January 30, 2013 • 41 mins
What is the philosophical argument about living in a computer simulation? What does the singularity have to do with it? How might we be able to tell if we’re in a computer simulation? Learn about the nature of perception with Lauren and Jonathan.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
stuff looks dot com. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to
tech Stuff. I am Jonathan Strickland, the host of tech Stuff,
and I am Lauren Volkbaum, the other host of tech Stuff. Yes,
if we had introduced ourselves in the opposite order, I
(00:24):
would be the other host of tech Stuff. We're co hosts. Really, yeah,
it's uh. You know, this is a complicated issue, and
in fact, I think it'd be a lot simpler if
we just simulated it. What would it be a lot simpler?
I think it would actually be more complicated. You know
what We're gonna find out right here and now, because
this episode is all about do we live in a
computer simulation? And in fact, the reason why we're even
(00:48):
talking about this is a few years ago a philosopher,
and boy is that a surprise to no one. A
philosopher by the name of Nick Bostrom who works at
a little um yeah, tiny, like in academic circles. They
have some swagger. It's the University of Oxford. Yeah, yeah,
(01:10):
as far as the boffins go at Swagger City, right anyway, Yeah,
he works with the University of Oxford and he's a
philosopher employed there, so his job is to sit around
and think about the nature of reality, and he presented
an interesting thought experiment. He said, do we live in
a computer simulation? Is everything that we experience and everything
(01:33):
that's around us actually just the product of some sort
of computer program in a universe larger than our own?
And we'll talk about you know what led him into
this kind of line of thinking and his arguments presenting
the likelihood that we are actually in a computer simulation.
But before we begin in that, I thought it'd be
(01:54):
interesting to look back quite a way. Is actually because
this idea that reality as we understand it is not
not exactly new at all. We've been pondering for basically
as long as we could ponder things, whether or not
our our experience of reality is reality. Yeah, and and
part of that is understandable. I mean, we know for
(02:16):
a fact that reality consists of stuff that is beyond
our perception, right, Oh, sure, absolutely, Like I don't know
when the last time you looked into the infrared spectrum was,
but the last time for me was never because it's
outside my visual acuity. I can't see in the infrared spectrum,
all right, And there's lots of lots of things above
our scale of hearing, above and below our scale of hearing. Um,
(02:38):
if you talk to sharks, they can they can hear
different stuff, but my dogs totally different stuff that I
can hear. Yeah, And and even even before we had
as much scientific data about that as we do now.
You know, if we had done the research, we could
tell you the exact spectrums that we can see within
but outside of visual which is a pretty good word
for it. But um, but but yeah, you know, it's
(03:00):
even long, long, long times before that people are pondering
these questions and all kinds of literature. Uh goes into
literature and philosophy right right all the back in one
one of the famous, famous examples of this kind of
philosophy was proposed by a fellow named Renee Descartes, about
whom Monty Python had some rude things to sing if
(03:22):
you know that your philosopher's song. But Descartes, um, I
think therefore I am uh fellow. He wrote something called
the Meditations on First Philosophy, and he presented an very
similar thought exercise to the one that Nick Moostrom mentioned. Now,
his was called the Evil Demon or sometimes people refer
(03:43):
to it as the evil genius problem. And he said, well,
what if everything that I renee, I think therefore I
am Descartes experience is actually just an illusion that's generated
by an evil force. In his case, he was home
on all demon. So there's this malevolent creature that is
(04:04):
capable of creating everything that Decard is experiencing. So while
he thinks he's walking around and being really smart and
chatting with other smart people and having a croissan um,
in reality, he's not. He's just he's just a consciousness
that's being manipulated by this evil demon and everything that's
(04:25):
happening to him is an illusion that's created by him.
And this is unfalsifiable, right. It means that that means
that there's no way that you can prove that it's wrong.
It's like if I say, there's a six ft invisible
bunny walking around behind me all the time, makes no
noise and has no scent, right, and you can't touch it.
That you cannot touch. Yeah, that well, that there's no
(04:48):
way for me to prove that you're wrong. I will
sit here and I will think that you are crazy
or Donnie Darko, but that uh, you know, or Deborah
Donka don't darko, I don't know, I mean, or the
character in in Harvey there yes, another yes, but but
you know, there's no way for me to prove that
there's not a six ft invisible, untouchable, unsensible, unhearable bunny
(05:11):
behind you. So that's that's called that. It's called unfalsifiable.
That means it is not scientific. Scientific principles premises these
sort of things. They are falsifiable, meaning that there should
be a set of criteria under which you would say
this is not true. Right now. It does not mean
(05:32):
that what you're saying isn't true. It just means it
has to be possible, that has to be within the
realm of possible. In order for something to be proved,
it has to be able to be disproved exactly. And
so if it's unfalsifiable, it's not scientific. Now I should
also stress if it's unfalsifiable and unscientific, that also does
not mean it's not true. It could be true. It
(05:53):
can absolutely be String theory is a great example of this.
We call it a theory, but but some people argue
it's a fullilosophy. Well, it's a it's yeah, it's not
a mathematical theory. And I get into arguments sometimes of
people on Facebook about this because the theory is the
word that has many many meanings. The mathematical meaning of
it is is something that has been proven is true,
(06:15):
whereas he has has been exercised the whole scientific theory
versus I have a theory which is really more like
I have an idea of why this is the way
it is. Scientific theory and that kind of theory are
two different things. But anyway, uh yeah, string theory would
say that the entire universe is made up of these tiny,
little vibrating strings. And we're talking like tiny, as in
(06:35):
tinier than sub atomic particles, tiny, quite small, and that
the way they vibrate that's what makes stuff what it is. Well,
mathematically this makes sense, but there is no way we
can uh we can observe this or test this, so
therefore it's unfalsifiable and unscientific using that particular definition. Uh So,
(06:56):
same sort of thing here with Renee Dicart and his theory.
And this is not again, not the first time this
idea has popped up. It's one of the really famous ones.
And that's back in so if we look at the
modern version, you've got Nick Bostrom talking about a computer simulation,
and his whole argument hinges on this idea of trans
(07:19):
humanism or the singularity. So we kind of have to
talk about what the singularity is so that we can
finally get around to this whole computer simulation problem, right,
and and and also talk about trans human because that
that's basically a fancy term for stuff. Yeah, it's it's
(07:40):
it's a it's a fancy term for saying what happens
when we reach a point in uh, in advances in
science and medicine, in biology, where we can transform ourselves
to a point where we are no longer strictly speaking human, Right, Like,
we have altered ourselves on some fundamental level, and we
(08:01):
aren't we we wouldn't be human as we recognize it today. Right,
that our our technology has bonded to us in a way,
or that our science has bonded to us. Right, we
we've understood genetics enough so that we're all mutants like
in the X Men, or we have all become cyborgs,
or we have all transmitted our consciousness into computers and
there are no physical versions of us anymore. And these
(08:24):
are all different ways that we could, in theory become
trans human. So it's a very generic term that spreads
across multiple possibilities. There's no one trans human because really,
I mean, the thing is that we don't know because
we're not there yet. It hasn't happened yet as it
turns out. I mean, there's a few of us who
are a little wacky, but but it doesn't mean some
(08:45):
of us are clearly better than others. I mean, okay, yeah,
I mean we're not we're not naming names, but we're
pretty awesome. But no, So that's the idea of trans humanism.
Singularity is sort of one of the pathways where we
could reach this sort of trans human future. And the
singularity is this idea that several futurists have proposed about
(09:08):
the fact that technology advances are continuing at a faster
and faster pace each each year, really exponentially exponentially. You've
got things like Moore's law, where, depending on how you're
defining it, essentially the computer power is doubling every two
years um, but other technological advances are are having at
(09:28):
an even faster rate that we will eventually come to
a point where we are advancing continuously with no break
between the generation. Right if you think of like operating
systems and how they come out, like you know Windows
seven and then Windows But then you think, all right, well,
then down the road it might be the every six months,
and then it might be every three months, and then
(09:49):
it might just be that every single day there's something
new that's being incorporated, or every second or every n
a second. So at that point, things are changing so
fast that you cannot even define in the era you
are in because there's nothing like within within one moment,
uh you have changed so much that it's it's pointless
to try and defind a series of moments. Right at
(10:12):
this point in our future, we would hit what is
called the singularity. And part of one of the defining
features of the singularity is it's impossible for us to
say what will happen once we hit that point, because
by its very nature, it's going to evolve so fast
that we cannot conceive of what I mean. It's it's
kind of pointless to talk about it too much. Doesn't
(10:33):
stop me, but it's pointless. It doesn't stop philosophers. Either
doesn't stop me. And there are many pointless discussions that
you cannot stop me from having. This is one of them, anyway,
So the singularity could happen in various ways again, biology, science, technology,
These are all the different avenues that that could lead
to the singularity or could be you know, yeah and uh.
