1: things that are tinier and tinier. And then we get
Speaker 1: to the point where we've got electron tunneling microscopes and
Speaker 1: we can move individual atoms into place and we can
Speaker 1: see things that are really far away. That would mean
Speaker 1: that the simulation would have to take into account the
Speaker 1: ability for us to see well beyond what we first right,
Speaker 1: So that's kind of incredible to think about that way,
Speaker 1: Like how much power would you have to have to
Speaker 1: generate this? Is it something that would be added over
Speaker 1: time so that like you know, someone's someone's checking in
Speaker 1: every now and like, oh they can see atoms now,
Speaker 1: all right, well we got to build the next level down, guys,
Speaker 1: or or like fire up that extra server. We're gonna
Speaker 1: need it toe exactly like you know, it's some place
Speaker 1: in this other larger universes North Carolina, there's another server
Speaker 1: farm being built. Yeah, I mean it's it's It blows
Speaker 1: the mind. It becomes one of these things where you,
Speaker 1: as you start to think about it, you're like, would
Speaker 1: that even be possible? Now, from a futurists argument, they
Speaker 1: might say that in the future will be able to
Speaker 1: do things like harness the power of black holes to
Speaker 1: do computing, in which case the limitations of computing suddenly
Speaker 1: seem like a non problem. Sure, even with quantum computers,
Speaker 1: which they are already experimenting with, we've gotten up to
Speaker 1: a sixteen sixteen cubits was the last reliable one, but
Speaker 1: we've had there been larger ones. The problem with, of course,
Speaker 1: quantum computers, is that as soon as you really observe
Speaker 1: the state therein it collapses, that decoheres, and you end
Speaker 1: up with a classical computer that is severely underpowered to
Speaker 1: any other normal classical computer. But there are people who
Speaker 1: are working on that problem. So yeah, I mean that
Speaker 1: it may be that reaching such a level of computing
Speaker 1: power is not possible, And in fact, that was part
Speaker 1: of Bostrom's point was he was not necessarily saying we
Speaker 1: live in a computer simulation. He was saying, there's another
Speaker 1: way of looking at this. We can look at this
Speaker 1: is saying trans human or post human in the sense
Speaker 1: that the futurists have defined. It is an impossibility that
Speaker 1: we will never get to a point where we have
Speaker 1: computing power so vast as to be able to simulate
Speaker 1: an entire universe down to the tiniest detail and have
Speaker 1: it populated with intelligent creatures, right or even beyond the
Speaker 1: feasibility of that, the idea that probably we're going to
Speaker 1: kill all of each other way way before that. Actually
Speaker 1: that that was another point. One of his points is
Speaker 1: saying that it's way more likely than any any sort
Speaker 1: of civilization reaching post human or trans human uh status
Speaker 1: would end up wiping itself out in some sort of
Speaker 1: cataclysmic event, whether on purpose or by accident. So we
Speaker 1: could have, Hey, we have reached this level of superiority.
Speaker 1: Now we are going to force our ideological values upon
Speaker 1: everybody else. And everybody else says no, you're not, and
Speaker 1: then we all kill each other or we say, hey
Speaker 1: was this button? Do zombie outbreak? Those are the only
Speaker 1: two possibilities. That's a lie, but no that Sposton's point
Speaker 1: is that that could also be a case. It's really
Speaker 1: a depressing case. But you could say humankind could hit
Speaker 1: extinction before we hit posting. More fun to think about
Speaker 1: that other thing. But overall, zombie I'll break. I agree,
Speaker 1: walking dead man right down the street from me, that's
Speaker 1: just to land on normal traffic. That's true. That's true.
Speaker 1: It's it's pretty much it's the office before we get
Speaker 1: to the coffee machine. It is. It gets ugly folks
Speaker 1: at walkers, a lot of walkers. But yeah, that's I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a good point, is that it you know, we
Speaker 1: could we humankind could go extinct. That's one downside. We
Speaker 1: might not ever be able to reach that level of
Speaker 1: computational achievement in order to to ever simulate a universe.
