Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3: My name is Matt, my name is Noel.
Speaker 4: They call me Ben.
Speaker 1: We're joined as always with our super producer Paul Mission
Speaker 1: Control decads. Most importantly, you are you, You are here,
Speaker 1: and that makes this the stuff they don't.
Speaker 4: Want you to know.
Speaker 1: This evening, we're asking a big, big question, one that
Speaker 1: we have surprisingly not tackled before. Guys, what exactly is
Speaker 1: this thing that we're all in?
Speaker 4: What is life? Well?
Speaker 1: I mean I'm a normal guy. Yeah, I wake up
Speaker 1: every sunset at the at the crack of evening and
Speaker 1: put on my skin one leg at a time like
Speaker 1: anyone else. But like, what is reality?
Speaker 3: Bro? I think we're just spiritual beings having a physical experience, right,
Speaker 3: So I think and I made that up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, we're just animated carbon shambling through the filth.
Speaker 4: Bro.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're just if you think about it, you know,
Speaker 1: the closest analog to the consciousness is kind of a song, right,
Speaker 1: It's a pattern. So we're sort of the stories and
Speaker 1: the songs we sing to ourselves. If you think about it,
Speaker 1: your brain is kind of like a little figure in
Speaker 1: a big meat mech and it's controlling all sorts of
Speaker 1: weird stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, meat mech and.
Speaker 1: I you know it's it's weird because people have been
Speaker 1: arguing about the nature of reality or phenomenology for since
Speaker 1: time immemorial. And there's this question. Is the set of hardwired, constant,
Speaker 1: unchanging physical laws. Is it more subjective? Is it just
Speaker 1: this sort of narrative that thinking minds agree upon. Is
Speaker 1: is it all just a bunch of you know, kind
Speaker 1: of shadows on a cave wall, like Plato said? Or
Speaker 1: is it some sort of computer program? And if so,
Speaker 1: can this program be hacked? We promise you we are
Speaker 1: not high. Here are the facts.
Speaker 4: You said that a lot in the last episode too.
Speaker 1: I feel like when we talk about these things, we
Speaker 1: have to establish that baseline.
Speaker 4: Hey, to each their own. I am a little high.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna perfect facts here.
Speaker 3: We have explored the nature of reality because you know what, guys,
Speaker 3: it's fun. It's like one of the things, like metacognition
Speaker 3: is one of the things that makes us human. So
Speaker 3: thinking about thinking, thinking about what this all of this is,
Speaker 3: what we're being presented with it, if it as meaning?
Speaker 3: If not, like all of the things that you said. So,
Speaker 3: this is something that's definitely come up in a lot
Speaker 3: of strange news and Listener Male episodes in the past,
Speaker 3: this idea of some sort of simulation here. But like consciousness,
Speaker 3: until relatively recently, reality has always kind of been presented
Speaker 3: as some sort of dilemma that needs to be reckoned with, right,
Speaker 3: like the nature of reality, like what is this? Is
Speaker 3: this a shared experience? Is there a god? Whatever?
Speaker 2: Well, it's because all of us can deuce take certain
Speaker 2: actions to affirm for ourselves that this is in fact reality,
Speaker 2: and the things that we are experiencing are very similar,
Speaker 2: if not the same, to things that some other seemingly
Speaker 2: conscious being is experiencing. Right, And as humans, as we've
Speaker 2: continued to evolve, we've gotten better at, you know, measuring
Speaker 2: things and writing down the things that we find as
Speaker 2: we get deeper and deeper into you know, the sub
Speaker 2: atomic and go bigger and bigger out into the cosmos.
Speaker 2: But there's a problem, right.
Speaker 1: Oh, yes, there are quite a few problems humans experience
Speaker 1: reality all the time. There's not really a pause from it.
Speaker 1: But despite thousands and thousands and thousands of years of
Speaker 1: contemplating this, humans still struggle to define reality, let alone
Speaker 1: understand it. And there was this great this great article
Speaker 1: for new scientists. I think it came out in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one or so with these three authors, Jason Arun, Mrogessu,
Speaker 1: Joshua al Guego, and Gilead Ahmet, and they put it
Speaker 1: this way, they said, reality seems so solid, and yet
Speaker 1: when we examine it closely, it melts away like a mirage.
Speaker 1: We don't know when it began, how big it is,
Speaker 1: where it came from, and where it is going, and
Speaker 1: we certainly have no clue why it exists.
Speaker 3: For another perspective, you could check out the seminal nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety four grunge film Reality Bites, directed by Ben Stiller.
Speaker 4: That's another way of looking at reality.
Speaker 1: But ninety eight percent of bends are just so dope, dude.
Speaker 3: Ben ben Stiller's a good He's one of the good bends.
Speaker 3: I like where his career has taken him. I think
Speaker 3: he's a talent both in front of and behind the camera.
Speaker 3: That was that one he did he directed. I think
Speaker 3: every episode severance also about the nature of reality, very
Speaker 3: mind bend kind of show, if you're to that kind
Speaker 3: of stuff. But you know, to your point, it is
Speaker 3: an interesting thing, because what is reality if not like
Speaker 3: some sort of shared understanding of the truth, you know.
Speaker 3: But then it can also become more of a question
Speaker 3: about presentational qualities of what we are seeing and experiencing.
Speaker 3: So reality, it's got a lot of layers to it
Speaker 3: just as a concept.
Speaker 1: Right, sure, Yeah, the new scientist quotation continues here. They say, nonetheless,
Speaker 1: the desire to understand reality seems part of our nature,
Speaker 1: and we have come a long way. They're talking as
Speaker 1: humans about humans. They say, what was once explained in
Speaker 1: terms of divine creation is now in the purview of science.
Speaker 1: Over the past two hundred years or so, we have
Speaker 1: peeled back the layers of reality, even if we are
Speaker 1: still not entirely sure what we have revealed. I mean, okay, look,
Speaker 1: obviously this they can run the risk of becoming a
Speaker 1: somewhat sophomoric conversation where people just sort of bandy platitudes
Speaker 1: about but that's not what we're doing this evening, fellow
Speaker 1: conspiracy realist people have made progress on navigating the Gordian
Speaker 1: nod of existence. Even now you can find no shortage
Speaker 1: of people claiming to have capital F figured it all out.
Speaker 1: Some of the answers spirituality philosophy. You can't argue with
Speaker 1: spirituality that is every person's individual choice. I love when
Speaker 1: Descartes said, you know, man, I'm thinking about it, so
Speaker 1: I guess I'm real because something is thinking.
Speaker 4: I was tight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that was good, But I mean, I also
Speaker 3: think it's interesting to think about the idea of like
Speaker 3: eyewitness accounts and the way people perceive things, and this
Speaker 3: idea of what.
Speaker 4: Is the truth?
Speaker 3: You know, like that to me is as one of
Speaker 3: the layers I think those researchers were referring to. You know,
Speaker 3: there there are many layers to the idea of reality,
Speaker 3: not just about what we see, but about how people
Speaker 3: interpret things.
Speaker 1: And there are a lot of gatekeepers for that idea.
Speaker 1: Because we're coming now, we're talking about consensual narrative, right,
Speaker 1: the idea that, like a lot of spiritual belief systems
Speaker 1: will argue that you, if you are cue, you exist
Speaker 1: on the precipice of some greater profound understanding, you know,
Speaker 1: some samsara right piece beyond words, and you can find
Speaker 1: this if you follow the right spiritual leaders, the right regiments,
Speaker 1: if you meditate, or in some cases cough cough, scientology,
Speaker 1: if you donate money. Other attempts at answering the challenge
Speaker 1: of reality. They rely on the bleeding edge of modern science.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of what we're looking at this evening.
Speaker 1: I think we'll get into this in a second, but
Speaker 1: we've got to do a tease for our main guy,
Speaker 1: our protagonist of the show. We're going to go into
Speaker 1: this dude's reality pretty deep tonight. What's his name?
Speaker 4: Who is he?
Speaker 2: He's somebody you should know by this point. Twenty years
Speaker 2: ago he put out something that has really been foundational
Speaker 2: for a lot of the discussions that have been going
Speaker 2: on on YouTube and TikTok and all these other things. Right,
Speaker 2: mister Nick Bostrom, philosopher.
Speaker 4: F I'm just amazed.