(10:58):
And that forms the very crux of Bostrom's argument. Let's
take a quick break for a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show. So Nick Bostrom's argument
uh is worded this way here. Here's from a paper
he wrote on the subject, A technologically mature post human
(11:18):
civilization would have enormous computing power. Based on this empirical fact,
the simulation argument shows that at least one of the
following propositions is true. One, the fraction of human level
civilizations that reach a post human stage is very close
to zero. To the fraction of post human civilizations that
(11:39):
are interested in running ancestor simulations is very close to
zero or three, the fraction of all people with our
kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is
very close to one. Now, what that essentially means is
that if we are able to reach a post human phase,
this trans human phase where we have at our fingertips
(12:02):
practically limitless resources because of things are being so magical
and rainbows are popping out of everything. That uh that
if that's the case, then we should be able to
create a computer simulation of the universe that is within
the realm of the simulation itself, extremely realistic, and that
(12:26):
we could also create within this, uh, this universal simulation,
simulated intelligent beings, so that these these created beings would
have sentience, they have consciousness, They would they might be
very much like modern humans. Yes, they be self aware,
but they would exist within the context of this created universe,
(12:48):
and so they would only be able to see the
things that are within that universe. Anything outside of the
universe they would be incapable of perceiving. So within that universe,
it would seem like they were quote unquote the real people,
right they were. They were the people who were there
because of whatever forces caused the universe to create be
(13:11):
created in the first place. Um, And that for these
people within the simulated universe, it might be completely impossible
for them to detect anyone outside of it, anyone being
us that we were the ones creating it. So his
argument is that if we in fact reach the stage,
and if we would use our technology to create simulations
so that we could see how civilizations developing, that we
(13:33):
would that interesting bits of the universe work, because we're
intrinsically curious, right, So his argument is, if it's possible,
we would do it, And if it's possible and we
would do it, that means we, the current people living
in this universe, are almost surely a computer simulation. So
if it can happen, and if we are interested in ourselves,
(13:58):
and we obviously are, then it's almost a guarantee that
we're in a computer stimulation. And the reason for that
argument is that in order for us to not be
a computer simulation, we would have to be the first ones, right,
we would have to be heading towards that timeline, and
I just haven't gotten there yet, you know, Mr. Fusion,
Whereas in every other case, some other post human civilization
(14:22):
has already gotten there and made at least one level
of simulated universe, which means that one out of infinity
means we're the first, and then every other example is
we're number two or lower. So yeah, that's that's that's
kind of the crux of this argument, and it's really
(14:44):
again a philosophical argument. It's not meant to say we're
we're in a we're in a computer game, because because
the way that it's set up, Yeah, that you know,
if if you're saying that that ad infinitum percent of
the time, we're probably a computer simulation, that it's you're
you're placing the burden of proof on that point nine,
(15:07):
etcetera percent of the population who might think you're wrong
and that. So, but it's really fair, it's an interesting
it's an interesting question. It's it's again unfalsifiable at right now.
But but here's the funny thing. Boster makes us this statement.
But it's purely from a philosophical point of view, right,
(15:28):
It's not from a physics point of view, it's not
from a science point of view. It's philosophy that has
not stopped other people from looking at this from a
scientific point of view. And that, to me is another
interesting aspect of this argument is that usually you would
look at an argument like this and say, okay, well,
that's an interesting philosophical question. Ultimately, there's nothing I can
(15:50):
do about that one way or the other, and then
you go about your mary little way. Right, But a
bunch of nice. I'm I'm assuming I'm quantum scientists have
gotten together. Are you assuming they're nice? Are you assuming
their quantum sign assuming well, I'm assuming both. I'm going
to go ahead and give them the benefit of the doubt.
There have been have been doing some research into quantum chromodynamics,
(16:11):
which is which is a theory about one of the
four fundamental forces in our universe. So the four fundamental
forces are strong nuclear force, electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, and gravity.
And that is in fact, in the order of how
powerful they are, right, gravity is the weakest. It's the
one that we're having the most trouble incorporating into our
(16:34):
model of the universe. Uh. Strong nuclear force deals with
the force of you know, you know those nucleus is things.
The nuclei exists inside atoms. You know how they have
like stuff that's stuck together, like protons and neutrons. And
we're not sure why because because hypothetically to protons should
should push each other each other. If you've ever played
(16:56):
with magnetis, well, well, strong nuclear force is the force
that that's the name for the reason why these things
are stuck together so strong, whether why they're able to
stick together clearly, it has to be an incredibly strong force,
an incredibly strong force that only kicks in in incredibly
short distances. We're talking on the atomic scale. So the
(17:19):
strong nuclear force is what quantum chromo dynamics is all
about studying. And one of the ways that quantum chromo
dynamics or q c D should be way easier to
say is to to look at this as a part
of well, it looks at reality as four space time dimensions,
(17:44):
so four dimensions. Uh. We mentioned string theory earlier. Some
versions of string theory require that there are no fewer
than eleven dimensions for string theory to work, which is
basically beyond my comprehension entirely. I I get x, y
z and time that I can I can get a
three to mentional object moving through times. Beyond that, it
gets a little wonky. Yeah, yeah, whibble wobbley, I'm right
(18:08):
there with you, and uh and yeah, the same thing.
And then again this this plays back to that discussion
we at the very beginning where we talked about you know,
we know the universe consists of stuff that's beyond our perception,
but you know, we have to filter that through our
brains and our brains are acting as a middleman between
our consciousness and reality. So the things that we experience
(18:31):
may very well be in their fundamental nature extremely different
from the way we think of them because it's being
filtered through because we have to model them in a
this this concept we shouldn't have done. This philosophy makes
me sad. I just realized that my brain is what's
making you sit there and you think, like, think about it.
(18:53):
If you have a bad day, you're thinking, wait a minute.
Part of the reason I'm having a bad day is
because my brain is filtering things in a it's my fault.
And then I just it becomes this inspirable loop of
of everything is terrible because of my brain, which is
making things terrible. A little glimpse into Jonathan strictly folks,
now I get just before I have to go to
ce S. I know this episode publishes after I've come back,
(19:13):
but trust me, it's it's a terrible life. Having to
fly around the country and look at really shiny technological objects.
You are not helping this this vicious cycle going on.
Getting back to qc D. So part of part of
this is looking at reality as for spacetime dimensions. Uh,
(19:34):
and it's using computers that are really really powerful to
do this and creating something that's uh, well, it's it's
it's it's called a lattice gauge. Uh, it's last gage theory.
Actually that is sort of the framework within which q
c D tries to explain the strong nuclear force. And uh,
(19:57):
this part of this means that we try and simulate
and then incredibly tiny simulated universe, right right, and this
is on the this is on actually the femto correct
excellent um and and a femtometer is one quadrillionth of
a meter nanometer for for references, one billionth of a meter.
(20:18):
And that's also very small. Yes, yeah, when you talk
about nanotechnology and that super small technology that is enormous
compared to the femto scale, we're talking really really really tiny. Well,
they build this sort of lattice structure to contain the
simulated universe, and within this simulated universe, they are examining
(20:40):
the elements that make up the strong nuclear force so
that we can understand what it is and how it
works better. Right right, that's the whole purpose. One of
the big driving forces of the universe. We want to
understand it. But this this physicists said, Hey, wait a minute.
If this is how we are simulating and entirely fake
n reverse a very tiny universe, doesn't it stand to
(21:04):
reason that some other like if we are and if
we became type of advanced, if if we went trans human,
couldn't those trans humans in fact use the same technology
to simulate an entire universe on a big scale, on
a really large scale scale, or or at least for us.
