Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff looks dot com. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to
Speaker 1: tech Stuff. I am Jonathan Strickland, the host of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: and I am Lauren Volkbaum, the other host of tech Stuff. Yes,
Speaker 1: if we had introduced ourselves in the opposite order, I
Speaker 1: would be the other host of tech Stuff. We're co hosts. Really, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's uh. You know, this is a complicated issue, and
Speaker 1: in fact, I think it'd be a lot simpler if
Speaker 1: we just simulated it. What would it be a lot simpler?
Speaker 1: I think it would actually be more complicated. You know
Speaker 1: what We're gonna find out right here and now, because
Speaker 1: this episode is all about do we live in a
Speaker 1: computer simulation? And in fact, the reason why we're even
Speaker 1: talking about this is a few years ago a philosopher,
Speaker 1: and boy is that a surprise to no one. A
Speaker 1: philosopher by the name of Nick Bostrom who works at
Speaker 1: a little um yeah, tiny, like in academic circles. They
Speaker 1: 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 with the University of Oxford and he's a
Speaker 1: philosopher employed there, so his job is to sit around
Speaker 1: and think about the nature of reality, and he presented
Speaker 1: an interesting thought experiment. He said, do we live in
Speaker 1: a computer simulation? Is everything that we experience and everything
Speaker 1: that's around us actually just the product of some sort
Speaker 1: 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 could
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: even long, long, long times before that people are pondering
Speaker 1: these questions and all kinds of literature. Uh goes into
Speaker 1: literature and philosophy right right all the back in one
Speaker 1: one of the famous, famous examples of this kind of
Speaker 1: philosophy was proposed by a fellow named Renee Descartes, about
Speaker 1: whom Monty Python had some rude things to sing if
Speaker 1: you know that your philosopher's song. But Descartes, um, I
Speaker 1: think therefore I am uh fellow. He wrote something called
Speaker 1: the Meditations on First Philosophy, and he presented an very
Speaker 1: similar thought exercise to the one that Nick Moostrom 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 Descartes experience is actually just an illusion that's generated
Speaker 1: by an evil force. In his case, he was home
Speaker 1: on all 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 croissan 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: That you cannot touch. Yeah, that well, that there's no
Speaker 1: way for me to prove that you're wrong. I will
Speaker 1: sit here and I will think that you are crazy
Speaker 1: or Donnie Darko, but that uh, you know, or Deborah
Speaker 1: Donka don't darko, I don't know, I mean, or the
Speaker 1: character in in Harvey there yes, another yes, but but
Speaker 1: you know, there's no way for me to prove that
Speaker 1: there's not a six ft invisible, untouchable, unsensible, unhearable bunny
Speaker 1: behind you. So that's that's called that. It's called unfalsifiable.
Speaker 1: That means it is not scientific. Scientific principles premises these
Speaker 1: sort of things. They are falsifiable, meaning that there should
Speaker 1: be a set of criteria under which you would say
Speaker 1: this is not true. Right now. It does not mean
Speaker 1: that what you're saying isn't true. It just means it
Speaker 1: has to be possible, that has to be within the
Speaker 1: realm of possible. In order for something to be proved,
Speaker 1: it has to be able to be disproved exactly. And
Speaker 1: so if it's unfalsifiable, it's not scientific. Now I should
Speaker 1: also stress if it's unfalsifiable and unscientific, that also does
Speaker 1: not mean it's not true. It could be true. It
Speaker 1: can absolutely be String theory is a great example of this.
Speaker 1: We call it a theory, but but some people argue
Speaker 1: it's a fullilosophy. Well, it's a it's yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: a mathematical theory. And I get into arguments sometimes of
Speaker 1: people on Facebook about this because the theory is the
Speaker 1: word that has many many meanings. The mathematical meaning of
Speaker 1: it is is something that has been proven is true,
Speaker 1: whereas he has has been exercised the whole scientific theory
Speaker 1: versus I have a theory which is really more like
Speaker 1: I have an idea of why this is the way
Speaker 1: it is. Scientific theory and that kind of theory are
Speaker 1: two different things. But anyway, uh yeah, string theory would
Speaker 1: say that the entire universe is made up of these tiny,
Speaker 1: little vibrating strings. And we're talking like tiny, as in
Speaker 1: tinier than sub atomic particles, tiny, quite small, and that
Speaker 1: the way they vibrate that's what makes stuff what it is. Well,
Speaker 1: mathematically this makes sense, but there is no way we
Speaker 1: can uh we can observe this or test this, so
Speaker 1: therefore it's unfalsifiable and unscientific using that particular definition. Uh So,
Speaker 1: same sort of thing here with Renee Dicart and his theory.