Speaker 1: I'm just amazed because I didn't think about it, Matt,
Speaker 1: until you pointed it out. Two thousand and three was
Speaker 1: twenty years ago.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yikes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is what you will hear known as simulation
Speaker 2: theory or holographic universe theory. There's all kinds of names
Speaker 2: for it, most often simulation theory, and if.
Speaker 3: I'm not mistaken, I believe Bostrom comes up or maybe
Speaker 3: is even interviewed a little bit in Josh Clark's The
Speaker 3: End of the World series, which is about existential threats.
Speaker 1: Correct correct, yes, yeah, And Josh's show holds up.
Speaker 4: Do check it out.
Speaker 1: He is a dear old friend of ours. He also
Speaker 1: does a little show with his pal Chuck that you
Speaker 1: might know. It's called Stuff you should know, So check
Speaker 1: it out.
Speaker 4: Support that's just going places now that we've given up
Speaker 4: the plug.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this is going to be a big
Speaker 1: year for them.
Speaker 2: Oh, hey, kids, their kids book just came out. I
Speaker 2: got a message from writer and his mom. They were
Speaker 2: in the bookstore there in Decatur, where I guess they.
Speaker 4: Have a sign shop of stories.
Speaker 2: There are a bunch of science copies.
Speaker 1: Former that is a former bank too. That is the
Speaker 1: coolest children's bookstore in the Atlanta metro area. Also shout
Speaker 1: out to our pals Annie and sam Annie recent Samantha
Speaker 1: McVeigh over at Stuff. Mom never told you they have
Speaker 1: a book on the way. Do check that out. We
Speaker 1: also have a book if.
Speaker 4: We're on the book talk.
Speaker 5: But yeah, Bostro, what's this what's this punchy character up to.
Speaker 5: So his idea, and we're going to dig into this.
Speaker 5: His idea, I argues one basic groundbreaking premise, and it's
Speaker 5: it's really interesting.
Speaker 1: It calls a lot back to earlier arguments of spirituality
Speaker 1: and philosophy, or it may remind some of us of
Speaker 1: the premises of gnosticism. He's saying, this whole thing, this
Speaker 1: whole reality, could be made up. If reality really is
Speaker 1: somehow a cartoonishly complex computer program, how would you know, folks, Well,
Speaker 1: starting basis, if it's a computer in any way remotely
Speaker 1: like the computer's Earth's favorite primates have been making for
Speaker 1: a while, then it relies on programming. It relies on code.
Speaker 1: And if reality has a source code, can you find it?
Speaker 1: Perhaps more importantly, can you hack the simulation? This would
Speaker 1: usually be the moment where we pause for a word
Speaker 1: from our sponsors. However, we got a lot to get
Speaker 1: to tonight, folks. We're not going to stand on ceremony.
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy. Could we hack the simulation?
Speaker 1: Is the universe as you know it a simulation?
Speaker 4: Maybe?
Speaker 1: Actually, yes, just maybe it might be.
Speaker 2: What Yeah, And it goes back to the problem that
Speaker 2: we Once we get deep enough again into the micro,
Speaker 2: into the nano, into deeper than that, things get fuzzy
Speaker 2: and stuff doesn't seem to function the way our models
Speaker 2: of physics say they should function. Isn't that the crazy thing?
Speaker 2: Because that same problem exists on the macro scale, things
Speaker 2: don't function the way we understand they should function within physics.
Speaker 2: If you go in either of those directions, which means
Speaker 2: that we have an understanding of what we can do
Speaker 2: and really truly interact with with our human meat bodies,
Speaker 2: you know, and to you know, there's a threshold above
Speaker 2: what we can actually touch, you know, when it comes
Speaker 2: to like temperate sure heat or lack of heat, when
Speaker 2: it comes over time. Hey, when it comes to time
Speaker 2: and all that stuff. We can go beyond. We can
Speaker 2: push those bounds with our technology. But when we use
Speaker 2: that technology to look too hard at something, stuff just
Speaker 2: gets wonky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, down to the femto scale up to the giga
Speaker 1: scale and beyond. It's weird because since no one knows
Speaker 1: what's happening, since humanity collectively for the entirety of existence
Speaker 1: up to August twenty first, twenty twenty three, as we
Speaker 1: record this, since no one knows what the is going on.
Speaker 1: We're in a pretty cool spot as a civilization. Even
Speaker 1: the strangest sounding ideas like simulation theory are worth investigating.
Speaker 1: We are currently in the brainstorming period of figuring out
Speaker 1: reality as a collective thing. So Nick Bostrom has a
Speaker 1: few basic premises or axioms that we have to understand
Speaker 1: to really understand his argument about simulation theory, and they're
Speaker 1: pretty simple, except well, we'll give you three and then
Speaker 1: there's a big like Shyamalan plot twist.
Speaker 4: At the end. Yeah, that's okay.
Speaker 3: I mean, let's just lay it out before we try
Speaker 3: to dismantle it.
Speaker 4: First.
Speaker 3: He argues that humanity, you know, will inevitably reach a
Speaker 3: technological point, a high water mark where a simulated version
Speaker 3: of the universe could be something in the cards to
Speaker 3: be created. Maybybe it's even like a copy of the
Speaker 3: one that we're already inhabiting, whether this be virtual or whatever,
Speaker 3: like a like a miniature. I don't know, we've seen this,
Speaker 3: and this is a science fiction any type stuff for sure,
Speaker 3: which you're definitely gonna get to. So this could be
Speaker 3: what we may be referred to as the singularity when
Speaker 3: humans and send humanism by you know, basically flexing all
Speaker 3: of these technological and scientific muscles you know that they've
Speaker 3: been honing for all these years. Bostrom says that if
Speaker 3: they humanity can create a universe simulation, they absolutely will.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Interesting, right, it is interesting, And I agree people.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, we know people do stuff. They
Speaker 3: often leap before they look. Uh so it's not like
Speaker 3: we have a great history of like thinking about things before.
Speaker 4: Just let's just try it. Throw things at the wall,
Speaker 4: see what sticks. Of course they're gonna do the thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The next question is why would they do that thing?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: What would they use that thing for? Once let's say
Speaker 2: you've created well, because you can, but what do you
Speaker 2: use it for? What's the purpose of this other universe
Speaker 2: that you've created if you could create it?
Speaker 1: Think about the virtuals, like the sims.
Speaker 2: That's what That's exactly what I'm going to think about.
Speaker 2: So we're talking too than and three when Nick Bostrom is,
Speaker 2: you know, presenting all this stuff. A couple of years
Speaker 2: before that, nineteen ninety nine, a little movie called The
Speaker 2: Matrix came out. That was that captured the popular mind,
Speaker 2: right it did. It was a huge movie. A little
Speaker 2: thing that you just mentioned called the SIMS came out
Speaker 2: a virtual world a couple like literally a year after
Speaker 2: you put out these thoughts. World of Warcraft was first unveiled.
Speaker 2: We were getting into virtual worlds as humanity, like real, tangible,
Speaker 2: feeling virtual worlds, not some of the older stuff that
Speaker 2: we think about when it comes back to video games.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, drug wars.
Speaker 2: Even like the early MMOs like EverQuest or something you
Speaker 2: could put into here, or you know, second life things
Speaker 2: like that. We're we're just thinking about it a lot more, right, So, I.
Speaker 4: Mean, I'm glad that you took it there right away.
Speaker 3: The idea of the gamification, you know, the immediate thing
Speaker 3: that we would want to do with this is to
Speaker 3: make the world's most advanced mm RPG.
Speaker 2: Or something like that. Right, That's one possibility, right, But
Speaker 2: the other possibility would be what maybe.
Speaker 4: For study, some studying, yeap, just to see how things work, right,
Speaker 4: like to try things.
Speaker 3: Let's see model catastrophic weather situations, model all kinds of
Speaker 3: scenarios to see how they might affect you know, the
Speaker 3: quote unquote real.
Speaker 2: Universe or political systems that too.