I mean, you could also argue that just to populate
(21:26):
a fempto sized universe with with even smaller individual units
within that fimpto sized universe, the idea being that, well
you could you could create a stimulation that is a
true universe with inhabitants and intelligent inhabitants, and that if
in fact we are in a computer simulation, then perhaps
there's some way that we could detect if this lattice
(21:50):
structure is around our own universe. Um. Yeah, this is
where it's getting to the point where it's hard for
me to actually explain, because it's stretching. Both of our
grasps on quantum mechanics are are perhaps not as strong
as they could be, and and cosmology for the matter.
For that matter, because we're talking about things like cosmic rays.
(22:12):
The physicists suggested that perhaps we could observe cosmic rays
and and really study them in depth and see how
they behave within our universe and look for evidence of
a lattice structure, which would indicate that some other larger
universe had used the same techniques we used to create
(22:32):
the femto universes we're making to look at the strong
nuclear force to make our own universe, and then we'd say, hey,
look there's evidence we are in a computer simulation crap.
There are there are some issues with this. One is that, uh,
it presumes that any post human civilization would use the
exact so uh, there's another assumption that said post human
(22:59):
society would allow us to be able to find our
own right that you know, they wouldn't paint in a
nice little backdrop that would prevent us from seeing the scenes,
like to put in a patch or to reset us.
Let's go back to bronze age, folks, control or delete um.
There's also the argument that, well, what if our universe
(23:20):
is so large that it is a bounded universe, because
that's the other thing. A lattice structure would also indicate
that our universe does have it's a finite universe. What
if that finite universe is still too big for us
to ever be able to see the edges, or what
if the universe just is finite anyway. Yeah, it could
be that the universe is finite anyway and has nothing
(23:42):
to do with the last structure. And so there are
a lot of a lot of objections that people have
brought up. But mainly what this approach would allow us
to do is if we saw the last structure, we
could maybe draw some conclusions. But in any other case,
like if we didn't see the last structure, it doesn't
answer any questions. All right, it doesn't mean that it
doesn't exist. Yeah, it doesn't mean that we're not in
(24:03):
a computer simulation. So this so it's interesting, but again
it's just sort of an extension of this thought experiment where, uh,
you know, we're kind of getting round to the point
that I'm most interested in in this whole discussion that
all right, let's let's say that let's say that we
are in a computer simulation. Whether we know it or not,
(24:23):
it doesn't matter. We don't necessarily need to know that
we are. But let's just let's just assume, assuming that
we are that we are. Does that matter on a
day to day scale? Would it matter if we were
in a computer simulation in some ways? If we don't know,
it doesn't matter at all. I mean, you know, if
we if yeah, you know, if if we had absolute
(24:44):
proof of it, then that would be that would be huge,
That would be shattering. That would probably cause wars. Yeah,
for for all kinds of philosophies and religions and and
just interpersonal I mean, I mean within my own head,
I would probably need to spend a few days just
just to drew thing because talking about my normal weak
this is what I do. Alright, Fine, Okay, so now
(25:07):
I know something different between me and Lauren learn a
new stuff. Um No, I I agree that that. And
if we don't know, there was no difference because the
rules that we have created for ourselves but based on
our cultures and our society, those haven't changed. Like like
if I found out somehow, like if if knowledge we're
(25:29):
given to me personally out of everyone who's alive, that yes,
in fact, you live in a computer simulation. After I
had that moment where I I upped my drooling capacity
for my daily allowance of drooling. I would sit there
and think, well, ultimately, this doesn't change anything. I mean,
it's my life still has meaning within the context of
(25:50):
the world I live in. We still need to go
get lunch, we still, we still get married, we still
I still, I still laugh, I still cry. I still
find that Joe and Webb look to be absolutely hilarious,
and I would really like it if Netflix streaming would
bring it back for me. I mean, you know, all
of these sort of things would still be true, So
I don't think that ultimately it changes anything unless it
(26:14):
were something where we could definitively prove it, and then
that would change major things, like essentially a lot of
people would have to answer some very tough questions in
regards to philosophy and religion particularly, but other things as well.
But those two, in particularly, some very nice philosophy departments
would be more or less out of jobs. Yeah, well,
(26:36):
you know, actually they went step away from being out
of a job. Anyway, Come on, we're talking about philosophy here. Snap.
This is coming from a literature major. Okay, I did
you see that this is off topic? But there was
a list I think of the most unemployable majors came out.
(26:57):
Philosophy I think was in the top three. Yeah, literature
was in the top ten. Was it was it? I
was created writing? Do you have any creative writing? I
think they didn't even put them in there. It's like,
are you Neil Gaiman? No? Um, hey, I'm an editor.
I'm working in my field, folks. That's true, that's true.
I'm I don't know what my field would be. Some
(27:20):
of the medieval literature. I guess I'd be teaching medieval
literature if I were in my field. But it's funny
that I went into technology podcasting instead. So anyway, ultimately,
I don't think it would really matter. There's no way
of knowing currently one way or the other. So from
that perspective, from a thought exercise, right, yeah, So ultimately, uh,
(27:40):
it may or may not matter if we're in a
computer simulation. But the other question to ask is how
feasible is it? How would it be possible to actually
create a universe on this What would it take to
create a universe on this scale? Right? And I mean
because simulating something is actually very much more complicated than
just doing it. For for example, um. I was reading
(28:02):
one article that that sited a number where if you
were to take a hard drive and you wanted to
create a simulation of that entire hard drive, you would
have to simulate every single adom, minute, record, its position.
It's it's time scale, everything about it. That would be
you know, and and and every single atomant and hard
drive is maybeing intend to the power of twenty four
atoms a couple a bunch um and but in order
(28:26):
to simulate it, you would have to about have about
a hundred bits of information at least on each of
those atoms. Right. So so when you think about that,
if this world is or this universe is a computer simulation,
then that means the simulation has to take into account
every single object within that world, whether that object is
part of something else or or an individual object. Uh.
(28:47):
It's position, it's uh, if it's moving, its relationship to
every other object within that universe, how that objects behavior?
You know, however you wanted to find that affects other objects.
It's it's are you going down to the atomic scale?
Are you going to the sub atomic scale? How how
deep does the rabbit hole go? Right? Right? Because because
(29:08):
the other problem here is that as we the human
beings who live right here and now, whether it's a
computer simulation or not, get more advanced, we get to
learn more about our environment and we get to look
even deeper than we could before. So like, let's go
back to the Stone Age, no microscopes, nothing like anything
that was beyond our ability to actually see it didn't
exist in our minds. And then we got more and
(29:29):
more advanced, and we were able to suddenly start seeing
things that are tinier and tinier. And then we get
to the point where we've got electron tunneling microscopes and
we can move individual atoms into place and we can
see things that are really far away. That would mean
that the simulation would have to take into account the
ability for us to see well beyond what we first right,
(29:49):
So that's kind of incredible to think about that way,
Like how much power would you have to have to
generate this? Is it something that would be added over
time so that like you know, one, someone's checking in
every now and like, oh they can see Adams now,
all right, well we got to build the next level down, guys,
or or like fire up that extra server. We're gonna
(30:10):
need it to exactly, like, you know, it's some place
in this other larger universes North Carolina, there's another server
farm being built. Yeah, I mean it's it's it blows
the mind. It becomes one of these things where you,
as you start to think about it, you're like, would
that even be possible? Now, from a futurists argument, they
might say that in the future will be able to
(30:31):
do things like harness the power of black holes to
do computing, in which case the limitations of computing suddenly
seem like a non problem. Sure, even with quantum computers,
which they're already experimenting with. We've gotten up to a
sixteen sixteen cubits was the last reliable one, but we've
had there been larger ones. The problem with, of course,
(30:52):
quantum computers is that as soon as you really observe
the state there in it collapses, that deco hears and
you end up with a classical computer or that is
severely underpowered compared to any other normal classical computer. But
there are people who are working on that problem. So yeah,
I mean that it may be that reaching such a
level of computing power is not possible, And in fact,
(31:15):
that was part of Bostrom's point was that he was
not necessarily saying we live in a computer simulation. He
was saying, there's another way of looking at this. We
can look at this is saying trans human or post
human in the sense that the futurists have defined. It
is an impossibility that we will never get to a
point where we have computing power so vast as to
be able to simulate an entire universe down to the
(31:38):
tiniest detail and have it populated with intelligent creatures, right
or even beyond the feasibility of that, the idea that
probably we're going to kill all of each other way
before that. Actually that that was another point. One of
his points is saying that it's way more likely than
any any sort of civilization reaching post human or trans
human uh status would end up wiping itself out in
(32:02):
some sort of cataclysmic event, whether on purpose or by accident.