Speaker 1: And this is not again, not the first time this
Speaker 1: idea has popped up. It's one of the really famous ones.
Speaker 1: And that's back in so if we look at the
Speaker 1: modern version, you've got Nick Bostrom talking about a computer simulation,
Speaker 1: and his whole argument hinges on this idea of trans
Speaker 1: humanism or the singularity. So we kind of have to
Speaker 1: talk about what the singularity is so that we can
Speaker 1: finally get around to this whole computer simulation problem, right,
Speaker 1: and and and also talk about trans human because that
Speaker 1: that's basically a fancy term for stuff. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's a it's a fancy term for saying what happens
Speaker 1: when we reach a point in uh, in advances in
Speaker 1: science and medicine, in biology, where we can transform ourselves
Speaker 1: to a point where we are no longer strictly speaking human, Right, Like,
Speaker 1: we have altered ourselves on some fundamental level, and we
Speaker 1: aren't 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. Right, we
Speaker 1: we've understood genetics enough so that we're all mutants like
Speaker 1: 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. 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, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we're not we're not naming names, but we're
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. But no, So that's the idea 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 having 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 if you think of like operating
Speaker 1: systems and how they come out, like you know Windows
Speaker 1: 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 n
Speaker 1: a second. So at that point, things are changing so
Speaker 1: fast that you cannot even define in the era you
Speaker 1: are in because there's nothing like within within one moment,
Speaker 1: uh you have changed so much that it's it's pointless
Speaker 1: to try and defind a series of moments. Right at
Speaker 1: this point in our future, we would hit what is
Speaker 1: called the singularity. And part of one of the defining
Speaker 1: features of the singularity is it's impossible for us to
Speaker 1: say what will happen once we hit that point, because
Speaker 1: by its very nature, it's going to evolve so fast
Speaker 1: that we cannot conceive of what I mean. It's it's
Speaker 1: kind of pointless to talk about it too much. Doesn't
Speaker 1: stop me, but it's pointless. It doesn't stop philosophers. Either
Speaker 1: doesn't stop me. And there are many pointless discussions that
Speaker 1: you cannot stop me from having. This is one of them, anyway,
Speaker 1: So 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 that 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: simulated 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,
Speaker 1: right they were. They were the people who were there
Speaker 1: because of whatever forces caused the universe to create be
Speaker 1: created in the first place. Um, And that for these
Speaker 1: people within the simulated universe, it might be completely impossible
Speaker 1: for them to detect anyone outside of it, anyone being
Speaker 1: us that we were the ones creating it. So his
Speaker 1: argument is that if we in fact reach the stage,
Speaker 1: and if we would use our technology to create simulations
Speaker 1: so that we could see how civilizations developing, that we
Speaker 1: would that interesting bits of the universe work, because we're
Speaker 1: intrinsically curious, right, So his argument is, if it's possible,
Speaker 1: we would do it, And if it's possible and we
Speaker 1: would do it, that means we, the current people living
Speaker 1: in this universe, are almost surely a computer simulation. So
Speaker 1: if it can happen, and if we are interested in ourselves,
Speaker 1: and we obviously are, then it's almost a guarantee that
Speaker 1: we're in a computer stimulation. And the reason for that
Speaker 1: argument is that in order for us to not be
Speaker 1: a computer simulation, we would have to be the first ones, right,
Speaker 1: we would have to be heading towards that timeline, and
Speaker 1: I just haven't gotten there yet, you know, 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 this argument, and it's really
Speaker 1: again a philosophical argument. It's not meant to say we're
Speaker 1: we're in a we're in a computer game, because because
Speaker 1: the way 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: etcetera percent of the population who might think you're wrong
Speaker 1: and that. So, but it's really fair, it's an interesting
Speaker 1: it's an interesting question. It's it's again unfalsifiable at right now.
Speaker 1: But but here's the funny thing. Boster makes us this statement.