Speaker 1: Let us build a small a small scale, constrained instance
Speaker 1: of a world right and and you know it's no
Speaker 1: secret longtime listeners. Before doing this podcasting thing, I was
Speaker 1: tangentially involved in some in some of this stuff I
Speaker 1: learned at the feet of some people who really are
Speaker 1: doing that thing. There are, as we record now, it's
Speaker 1: open secret at least that there are very smart people
Speaker 1: who have constructed simulations with constraints of entire countries and
Speaker 1: they are mapping out stuff. And when you have enough
Speaker 1: data and you have enough know how, then what your
Speaker 1: model can do becomes very close to what happens in
Speaker 1: the real world, which maybe for some people proves that
Speaker 1: the real world is another model, not the reality show. Clearly,
Speaker 1: that's an awesome model for human interaction. Thank YOUMTV. So,
Speaker 1: like that's the idea, the educational aspect. Why would you
Speaker 1: do this if you could, Well, you would want to
Speaker 1: learn more about yourself. Humans are humans favorite thing, so
Speaker 1: you would also be able to use this as a
Speaker 1: diagnostic predictive tool. Scientists, if this were possible, would probably
Speaker 1: create as many simulations as they could as a way
Speaker 1: of learning more about their own universe. Like what what
Speaker 1: if the amino acids that make up DNA are just
Speaker 1: a little bit different. How does that change things? What
Speaker 1: if life is silicon based rather than carbon based?
Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: These are very interesting questions. The third assumption the Bosstroum
Speaker 1: needs us to follow on with is he says, we
Speaker 1: must assume that the virtual inhabitants of any simulated universe
Speaker 1: possess characteristics similar to our own universe, including consciousness. Key
Speaker 1: thing being they're not aware they're in a simulation. So
Speaker 1: the quick recap humanity reaches a point where they would
Speaker 1: create a simulated universe, and they definitely would that's another assumption.
Speaker 1: Then second, they would use this to learn more about themselves,
Speaker 1: and third, the that they created would not be aware
Speaker 1: that they were in a program. And this leads us
Speaker 1: all to the you know, the big plot twist. I
Speaker 1: don't know what's to do this one. I uh, it's
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 2: Oh well, yeah, no, we can talk about this. Basically,
Speaker 2: what Bostrom is stating is that if it is possible
Speaker 2: to create a universe like this within whatever universe that
Speaker 2: they live in that are creating this universe, let's say
Speaker 2: us far in the future, it's almost impossible that it
Speaker 2: hasn't already been done, and we currently aren't living in
Speaker 2: that universe, the simulated one. That that's where it gets
Speaker 2: a little, It gets kind of crazy because it sounds
Speaker 2: like a huge leap, right.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess it makes me think of the
Speaker 3: inevitable part of the science fiction movie where the cyborg
Speaker 3: realizes it's a cyborg, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Like, what what does it mean to know this? And
Speaker 4: like we all exist.
Speaker 3: In our heads, we know that we are aware, and
Speaker 3: we feel unique and the product of memories and things
Speaker 3: like that that make us individuals.
Speaker 4: So like if we were faced with this, Nope, that's
Speaker 4: all not real.
Speaker 3: That's all but been created by somebody else, and none
Speaker 3: of it is.
Speaker 4: Unique to you.
Speaker 3: That to me is that moment, you know, where like
Speaker 3: the robot who's been living under the assumption that it's.
Speaker 6: A real human has its world rocked. You know, uh,
Speaker 6: you're the clone, damn it. That kind of stuff. But
Speaker 6: also also, okay, think about this, like it sounds at
Speaker 6: first blush. It sounds as though we're saying, Hey, the
Speaker 6: following ingredients for a case idea exist. We all know
Speaker 6: those exist.
Speaker 1: Therefore, you are inevitably eating a case adea right now.
Speaker 1: Those two things are don't square, and it does feel
Speaker 1: like a leap to your point, Matt, because everything that
Speaker 1: perceives reality appears to tell any living creature. It appears
Speaker 1: to indicate that just because an event can occur does
Speaker 1: not necessarily mean it will, has, or does occur, unless,
Speaker 1: of course, we bring in multiversal theory, wherein everything is
Speaker 1: happening all at once, all possible events do occur. But
Speaker 1: let's hold off on that one. Let's go back to
Speaker 1: bosterm He does not accept this idea. He does not
Speaker 1: accept this objection to the argument. He argues instead that
Speaker 1: we cannot assume some other version of intelligent beings human, posthuman, transhuman,
Speaker 1: or otherwise. We can't assume they haven't already hit that
Speaker 1: technological landmark and therefore created a simulation in which we're
Speaker 1: now living. And then it gets even trickier, because if
Speaker 1: you're living in a simulation, everything that you can gather
Speaker 1: and observe and test and measure also exist within the
Speaker 1: bounds of that manufactured reality. So we'd have no real
Speaker 1: way to break the fourth wall, as it were, you know,
Speaker 1: anymore than like you guys know, we're gamers. We love,
Speaker 1: we especially love deeply immersive RPGs. You know, anymore, it'd
Speaker 1: be like a non player character NPC in Skyrim or
Speaker 1: Fallout all of a sudden saying, holy smokes, I'm a caji,
Speaker 1: I'm a cat person. Or what's what's like an NPC
Speaker 1: from Fallout? What do they have?
Speaker 4: A ghoule perhaps, okay, a junk trader or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like right, well, I mean, I think another good
Speaker 3: piece of pop culture to refer to with this kind
Speaker 3: of thinking, as Westworld to the series, at least the
Speaker 3: first couple of seasons where they're really in the game.
Speaker 4: I kind of lost track of it after that.
Speaker 3: But like all of those characters that are NPCs or whatever,
Speaker 3: some of them have lower level programming, some of them
Speaker 3: are like they do one thing and that's all they do.
Speaker 3: Then they're the higher level ones that like can make
Speaker 3: more complex decisions. And they refer to it in game
Speaker 3: theory and in game designing as a loop, and that's
Speaker 3: what they refer to it in the show, as all
Speaker 3: these characters, these storylines are on these loops and then
Speaker 3: they're reset, you know, And a loop could be any length,
Speaker 3: you know, if you think about it in the scale
Speaker 3: of the universe, or like a really long timeline our
Speaker 3: loop could be very very long. We just in lifetime
Speaker 3: isn't that long in the grand scheme of things, a
Speaker 3: human life?
Speaker 4: So maybe that's loop, you know. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm just a big bang to a great collapse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the of course the triumph of entropy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm sitting here staring at the playhead in audition,
Speaker 2: just thinking about time when it comes to this stuff,
Speaker 2: and I'm trying to put it into words. You know,
Speaker 2: I've failed a couple of times, We've beat it out.
Speaker 2: But there's also time factors into here, right, like fourth
Speaker 2: dimensional state of time as something that can be accessed
Speaker 2: not in the way we experience time, Like the playhead
Speaker 2: in audition that's currently recording everything I'm saying, and I
Speaker 2: can only experience what has you know, hit that playhead, right,
Speaker 2: what that playhead has experienced thus far. But if you
Speaker 2: pull out further than that, it's everything that could possibly
Speaker 2: be in front of that playhead or I don't know, God,
Speaker 2: I don't even know what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 1: No, it makes sense, I hear you, Matt. Because the
Speaker 1: idea then is that there is a dimension a space
Speaker 1: right that we call time, and it for observable experience.
Speaker 1: It's accessed in one way, via one process. However, the
Speaker 1: argument would be that without those constraints, time could be
Speaker 1: accessed in a much less linear way. It could be
Speaker 1: experienced the way that you experience other dimensions. Right, Like
Speaker 1: this is this is weird, and it gets weirder the
Speaker 1: concept that Okay, let's just say, for the sake of argument,
Speaker 1: for the sake of hanging out, let's say Bullstrom is
Speaker 1: right that they're this reality in which everyone's hearing this
Speaker 1: show tonight is part of a manufactured reality from some
Speaker 1: other space. Well why stop it to realities? Okay, right,
Speaker 1: why not both? What about a Matroshka doll approach? What
Speaker 1: about the possibility that this universe could be a simulation
Speaker 1: within another simulation within another simulation, and that humans are
Speaker 1: thinking minds in this reality could in turn create their
Speaker 1: own simulations, which is already happening. Then it would just
Speaker 1: be ones and zeros. It's just code all the way down,
Speaker 1: all the way up. I think that's kind of cool.
Speaker 1: I think that's walking into a cathedral.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very freaking morty.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what's that.
