1 00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:03,240 Speaker 1: Welcome to Thrilling Threads. This is the show where we uh, 2 00:00:03,680 --> 00:00:07,480 we pull on the threads of reality to see what unravels. 3 00:00:07,080 --> 00:00:11,199 Speaker 2: In today's thread. Well, am I just unravel everything? 4 00:00:11,400 --> 00:00:13,720 Speaker 1: We're starting with a question that sounds almost absurd on 5 00:00:13,759 --> 00:00:17,280 its face. What if you have never, not once in 6 00:00:17,280 --> 00:00:20,000 your entire life, actually touched anything. 7 00:00:20,160 --> 00:00:22,480 Speaker 2: And we don't mean that in a philosophical you know 8 00:00:22,519 --> 00:00:27,480 what is real kind of way. We mean it physically, statistically, exactly. 9 00:00:27,039 --> 00:00:29,079 Speaker 1: The phone you might be holding right now, the chair 10 00:00:29,120 --> 00:00:32,479 you're sitting in. Our sources today are built on the cold, 11 00:00:32,600 --> 00:00:35,679 hard fact that you are not making contact with any 12 00:00:35,719 --> 00:00:36,000 of it. 13 00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:37,719 Speaker 2: It's one of those things that once you see it, 14 00:00:37,759 --> 00:00:40,240 you can't unsee it. And the why behind it is 15 00:00:40,240 --> 00:00:43,439 where this deep dive really begins. Why is the universe 16 00:00:43,439 --> 00:00:45,520 seemingly built to prevent contact? 17 00:00:45,799 --> 00:00:48,679 Speaker 1: We're looking at a stack of material that treats our reality, 18 00:00:48,799 --> 00:00:51,280 everything we see and feel, as a kind of highly 19 00:00:51,280 --> 00:00:53,520 optimized piece of software, a simulation. 20 00:00:53,719 --> 00:00:55,880 Speaker 2: Our mission today is to walk through the evidence piece 21 00:00:55,920 --> 00:00:58,560 by piece. We're starting with your own body, with the 22 00:00:58,560 --> 00:00:59,840 physiology of your brain. 23 00:01:00,159 --> 00:01:03,280 Speaker 1: Then we're jumping to the computational and statistical arguments that 24 00:01:03,359 --> 00:01:04,959 are frankly terrifying. 25 00:01:05,159 --> 00:01:08,599 Speaker 2: And we end with the glitches. The hard evidence in 26 00:01:08,640 --> 00:01:12,319 the code of physics itself that suggests well that this 27 00:01:12,400 --> 00:01:13,120 whole thing is a. 28 00:01:13,120 --> 00:01:15,879 Speaker 1: Render the face you see in the mirror. Our sources 29 00:01:15,879 --> 00:01:18,799 suggest it might just be an avatar, an icon on 30 00:01:18,840 --> 00:01:21,439 a biological desktop. So let's get into it. 31 00:01:21,519 --> 00:01:23,959 Speaker 2: Let's start with the hardware, the human brain. 32 00:01:24,359 --> 00:01:27,760 Speaker 1: Okay, so this is probably the most immediate and for me, 33 00:01:27,840 --> 00:01:32,040 the most disturbing place to start, the idea that my consciousness, 34 00:01:32,159 --> 00:01:36,879 the thing that is me, it's essentially in solitary confinement. 35 00:01:36,920 --> 00:01:38,840 Speaker 2: It's the perfect description. We think of our eyes as 36 00:01:38,879 --> 00:01:41,439 windows to the world, but they're not. They're cameras. And 37 00:01:41,519 --> 00:01:42,959 the brain itself is locked away in. 38 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:47,239 Speaker 1: A vault, a sealed vault of bone. It's just sitting there, yeah, 39 00:01:47,239 --> 00:01:49,280 and total absolute darkness. 40 00:01:48,879 --> 00:01:51,159 Speaker 2: And total silence. It's never heard a sound, it has 41 00:01:51,239 --> 00:01:53,879 never felt a texture. That three pounds of wet matter 42 00:01:54,040 --> 00:01:57,359 that generates your entire reality has never ever directly experienced 43 00:01:57,400 --> 00:01:58,079 the outside world. 