Speaker 1: But it's purely from a philosophical point of view, right,
Speaker 1: It's not from a physics point of view, it's not
Speaker 1: from a science point of view. It's philosophy that has
Speaker 1: not stopped other people from looking at this from a
Speaker 1: scientific point of view. And that, to me is another
Speaker 1: interesting aspect of this argument is that usually you would
Speaker 1: look at an argument like this and say, okay, well,
Speaker 1: that's an interesting philosophical question. Ultimately, there's nothing I can
Speaker 1: do about that one way or the other, and then
Speaker 1: you go about your mary little way. Right, But a
Speaker 1: bunch of nice. I'm I'm assuming I'm quantum scientists have
Speaker 1: gotten together. Are you assuming they're nice? Are you assuming
Speaker 1: their quantum sign assuming well, I'm assuming both. I'm going
Speaker 1: to go ahead and give them the benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 1: There 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. It's 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 things.
Speaker 1: The nuclei exists inside atoms. You know how they have
Speaker 1: like stuff that's stuck together, like protons and neutrons. And
Speaker 1: we're not sure why because because hypothetically to protons should
Speaker 1: should push each other each other. If you've ever played
Speaker 1: with magnetis, well, well, strong nuclear force is the force
Speaker 1: that that's the name for the reason why these things
Speaker 1: are stuck together so strong, whether why they're able to
Speaker 1: stick together clearly, it has to be an incredibly strong force,
Speaker 1: an incredibly strong force that only kicks in in incredibly
Speaker 1: short distances. We're talking on the atomic scale. So the
Speaker 1: strong nuclear force is what quantum chromo dynamics is all
Speaker 1: about studying. And one of the ways that quantum chromo
Speaker 1: dynamics or q c D should be way easier to
Speaker 1: say is to to look at this as a part
Speaker 1: of well, it looks at reality as four space time dimensions,
Speaker 1: so four dimensions. Uh. We mentioned string theory earlier. Some
Speaker 1: versions of string theory require that there are no fewer
Speaker 1: than eleven dimensions for string theory to work, which is
Speaker 1: basically beyond my comprehension entirely. I I get x, y
Speaker 1: z and time that I can I can get a
Speaker 1: three to mentional object moving through times. Beyond that, it
Speaker 1: gets a little wonky. Yeah, yeah, whibble wobbley, I'm right
Speaker 1: there with you, and uh and yeah, the same thing.
Speaker 1: And then again this this plays back to that discussion
Speaker 1: we at the very beginning where we talked about you know,
Speaker 1: we know the universe consists of stuff that's beyond our perception,
Speaker 1: but you know, we have to filter that through our
Speaker 1: brains and our brains are acting as a middleman between
Speaker 1: our consciousness and reality. So the things that we experience
Speaker 1: may very well be in their fundamental nature extremely different
Speaker 1: from the way we think of them because it's being
Speaker 1: filtered through because we have to model them in a
Speaker 1: this this concept we shouldn't have done. This philosophy makes
Speaker 1: me sad. I just realized that my brain is what's
Speaker 1: making you sit there and you think, like, think about it.
Speaker 1: If you have a bad day, you're thinking, wait a minute.
Speaker 1: Part of the reason I'm having a bad day is
Speaker 1: because my brain is filtering things in a it's my fault.
Speaker 1: And then I just it becomes this inspirable loop of
Speaker 1: of everything is terrible because of my brain, which is
Speaker 1: making things terrible. A little glimpse into Jonathan strictly folks,
Speaker 1: now I get just before I have to go to
Speaker 1: ce S. I know this episode publishes after I've come back,
Speaker 1: but trust me, it's it's a terrible life. Having to
Speaker 1: fly around the country and look at really shiny technological objects.
Speaker 1: You are not helping this this vicious 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 theory.
Speaker 1: Actually that is sort of the framework within which q
Speaker 1: c D tries to explain the strong nuclear force. And uh,
Speaker 1: this part of this means that we try and simulate
Speaker 1: and then incredibly tiny simulated universe, right right, and this
Speaker 1: is on the this is on actually the femto correct
Speaker 1: excellent um and and a femtometer is one quadrillionth of
Speaker 1: a meter nanometer for for references, one billionth of a meter.
Speaker 1: And that's also very small. Yes, yeah, when you talk
Speaker 1: about nanotechnology and that super small technology that is enormous
Speaker 1: compared 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 right, that's the whole purpose. One of
Speaker 1: the big driving forces of the universe. We want to
Speaker 1: understand it. But this this physicists said, Hey, wait a minute.
Speaker 1: If this is how we are simulating and entirely fake
Speaker 1: n reverse a very tiny universe, doesn't it stand to
Speaker 1: reason that some other like if we are and if
Speaker 1: we became type of advanced, if if we went trans human,
Speaker 1: couldn't those trans humans in fact use the same technology
Speaker 1: to simulate an entire universe on a big scale, on
Speaker 1: a really large scale scale, or or at least for us.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could also argue that just to populate
Speaker 1: a fempto 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 detect 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 and cosmology for the matter.