Speaker 3: There's the thing with the universes in the boxes, or
Speaker 3: we talked with with Hartman about that when we had
Speaker 3: them on or that episode anyway, Yeah, I mean, and
Speaker 3: you also there's a lot of people that that throw
Speaker 3: around the idea of let's let's think about like intelligent design,
Speaker 3: or like the idea of a prime mover or like
Speaker 3: a god like force or entity that has control or
Speaker 3: perhaps doesn't have control, just laid the pieces out just
Speaker 3: to see what they do.
Speaker 4: There there is within that even a bit of.
Speaker 3: This kind of simulation theory where it's like for someone
Speaker 3: else's benefit to see to test, to see what the
Speaker 3: things are gonna do, to see what how things are
Speaker 3: going to play out.
Speaker 4: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: And on the first day God said, hold up, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to say something, so, uh, you know, we're gonna
Speaker 1: pause for a word from a responsor here at first, though,
Speaker 1: before we go, we need to make an important note
Speaker 1: between Bostrom's concept and between the ideas of gnosticism, the
Speaker 1: wonderful work of the Wachowski's and the Matrix films. In
Speaker 1: the Matrix, humans live in a simulated environment, but their
Speaker 1: conscious minds or a product of the outside or quote
Speaker 1: unquote real reality. Bullstrom is arguing that you everything that
Speaker 1: makes you quote unquote you is in fact just another
Speaker 1: product of this simulated reality. He's calling you a bit
Speaker 1: of an MPC. Not really, but it's a fun tag.
Speaker 1: Before we go to an ad break, I got to
Speaker 1: ask it. You know, we've got just a few minutes
Speaker 1: before we come back, and maybe we can just figure
Speaker 1: this out and solve it off air, right.
Speaker 4: To make it a short episode.
Speaker 3: I have faith in us, and we have returned.
Speaker 4: Did we figure it out now?
Speaker 3: We actually just kind of made more questions. Hopefully we
Speaker 3: can get to a few of them.
Speaker 1: In the episode with the time we writ I guess well,
Speaker 1: that's one of the first questions. If you're an observer here,
Speaker 1: the idea would be okay, this is really interesting stuff.
Speaker 1: Nick Bostrom is one of the sharpest minds out there
Speaker 1: and has made a really good, very well reasoned argument
Speaker 1: with the appropriate axioms and the appropriate caveats and assumptions.
Speaker 1: But can we prove it? Even Nick spoiler says that
Speaker 1: you can't really prove it, and three very smart physicists
Speaker 1: took that personally.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 3: For one, we have Silas r Bean, Zora Davoodie, and
Speaker 3: Martin Jay's Avage. No way, It is no way to
Speaker 3: not these names with a certain amount of gravitas, for
Speaker 3: they sound like superheroes. They sound like superheroes, and they are,
Speaker 3: for lack of a better way to describe them, scientific
Speaker 3: superheroes in their own right Martin Jay Savage. All of
Speaker 3: these individuals found the notion of the universe as a
Speaker 3: computer simulation should be fascinating, as do we. We share
Speaker 3: that with them, we are the same, and they started
Speaker 3: to think of how it might be possible to figure
Speaker 3: out if our own universe is a numerical simulation. Back
Speaker 3: to your point about ones and zeros, Ben, we are
Speaker 3: not scientific superheroes, nor are we physicists. So we're gonna,
Speaker 3: you know, depend on some pretty solid work by our
Speaker 3: buddy Jonathan Strickland that he has done on his podcast
Speaker 3: Tech Stuff to break down some of these concepts, these
Speaker 3: very complex concepts, into understandable form.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're gonna.
Speaker 1: Okay, so these legend tier physicists what they're also names.
Speaker 1: These researchers decided to work with something called lattice gauge
Speaker 1: theory and something called quantum chromodynamics or QCD. These may
Speaker 1: be unfamiliar terms to a lot of us, listening along
Speaker 1: at home. They were certainly new to us when we
Speaker 1: first started diving into simulation theory many years ago. But
Speaker 1: here's the way we break it down and again shout
Speaker 1: out to Strick. All right, the universe in which you
Speaker 1: exist in what you hear this podcast. He's got a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff going on, but it is, as far
Speaker 1: as humans understand, based on four fundamental forces. One is
Speaker 1: strong nuclear force, one is electromagnetism, one is weak nuclear force,
Speaker 1: and the fourth is vibes. No, I'm kidding, the fourth
Speaker 1: is gravity.
Speaker 3: It is known vibes is in fact a force of nature.
Speaker 3: So about the movie itself, it is a force culture
Speaker 3: to be reckoned with.
Speaker 4: I missed you guys too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So lattice gauge theory, which we'll get to, and this
Speaker 1: idea quantum chromo dynamics. What they do is they focus
Speaker 1: on one of those four fundamental forces, the strong nuclear force.
Speaker 4: This is the.
Speaker 1: Force that humans believe holds all the tiny things together.
Speaker 1: It's what keeps sub atomic particles from drifting away from
Speaker 1: one another. It is the strongest of the four fundamental forces.
Speaker 1: But also it has the shortest range, which already sounds
Speaker 1: like the kind of give and take that you would
Speaker 1: encounter in a well programmed game. All right, so that
Speaker 1: makes sense so far. The basic stuff. What is quantum
Speaker 1: chromo dynamics. It is a theory that attempts to explain
Speaker 1: how this strong nuclear force works in space time in
Speaker 1: four dimensions. Right, so that's the three dimensions we know
Speaker 1: plus the dimension of time.
Speaker 4: And this is crazy.
Speaker 1: When scientists like our three legendary physicists are studying quantum
Speaker 1: chromo dynamics, they build their own universes to do so.
Speaker 1: They're just very very small universes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you may ask how small?
Speaker 3: And this is a very appropriate question considering the topic
Speaker 3: they were trying to take on today, the idea of
Speaker 3: copying the universe, whether it be in virtual form or otherwise.
Speaker 3: What does that even look like down the line? Well,
Speaker 3: this is something that is possible, but again on a
Speaker 3: very very very tiny dining scale. Call you alluded to
Speaker 3: it earlier, Ben, I believe the fempto scale.
Speaker 1: Which is what is this a universe for ants?
Speaker 4: Exactly? I know.
Speaker 3: It's a really funny moment in the film Zoolander. Callback
Speaker 3: once again to Ben Stiller. He contains multitudes a unit
Speaker 3: of measurement the femto scale smaller than the nanoscale, which
Speaker 3: I've always thought of as being as the teeniest of tinies. No, no,
Speaker 3: says Femto, I am am one smaller. A nanometer is
Speaker 3: one billionth of a meter, but a Femto meter is
Speaker 3: one quadrillian. That is a figure or a ten. What
Speaker 3: is that ten to the negative fifteen? Is that what
Speaker 3: we're talking?
Speaker 1: Yeah, a ten to the negative fifteenth boundin yep, remember
Speaker 1: those for maths, I sure do.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 1: They so this very very very very very small universe.
Speaker 1: That's an excellent X explanational It's so small I can't
Speaker 1: understand it. With all of this in consideration, this is
Speaker 1: where the lattice structure comes in. The researchers say, let's
Speaker 1: represent this universe as bounded by a thing like picture
Speaker 1: a ball around this tiny experience. This ball is not
Speaker 1: a continual shell. It is instead a lattice, and a
Speaker 1: lattice just means there's an overall bounding structure, but it
Speaker 1: has holes in it. So like if you look through
Speaker 1: a window screen and you have the the tiny grid
Speaker 1: that keeps bugs and other big things out but still
Speaker 1: lets air pass through, that's a lattice. And their assumption
Speaker 1: then is that they can build a tiny universe bound
Speaker 1: by this non continual structure around it. And they said, look,
Speaker 1: if we go into this tiny, tiny universe with far
Speaker 1: fewer variables, it might be possible to observe that this
Speaker 1: universe is something we created by watching the interaction of
Speaker 1: energy at the border. What happens when the air and
Speaker 1: the bugs meet that windows screen meet that lattice.
Speaker 2: It's interesting, but it's weird because it's all through a
Speaker 2: computer simulation. Right, So they're simulating energy moving within their
Speaker 2: simulated computer generated universe.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's a really solid rhyme scheme. You just dropped
Speaker 4: their mass.