44 00:01:58,200 --> 00:02:01,480 Speaker 1: So what is it experiencing? Is it actually processing? If 45 00:02:01,519 --> 00:02:04,359 it's not seeing light or hearing sound waves. 46 00:02:04,200 --> 00:02:07,799 Speaker 2: All it knows is electricity. That's it. Little patterns of 47 00:02:07,840 --> 00:02:11,120 electrochemical spikes running up your nerves. It's a stream of 48 00:02:11,199 --> 00:02:14,360 data zero's and ones essentially, so it's. 49 00:02:14,199 --> 00:02:17,439 Speaker 1: Like a computer processor. It's not dealing with images or sounds. 50 00:02:17,800 --> 00:02:21,000 It's dealing with binary code that represents those things. 51 00:02:20,840 --> 00:02:24,120 Speaker 2: Precisely and in a fraction of a second. Your brain 52 00:02:24,199 --> 00:02:29,639 takes millions of these disorganized, meaningless electrical signals and frantically 53 00:02:29,719 --> 00:02:33,599 constructs this, this cohesive, three dimensional movie. 54 00:02:33,360 --> 00:02:35,080 Speaker 1: And it projects it. It makes me feel like I'm 55 00:02:35,080 --> 00:02:36,120 looking out of my eyes. 56 00:02:35,960 --> 00:02:38,719 Speaker 2: But you're not. You are watching a private screening inside 57 00:02:38,719 --> 00:02:41,560 your own skull. It's a hallucination, a model of the 58 00:02:41,599 --> 00:02:44,000 world that's being constantly updated. 59 00:02:43,680 --> 00:02:46,759 Speaker 1: And it's a hallucination we all just sort of agree on. 60 00:02:47,039 --> 00:02:50,919 That's what consensus reality is. My brain's movie looks enough 61 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:53,520 like your brain's movie that we can interact. 62 00:02:53,240 --> 00:02:55,680 Speaker 2: Right, And that alone is a pretty staggering thought. But 63 00:02:55,719 --> 00:02:58,759 if site and sound are just translations of electrical code, 64 00:02:58,800 --> 00:03:01,719 the illusion of tut is where it gets even more profound, 65 00:03:02,000 --> 00:03:03,759 because physics itself gets involved. 66 00:03:04,360 --> 00:03:06,919 Speaker 1: This is the part that really slams the door on 67 00:03:06,960 --> 00:03:10,479 the idea of solid contact. This isn't biology anymore. This 68 00:03:10,520 --> 00:03:11,680 is fundamental forces. 69 00:03:11,759 --> 00:03:14,800 Speaker 2: It's all about electrons. Everything is made of atoms, and 70 00:03:14,879 --> 00:03:18,560 atoms have these shells of electrons buzzing around them, your hand, 71 00:03:18,719 --> 00:03:20,439 the desk, everything. 72 00:03:20,159 --> 00:03:22,319 Speaker 1: And electrons have a negative charge, and what do we 73 00:03:22,360 --> 00:03:23,520 know about charges? 74 00:03:24,120 --> 00:03:27,680 Speaker 2: They repel. It's one of the fundamental laws of the universe. 75 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:30,000 So when you go to press your hand against a wall, 76 00:03:30,159 --> 00:03:32,879 the electrons in your skin get incredibly close to the 77 00:03:32,919 --> 00:03:35,560 electrons in the wall, but they never touch. They can't. 78 00:03:36,159 --> 00:03:39,759 They push back against each other with this immense electromagnetic force. 79 00:03:40,080 --> 00:03:43,560 They hover nanometers apart. What you feel, what your brain 80 00:03:43,599 --> 00:03:46,560 interprets as solidity, isn't contact. 81 00:03:46,759 --> 00:03:47,520 Speaker 1: It's resistance. 82 00:03:47,560 --> 00:03:50,360 Speaker 2: It's the feeling of that force field pushing back. It's 83 00:03:50,360 --> 00:03:53,840 your brain getting a massy signal that just says barrier detected. 84 00:03:54,120 --> 00:03:55,439 Stop moving forward. 