Speaker 1: For that matter, because we're talking about things like cosmic rays.
Speaker 1: The physicists suggested that perhaps we could observe cosmic rays
Speaker 1: and and really study them in depth and see how
Speaker 1: they behave within our universe and look for evidence of
Speaker 1: a lattice structure, which would indicate that some other larger
Speaker 1: universe had used the same techniques we used to create
Speaker 1: the femto universes we're making to look at the strong
Speaker 1: nuclear force to make our own universe, and then we'd say, hey,
Speaker 1: look there's evidence we are in a computer simulation crap.
Speaker 1: There are there are some issues with this. One is that, uh,
Speaker 1: it presumes that any post human civilization would use the
Speaker 1: exact so uh, there's another assumption that said post human
Speaker 1: society would allow us to be able to find our
Speaker 1: own right that you know, they wouldn't paint in a
Speaker 1: nice little backdrop that would prevent us from seeing the scenes,
Speaker 1: like to put in a patch or to reset us.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to bronze age, folks, control or delete um.
Speaker 1: There's also the argument that, well, what if our universe
Speaker 1: is so large that it is a bounded universe, because
Speaker 1: that's the other thing. A lattice structure would also indicate
Speaker 1: that our universe does have it's a finite universe. What
Speaker 1: if that finite universe is still too big for us
Speaker 1: to ever be able to see the edges, or what
Speaker 1: if the universe just is finite anyway. Yeah, it could
Speaker 1: be that the universe is finite anyway and has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with the last structure. And so there are
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of objections that people have
Speaker 1: brought up. But mainly what this approach would allow us
Speaker 1: to do is if we saw the last structure, we
Speaker 1: could maybe draw some conclusions. But in any other case,
Speaker 1: like if we didn't see the last structure, it doesn't
Speaker 1: answer any questions. All right, it doesn't mean that it
Speaker 1: doesn't exist. Yeah, it doesn't mean that we're not in
Speaker 1: a computer simulation. So this so it's interesting, but again
Speaker 1: it's just sort of an extension of this thought experiment where, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we're kind of getting round to the point
Speaker 1: that I'm most interested in in this whole discussion that
Speaker 1: all right, let's let's say that let's say that we
Speaker 1: are in a computer simulation. Whether we know it or not,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. We don't necessarily need to know that
Speaker 1: we are. But let's just let's just assume, assuming that
Speaker 1: we are that we are. Does that matter on a
Speaker 1: day to day scale? Would it matter if we were
Speaker 1: in a computer simulation in some ways? If we don't know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter at all. I mean, you know, if
Speaker 1: we if yeah, you know, if if we had absolute
Speaker 1: proof of it, then that would be that would be huge,
Speaker 1: That would be shattering. 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 to drew thing because talking about my normal weak
Speaker 1: this is what I do. Alright, Fine, Okay, so now
Speaker 1: I know something different between me and Lauren learn a
Speaker 1: new stuff. Um No, I I agree that that. And
Speaker 1: if we don't know, there was no difference because the
Speaker 1: rules that we have created for ourselves but based on
Speaker 1: our cultures and our society, those haven't changed. Like like
Speaker 1: if I found out somehow, like if if knowledge we're
Speaker 1: given to me personally out of everyone who's alive, that yes,
Speaker 1: in fact, you live in a computer simulation. After I
Speaker 1: had that moment where I I upped my drooling capacity
Speaker 1: for my daily allowance of drooling. I would sit there
Speaker 1: and think, well, ultimately, this doesn't change anything. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's my life still has meaning within the context of
Speaker 1: the world I live in. We still need to go
Speaker 1: get lunch, we still, we still get married, we still
Speaker 1: I still, I still laugh, I still cry. I still
Speaker 1: find that Joe and Webb look to be absolutely hilarious,
Speaker 1: and I would really like it if Netflix streaming would
Speaker 1: bring it back for me. I mean, you know, all
Speaker 1: of these sort of things would still be true, So
Speaker 1: I don't think that ultimately it changes anything unless it
Speaker 1: were something where we could definitively prove it, and then
Speaker 1: that would change major things, like essentially a lot of
Speaker 1: people would have to answer some very tough questions in
Speaker 1: regards to philosophy and religion particularly, but other things as well.