So we could have, hey, we have reached this level
of superiority. Now we are going to force our ideological
values upon everybody else, and everybody else says no, you're not,
and then we all kill each other, or we say, hey,
was this button? Do zombie outbreak? Those are the only
(32:22):
two possibilities. That's a lie. But no, that spostor's point
is that that could also be a case. It's really
a depressing case, but you could say humankind could hit
extinction before we hit post humans. More fun to think
about that other thing. But overall, zombie, I'll break I agree,
walking dead man right down the street from me, that's
(32:45):
just to land on normal traffic. That's true, that's true.
It's it's pretty much it's the office before we get
to the coffee machine. It is. It gets ugly folks,
a lot of walkers, a lot of walkers. But yeah,
that's I'm that's a good point, is that it you know,
we could we humankind could go extinct. That's one downside.
(33:07):
We might not ever be able to reach that level
of computational achievement in order to to ever simulate a universe.
That's depending upon whom you ask, also a downside. Or
we just might never know. So yeah, sometimes that leads,
it leads us to to explore the question further. Really, Yeah,
and we've we've seen that explored in multiple venues, not
(33:29):
just philosophy, not just science, but entertainment all over the place. Yeah,
I mean, going back to a lot of Shakespeare stories
we're talking about really, like, like, what's the difference between
dreams and reality? Midsummer Night's Dream is kind of a
big one. We are such stuff as dreams are made on.
Thank you, Jonathan, oh brieve, new world to have such people,
and it tis new to the that's the tempest right there.
(33:55):
That's that's our that's our literature major over here. Yeah, well,
you know, I used the degree once in a while,
but more perhaps more modern things. A few a few
of you have probably seen the Matrix. I know, kunk fu,
I keep quote, let's just keep going. I got it,
I got this Vanilla sky. Oh no, I haven't seen that. Yeah,
(34:18):
I can't do that documentary or the Spanish version. Afftert.
Let's all host do you speak Spanish? There we go.
That was my total recall. Inception. Um, that's that's that's
every other shorts and negative not inception at all. I know.
(34:39):
The inception one would be that's inception love love these movies.
By the way, I'm making a lot of fun, but no,
these are good points. I mean, you do you do
see this theme come up over and over again? Total recall?
What is real? What is being imagined. Is the entire
story actually only happening in Quaid? That was his name?
Rights mine ah or inception? And are you still within
(35:02):
a dream? Are you one level down in a dream?
Are you two levels down? At the very end of
the movie is the is the main character is right? Which?
And of course that brings into questions something else. This
this is a good argument that falls within the same
sort of thing about being able to tell versus not
being able to tell. Uh. This is big spoilers for
(35:23):
Inception here, obviously, but one of the one of the
things they set up in an Inception is that one
way you can tell if you are in a dream
is you have a totem that is specific to you
and behaves a certain way in the real world, but
in dream space it does not behave that way. Why
who knows, But it's convenient physics, right. The main character
(35:45):
has a top, so if he spins the top and
the top stops spinning, he knows he's in the real world.
If he's a layer down into a dream world and
he spins the top, it just keeps spinning. And that's
how he can look at a moment and know if
he's an a dream or if he's awake. Uh, there's
a problem with this though. If the whole thing is
within a dream, there's nothing to stop the dream world
(36:08):
from saying at a certain level, this top behaves a
different way. So, in other words, even at the top
topples over, which into the movie gives you this kind
of idea, is it gonna But even at the top
worred to topple over, that would not answer the question
of whether or not you were in a dream, because
it only depends upon if that level is real or not.
(36:30):
And if it's not real, if that's just another point
of the dream, then all it means is that the
behaviors of stuff in one level the dream behave differently
than the others. And and similarly, if if our if
our future trans human selves decided to make it so
that we cannot detect whether or not we are in
a dream, then yeah, we're kind of stuck. Yeah, the
same thing with the matrix, the whole idea of creating
(36:51):
a universe that is not ideal, because if we created
an ideal universe, humans would go, this can't be real.
My life stinks. There's no way my life is this awesome,
And uh, and then we have a universe filled with
Jonathan Stripling's and nobody wants that. Nobody, nobody wants, not
(37:13):
even Jonathan's. And look, I'm enough to deal with already.
But yeah, no, there's there's tons of examples. There's there's
a lot in science fiction obviously, obviously, especially since since
William Gibson in the entire cyberpunk thing became a thing,
you know, and that's that's sort of our our entrance
into into how did I just make up a word
in French? I don't think that that's an actual thing.
(37:34):
Um Ever, Ever since cyberpunk happened, we've been we've been
looking at technology in in this fearful way, which we
always kind of do in horror films. I think that
fiction is a really terrific way for us to work
out our anxieties because we can go like, well, in
this scary world, all of this terrible things. I think
all of these terrible things will happen. However, we're going
(37:55):
to have some attractive people in pleather who are going
to take care of it for us. And that's or
die and die in numerous with Yeah, like you said, yeah,
it's science fiction and horror the two genres I think
of the most when I think about this kind of mentality,
because I also think of things like other movies. Here's
another spoiler. Guys, if you're a Josh Ween fan, this
(38:15):
is a spoiler. So spoiler. For Josh Weed fans you
can skip ahead. But Cavin in the Woods another example
of like what is real and what is what is artifice? Yes,
what has been simulated, So there you go, same sort
of thing. Um. I don't think that's a huge spoiler
because that's revealed early in the movie. But still, um,
at any rate, these are you know, we've explored this
(38:38):
idea and multiple forms of media, whether it's entertainment or
also in multiple disciplines entertainment, science, philosophy, and I don't
think it's gonna go away anytime soon because obviously there's
no way for us to answer this question, not not
unless we detect that last structure. And even then you're like, well,
well then who created us? That could mean anything, that
(39:00):
could mean. And also it could be like inception. We
might be seventy eight levels down from reality. It could
be that marble in the Men in Black. Yeah, yeah,
then yeah, exactly, yes, we could be we could be
a moat of dust upon the nose of a dog
in another universe, which in itself is a moat of
dust upon the nose of another dog, And another universe,
(39:22):
which in itself is a moat of dust upon Douglas
Adams pencil as he giggles maniacally and writes another book,
because in that universe he's still around. I like that
universe too. I want to I want to I want
to go to their But yeah, it's a it's a
really interesting question. So, um, and if you've heard about
this whole thing, because it came up in conversations towards
(39:44):
the end of two thousand twelve, which is kind of
interesting because the first, uh, the publication of Bostrom's work
was in the early two thousand I think, yeah, so,
but in this case, it was because the physicists had said, hey,
there might be a way for us to find out
maybe possible, probably not, but it could happen. And even then,
we're going to have to get to a level of
(40:05):
technological uh advancement that is beyond what we have now
before we could even hope to detect these cosmic rays
but uh, and their behavior. But but we'll see. I
mean again, I'm not. I don't think anything's going to
change in the in the the long term. There might
be some short term freak out if we were ever
to find out. But yeah, but you know, in in
(40:26):
the end, we are, we are what we are, we
are what I am. Thank you, Popeye. And with that
we close this book known as tech Stuff the Philosophy,
and we will open up a new chapter in the
next episode, possibly about a totally different topic, actually very
likely about a totally different topic. If you guys have
any topics you think we should talk about in future
(40:47):
episodes of tech Stuff, I recommend you let us know,
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and just as tech Stuff at Discovery dot com, or
drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter, you can
find our handle their tech Stuff H. S. W. Lauren
and I will talk to you again really soon. For
(41:07):
more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how
staff works dot com.
Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
stuff looks dot com. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to
tech Stuff. I am Jonathan Strickland, the host of tech Stuff,
and I am Lauren Volkbaum, the other host of tech Stuff. Yes,
if we had introduced ourselves in the opposite order, I
(00:24):
would be the other host of tech Stuff. We're co hosts. Really, yeah,
it's uh. You know, this is a complicated issue, and
in fact, I think it'd be a lot simpler if
we just simulated it. What would it be a lot simpler?
I think it would actually be more complicated. You know
what We're gonna find out right here and now, because
this episode is all about do we live in a
computer simulation? And in fact, the reason why we're even
(00:48):
talking about this is a few years ago a philosopher,
and boy is that a surprise to no one. A
philosopher by the name of Nick Bostrom who works at
a little um yeah, tiny, like in academic circles. They
have some swagger. It's the University of Oxford. Yeah, yeah,
(01:10):
as far as the boffins go at Swagger City, right anyway, Yeah,
he works with the University of Oxford and he's a
philosopher employed there, so his job is to sit around
and think about the nature of reality, and he presented
an interesting thought experiment. He said, do we live in
a computer simulation? Is everything that we experience and everything
(01:33):
that's around us actually just the product of some sort
of computer program in a universe larger than our own?
And we'll talk about you know what led him into
this kind of line of thinking and his arguments presenting
the likelihood that we are actually in a computer simulation.
But before we begin in that, I thought it'd be
(01:54):
interesting to look back quite a way. Is actually because
this idea that reality as we understand it is not
not exactly new at all. We've been pondering for basically
as long as we could ponder things, whether or not
our our experience of reality is reality. Yeah, and and
part of that is understandable. I mean, we know for
(02:16):
a fact that reality consists of stuff that is beyond
our perception, right, Oh, sure, absolutely, Like I don't know
when the last time you looked into the infrared spectrum was,
but the last time for me was never because it's
outside my visual acuity. I can't see in the infrared spectrum,
all right, And there's lots of lots of things above
our scale of hearing, above and below our scale of hearing. Um,
(02:38):
if you talk to sharks, they can they can hear
different stuff, but my dogs totally different stuff that I
can hear. Yeah, And and even even before we had
as much scientific data about that as we do now.
You know, if we had done the research, we could
tell you the exact spectrums that we can see within
but outside of visual which is a pretty good word
for it. But um, but but yeah, you know, it's
(03:00):
even long, long, long times before that people are pondering
these questions and all kinds of literature. Uh goes into
literature and philosophy right right all the back in one
one of the famous, famous examples of this kind of
philosophy was proposed by a fellow named Renee Descartes, about
whom Monty Python had some rude things to sing if
(03:22):
you know that your philosopher's song. But Descartes, um, I
think therefore I am uh fellow. He wrote something called
the Meditations on First Philosophy, and he presented an very
similar thought exercise to the one that Nick Moostrom mentioned. Now,
his was called the Evil Demon or sometimes people refer
(03:43):
to it as the evil genius problem. And he said, well,
what if everything that I renee, I think therefore I
am Descartes experience is actually just an illusion that's generated
by an evil force. In his case, he was home
on all demon. So there's this malevolent creature that is
(04:04):
capable of creating everything that Decard is experiencing. So while
he thinks he's walking around and being really smart and
chatting with other smart people and having a croissan um,
in reality, he's not. He's just he's just a consciousness
that's being manipulated by this evil demon and everything that's
(04:25):
happening to him is an illusion that's created by him.
And this is unfalsifiable, right. It means that that means
that there's no way that you can prove that it's wrong.
It's like if I say, there's a six ft invisible
bunny walking around behind me all the time, makes no
noise and has no scent, right, and you can't touch it.
That you cannot touch. Yeah, that well, that there's no
(04:48):
way for me to prove that you're wrong. I will
sit here and I will think that you are crazy
or Donnie Darko, but that uh, you know, or Deborah
Donka don't darko, I don't know, I mean, or the
character in in Harvey there yes, another yes, but but
you know, there's no way for me to prove that
there's not a six ft invisible, untouchable, unsensible, unhearable bunny
(05:11):
behind you. So that's that's called that. It's called unfalsifiable.
That means it is not scientific. Scientific principles premises these
sort of things. They are falsifiable, meaning that there should
be a set of criteria under which you would say
this is not true. Right now. It does not mean
(05:32):
that what you're saying isn't true. It just means it
has to be possible, that has to be within the
realm of possible. In order for something to be proved,
it has to be able to be disproved exactly. And
so if it's unfalsifiable, it's not scientific. Now I should
also stress if it's unfalsifiable and unscientific, that also does
not mean it's not true. It could be true. It
(05:53):
can absolutely be String theory is a great example of this.
We call it a theory, but but some people argue
it's a fullilosophy. Well, it's a it's yeah, it's not
a mathematical theory. And I get into arguments sometimes of
people on Facebook about this because the theory is the
word that has many many meanings. The mathematical meaning of
it is is something that has been proven is true,
(06:15):
whereas he has has been exercised the whole scientific theory
versus I have a theory which is really more like
I have an idea of why this is the way
it is. Scientific theory and that kind of theory are
two different things. But anyway, uh yeah, string theory would
say that the entire universe is made up of these tiny,
little vibrating strings. And we're talking like tiny, as in
(06:35):
tinier than sub atomic particles, tiny, quite small, and that
the way they vibrate that's what makes stuff what it is. Well,
mathematically this makes sense, but there is no way we
can uh we can observe this or test this, so
therefore it's unfalsifiable and unscientific using that particular definition. Uh So,
(06:56):
same sort of thing here with Renee Dicart and his theory.
And this is not again, not the first time this
idea has popped up. It's one of the really famous ones.
And that's back in so if we look at the
modern version, you've got Nick Bostrom talking about a computer simulation,
and his whole argument hinges on this idea of trans
(07:19):
humanism or the singularity. So we kind of have to
talk about what the singularity is so that we can
finally get around to this whole computer simulation problem, right,
and and and also talk about trans human because that
that's basically a fancy term for stuff. Yeah, it's it's
(07:40):
it's a it's a fancy term for saying what happens
when we reach a point in uh, in advances in
science and medicine, in biology, where we can transform ourselves
to a point where we are no longer strictly speaking human, Right, Like,
we have altered ourselves on some fundamental level, and we
(08:01):
aren't we we wouldn't be human as we recognize it today. Right,
that our our technology has bonded to us in a way,
or that our science has bonded to us. Right, we
we've understood genetics enough so that we're all mutants like
in the X Men, or we have all become cyborgs,
or we have all transmitted our consciousness into computers and
there are no physical versions of us anymore. And these
(08:24):
are all different ways that we could, in theory become
trans human. So it's a very generic term that spreads
across multiple possibilities. There's no one trans human because really,
I mean, the thing is that we don't know because
we're not there yet. It hasn't happened yet as it
turns out. I mean, there's a few of us who
are a little wacky, but but it doesn't mean some
(08:45):
of us are clearly better than others. I mean, okay, yeah,
I mean we're not we're not naming names, but we're
pretty awesome. But no, So that's the idea of trans humanism.
Singularity is sort of one of the pathways where we
could reach this sort of trans human future. And the
singularity is this idea that several futurists have proposed about
(09:08):
the fact that technology advances are continuing at a faster
and faster pace each each year, really exponentially exponentially. You've
got things like Moore's law, where, depending on how you're
defining it, essentially the computer power is doubling every two
years um, but other technological advances are are having at
(09:28):
an even faster rate that we will eventually come to
a point where we are advancing continuously with no break
between the generation. Right if you think of like operating
systems and how they come out, like you know Windows
seven and then Windows But then you think, all right, well,
then down the road it might be the every six months,
and then it might be every three months, and then
(09:49):
it might just be that every single day there's something
new that's being incorporated, or every second or every n
a second. So at that point, things are changing so
fast that you cannot even define in the era you
are in because there's nothing like within within one moment,
uh you have changed so much that it's it's pointless
to try and defind a series of moments. Right at
(10:12):
this point in our future, we would hit what is
called the singularity. And part of one of the defining
features of the singularity is it's impossible for us to
say what will happen once we hit that point, because
by its very nature, it's going to evolve so fast
that we cannot conceive of what I mean. It's it's
kind of pointless to talk about it too much. Doesn't
(10:33):
stop me, but it's pointless. It doesn't stop philosophers. Either
doesn't stop me. And there are many pointless discussions that
you cannot stop me from having. This is one of them, anyway,
So the singularity could happen in various ways again, biology, science, technology,
These are all the different avenues that that could lead
to the singularity or could be you know, yeah and uh.