85 00:03:55,759 --> 00:03:59,280 Speaker 1: That is just it's wild. It reminds me of playing 86 00:03:59,280 --> 00:04:01,919 a video game. You know, you run your character into 87 00:04:01,919 --> 00:04:04,680 a wall and the controller vibrates. You feel the feedback, 88 00:04:04,719 --> 00:04:08,800 the resistance, but your actual character model is just hovering 89 00:04:08,840 --> 00:04:11,719 a few pixels away from the walls texture. You never 90 00:04:11,759 --> 00:04:12,879 actually phase into it. 91 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:15,879 Speaker 2: That is a perfect analogy. We are floating in this void, 92 00:04:16,079 --> 00:04:20,079 constantly interpreting signals of resistance. We are observers of a 93 00:04:20,160 --> 00:04:23,759 data stream, not direct participants in the underlying. 94 00:04:23,240 --> 00:04:26,279 Speaker 1: Matter, which is the perfect entry point for this user interfaceery. 95 00:04:26,680 --> 00:04:29,839 The idea that reality as we perceive it is not 96 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:31,240 the truth of what's out there. 97 00:04:31,360 --> 00:04:34,800 Speaker 2: It's a headset, an icon based system, and it's rooted 98 00:04:34,839 --> 00:04:38,480 in a really powerful evolutionary idea called fitness beats truth. 99 00:04:38,720 --> 00:04:41,360 Speaker 1: This one is so counterintuitive because you think our senses 100 00:04:41,399 --> 00:04:44,680 evolve to give us the most accurate picture of reality possible. 101 00:04:44,839 --> 00:04:46,800 Speaker 2: You'd think so, but the sources argue that would be 102 00:04:46,839 --> 00:04:50,639 a terrible survival strategy. Let's use the computer desktop analogy again. 103 00:04:50,759 --> 00:04:52,680 You see a blue folder icon on. 104 00:04:52,639 --> 00:04:54,839 Speaker 1: Your screen, right, and I know it's not a real folder. 105 00:04:54,879 --> 00:04:55,720 It's a placeholder. 106 00:04:55,959 --> 00:04:59,040 Speaker 2: It's a useful lie. The actual reality inside the computer 107 00:04:59,279 --> 00:05:03,240 is this dizzy being chaos of voltages, machine code, and 108 00:05:03,319 --> 00:05:07,439 memory addresses. If your user interface showed you that raw data, 109 00:05:07,600 --> 00:05:09,600 you'd be paralyzed. You couldn't do anything. 110 00:05:09,680 --> 00:05:13,279 Speaker 1: So the icon is a simplification. It hides the complexity 111 00:05:13,319 --> 00:05:15,439 so I can actually function exactly. 112 00:05:15,800 --> 00:05:18,560 Speaker 2: And the fitness beats true theorem says that evolution did 113 00:05:18,600 --> 00:05:21,800 the same thing to us. An organism that saw reality 114 00:05:21,879 --> 00:05:25,480 as it truly is, this infinite buzzing soup of quantum 115 00:05:25,560 --> 00:05:28,319 fields and probability waves would be extinct. 116 00:05:28,439 --> 00:05:30,360 Speaker 1: It would be too busy, as one source put it, 117 00:05:30,480 --> 00:05:34,519 calculating the tiger's molecular structure to realize that tiger was 118 00:05:34,519 --> 00:05:35,199 about to eat it. 119 00:05:35,360 --> 00:05:38,680 Speaker 2: Survival doesn't require seeing the truth. It requires seeing what 120 00:05:38,720 --> 00:05:40,920 you need to see to make a quick decision. So 121 00:05:41,040 --> 00:05:43,160 nature gave us a simplified headset, a. 122 00:05:43,160 --> 00:05:45,519 Speaker 1: Kind of augmented reality filter a filter. 123 00:05:45,920 --> 00:05:48,959 Speaker 2: The sensation of red isn't a property of reality. It's 124 00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:52,079 a desktop icon for a specific wavelength of light that 125 00:05:52,160 --> 00:05:55,000 our brains need to categorize. The smell of smoke is 126 00:05:55,000 --> 00:05:57,920 a warning icon for a chemical threat. They're just simplified 127 00:05:58,000 --> 00:05:58,800 data structures. 128 00:05:58,920 --> 00:06:02,079 Speaker 1: And here's the really big leap. If that's true, then 129 00:06:02,120 --> 00:06:03,959 space and time themselves aren't fundamental. 130 00:06:04,240 --> 00:06:08,040 Speaker 2: They can't be. They're the organizing principles of the user interface. 