Speaker 1: But those two, in particularly, some very nice philosophy departments
Speaker 1: would be more or less out of jobs. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know, actually they went step away from being out
Speaker 1: of a job. Anyway, Come on, we're talking about philosophy here. Snap.
Speaker 1: This is coming from a literature major. Okay, I did
Speaker 1: you see that this is off topic? But there was
Speaker 1: a list I think of the most unemployable majors came out.
Speaker 1: Philosophy I think was in the top three. Yeah, literature
Speaker 1: was in the top ten. Was it was it? I
Speaker 1: was created writing? Do you have any creative writing? I
Speaker 1: think they didn't even put them in there. It's like,
Speaker 1: are you Neil Gaiman? No? Um, hey, I'm an editor.
Speaker 1: I'm working in my field, folks. That's true, that's true.
Speaker 1: I'm I don't know what my field would be. Some
Speaker 1: of the medieval literature. I guess I'd be teaching medieval
Speaker 1: literature if I were in my field. But it's funny
Speaker 1: 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, from a thought exercise, right, yeah, So ultimately, uh,
Speaker 1: it may or may not matter if we're in a
Speaker 1: computer simulation. But the other question to ask is how
Speaker 1: feasible is it? How would it be possible to actually
Speaker 1: create a universe on this What would it take to
Speaker 1: create a universe on this scale? Right? And I mean
Speaker 1: because simulating something is actually very much more complicated than
Speaker 1: just doing it. For for example, um. I was reading
Speaker 1: one article that that sited a number where if you
Speaker 1: were to take a hard drive and you wanted to
Speaker 1: create a simulation of that entire hard drive, you would
Speaker 1: have to simulate every single adom, minute, record, its position.
Speaker 1: It's it's time scale, everything about it. That would be
Speaker 1: you know, and and and every single atomant and hard
Speaker 1: drive is maybeing intend to the power of twenty four
Speaker 1: atoms a couple a bunch um and but in order
Speaker 1: to simulate it, you would have to about have about
Speaker 1: a hundred bits of information at least on each of
Speaker 1: those atoms. Right. So so when you think about that,
Speaker 1: if this world is or this universe is a computer simulation,
Speaker 1: then that means the simulation has to take into account
Speaker 1: every single object within that world, whether that object is
Speaker 1: part of something else or or an individual object. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's position, it's uh, if it's moving, its relationship to
Speaker 1: every other object within that universe, how that objects behavior?
Speaker 1: You know, however you wanted to find that affects other objects.
Speaker 1: It's it's are you going down to the atomic scale?
Speaker 1: Are you going to the sub atomic scale? How how
Speaker 1: deep does the rabbit hole go? Right? Right? Because because
Speaker 1: the other problem here is that as we the human
Speaker 1: beings who live right here and now, whether it's a
Speaker 1: computer simulation or not, get more advanced, we get to
Speaker 1: learn more about our environment and we get to look
Speaker 1: even deeper than we could before. So like, let's go
Speaker 1: back to the Stone Age, no microscopes, nothing like anything
Speaker 1: that was beyond our ability to actually see it didn't
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, one, someone's checking in
Speaker 1: every now and like, oh they can see Adams 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 to 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're already experimenting with. We've gotten up to a
Speaker 1: sixteen sixteen cubits was the last reliable one, but we've
Speaker 1: 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 there in it collapses, that deco hears and
Speaker 1: you end up with a classical computer or that is
Speaker 1: severely underpowered compared to any other normal classical computer. But
Speaker 1: there are people who are working on that problem. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that it may be that reaching such a
Speaker 1: level of computing power is not possible, And in fact,
Speaker 1: that was part of Bostrom's point was that he was
Speaker 1: not necessarily saying we live in a computer simulation. He
Speaker 1: was saying, there's another way of looking at this. We
Speaker 1: can look at this is saying trans human or post
Speaker 1: human in the sense that the futurists have defined. It
Speaker 1: is an impossibility that we will never get to a
Speaker 1: point where we have computing power so vast as to
Speaker 1: be able to simulate an entire universe down to the
Speaker 1: tiniest detail and have it populated with intelligent creatures, right
Speaker 1: or even beyond the feasibility of that, the idea that
Speaker 1: probably we're going to kill all of each other way
Speaker 1: before that. Actually that that was another point. One of
Speaker 1: his points is saying that it's way more likely than
Speaker 1: any any sort of civilization reaching post human or trans
Speaker 1: human uh status would end up wiping itself out in
Speaker 1: some sort of cataclysmic event, whether on purpose or by accident.