(10:58):
And that forms the very crux of Bostrom's argument. Let's
take a quick break for a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show. So Nick Bostrom's argument
uh is worded this way here. Here's from a paper
he wrote on the subject, A technologically mature post human
(11:18):
civilization would have enormous computing power. Based on this empirical fact,
the simulation argument shows that at least one of the
following propositions is true. One, the fraction of human level
civilizations that reach a post human stage is very close
to zero. To the fraction of post human civilizations that
(11:39):
are interested in running ancestor simulations is very close to
zero or three, the fraction of all people with our
kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is
very close to one. Now, what that essentially means is
that if we are able to reach a post human phase,
this trans human phase where we have at our fingertips
(12:02):
practically limitless resources because of things are being so magical
and rainbows are popping out of everything. That uh that
if that's the case, then we should be able to
create a computer simulation of the universe that is within
the realm of the simulation itself, extremely realistic, and that
(12:26):
we could also create within this, uh, this universal simulation,
simulated intelligent beings, so that these these created beings would
have sentience, they have consciousness, They would they might be
very much like modern humans. Yes, they be self aware,
but they would exist within the context of this created universe,
(12:48):
and so they would only be able to see the
things that are within that universe. Anything outside of the
universe they would be incapable of perceiving. So within that universe,
it would seem like they were quote unquote the real people,
right they were. They were the people who were there
because of whatever forces caused the universe to create be
(13:11):
created in the first place. Um, And that for these
people within the simulated universe, it might be completely impossible
for them to detect anyone outside of it, anyone being
us that we were the ones creating it. So his
argument is that if we in fact reach the stage,
and if we would use our technology to create simulations
so that we could see how civilizations developing, that we
(13:33):
would that interesting bits of the universe work, because we're
intrinsically curious, right, So his argument is, if it's possible,
we would do it, And if it's possible and we
would do it, that means we, the current people living
in this universe, are almost surely a computer simulation. So
if it can happen, and if we are interested in ourselves,
(13:58):
and we obviously are, then it's almost a guarantee that
we're in a computer stimulation. And the reason for that
argument is that in order for us to not be
a computer simulation, we would have to be the first ones, right,
we would have to be heading towards that timeline, and
I just haven't gotten there yet, you know, Mr. Fusion,
Whereas in every other case, some other post human civilization
(14:22):
has already gotten there and made at least one level
of simulated universe, which means that one out of infinity
means we're the first, and then every other example is
we're number two or lower. So yeah, that's that's that's
kind of the crux of this argument, and it's really
(14:44):
again a philosophical argument. It's not meant to say we're
we're in a we're in a computer game, because because
the way that it's set up, Yeah, that you know,
if if you're saying that that ad infinitum percent of
the time, we're probably a computer simulation, that it's you're
you're placing the burden of proof on that point nine,
(15:07):
etcetera percent of the population who might think you're wrong
and that. So, but it's really fair, it's an interesting
it's an interesting question. It's it's again unfalsifiable at right now.
But but here's the funny thing. Boster makes us this statement.
But it's purely from a philosophical point of view, right,
(15:28):
It's not from a physics point of view, it's not
from a science point of view. It's philosophy that has
not stopped other people from looking at this from a
scientific point of view. And that, to me is another
interesting aspect of this argument is that usually you would
look at an argument like this and say, okay, well,
that's an interesting philosophical question. Ultimately, there's nothing I can
(15:50):
do about that one way or the other, and then
you go about your mary little way. Right, But a
bunch of nice. I'm I'm assuming I'm quantum scientists have
gotten together. Are you assuming they're nice? Are you assuming
their quantum sign assuming well, I'm assuming both. I'm going
to go ahead and give them the benefit of the doubt.
There have been have been doing some research into quantum chromodynamics,
(16:11):
which is which is a theory about one of the
four fundamental forces in our universe. So the four fundamental
forces are strong nuclear force, electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, and gravity.
And that is in fact, in the order of how
powerful they are, right, gravity is the weakest. It's the
one that we're having the most trouble incorporating into our
(16:34):
model of the universe. Uh. Strong nuclear force deals with
the force of you know, you know those nucleus is things.
The nuclei exists inside atoms. You know how they have
like stuff that's stuck together, like protons and neutrons. And
we're not sure why because because hypothetically to protons should
should push each other each other. If you've ever played
(16:56):
with magnetis, well, well, strong nuclear force is the force
that that's the name for the reason why these things
are stuck together so strong, whether why they're able to
stick together clearly, it has to be an incredibly strong force,
an incredibly strong force that only kicks in in incredibly
short distances. We're talking on the atomic scale. So the
(17:19):
strong nuclear force is what quantum chromo dynamics is all
about studying. And one of the ways that quantum chromo
dynamics or q c D should be way easier to
say is to to look at this as a part
of well, it looks at reality as four space time dimensions,
(17:44):
so four dimensions. Uh. We mentioned string theory earlier. Some
versions of string theory require that there are no fewer
than eleven dimensions for string theory to work, which is
basically beyond my comprehension entirely. I I get x, y
z and time that I can I can get a
three to mentional object moving through times. Beyond that, it
gets a little wonky. Yeah, yeah, whibble wobbley, I'm right
(18:08):
there with you, and uh and yeah, the same thing.
And then again this this plays back to that discussion
we at the very beginning where we talked about you know,
we know the universe consists of stuff that's beyond our perception,
but you know, we have to filter that through our
brains and our brains are acting as a middleman between
our consciousness and reality. So the things that we experience
(18:31):
may very well be in their fundamental nature extremely different
from the way we think of them because it's being
filtered through because we have to model them in a
this this concept we shouldn't have done. This philosophy makes
me sad. I just realized that my brain is what's
making you sit there and you think, like, think about it.
(18:53):
If you have a bad day, you're thinking, wait a minute.
Part of the reason I'm having a bad day is
because my brain is filtering things in a it's my fault.
And then I just it becomes this inspirable loop of
of everything is terrible because of my brain, which is
making things terrible. A little glimpse into Jonathan strictly folks,
now I get just before I have to go to
ce S. I know this episode publishes after I've come back,
(19:13):
but trust me, it's it's a terrible life. Having to
fly around the country and look at really shiny technological objects.
You are not helping this this vicious cycle going on.
Getting back to qc D. So part of part of
this is looking at reality as for spacetime dimensions. Uh,
(19:34):
and it's using computers that are really really powerful to
do this and creating something that's uh, well, it's it's
it's it's called a lattice gauge. Uh, it's last gage theory.
Actually that is sort of the framework within which q
c D tries to explain the strong nuclear force. And uh,
(19:57):
this part of this means that we try and simulate
and then incredibly tiny simulated universe, right right, and this
is on the this is on actually the femto correct
excellent um and and a femtometer is one quadrillionth of
a meter nanometer for for references, one billionth of a meter.
(20:18):
And that's also very small. Yes, yeah, when you talk
about nanotechnology and that super small technology that is enormous
compared to the femto scale, we're talking really really really tiny. Well,
they build this sort of lattice structure to contain the
simulated universe, and within this simulated universe, they are examining
(20:40):
the elements that make up the strong nuclear force so
that we can understand what it is and how it
works better. Right right, that's the whole purpose. One of
the big driving forces of the universe. We want to
understand it. But this this physicists said, Hey, wait a minute.
If this is how we are simulating and entirely fake
n reverse a very tiny universe, doesn't it stand to
(21:04):
reason that some other like if we are and if
we became type of advanced, if if we went trans human,
couldn't those trans humans in fact use the same technology
to simulate an entire universe on a big scale, on
a really large scale scale, or or at least for us.