Speaker 1: That's depending upon whom you ask, also a downside. Or
Speaker 1: we just might never know. So yeah, sometimes it leads
Speaker 1: us to to explore the question further. Really, yeah, and
Speaker 1: we've we've seen that explored in multiple venues, not just philosophy,
Speaker 1: not just science, but entertainment all over the place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean going back to a lot of Shakespeare stories
Speaker 1: we're talking about really, like, like, what's the difference between
Speaker 1: dreams and reality? Midsummer Night's Dream is kind of a
Speaker 1: big one. We are such stuff as dreams are made on.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Jonathan. Oh, brave new world to have such people,
Speaker 1: and it tis new to the that's the tempest right there.
Speaker 1: That's that's our that's our literature major. Yeah here, Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know I used the degree once in a while,
Speaker 1: but more perhaps more modern things. A few a few
Speaker 1: of you have probably seen the Matrix. I know, kunk
Speaker 1: fo I keep quote it. Let's just keep going. I
Speaker 1: got it. I got this Vanilla sky. Oh no, I
Speaker 1: haven't seen that. Yeah, I can't do that. The documentary
Speaker 1: or the Spanish version effort. Let's so host do you
Speaker 1: speak Spanish? There we go. That was my total recall. Inception. Um,
Speaker 1: that's that's that's every other short. Not not inception at all.
Speaker 1: The inception one would be that's inception love love. These movies,
Speaker 1: by the way, I'm making a lot of fun, but no,
Speaker 1: these are good points. I mean you do you do
Speaker 1: see this theme come up over and over again. Total
Speaker 1: recall what is real, what is being imagined? Is the
Speaker 1: entire story actually only happening in quad? That was his
Speaker 1: name rights mine? Uh? Or inception? Are you still within
Speaker 1: a dream? Are you one level down in a dream?
Speaker 1: Are you two levels down? At the very end of
Speaker 1: the movie is the is the main character is dream right? Which?
Speaker 1: And of course that brings into questions something else. This
Speaker 1: this is a good argument that falls within the same
Speaker 1: sort of thing about being able to tell versus not
Speaker 1: being able to tell. Uh. This is big spoilers for
Speaker 1: Inception here, obviously, but one of the one of the
Speaker 1: things they set up in an inception is that one
Speaker 1: way you can tell if you are in a dream
Speaker 1: is you have a totem that is specific to you
Speaker 1: and behaves a certain way in the real world, but
Speaker 1: in dream space it does not behave that way. Why
Speaker 1: who knows, But it's convenient physics. The main character has
Speaker 1: a top, so if he spins the top and the
Speaker 1: top stops spinning, he knows he's in the real world.
Speaker 1: If he's a layer down into a dream world and
Speaker 1: he spins the top, it just keeps spinning, and that's
Speaker 1: how he can look at a moment and know if
Speaker 1: he's in a dream or if he's awake. Uh. There's
Speaker 1: a problem with this though. If the whole thing is
Speaker 1: within a dream, there's nothing to stop the dream world
Speaker 1: from saying at a certain level, this top behaves a
Speaker 1: different way. So, in other words, even at the top
Speaker 1: topples over, which into the movie gives you this kind
Speaker 1: of idea, is it gonna sp But even at the
Speaker 1: top word to topple over, that would not answer the
Speaker 1: question of whether or not you're in a dream, because
Speaker 1: it only depends upon if that level is real or not.
Speaker 1: And if it's not real, if that's just another point
Speaker 1: of the dream, then all it means is that the
Speaker 1: behaviors of off in one level of the dream behaved
Speaker 1: differently than the others. And and similarly, if if our
Speaker 1: if our future trans human selves decided to make it
Speaker 1: so that we cannot detect whether or not we are
Speaker 1: in a dream, then yeah, we're kind of stuck. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the same thing with the matrix. The whole idea of
Speaker 1: creating a universe that is not ideal, because if we
Speaker 1: created an ideal universe, humans would go, this can't be real.