Speaker 1: So we could have, hey, we have reached this level
Speaker 1: of superiority. Now we are going to force our ideological
Speaker 1: values upon everybody else, and everybody else says no, you're not,
Speaker 1: and 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 spostor'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 post humans. More fun to think
Speaker 1: about 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: a lot of walkers, a lot of walkers. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that's I'm that's a good point, is that it you know,
Speaker 1: we could we humankind could go extinct. That's one downside.
Speaker 1: We might not ever be able to reach that level
Speaker 1: of 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 that leads,
Speaker 1: it leads us to to explore the question further. Really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we've we've seen that explored in multiple venues, not
Speaker 1: just philosophy, 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 brieve, 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 over 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 fu,
Speaker 1: I keep quote, let's just keep going. I got it,
Speaker 1: I got this Vanilla sky. Oh no, I haven't seen that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't do that documentary or the Spanish version. Afftert.
Speaker 1: Let's all host do you speak Spanish? There we go.
Speaker 1: That was my total recall. Inception. Um, that's that's that's
Speaker 1: every other shorts and negative not inception at all. I know.
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 recall?
Speaker 1: What is real? What is being imagined. Is the entire
Speaker 1: story actually only happening in Quaid? That was his name?
Speaker 1: Rights mine ah or inception? And 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 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, right. The main character
Speaker 1: has a top, so if he spins the top and
Speaker 1: the 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 an 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 But even at the top
Speaker 1: worred to topple over, that would not answer the question
Speaker 1: of whether or not you were 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 stuff in one level the dream behave differently
Speaker 1: than the others. And and similarly, if if our if
Speaker 1: our future trans human selves decided to make it so
Speaker 1: that we cannot detect whether or not we are in
Speaker 1: a dream, then yeah, we're kind of stuck. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: same thing with the matrix, the whole idea of creating
Speaker 1: a universe that is not ideal, because if we created
Speaker 1: 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 Stripling'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, no, there's there's tons of examples. There's there's
Speaker 1: a lot in science fiction obviously, obviously, especially since since
Speaker 1: 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 Josh Weed fans you
Speaker 1: can skip ahead. But Cavin 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 in multiple disciplines entertainment, science, philosophy, and I don't
Speaker 1: think it's gonna go away anytime soon because obviously there's
Speaker 1: no way for us to answer this question, not not
Speaker 1: unless we detect that last structure. And even then you're like, well,
Speaker 1: well then who created us? That could mean anything, that
Speaker 1: could mean. And also it could be like inception. We
Speaker 1: might be seventy eight levels down from reality. It could
Speaker 1: be that marble in the Men in Black. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: then yeah, exactly, yes, we could be we could be
Speaker 1: a moat of dust upon the nose of a dog
Speaker 1: in another universe, which in itself is a moat of
Speaker 1: dust upon the nose of another dog, And another universe,
Speaker 1: which in itself is a moat of dust upon Douglas
Speaker 1: Adams pencil as he giggles maniacally and writes another book,
Speaker 1: because in that universe he's still around. I like that
Speaker 1: universe too. I want to I want to I want
Speaker 1: to go to their But yeah, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: really interesting question. So, um, and if you've heard about
Speaker 1: this whole thing, because it came up in conversations towards
Speaker 1: the end of two thousand twelve, which is kind of
Speaker 1: interesting because the first, uh, the publication of Bostrom's work
Speaker 1: was in the early two thousand I think, yeah, 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 possible, probably not, but it could happen. And even then,
Speaker 1: we're going to have to get to a level of
Speaker 1: technological uh advancement that is beyond what we have now
Speaker 1: before we could even hope to detect these cosmic rays
Speaker 1: but uh, and their behavior. But but we'll see. I
Speaker 1: mean again, I'm not. I don't think anything's going to
Speaker 1: change in the in the the long term. There might
Speaker 1: be some short term freak out if we were ever
Speaker 1: to find out. But yeah, but you know, in in
Speaker 1: the end, we are, we are what we are, we
Speaker 1: are what I am. Thank you, Popeye. And with that
Speaker 1: we close this book known as tech Stuff the Philosophy,
Speaker 1: and we will open up a new chapter in the
Speaker 1: next episode, possibly about a totally different topic, actually very
Speaker 1: likely about a totally different topic. If you guys have
Speaker 1: any topics you think we should talk about in future
Speaker 1: episodes of tech Stuff, I recommend you let us know,
Speaker 1: because we have not figured out how to read your
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Speaker 1: find our handle their tech Stuff H. S. W. Lauren
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