I mean, you could also argue that just to populate
(21:26):
a fempto sized universe with with even smaller individual units
within that fimpto sized universe, the idea being that, well
you could you could create a stimulation that is a
true universe with inhabitants and intelligent inhabitants, and that if
in fact we are in a computer simulation, then perhaps
there's some way that we could detect if this lattice
(21:50):
structure is around our own universe. Um. Yeah, this is
where it's getting to the point where it's hard for
me to actually explain, because it's stretching. Both of our
grasps on quantum mechanics are are perhaps not as strong
as they could be, and and cosmology for the matter.
For that matter, because we're talking about things like cosmic rays.
(22:12):
The physicists suggested that perhaps we could observe cosmic rays
and and really study them in depth and see how
they behave within our universe and look for evidence of
a lattice structure, which would indicate that some other larger
universe had used the same techniques we used to create
(22:32):
the femto universes we're making to look at the strong
nuclear force to make our own universe, and then we'd say, hey,
look there's evidence we are in a computer simulation crap.
There are there are some issues with this. One is that, uh,
it presumes that any post human civilization would use the
exact so uh, there's another assumption that said post human
(22:59):
society would allow us to be able to find our
own right that you know, they wouldn't paint in a
nice little backdrop that would prevent us from seeing the scenes,
like to put in a patch or to reset us.
Let's go back to bronze age, folks, control or delete um.
There's also the argument that, well, what if our universe
(23:20):
is so large that it is a bounded universe, because
that's the other thing. A lattice structure would also indicate
that our universe does have it's a finite universe. What
if that finite universe is still too big for us
to ever be able to see the edges, or what
if the universe just is finite anyway. Yeah, it could
be that the universe is finite anyway and has nothing
(23:42):
to do with the last structure. And so there are
a lot of a lot of objections that people have
brought up. But mainly what this approach would allow us
to do is if we saw the last structure, we
could maybe draw some conclusions. But in any other case,
like if we didn't see the last structure, it doesn't
answer any questions. All right, it doesn't mean that it
doesn't exist. Yeah, it doesn't mean that we're not in
(24:03):
a computer simulation. So this so it's interesting, but again
it's just sort of an extension of this thought experiment where, uh,
you know, we're kind of getting round to the point
that I'm most interested in in this whole discussion that
all right, let's let's say that let's say that we
are in a computer simulation. Whether we know it or not,
(24:23):
it doesn't matter. We don't necessarily need to know that
we are. But let's just let's just assume, assuming that
we are that we are. Does that matter on a
day to day scale? Would it matter if we were
in a computer simulation in some ways? If we don't know,
it doesn't matter at all. I mean, you know, if
we if yeah, you know, if if we had absolute
(24:44):
proof of it, then that would be that would be huge,
That would be shattering. That would probably cause wars. Yeah,
for for all kinds of philosophies and religions and and
just interpersonal I mean, I mean within my own head,
I would probably need to spend a few days just
just to drew thing because talking about my normal weak
this is what I do. Alright, Fine, Okay, so now
(25:07):
I know something different between me and Lauren learn a
new stuff. Um No, I I agree that that. And
if we don't know, there was no difference because the
rules that we have created for ourselves but based on
our cultures and our society, those haven't changed. Like like
if I found out somehow, like if if knowledge we're
(25:29):
given to me personally out of everyone who's alive, that yes,
in fact, you live in a computer simulation. After I
had that moment where I I upped my drooling capacity
for my daily allowance of drooling. I would sit there
and think, well, ultimately, this doesn't change anything. I mean,
it's my life still has meaning within the context of
(25:50):
the world I live in. We still need to go
get lunch, we still, we still get married, we still
I still, I still laugh, I still cry. I still
find that Joe and Webb look to be absolutely hilarious,
and I would really like it if Netflix streaming would
bring it back for me. I mean, you know, all
of these sort of things would still be true, So
I don't think that ultimately it changes anything unless it
(26:14):
were something where we could definitively prove it, and then
that would change major things, like essentially a lot of
people would have to answer some very tough questions in
regards to philosophy and religion particularly, but other things as well.
But those two, in particularly, some very nice philosophy departments
would be more or less out of jobs. Yeah, well,
(26:36):
you know, actually they went step away from being out
of a job. Anyway, Come on, we're talking about philosophy here. Snap.
This is coming from a literature major. Okay, I did
you see that this is off topic? But there was
a list I think of the most unemployable majors came out.
(26:57):
Philosophy I think was in the top three. Yeah, literature
was in the top ten. Was it was it? I
was created writing? Do you have any creative writing? I
think they didn't even put them in there. It's like,
are you Neil Gaiman? No? Um, hey, I'm an editor.
I'm working in my field, folks. That's true, that's true.
I'm I don't know what my field would be. Some
(27:20):
of the medieval literature. I guess I'd be teaching medieval
literature if I were in my field. But it's funny
that I went into technology podcasting instead. So anyway, ultimately,
I don't think it would really matter. There's no way
of knowing currently one way or the other. So from
that perspective, from a thought exercise, right, yeah, So ultimately, uh,
(27:40):
it may or may not matter if we're in a
computer simulation. But the other question to ask is how
feasible is it? How would it be possible to actually
create a universe on this What would it take to
create a universe on this scale? Right? And I mean
because simulating something is actually very much more complicated than
just doing it. For for example, um. I was reading
(28:02):
one article that that sited a number where if you
were to take a hard drive and you wanted to
create a simulation of that entire hard drive, you would
have to simulate every single adom, minute, record, its position.
It's it's time scale, everything about it. That would be
you know, and and and every single atomant and hard
drive is maybeing intend to the power of twenty four
atoms a couple a bunch um and but in order
(28:26):
to simulate it, you would have to about have about
a hundred bits of information at least on each of
those atoms. Right. So so when you think about that,
if this world is or this universe is a computer simulation,
then that means the simulation has to take into account
every single object within that world, whether that object is
part of something else or or an individual object. Uh.
(28:47):
It's position, it's uh, if it's moving, its relationship to
every other object within that universe, how that objects behavior?
You know, however you wanted to find that affects other objects.
It's it's are you going down to the atomic scale?
Are you going to the sub atomic scale? How how
deep does the rabbit hole go? Right? Right? Because because
(29:08):
the other problem here is that as we the human
beings who live right here and now, whether it's a
computer simulation or not, get more advanced, we get to
learn more about our environment and we get to look
even deeper than we could before. So like, let's go
back to the Stone Age, no microscopes, nothing like anything
that was beyond our ability to actually see it didn't
exist in our minds. And then we got more and
(29:29):
more advanced, and we were able to suddenly start seeing
things that are tinier and tinier. And then we get
to the point where we've got electron tunneling microscopes and
we can move individual atoms into place and we can
see things that are really far away. That would mean
that the simulation would have to take into account the
ability for us to see well beyond what we first right,
(29:49):
So that's kind of incredible to think about that way,
Like how much power would you have to have to
generate this? Is it something that would be added over
time so that like you know, one, someone's checking in
every now and like, oh they can see Adams now,
all right, well we got to build the next level down, guys,
or or like fire up that extra server. We're gonna
(30:10):
need it to exactly, like, you know, it's some place
in this other larger universes North Carolina, there's another server
farm being built. Yeah, I mean it's it's it blows
the mind. It becomes one of these things where you,
as you start to think about it, you're like, would
that even be possible? Now, from a futurists argument, they
might say that in the future will be able to
(30:31):
do things like harness the power of black holes to
do computing, in which case the limitations of computing suddenly
seem like a non problem. Sure, even with quantum computers,
which they're already experimenting with. We've gotten up to a
sixteen sixteen cubits was the last reliable one, but we've
had there been larger ones. The problem with, of course,
(30:52):
quantum computers is that as soon as you really observe
the state there in it collapses, that deco hears and
you end up with a classical computer or that is
severely underpowered compared to any other normal classical computer. But
there are people who are working on that problem. So yeah,
I mean that it may be that reaching such a
level of computing power is not possible, And in fact,
(31:15):
that was part of Bostrom's point was that he was
not necessarily saying we live in a computer simulation. He
was saying, there's another way of looking at this. We
can look at this is saying trans human or post
human in the sense that the futurists have defined. It
is an impossibility that we will never get to a
point where we have computing power so vast as to
be able to simulate an entire universe down to the
(31:38):
tiniest detail and have it populated with intelligent creatures, right
or even beyond the feasibility of that, the idea that
probably we're going to kill all of each other way
before that. Actually that that was another point. One of
his points is saying that it's way more likely than
any any sort of civilization reaching post human or trans
human uh status would end up wiping itself out in
(32:02):
some sort of cataclysmic event, whether on purpose or by accident.