Speaker 2: So the concept is if if they can observe as
Speaker 2: the creators of this mini universe, if they can observe
Speaker 2: particles that they have created moving through that lattice and
Speaker 2: like see it move through the lattice, then if we
Speaker 2: could blow up that experience to our scale and find
Speaker 2: similar energetic readings, we would know we're in a simulation.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. That's the idea. Okay, that's the idea. Uh, Like,
Speaker 1: what if what if you could zoom back out, get
Speaker 1: away from the simulate a very small universe and go
Speaker 1: back to the world in which you became a physicist
Speaker 1: and in your ostensibly larger universe. What if you can
Speaker 1: find an energy that can prove the lattice? What if
Speaker 1: you can find the boundaries of the simulation. These researchers
Speaker 1: believe this energy could be cosmic rays, which we guarantee
Speaker 1: you is not something Stanley made up.
Speaker 2: No, cosmic rays are very real. I just learned about
Speaker 2: this because personally, guys, I've been studying this thing called
Speaker 2: the ice Cube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, ice Cube was not only an excellent rapper
Speaker 3: and an actor, but also a physicist.
Speaker 4: He contains multituders U s iced Tea. Sorry.
Speaker 3: Also, ice Cube is apparently a bit problematic, he said,
Speaker 3: some not very nice things, but please different ice cube.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well there. The detector is Oh gosh, I'm gonna get
Speaker 2: it all wrong now that I'm having to like say
Speaker 2: it out loud rather than just read it. It's it's
Speaker 2: a beautiful, amazing detector that can sense I don't know
Speaker 2: if it's cosmic rays, guys, but it's like neutrinos or
Speaker 2: something where it, yeah, detect it moving through the Earth,
Speaker 2: and I think it's connected in some or could be
Speaker 2: connected to this in some way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's part of cern overall. And you nailed it, man.
Speaker 1: It's a it's meant to observe neutrinos. And the pain
Speaker 1: in the ass about that is it's actually, uh, it's
Speaker 1: not possible now for human technology to directly observe neutrinos.
Speaker 1: So what they did is they put a bunch of
Speaker 1: very powerful sensors around like a cubic kilometer in Antarctica,
Speaker 1: and they look at the ice. That's why it's called
Speaker 1: the ice cube. They look at the ice, and when
Speaker 1: neutrinos interact with it si ice, they create these electrically
Speaker 1: charged secondary particles they're called Now this is deep water
Speaker 1: for me, I'm not because it's with ice.
Speaker 2: It's optical detectors allegedly that are in there. So it
Speaker 2: literally sees these these thousands and thousands of optical detectors
Speaker 2: see the thing. What's just nuts to me.
Speaker 1: And that's that's the kind of fabric you're looking for
Speaker 1: if you're trying to understand, you know, the clothing that
Speaker 1: the universe wears that we call reality. This is like
Speaker 1: feeling the lapels, you know, what I mean and getting
Speaker 1: some sensory input. The researchers that we're talking about when
Speaker 1: they're when they're talking about cosmic rays, Silas and the
Speaker 1: gang are looking at this high energy radiation that comes
Speaker 1: from outside the Solar system, and their idea is if
Speaker 1: these cosmic behave as though they are interacting with some
Speaker 1: sort of lattice structure, it would suggest that we exist
Speaker 1: in a computer simulation that uses the same techniques as
Speaker 1: this lattice gauge theory. So if reality as we know
Speaker 1: it is bound by a rough structure that is not
Speaker 1: totally continuous or contiguous, that you know, it has holes
Speaker 1: in it like a lattice, then maybe the argument is
Speaker 1: we can notice when some energy like cosmic rays appears
Speaker 1: to hit part of the boundary and then appears to
Speaker 1: shoot through the little holes.
Speaker 2: But think about that in a computer simulated like virtual
Speaker 2: world that we've created a simulation, right, you can't shoot
Speaker 2: things through a boundary of World of Warcraft because it's
Speaker 2: all software.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, you can get to areas of any kind
Speaker 1: of open world RPG wherein your path is blocked.
Speaker 3: You get stuck in the environment. Sometimes you know whatever
Speaker 3: you know I mean, and to me, my mind with
Speaker 3: a lot of this stuff goes to the concepts of resolution.
Speaker 3: You know, if you think about like cameras and pixels,
Speaker 3: you know how large are. Over time, things have gotten
Speaker 3: more and more precise in terms of like how tiny
Speaker 3: the tiny as pixel is.
Speaker 4: This is, I don't know.
Speaker 3: This is just like sort of a more elaborate version
Speaker 3: of that in a weird way, but maybe not. And
Speaker 3: it also makes me think of the concept of a
Speaker 3: very early I believe it was Pythagoras who came up
Speaker 3: with the idea of monads, which was like a unit
Speaker 3: of representational stuff, you know. I think it's described as
Speaker 3: an elementary individual substance that reflects the order of the
Speaker 3: world and from which material properties are derived, which even
Speaker 3: in and of itself, is sounds like a construct. It
Speaker 3: sounds like a simulation are derived, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I love it because for the longest time
Speaker 1: humans have been asking themselves. Humans love what are they
Speaker 1: called superlatives, So humans have always been asking themselves what
Speaker 1: is the smallest thing? What is the biggest thing? We
Speaker 1: have to give a couple of notes about this idea. First,
Speaker 1: for this to be real, humans would have had to
Speaker 1: would have to develop some very sophisticated technology, the kind
Speaker 1: of stuff that doesn't quite exist yet, something that could
Speaker 1: measure and detect cosmic rays and their behavior with a
Speaker 1: very high degree of accuracy and fidelity, right, because humans
Speaker 1: are still working in linear time. And then that requires
Speaker 1: a few additional assumptions. First, whatever created this simulation would
Speaker 1: have had to follow a practice similar to what the
Speaker 1: researchers are doing in their own tiny universe without a
Speaker 1: common starting point, the whole concept, the whole argument, the
Speaker 1: whole thought experiment, it collapses, not a wave collapse, but
Speaker 1: hashtag no joke left behind. And then second, whatever creative
Speaker 1: generative force was there, it would have also had to
Speaker 1: have made a finite universe in which humans exist. Remember, right,
Speaker 1: If there is no ending to this universe, then there
Speaker 1: is nothing for that lattice to exist around. There's nothing
Speaker 1: for it to contain, so lattice theory doesn't matter. And
Speaker 1: then maybe the most important assumption, we would have to
Speaker 1: assume the designers of this universe are not actively preventing
Speaker 1: people from discovering that they are in fact part of
Speaker 1: a simulation I think, I mean, do we want to
Speaker 1: pause for a word from our response, whatsre we have
Speaker 1: to talk about the caveats, the implications.
Speaker 4: What does this mean? You know?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it just makes me think about UAP. If
Speaker 2: you wanted to come in and talk to the simulated.
Speaker 2: You could come in as you know, a thing that
Speaker 2: looks like one of the simulated and speaks like one
Speaker 2: of the simulated and just interacts amongst them, or you
Speaker 2: could send in whatever you were, you know, like I'm
Speaker 2: trying to imagine, like, hello, fellow kids, I'm thinking back
Speaker 2: back in the day It's Ultimate Online, when a GM
Speaker 2: game manager would show up and just like pop in
Speaker 2: to where you are and be like, oh, hi, what
Speaker 2: seems to be the problem. Oh, I understand, let's talk
Speaker 2: about it, and like tries to help you with a problem,
Speaker 2: and then just pops out of the universe, Like could
Speaker 2: that happen? Would it look like a UAP that's just
Speaker 2: sitting there floating as a cube inside a sphere?
Speaker 4: This is like tech support?
Speaker 2: What a.
Speaker 4: Excuse me? You seem to be having some difficulties with simulation.
Speaker 3: What can we do to make your simulation experience as
Speaker 3: as pleasant as possible?
Speaker 6: I love that?
Speaker 4: What if?
Speaker 1: What if you in religions are real and you die
Speaker 1: and it's just like going to tech support instead of
Speaker 1: having yeah, and it's.
Speaker 2: All done over a.
Speaker 3: Really really quickly. Then you have to get in our group.