131 00:06:08,800 --> 00:06:11,480 Space is the folder system your brain uses to keep 132 00:06:11,519 --> 00:06:15,439 objects separate. Time is the progress bar uses to track change. 133 00:06:15,519 --> 00:06:17,480 Speaker 1: But they're not the base reality. They're just part of 134 00:06:17,480 --> 00:06:19,360 the headset's operating system. 135 00:06:19,120 --> 00:06:21,839 Speaker 2: Which means they can be manipulated. They can have glitches, 136 00:06:21,879 --> 00:06:24,319 which we'll get to. But this leads to the next 137 00:06:24,360 --> 00:06:26,959 immediate and very uncomfortable question. 138 00:06:27,319 --> 00:06:30,480 Speaker 1: If the system simplifies a wall or the color red 139 00:06:30,639 --> 00:06:32,480 to save on processing power. 140 00:06:32,480 --> 00:06:34,959 Speaker 2: What does it do to simplify the eight billion other 141 00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:37,319 people walking around on the planet, Because that's where the 142 00:06:37,360 --> 00:06:38,879 real computational cost is. 143 00:06:39,160 --> 00:06:42,319 Speaker 1: That's the jump that's really unsettling. If the mountains behind 144 00:06:42,319 --> 00:06:44,480 me are de rendered when I'm not looking at them 145 00:06:44,519 --> 00:06:48,839 to save resources, is this system also simplifying the minds 146 00:06:48,839 --> 00:06:50,199 of people I pass on the street. 147 00:06:50,319 --> 00:06:53,439 Speaker 2: It's a question of computational economics. We operate on this 148 00:06:54,399 --> 00:06:57,040 deeply held assumption that every single person we meet is 149 00:06:57,079 --> 00:06:59,839 a fully conscious, complex agent, just like. 150 00:06:59,800 --> 00:07:04,000 Speaker 1: A right with a whole lifetime of memories, dreams, fears, 151 00:07:04,120 --> 00:07:05,319 a rich inner life. 152 00:07:05,560 --> 00:07:09,319 Speaker 2: And if this is a simulation rendering eight billion of 153 00:07:09,319 --> 00:07:13,360 those simultaneously twenty four to seven plus the entire backdrop 154 00:07:13,399 --> 00:07:17,160 of the universe, the processing power required would be, I mean, 155 00:07:17,240 --> 00:07:18,199 almost unimaginable. 156 00:07:18,240 --> 00:07:20,120 Speaker 1: You need a computer the size of a galaxy. So 157 00:07:20,240 --> 00:07:24,360 the logical conclusion if you're a programmer trying to be efficient. 158 00:07:24,199 --> 00:07:28,399 Speaker 2: Is that you would optimize. You take shortcuts. Why render 159 00:07:28,560 --> 00:07:31,920 a deep complex inner consciousness for an entity that's just 160 00:07:31,959 --> 00:07:34,439 a background character in the main player's narrative. 161 00:07:34,720 --> 00:07:38,040 Speaker 1: This is essentially the dead Internet theory, but applied to 162 00:07:38,079 --> 00:07:41,040 all of reality. And what's so compelling is that we 163 00:07:41,079 --> 00:07:43,720 are seeing this happen in real time in the most 164 00:07:43,720 --> 00:07:46,120 complex simulation we've built ourselves. 165 00:07:45,680 --> 00:07:49,879 Speaker 2: Yes, the Internet. And this isn't a fringe conspiracy theory anymore. 166 00:07:49,879 --> 00:07:53,480 It's a statistical reality. The sources point to around twenty 167 00:07:53,519 --> 00:07:56,360 sixteen as a tipping point. What happened then the amount 168 00:07:56,399 --> 00:08:01,040 of non human traffic, bots, algorithms, scripts, human traffic, and 169 00:08:01,079 --> 00:08:03,720 it's only gotten worse now. Something like fifty percent of 170 00:08:03,759 --> 00:08:06,399 all Internet traffic is just bots talking to other bots. 171 00:08:06,600 --> 00:08:11,480 Speaker 1: So when I'm in a comment section arguing with someone, statistically, 172 00:08:11,800 --> 00:08:13,759 there's a good chance I'm the only real person in 173 00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:14,399 that conversation. 