So we could have, hey, we have reached this level
of superiority. Now we are going to force our ideological
values upon everybody else, and everybody else says no, you're not,
and then we all kill each other, or we say, hey,
was this button? Do zombie outbreak? Those are the only
(32:22):
two possibilities. That's a lie. But no, that spostor's point
is that that could also be a case. It's really
a depressing case, but you could say humankind could hit
extinction before we hit post humans. More fun to think
about that other thing. But overall, zombie, I'll break I agree,
walking dead man right down the street from me, that's
(32:45):
just to land on normal traffic. That's true, that's true.
It's it's pretty much it's the office before we get
to the coffee machine. It is. It gets ugly folks,
a lot of walkers, a lot of walkers. But yeah,
that's I'm that's a good point, is that it you know,
we could we humankind could go extinct. That's one downside.
(33:07):
We might not ever be able to reach that level
of computational achievement in order to to ever simulate a universe.
That's depending upon whom you ask, also a downside. Or
we just might never know. So yeah, sometimes that leads,
it leads us to to explore the question further. Really, Yeah,
and we've we've seen that explored in multiple venues, not
(33:29):
just philosophy, not just science, but entertainment all over the place. Yeah,
I mean, going back to a lot of Shakespeare stories
we're talking about really, like, like, what's the difference between
dreams and reality? Midsummer Night's Dream is kind of a
big one. We are such stuff as dreams are made on.
Thank you, Jonathan, oh brieve, new world to have such people,
and it tis new to the that's the tempest right there.
(33:55):
That's that's our that's our literature major over here. Yeah, well,
you know, I used the degree once in a while,
but more perhaps more modern things. A few a few
of you have probably seen the Matrix. I know, kunk fu,
I keep quote, let's just keep going. I got it,
I got this Vanilla sky. Oh no, I haven't seen that. Yeah,
(34:18):
I can't do that documentary or the Spanish version. Afftert.
Let's all host do you speak Spanish? There we go.
That was my total recall. Inception. Um, that's that's that's
every other shorts and negative not inception at all. I know.
(34:39):
The inception one would be that's inception love love these movies.
By the way, I'm making a lot of fun, but no,
these are good points. I mean, you do you do
see this theme come up over and over again? Total recall?
What is real? What is being imagined. Is the entire
story actually only happening in Quaid? That was his name?
Rights mine ah or inception? And are you still within
(35:02):
a dream? Are you one level down in a dream?
Are you two levels down? At the very end of
the movie is the is the main character is right? Which?
And of course that brings into questions something else. This
this is a good argument that falls within the same
sort of thing about being able to tell versus not
being able to tell. Uh. This is big spoilers for
(35:23):
Inception here, obviously, but one of the one of the
things they set up in an Inception is that one
way you can tell if you are in a dream
is you have a totem that is specific to you
and behaves a certain way in the real world, but
in dream space it does not behave that way. Why
who knows, But it's convenient physics, right. The main character
(35:45):
has a top, so if he spins the top and
the top stops spinning, he knows he's in the real world.
If he's a layer down into a dream world and
he spins the top, it just keeps spinning. And that's
how he can look at a moment and know if
he's an a dream or if he's awake. Uh, there's
a problem with this though. If the whole thing is
within a dream, there's nothing to stop the dream world
(36:08):
from saying at a certain level, this top behaves a
different way. So, in other words, even at the top
topples over, which into the movie gives you this kind
of idea, is it gonna But even at the top
worred to topple over, that would not answer the question
of whether or not you were in a dream, because
it only depends upon if that level is real or not.
(36:30):
And if it's not real, if that's just another point
of the dream, then all it means is that the
behaviors of stuff in one level the dream behave differently
than the others. And and similarly, if if our if
our future trans human selves decided to make it so
that we cannot detect whether or not we are in
a dream, then yeah, we're kind of stuck. Yeah, the
same thing with the matrix, the whole idea of creating
(36:51):
a universe that is not ideal, because if we created
an ideal universe, humans would go, this can't be real.
My life stinks. There's no way my life is this awesome,
And uh, and then we have a universe filled with
Jonathan Stripling's and nobody wants that. Nobody, nobody wants, not
(37:13):
even Jonathan's. And look, I'm enough to deal with already.
But yeah, no, there's there's tons of examples. There's there's
a lot in science fiction obviously, obviously, especially since since
William Gibson in the entire cyberpunk thing became a thing,
you know, and that's that's sort of our our entrance
into into how did I just make up a word
in French? I don't think that that's an actual thing.
(37:34):
Um Ever, Ever since cyberpunk happened, we've been we've been
looking at technology in in this fearful way, which we
always kind of do in horror films. I think that
fiction is a really terrific way for us to work
out our anxieties because we can go like, well, in
this scary world, all of this terrible things. I think
all of these terrible things will happen. However, we're going
(37:55):
to have some attractive people in pleather who are going
to take care of it for us. And that's or
die and die in numerous with Yeah, like you said, yeah,
it's science fiction and horror the two genres I think
of the most when I think about this kind of mentality,
because I also think of things like other movies. Here's
another spoiler. Guys, if you're a Josh Ween fan, this
(38:15):
is a spoiler. So spoiler. For Josh Weed fans you
can skip ahead. But Cavin in the Woods another example
of like what is real and what is what is artifice? Yes,
what has been simulated, So there you go, same sort
of thing. Um. I don't think that's a huge spoiler
because that's revealed early in the movie. But still, um,
at any rate, these are you know, we've explored this
(38:38):
idea and multiple forms of media, whether it's entertainment or
also in multiple disciplines entertainment, science, philosophy, and I don't
think it's gonna go away anytime soon because obviously there's
no way for us to answer this question, not not
unless we detect that last structure. And even then you're like, well,
well then who created us? That could mean anything, that
(39:00):
could mean. And also it could be like inception. We
might be seventy eight levels down from reality. It could
be that marble in the Men in Black. Yeah, yeah,
then yeah, exactly, yes, we could be we could be
a moat of dust upon the nose of a dog
in another universe, which in itself is a moat of
dust upon the nose of another dog, And another universe,
(39:22):
which in itself is a moat of dust upon Douglas
Adams pencil as he giggles maniacally and writes another book,
because in that universe he's still around. I like that
universe too. I want to I want to I want
to go to their But yeah, it's a it's a
really interesting question. So, um, and if you've heard about
this whole thing, because it came up in conversations towards
(39:44):
the end of two thousand twelve, which is kind of
interesting because the first, uh, the publication of Bostrom's work
was in the early two thousand I think, yeah, so,
but in this case, it was because the physicists had said, hey,
there might be a way for us to find out
maybe possible, probably not, but it could happen. And even then,
we're going to have to get to a level of
(40:05):
technological uh advancement that is beyond what we have now
before we could even hope to detect these cosmic rays
but uh, and their behavior. But but we'll see. I
mean again, I'm not. I don't think anything's going to
change in the in the the long term. There might
be some short term freak out if we were ever
to find out. But yeah, but you know, in in
(40:26):
the end, we are, we are what we are, we
are what I am. Thank you, Popeye. And with that
we close this book known as tech Stuff the Philosophy,
and we will open up a new chapter in the
next episode, possibly about a totally different topic, actually very
likely about a totally different topic. If you guys have
any topics you think we should talk about in future
(40:47):
episodes of tech Stuff, I recommend you let us know,
because we have not figured out how to read your
mind yet. If you would send us an email ur
and just as tech Stuff at Discovery dot com, or
drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter, you can
find our handle their tech Stuff H. S. W. Lauren
and I will talk to you again really soon. For
(41:07):
more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how
staff works dot com.
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Karah Preiss
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