Speaker 3: Text Threat had mentioned the new balders Gate game, which
Speaker 3: apparently is great. People are screaming about the new balders
Speaker 3: Gate game. And it is a big like choose your
Speaker 3: an adventure type you know, RPG, but it sort of
Speaker 3: is more like a virtual D and D. So it's
Speaker 3: a little less where it's this accurate, super precise simulation
Speaker 3: and more like terms of a tabletop game that you
Speaker 3: might recognize, but with all the benefits of it being
Speaker 3: a virtual thing.
Speaker 4: I just that hybrid approach is.
Speaker 3: What my mind is starting to go to for like
Speaker 3: what this whole thing is all about?
Speaker 1: And let's pause there in our since we are bound
Speaker 1: by linear time, we are going to make some time
Speaker 1: for goods and services from our sponsors and we will
Speaker 1: be right back. Or are we already here? Have we
Speaker 1: always been?
Speaker 4: Sorry?
Speaker 1: Let's go, We have returned.
Speaker 4: So what does this mean?
Speaker 1: You know, you're listening to this show now, You're in Brisbane,
Speaker 1: You're in Jakarta, you're in Kansas City, you're in New York.
Speaker 1: Or Atlanta, maybe even Russia. We've gotten some weird emails.
Speaker 1: What does this mean for you? If the universe as
Speaker 1: you understand is made up well, honestly, right now, it
Speaker 1: does not change much. Doesn't change the price of a case. Indea,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what your philosophical leanings or your ideology
Speaker 1: or beliefs are. All human minds understand basic truths about
Speaker 1: the reality. If you're a human, you emerge into the world,
Speaker 1: experience stuff, your body decays over linear time, and at
Speaker 1: some point you disappear, and no dead person has ever
Speaker 1: come back in a provable way. If there is some
Speaker 1: greater meta reality, we might think about our experiences differently,
Speaker 1: But those experiences are not going to be different from
Speaker 1: your phenomenological perspective. Like, You're still going to experience stuff
Speaker 1: the same way. You'll just have different thoughts about what's
Speaker 1: happening and why and knowing that you live in a simulation.
Speaker 1: Is it going to change those basic truths? Oh, except
Speaker 1: for the part that it means there would be a god.
Speaker 1: That's like the one thing. It means there would be
Speaker 1: a creator.
Speaker 4: I'm on board with that.
Speaker 3: I don't know, man, I think sure do seem for
Speaker 3: it to all be from entropy, for it to all
Speaker 3: be from chaos and un organized you know, madness.
Speaker 4: Things sure did.
Speaker 3: Find themselves into an orderly, relatively orderly way that allow
Speaker 3: us to live here on this planet. And it also
Speaker 3: reminds me of a thing that I think we've all
Speaker 3: talked about with our good buddy Frank friend of the show,
Speaker 3: who took a.
Speaker 4: Class or audited a class or took.
Speaker 3: A massive one of those massive online classes on complex
Speaker 3: systems and the idea of complex systems and like how
Speaker 3: they can be modeled and some of the features of
Speaker 3: complex systems, which can be anything from like the way
Speaker 3: the water table works and the water cycle to like
Speaker 3: you know, the connection between members of different animal species
Speaker 3: and all of that stuff and just you know, natural
Speaker 3: things where you have to look at the individual components
Speaker 3: in order to fully understand the bigger picture. And there's
Speaker 3: tons of simulations that are done in the world of
Speaker 3: complex systems.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah, And before we go any further, because we
Speaker 1: are now we are addressing scientific implications that do go
Speaker 1: into the world of spirituality. So again, your spirituality is
Speaker 1: your own. When you hear Matt or Noel or yours
Speaker 1: truly talking about this kind of deep faith based stuff.
Speaker 1: Know that we're speaking for ourselves. We're not telling you
Speaker 1: what to believe. With that being said, I'd like to
Speaker 1: shout out Epicurus, who has one of my favorite quotes
Speaker 1: about this kind of thing. Is God? If God is real?
Speaker 1: Is God willing to prevent evil but not able? Then
Speaker 1: he is not omnipotent? Is he able but not willing?
Speaker 1: Then he is malevolent? Is he both able and willing?
Speaker 1: Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing?
Speaker 1: Then why call him God?
Speaker 4: I love that. I have never heard that. I agree
Speaker 4: with all of that.
Speaker 3: I've always had an issue with the whole It's free will. Man,
Speaker 3: God's not gonna, you know, keep you from suffering. That's
Speaker 3: not his deal. I'm like, why not thought we were
Speaker 3: all children of God? Like, why doesn't he intervene? And
Speaker 3: if he's not, isn't it all just a game? Isn't
Speaker 3: it all just kind of again that thing that he's
Speaker 3: just observing to see how it'll play out, which seems
Speaker 3: a little nihilistic and not particularly charitable to his creations.
Speaker 1: You know, well, have you ever been mean to your sims?
Speaker 1: You know, do you ever play civilization six and just
Speaker 1: think I'll nuke it.
Speaker 4: Why not?
Speaker 1: That's like the idea, right or for a human analog
Speaker 1: walking by an an hill and stepping on it for
Speaker 1: a momentary, little little little shot, see like you.
Speaker 4: Grow out of that.
Speaker 3: I feel like that's the kind of stuff that petulant
Speaker 3: children do. And I would really hope that, you know,
Speaker 3: someone with the power and.
Speaker 4: Clout of a god would be above that. Maybe.
Speaker 1: But this, okay, So all this means, if if one
Speaker 1: could prove a simulation exists, all this means is that
Speaker 1: there is some sort of again I hesitate to use
Speaker 1: the word God, some sort of generative force. But from
Speaker 1: the human perspective, it would be something like the divide.
Speaker 1: It would be a creator from wind Sprang all creation,
Speaker 1: and it might not have any remote resemblance to any
Speaker 1: human concepts of God. Like I think, I went back
Speaker 1: and looked to science fiction for one of my favorite
Speaker 1: ways to understand this potential new state of reality. And
Speaker 1: I think we should shout out one of the absolute
Speaker 1: best examples of simulation theory from the world of fiction.
Speaker 1: It is a short story called The Nine Billion Names
Speaker 1: of God by Arthur C. Clark, whom we quote often
Speaker 1: on this show and our boy Artie he wrote this
Speaker 1: absolute banger way back in nineteen fifty three.
Speaker 7: Do you guys know this story? We've talked about this
Speaker 7: show before, but okay, I don't. I don't even want to. Man,
Speaker 7: It's like, okay, fine, well, okay.
Speaker 4: The setup. The setup.
Speaker 1: It's very short. It's also freely available online as an
Speaker 1: audio book and as text. You can listen to it now.
Speaker 1: It won't take up a lot of time. The setup
Speaker 1: is that there is a remote monastery in the Himalayas,
Speaker 1: and they have contracted these two computer engineers to build
Speaker 1: a very advanced computer for them. That's the That's all
Speaker 1: I can tell you. I think that's enough of a tease, right, No,
Speaker 1: you are gonna when when you read or hear this, man,
Speaker 1: I guarantee you're going to hit the group chat.
Speaker 4: What the hell?
Speaker 3: I also, you know you you gave a really good
Speaker 3: quote about the nature of God from an more uh
Speaker 3: classic kind of source. I would love to offer one
Speaker 3: from a more modern source. An amazing writer and musician
Speaker 3: named David Berman who sadly passed away.
Speaker 4: A handful of years ago.
Speaker 3: He has a song called Margerita is at the mall
Speaker 3: from this record he made called Purple Mountains, and I
Speaker 3: think the lyrics.
Speaker 4: Are fabulous and really go along with kind of what you.
Speaker 3: Said, Ben, It's how long can a world go on
Speaker 3: under such a subtle God? How long can a world
Speaker 3: go on with no new word from God? See the
Speaker 3: plod of the flawed individual looking for a nod from God,
Speaker 3: trotting the sod.
Speaker 4: Of the visible with no new word from God.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, the wordplay alone is worth the price of admission.
Speaker 4: But I think it really I think it hits and then.