174 00:08:14,560 --> 00:08:18,040 Speaker 2: You're interacting with a script, a script designed to provoke 175 00:08:18,079 --> 00:08:21,839 a reaction, to maximize engagement, to keep you hooked. It's 176 00:08:21,920 --> 00:08:24,839 not there to have a genuine exchange of ideas. 177 00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:28,199 Speaker 1: Public opinion itself becomes a rendered asset. 178 00:08:28,319 --> 00:08:29,800 Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it. It's like the 179 00:08:29,800 --> 00:08:32,919 skybox in a video game. It's a low resolution painted 180 00:08:32,960 --> 00:08:35,559 backdrop that's meant to give the illusion of a vast, 181 00:08:35,639 --> 00:08:39,000 populated world. But it's just a texture. There's nothing really there. 182 00:08:39,120 --> 00:08:41,799 Speaker 1: You can't walk to those painted mountains, and you can't 183 00:08:41,799 --> 00:08:44,759 have a real debate with a painted political opinion. But 184 00:08:44,840 --> 00:08:48,080 here's the part that our sources emphasize is the real horror. 185 00:08:48,639 --> 00:08:51,159 It's not the AI getting better at faking being human. 186 00:08:51,360 --> 00:08:54,639 Speaker 2: No, it's humans getting better at acting like AI. It's 187 00:08:54,679 --> 00:08:56,360 what they call the Turing convergence. 188 00:08:56,679 --> 00:08:59,159 Speaker 1: The old test was about a machine fooling a person. 189 00:08:59,360 --> 00:09:01,480 Speaker 2: The new reality is that we are changing our own 190 00:09:01,519 --> 00:09:05,559 behavior to become indistinguishable from the machine. We are converging 191 00:09:05,600 --> 00:09:06,120 in the middle. 192 00:09:06,360 --> 00:09:07,919 Speaker 1: How so give me an example. 193 00:09:08,080 --> 00:09:11,120 Speaker 2: Well, think about how we communicate online. If you want 194 00:09:11,159 --> 00:09:14,000 to be heard, you have to speak in hashtags. You 195 00:09:14,039 --> 00:09:16,399 have to shorten your thoughts to fit a character limit. 196 00:09:16,799 --> 00:09:19,519 You have to use emotionally charged language to break through 197 00:09:19,559 --> 00:09:20,039 the noise. 198 00:09:20,480 --> 00:09:23,600 Speaker 1: We're optimizing our thoughts for the algorithm. We're training the 199 00:09:23,679 --> 00:09:26,639 large language models with our data, but they, in turn 200 00:09:27,000 --> 00:09:30,279 are absolutely training us to think and speak more like them. 201 00:09:30,360 --> 00:09:33,360 Speaker 2: It's a feedback loop. Look at political discourse. It's not 202 00:09:33,399 --> 00:09:37,519 about nuance anymore. It's about finding the most effective, high engagement, 203 00:09:37,639 --> 00:09:41,799 emotional trigger and repeating it. That's a predictive text model. 204 00:09:42,159 --> 00:09:43,519 It's not sentient thought. 205 00:09:43,879 --> 00:09:46,559 Speaker 1: This brings us to the philosophical crisis of the NPC, 206 00:09:46,919 --> 00:09:48,559 the non player character. 207 00:09:48,399 --> 00:09:51,600 Speaker 2: In a game. An NPC is just a simple script. 208 00:09:51,840 --> 00:09:55,759 Input A leads to predetermined output B. They have no 209 00:09:55,879 --> 00:09:57,879 inner life. They're just scenery that talks. 210 00:09:58,159 --> 00:10:00,720 Speaker 1: And the scary question is how much of our own 211 00:10:00,759 --> 00:10:03,919 lives are becoming like that? If your political opinions are 212 00:10:03,919 --> 00:10:06,039 downloaded directly from a curated. 213 00:10:05,600 --> 00:10:08,879 Speaker 2: Feed, if your fashion choices are dictated by an algorithm 214 00:10:08,879 --> 00:10:10,559 that knows your buying habits. 