Speaker 1: My life stinks. There's no way my life is this awesome.
Speaker 1: And uh, and then we have a universe filled with
Speaker 1: Jonathan's Tripling's and nobody wants that. Nobody, nobody wants, not
Speaker 1: even Jonathan's. And look, I'm enough to deal with already.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I know there's there's tons of examples. There's
Speaker 1: there's a lot in science fiction, obviously, obviously especially since
Speaker 1: since William Gibson in the entire cyberpunk thing became a thing,
Speaker 1: you know, and that's that's sort of our our entrance
Speaker 1: into into how did I just make up a word
Speaker 1: in French? I don't think that that's an actual thing.
Speaker 1: Um Ever, ever since cyberpunk happened, we've been we've been
Speaker 1: looking at technology in in this fearful way, which we
Speaker 1: always kind of do in horror films. I think that
Speaker 1: fiction is a really terrific way for us to work
Speaker 1: out our anxieties because we can go, like, well, in
Speaker 1: this scary world, all of this terrible things. I think
Speaker 1: all of these terrible things will happen. However, we're going
Speaker 1: to have some attractive people in pleather who are going
Speaker 1: to take care of it. For us, and that's or
Speaker 1: die and die in numerous with Yeah, like you said, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's science fiction and horror, the two genres I think
Speaker 1: of the most when I think about this kind of mentality,
Speaker 1: because I also think of things like other movies. Here's
Speaker 1: another spoiler. Guys, if you're a Josh Ween fan, this
Speaker 1: is a spoiler, So spoiler for Jos Weeden fans you
Speaker 1: can skip ahead. But Cabin in the Woods another example
Speaker 1: of like what is real and what is what is artifice? Yes,
Speaker 1: what has been simulated, So there you go, same sort
Speaker 1: of thing. Um. I don't think that's a huge spoiler
Speaker 1: because that's revealed early in the movie. But still, um,
Speaker 1: at any rate, these are you know, we've explored this
Speaker 1: idea and multiple forms of media, whether it's entertainment or
Speaker 1: also a multiple uh disciplines entertainment, science, philosophy, and I
Speaker 1: don't think it's gonna go away anytime soon because obviously
Speaker 1: there's no way for us to answer this question, not
Speaker 1: not unless we detect that last structure. And even then
Speaker 1: you're like, well, well then who created us? That could
Speaker 1: mean anything that could mean and also it could be
Speaker 1: like inception. We might be levels down from reality. It
Speaker 1: could be that marble in the Men in Black. Yeah, yeah, then, yeah, exactly, yes,
Speaker 1: we could be we could be a moat of dust
Speaker 1: upon the nose of a dog in another universe, which
Speaker 1: in itself is a moat of dust upon the nose
Speaker 1: a another dog, and another universe, which in itself is
Speaker 1: a moat of dust upon Douglas Adams pencil as he
Speaker 1: giggles maniacally and writes another book, because in that universe
Speaker 1: he's stilled around. I like that verse. I do too.
Speaker 1: I want to, I want to I want to go
Speaker 1: to their But yeah, it's a it's a really interesting question. So, um,
Speaker 1: and if you've heard about this whole thing, because it
Speaker 1: came up in conversations towards the end of two thousand twelve,
Speaker 1: which is kind of interesting because the first uh, the
Speaker 1: publication of Bostrom's work was in the early two think so.
Speaker 1: But in this case, it was because the physicists had said, hey,
Speaker 1: there might be a way for us to find out
Speaker 1: maybe possibly probably not, but it could happen. U And
Speaker 1: even then, we're going to have to get to a
Speaker 1: level of technological uh, advancement that is beyond what we
Speaker 1: have now. Before we could even hope to detect these
Speaker 1: cosmic rays. And that wraps up this classic episode of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff. Hope you guys liked that one. If you
Speaker 1: have a suggestion for a future episode, send me an email.
Speaker 1: The addresses text stuff at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter handle for
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