Speaker 3: We're just shrinking. Margarita is at the mall. That's the
Speaker 3: next line. It's yeah, it hits, man, And especially when
Speaker 3: you know this is a very sad individual who struggled
Speaker 3: with this kind of stuff and these sort of questions
Speaker 3: and this sort of what does it all mean? And
Speaker 3: managed to write it in such a tongue in cheek,
Speaker 3: a cerbic kind of way. And this this man took
Speaker 3: his own life very shortly after this album was released,
Speaker 3: And if you listen to it with that in mind,
Speaker 3: it really does read like the world's most hilarious tongue
Speaker 3: in cheek suicide note. So all that to say is
Speaker 3: These questions are not minor. These are like everything, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, too many people and some people
Speaker 3: can't go on because it's just too much. It's too much,
Speaker 3: you know, to think about all these possibilities and what
Speaker 3: does it all mean and the meaninglessness or meaningfulness of
Speaker 3: it all. I just think it's important to mention the
Speaker 3: mental health aspect of a lot of these types of things.
Speaker 1: You know, sure, yes it's it's a it's a big,
Speaker 1: big thing to get your head around. And you know,
Speaker 1: science is very good at explaining how, and spirituality attempts
Speaker 1: to explain why. So this gets us into a troubling
Speaker 1: range ven diagram between those two pursuits, which I would
Speaker 1: also argue are not mutually exclusive science and spirituality. We're
Speaker 1: out here on the bleeding edge of metacognitive experience, and
Speaker 1: we have to ask what would happen if we could
Speaker 1: not just prove the universe was a simulation, but what
Speaker 1: would happen if we could interact with whatever generative force
Speaker 1: created this simulation? Would they tell us that they were
Speaker 1: also part of a simulated reality? Would they want to
Speaker 1: hear from you? What would they say? What would their
Speaker 1: priorities be? These are questions that haunt us. They echo
Speaker 1: from the ancient past, pre linguistic ancient past, to the
Speaker 1: modern day. And for fans of mathematics, the idea of
Speaker 1: the universe has nothing more than a sophisticated form of code.
Speaker 1: What's super intriguing. That's a umami right there. We can
Speaker 1: understand ones and zeros. You know, it's devilishly if you'd
Speaker 1: permit the pun.
Speaker 2: Well, imagine you're playing SimCity. You create just just one city, right,
Speaker 2: a single city, but you created it. Imagine that each
Speaker 2: of those individual citizens of your city prayed to you
Speaker 2: as the god their creator. Each one individually does and says,
Speaker 2: you know, praise to you, tries to communicate with you
Speaker 2: in some way. You are one person. How do you
Speaker 2: respond to and take care of each one of those
Speaker 2: you know, creature's demands, each one of those individuals demands
Speaker 2: or asks or wants or needs, like if we were
Speaker 2: if we're taking it to that level right now, Imagine
Speaker 2: instead of a city, it's a planet. And now imagine
Speaker 2: instead of a planet, it's a galaxy and a universe
Speaker 2: and a web of galaxies like I'm imagining just you know,
Speaker 2: asking these questions of like getting to communicate with a creator.
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I do controlled opposition. I would
Speaker 1: create a Promethean Luciferian character in the city and be like,
Speaker 1: tell me your grievances, let's team up. You know what
Speaker 1: I mean. That's just to keep things interesting.
Speaker 3: I think this is a quote from Stanley Kubrick. I've
Speaker 3: seen it attributed to him a bunch and I couldn't
Speaker 3: find anything saying otherwise. I believe I've said this one
Speaker 3: before too, but it's so appropriate. He says, how would
Speaker 3: essentially an ant view the foot that crushes his aunt
Speaker 3: hill as the action of another being on a higher
Speaker 3: evolutionary scale than itself, or as the divinely terrible intercession
Speaker 3: of God?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: Right, it's a good question, right, It's one that applies now.
Speaker 1: I mean, this planet civilization is one Gamma Ray burst
Speaker 1: away from just popping, right, and there's nothing you could
Speaker 1: do about it. Shout out again to Josh Clark at
Speaker 1: the End of the World with Josh Clark, great show.
Speaker 1: Check out the Gamma Ray episode. If here's that's another
Speaker 1: intriguing thing, another baffling thing. There are certain patterns of
Speaker 1: numbers that seem to spontaneously generate impredictable patterns throughout all
Speaker 1: observable human experience. They're the same every time, They're very
Speaker 1: just so. The most famous, of course, would be Pie.
Speaker 1: Do check out that amazing film Pie, But then also
Speaker 1: check out the world record, which changes pretty often of
Speaker 1: individuals who are able to recite Pie from memory to
Speaker 1: the longest extent. No one knows when Pie ends. Yet,
Speaker 1: it's just a thing that exists. It's always the same
Speaker 1: in the entirety of the observable universe, and no one
Speaker 1: knows why. Another thing would be the Fibonacci sequence. That's
Speaker 1: where the sum of each number is the sum of
Speaker 1: the two numbers. That can before it sounds really simple,
Speaker 1: gets really interesting. Like that's the thing that gets me.
Speaker 1: How is that stuff the same? How does that never change?
Speaker 1: That's the thing that science can't answer because that's a
Speaker 1: why question, that's not a how question.
Speaker 3: And like things like the golden ratio that like appear
Speaker 3: you know, in nature so often.
Speaker 4: Ah, yeah, I don't know, man.
Speaker 3: I had a conversation with a dear friend the other
Speaker 3: day about sort of like the nature of reality and
Speaker 3: like sort of like a lot of these existential threats
Speaker 3: outside of the simulation thing but I do think that
Speaker 3: whatever the case, you know, we do know that I
Speaker 3: think this experience, whether it's simulation or not, is painfully
Speaker 3: short and pro probably best to do anything we can
Speaker 3: to not beat ourselves up psychically over these kinds of things,
Speaker 3: and just to kind of, at least at the very
Speaker 3: least enjoy this ride to some degree.
Speaker 4: And if it gives you.
Speaker 3: Joy to think about these kinds of things and to
Speaker 3: analyze it, then I think it's something that you should do.
Speaker 3: But I just I think some people can go down
Speaker 3: really dangerous rabbit holes with these kinds of things, and
Speaker 3: it can lead to problematic lives, and I just don't want.
Speaker 4: Everyone to have a good time, that's all. That's my
Speaker 4: whole thing.
Speaker 1: Sure, And for those of us playing along at home,
Speaker 1: what you need to know is it's probably best for
Speaker 1: us to save the ideas of these what I would
Speaker 1: call this constant math for a future episode, a follow
Speaker 1: up episode. All we need to walk away with is
Speaker 1: this for now, there does appear to be some sort
Speaker 1: of again discernible, predictable pattern towards certain events and structures
Speaker 1: within this larger universe from the very very small to
Speaker 1: the very very large, until you get to the edges
Speaker 1: of experience. It seems like there's a weird symmetry to stuff.
Speaker 1: There's a weird sort of call and response that reality
Speaker 1: is making toward you. It reminds me of all the
Speaker 1: you know, the old the old masters were right as above,
Speaker 1: so below. When Rumy says you know that which you
Speaker 1: seek is seeking you, it's okay. Well, now I sound
Speaker 1: like the photojournalist at the end of apocalypse now, but
Speaker 1: we'll keep moving on. People don't understand why these patterns exist.
Speaker 4: They do.
Speaker 1: The Fibonacci sequence is in everything from basic math to
Speaker 1: patterns of cicada lifestyle. It's very popular here in the
Speaker 1: US South. Scientists have learned to model and predict patterns
Speaker 1: and everything from fingerprints to cacti. And while the nature
Speaker 1: of this dilemma may not be readily apparent for everybody
Speaker 1: just hanging out as possible simulation, some of the world's
Speaker 1: smartest people are working around the clock to figure out
Speaker 1: whether or not there is an essential code, some sort
Speaker 1: of fabric from which this universe's clothing is composed. Before
Speaker 1: we end, I guess we should add Bostroums totally legitimate.
Speaker 1: This is a very smart person working in good faith,
Speaker 1: and he says in his paper, which you can read
Speaker 1: for free online, he says, look, all the points I've
Speaker 1: made do not prove that we are definitely living in
Speaker 1: a computer simulation. Further, he says, it might be impossible
Speaker 1: for us to ever reach a point where we can
Speaker 1: build our own universes at home. It might be because
Speaker 1: we can't get the technology, or because there's always a possibility.