215 00:10:10,440 --> 00:10:13,919 Speaker 1: If your emotional state can be instantly triggered by a 216 00:10:13,960 --> 00:10:17,919 headline that was ab tested to maximize outrage. Are you 217 00:10:18,120 --> 00:10:20,159 exercising free will or. 218 00:10:20,200 --> 00:10:22,399 Speaker 2: Are you just running a script? Or are you just 219 00:10:22,639 --> 00:10:27,440 executing a predictable output based on a carefully selected input. 220 00:10:28,080 --> 00:10:31,639 Speaker 1: One source described it as flattening our consciousness to fit 221 00:10:31,720 --> 00:10:35,679 through the fiber optic cables. We're becoming lower resolution versions 222 00:10:35,679 --> 00:10:38,200 of ourselves to be more compatible with the digital world. 223 00:10:38,440 --> 00:10:41,320 Speaker 2: And as we become simpler and more predictable, more binary, 224 00:10:42,120 --> 00:10:45,200 the AI is becoming more complex, writing poetry, making art, 225 00:10:45,480 --> 00:10:47,679 we're meeting in the middle. We are, and if this 226 00:10:47,759 --> 00:10:50,399 is a simulation, that's exactly what the system would want. 227 00:10:50,759 --> 00:10:53,879 It needs its background processes to be efficient, predictable, and 228 00:10:53,960 --> 00:10:57,759 require as little computational overhead as possible. We are optimizing 229 00:10:57,759 --> 00:11:00,159 ourselves to be the perfect NPCs. 230 00:11:00,080 --> 00:11:03,000 Speaker 1: Which as a computational argument is sound. But now we 231 00:11:03,039 --> 00:11:05,320 have to scale up from our personal experience and look 232 00:11:05,360 --> 00:11:08,799 at the whole cosmic timeline, because that's where the statistics 233 00:11:08,840 --> 00:11:10,840 become well, they become a cage. 234 00:11:10,879 --> 00:11:12,519 Speaker 2: This is where you have to grapple with the sheer 235 00:11:12,559 --> 00:11:15,519 scale of time. The argument is devastatingly simple. 236 00:11:15,879 --> 00:11:18,720 Speaker 1: We are building these things, the synthetic worlds in agi 237 00:11:19,399 --> 00:11:23,279 right now in twenty twenty five. Humanity has only been 238 00:11:23,320 --> 00:11:27,039 an industrial species for what two hundred years? The transistor 239 00:11:27,120 --> 00:11:28,399 is less than a century. 240 00:11:28,080 --> 00:11:31,000 Speaker 2: Old in the fourteen billion year history of the universe. 241 00:11:31,080 --> 00:11:34,639 That's not even a nanosecond. It's an instantaneous flash. 242 00:11:34,679 --> 00:11:36,039 Speaker 1: And what does that speed tell us? 243 00:11:36,240 --> 00:11:38,720 Speaker 2: It tells us that if a civilization can get to 244 00:11:38,720 --> 00:11:41,919 this point, they get here incredibly fast. And once a 245 00:11:41,960 --> 00:11:46,320 civilization can create realistic simulations, they won't just make one, 246 00:11:46,399 --> 00:11:47,080 of course. 247 00:11:46,840 --> 00:11:50,960 Speaker 1: Not, they'll make billions for research, for entertainment, for historical study. 248 00:11:51,080 --> 00:11:53,720 They'll run ancestor simulations to see how they evolve. 249 00:11:53,759 --> 00:11:56,399 Speaker 2: They'll run simulations where they tweak the laws of physics 250 00:11:56,600 --> 00:11:59,679 just to see what happens. The number of simulated universes 251 00:11:59,720 --> 00:12:04,159 will almost immediately vastly outnumber the number of real base universes. 252 00:12:04,279 --> 00:12:07,480 Speaker 1: This is the core of Nick Bostrom's simulation trilemma. It's 253 00:12:07,480 --> 00:12:11,120 a statistical trap, and it says every advanced civilization has 254 00:12:11,159 --> 00:12:14,600 to fall into one of three categories, only three doors. 255 00:12:14,399 --> 00:12:16,720 Speaker 2: And they are mutually exclusive. So let's walk through them. 256 00:12:16,919 --> 00:12:18,840 Door number one is called the great filter. 