Speaker 1: It might mean that humans go extinct before ever reaching
Speaker 1: that technological point. Here's the thing, it's kind of petering out,
Speaker 1: are you guys? There's just Jonathan pointed this out over
Speaker 1: on tech stuff as well, Jonathan Strickland, There's no real
Speaker 1: way to disprove simulation theory. It is not what we
Speaker 1: call a falsifiable claim. It's a thought experiment.
Speaker 3: But like so that's one thing that I kind of
Speaker 3: held back. I guess Bostrom does he really believe this?
Speaker 3: Is he sort of being a clever, cheeky little devil
Speaker 3: or like you know, sort of like do like again,
Speaker 3: to your point about it being a thought experiment, He's
Speaker 3: basically saying, if then if this heck is possible or
Speaker 3: becomes possible, then it has happened. Before, but then that pause.
Speaker 3: It's a whole nother kind of timey, whimy doctor who
Speaker 3: kind of scenario that also isn't really provable.
Speaker 4: I mean, like, what's his deal? Does he?
Speaker 3: Do you really think he's he believes this? Or is
Speaker 3: he just being too clever for his own good?
Speaker 1: I think it's it's an exploration, That's what it is.
Speaker 1: I don't think, I mean, clearly he's not. He and
Speaker 1: other people are not attempting to found religious movements based
Speaker 1: on this. They're not attempting God right, They're not attempting
Speaker 1: I was good. They're not attempting to bilk people, you know,
Speaker 1: And you can also the conversation continues. You can find
Speaker 1: plenty of work questioning this or attempting to disprove simulation
Speaker 1: as a concept. I think there were I can't remember
Speaker 1: their names. There were some physicists who looked at the
Speaker 1: knowable balands of classic computers and said it was impossible,
Speaker 1: indeed to create a computer that could simulate a universe.
Speaker 1: It's it's ongoing, and it's quite a high stakes exploration.
Speaker 1: Can't wait to hear what everyone thinks about this, But
Speaker 1: I want to give space one thing. Matt you've been
Speaker 1: kind of quiet, as Nola and I are, as he said,
Speaker 1: if then ing through this stuff. And I know there's
Speaker 1: a lot on your mind because you and I have
Speaker 1: talked about this for many years.
Speaker 4: What do you think.
Speaker 2: I just don't have anything to add. I looked at
Speaker 2: some of the latest attempts, like scientific attempts to work
Speaker 2: on this. It's not a problem to put more shed
Speaker 2: more light on these questions. Right, I'm not seeing anything
Speaker 2: that's blowing my mind. I always go back to the
Speaker 2: work of James Gates that I remember watching a video
Speaker 2: of him a long time ago talking about these things.
Speaker 2: He referred to them as error correcting codes, and they're
Speaker 2: associated with browsers that we use to hang out on
Speaker 2: the Internet. And when he was studying, you know, stuff
Speaker 2: in the atomic level, quarks and those things, he at
Speaker 2: least in his talk back then, years and years and
Speaker 2: years ago, he was saying that he was finding error
Speaker 2: correcting codes very similar to the ones we use for
Speaker 2: web browsers inside like the code of the universe. Basically
Speaker 2: that was at the sub atomic level, and that always
Speaker 2: blew my mind. But I could never find any further
Speaker 2: information on it. I don't know I'm just at a
Speaker 2: point right now where I haven't seen anything that is
Speaker 2: making me believe it harder.
Speaker 1: What if this whole universe is a sponsored ad for
Speaker 1: some other universe, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: What if this whole universe is an everything bagel? M m, yeah.
Speaker 1: What if there is source code for the universe and
Speaker 1: it turns out it's something like drink oval teine.
Speaker 3: Remember that movie Source Code with Jake Gillenhall was directed
Speaker 3: by David Bowie's son, Duncan Jones. It had some of
Speaker 3: these kind of themes, the idea of a simulation of
Speaker 3: like the ability to change the past, you know, time
Speaker 3: traveling stuff. But it was a little more on the
Speaker 3: simulation to But it's been a minute so I've seen.
Speaker 4: It, but I remember it being good.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Well, but Matt, do you think Bostrom's being a cheeky
Speaker 3: little fella or do you think he, like.
Speaker 4: Is really believes this.
Speaker 3: That's always a big question for me, you know, And
Speaker 3: I guess with scientists it's different. With politicians usually you
Speaker 3: could go either way. But like with scientists, I'm like,
Speaker 3: is it even about belief or is he just conjecturing?
Speaker 4: He's just saying this is a possibility.
Speaker 2: It personally, it's very weird to me. I have been
Speaker 2: under the influence of substances in the past where I fully,
Speaker 2: truly thought I understood the fabric of the simulation, not
Speaker 2: of the universe, not of reality, but of the simulated,
Speaker 2: computer generated thing that I was living in. And I've
Speaker 2: had those real moments that I like, they stick with
Speaker 2: me and I think about them. But for this specific topic,
Speaker 2: I don't dwell on those moments because I don't like
Speaker 2: what like thinking about that further and taking the thoughts
Speaker 2: to maybe their conclusions of if we are in fact
Speaker 2: in a simulation like.
Speaker 4: That you're talking about monster energy drink, I assume, right.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, sure, yeah, that's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 4: It'll do it.
Speaker 2: But what I mean is like that I'm sorry, just
Speaker 2: you know, That's why I've been kind of quiet, because
Speaker 2: I think about this stuff. But I'm like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't even know if I I don't know if
Speaker 2: I personally want to explore it much further.
Speaker 4: It's scary. And we talked a little.
Speaker 3: I think we did a video recently where we all
Speaker 3: give some book recommendations, and I talked about one that
Speaker 3: I think we all appreciated called the spirit molecule about DMT,
Speaker 3: and so many DMT trip experiences have very similar results
Speaker 3: where people see these like creatures, you know, these like
Speaker 3: machine elves or whatever, and there's a lot of conjecture
Speaker 3: around that various communities that these might well be the
Speaker 3: creatures pulling the strings behind the simulation, right, I don't know, Ben,
Speaker 3: I see you kind of just see the wheels turning.
Speaker 3: Is that something that you've heard in terms of like
Speaker 3: that's a way to see through the veil into the
Speaker 3: source code, and maybe there are things that are pulling
Speaker 3: the strings that are observing us that we are not
Speaker 3: aware of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, said that we do function on a constraint of
Speaker 1: linear or time and have to wrap this up because
Speaker 1: that is a favorite hobby horse of mine.
Speaker 4: I would.
Speaker 1: I know, not everyone agrees with Graham Hancock, but the
Speaker 1: guy can spin a story for sure. It goes to
Speaker 1: the concept of discovery. It goes to the concept of
Speaker 1: information being conveyed via human DNA and being able to
Speaker 1: interact directly with some sort of sentient force within that
Speaker 1: DNA when under the influence of certain usually psychedelic or
Speaker 1: who loucinogenic substances. There is so much more to the story,
Speaker 1: and I'm so glad we finally got to this. I
Speaker 1: think this is the first of a continuing series. We
Speaker 1: have much more to explore in the existence of numbers
Speaker 1: as source code for reality. But for now, you guys,
Speaker 1: Matt Noel, Mission Control, fellow conspiracy realist, We've got to
Speaker 1: call it an evening. I have become strange. I am doctificant.
Speaker 1: We have miles to go before we sleep. Shall we
Speaker 1: pass the torch to our fellow sims and see if
Speaker 1: they can solve the question of reality for us?
Speaker 3: What does sims say on their little weird language?
Speaker 4: I like that weird little things like that.
Speaker 3: I can't simulish is a thing that it's called, and
Speaker 3: I used to remember it was like David the Gnome
Speaker 3: type language. But anyhow, please reach out to us. Let
Speaker 3: us know what your experiences of all of these things.
Speaker 3: You know, if you have any theories to add, let
Speaker 3: us know. You can find us on the internet on
Speaker 3: the platform formerly known as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, where
Speaker 3: we are conspiracy stuff or conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram
Speaker 3: and TikTok.
Speaker 2: Do you like using your voice? You can call us
Speaker 2: one eight three three std WYTK. It's a voicemail system.
Speaker 2: You got three minutes. That's it, just three minutes. Give
Speaker 2: yourself a cool nickname and let us know if we
Speaker 2: can use your voice and message on one of our
Speaker 2: listener mail episodes. If you don't want to do that,
Speaker 2: why not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 1: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.