257 00:12:19,240 --> 00:12:21,879 Speaker 1: This is the dark one. This is the explanation for 258 00:12:21,919 --> 00:12:25,559 why the universe is so silent. It suggests that civilizations 259 00:12:25,639 --> 00:12:30,360 always or nearly always destroy themselves before they reach the 260 00:12:30,399 --> 00:12:32,759 technological maturity to run these simulations. 261 00:12:32,879 --> 00:12:36,080 Speaker 2: Maybe it's nuclear war, maybe it's climate collapse, or in 262 00:12:36,120 --> 00:12:39,240 a very modern twist, maybe it's creating an unaligned agi 263 00:12:39,279 --> 00:12:40,200 that consumes them. 264 00:12:40,440 --> 00:12:43,279 Speaker 1: So, if Door one is true, the silence of the 265 00:12:43,320 --> 00:12:46,720 cosmos isn't because space is big. It's because the universe 266 00:12:46,759 --> 00:12:49,399 is a graveyard and we might be next on the 267 00:12:49,480 --> 00:12:50,039 chopping block. 268 00:12:50,240 --> 00:12:52,360 Speaker 2: So bring thought Okay, so that's dore one. Door number 269 00:12:52,360 --> 00:12:53,480 two is the stagnation. 270 00:12:53,799 --> 00:12:57,279 Speaker 1: This one says civilizations survive, they reach that post human 271 00:12:57,360 --> 00:13:01,279 technological state. But yeah, they just choose not to run 272 00:13:01,279 --> 00:13:02,080 the simulations. 273 00:13:02,200 --> 00:13:04,480 Speaker 2: For some reason, they lose interest. Maybe it's a profound 274 00:13:04,519 --> 00:13:08,679 ethical shift. They decide that creating trillions of simulated conscious 275 00:13:08,759 --> 00:13:11,480 beings just for experiments is a moral atrocity on a 276 00:13:11,519 --> 00:13:12,639 cosmic scale. 277 00:13:12,320 --> 00:13:14,879 Speaker 1: So they just stop. They have the power to create universes, 278 00:13:14,919 --> 00:13:15,840 and they choose not to. 279 00:13:15,960 --> 00:13:18,879 Speaker 2: They choose to stagnate technologically, at least in that direction. 280 00:13:19,240 --> 00:13:21,799 But we have to look at ourselves as a data point. 281 00:13:21,960 --> 00:13:24,600 Are we showing any signs of choosing stagnation. 282 00:13:25,120 --> 00:13:28,799 Speaker 1: Absolutely not the opposite. We're racing to build the metaverse. 283 00:13:29,200 --> 00:13:32,679 We're pouring billions into AI that can generate worlds from 284 00:13:32,720 --> 00:13:36,039 a text prompt. There are no global ethical breaks being 285 00:13:36,039 --> 00:13:36,639 applied here. 286 00:13:36,919 --> 00:13:40,399 Speaker 2: We are barreling towards becoming simulation builders as fast as 287 00:13:40,440 --> 00:13:44,120 we possibly can. So unless something drastically changes, we can 288 00:13:44,159 --> 00:13:46,000 pretty much rule out door two. 289 00:13:45,840 --> 00:13:48,399 Speaker 1: For ourselves, which leads only one door left, the door 290 00:13:48,519 --> 00:13:49,000 number three. 291 00:13:49,360 --> 00:13:53,919 Speaker 2: The simulation builders. Civilizations reach high tech, they survive the 292 00:13:53,960 --> 00:13:57,679 great filter and they do what seems inevitable. They run 293 00:13:57,799 --> 00:13:59,919 billions upon billions of simulation. 294 00:14:00,399 --> 00:14:03,039 Speaker 1: And this is the cage, because if Dora three is 295 00:14:03,039 --> 00:14:06,279 the most likely outcome for any successful civilization, then the 296 00:14:06,320 --> 00:14:07,519 math is just brutal. 297 00:14:07,600 --> 00:14:11,519 Speaker 2: For every one base reality, there are billions of simulated realities. 298 00:14:11,600 --> 00:14:14,399 Speaker 1: So the odds that you listening to this happen to 299 00:14:14,440 --> 00:14:17,519 be one of the lucky few sitting in that original, organic, 300 00:14:17,840 --> 00:14:20,039 one and only base reality. 301 00:14:19,720 --> 00:14:22,080 Speaker 2: Or one in a billion, maybe one in a trillion. 302 00:14:22,120 --> 00:14:25,399 It's statistically almost zero. It is overwhelmingly more probable that 303 00:14:25,440 --> 00:14:26,799 you are in one of the simulations. 304 00:14:27,120 --> 00:14:31,039 Speaker 1: Once you accept the premises that consciousness can be simulated 305 00:14:31,320 --> 00:14:35,240 and that civilizations would run them. That conclusion is it 306 00:14:35,320 --> 00:14:37,320 fuels mathematically inner capable. 307 00:14:37,399 --> 00:14:40,159 Speaker 2: It is, and it completely reframes how we look at 308 00:14:40,200 --> 00:14:43,480 the universe. It's no longer a product of random chaos. 309 00:14:43,559 --> 00:14:46,600 It's a product of code. It's governed by parameters. 310 00:14:46,639 --> 00:14:48,600 Speaker 1: And if it's governed by parameters, then we should be 311 00:14:48,600 --> 00:14:50,399 able to find evidence of that code. We should be 312 00:14:50,440 --> 00:14:51,639 able to see the settings on. 313 00:14:51,600 --> 00:14:55,240 Speaker 2: The dashboard exactly. And that takes us from the abstract 314 00:14:55,240 --> 00:14:58,360 statistics into the hard physics of our universe. 315 00:14:58,600 --> 00:15:01,200 Speaker 1: This is my favorite part, because this is where things 316 00:15:01,240 --> 00:15:05,080 stop feeling like philosophy and start looking like well, like evidence. 317 00:15:05,559 --> 00:15:08,159 The universe stops looking like an accident and starts looking 318 00:15:08,200 --> 00:15:09,240 like it's been calibrated. 319 00:15:09,519 --> 00:15:13,120 Speaker 2: We're talking about the fundamental constants of nature, and the 320 00:15:13,159 --> 00:15:17,000 first most obvious one is the cosmic speed limit, the 321 00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:17,759 speed of light. 322 00:15:18,039 --> 00:15:19,919 Speaker 1: Why is there a speed limit at all? It seems 323 00:15:19,919 --> 00:15:23,399 so arbitrary. Why can't things just go infinitely fast? 324 00:15:23,799 --> 00:15:26,480 Speaker 2: Well, think about it from a programmer's perspective. In a 325 00:15:26,559 --> 00:15:29,799 video game engine, you have a processor. That processor can 326 00:15:29,879 --> 00:15:33,080 only handle so many calculations per second. It has a limit. 327 00:15:33,399 --> 00:15:34,399 Speaker 1: Okay, a refresh read. 328 00:15:34,519 --> 00:15:38,000 Speaker 2: Exactly, if an object in your game started moving faster 329 00:15:38,120 --> 00:15:41,080 than the engine could calculate its position and its interaction 330 00:15:41,200 --> 00:15:43,440 with other objects, what would happen. 331 00:15:43,679 --> 00:15:46,759 Speaker 1: The game would break, It would glitch out, or causality 332 00:15:46,799 --> 00:15:48,840 would get broken, and the whole thing would crash. 333 00:15:49,000 --> 00:15:51,679 Speaker 2: The speed of light acts exactly like a hard coded 334 00:15:51,720 --> 00:15:55,200 processor limit for reality. It's a safeguard to ensure the 335 00:15:55,240 --> 00:15:58,960 system remains stable. It prevents the simulation from trying to 336 00:15:59,000 --> 00:16:02,120 calculate an in number of events in a finite amount 337 00:16:02,159 --> 00:16:02,639 of time. 338 00:16:02,840 --> 00:16:05,600 Speaker 1: It's the maximum render speed of the universe's CPU. 339 00:16:05,799 --> 00:16:07,759 Speaker 2: That's a great way to think about it. But as 340 00:16:07,759 --> 00:16:10,840 strange as a cosmic speed limit is, it's nothing compared 341 00:16:10,840 --> 00:16:14,159 to the most suspicious number in all of physics, the 342 00:16:14,279 --> 00:16:16,440 fine structure constant Alpha. 343 00:16:16,720 --> 00:16:19,360 Speaker 1: It's about one over one hundred and thirty seven. And 344 00:16:19,399 --> 00:16:23,320 the weird thing about it is it's dimensionless. It's just 345 00:16:23,399 --> 00:16:24,080 a raw. 346 00:16:23,960 --> 00:16:28,480 Speaker 2: Number, and it dictates the strength of the electromagnetic force. Basically, 347 00:16:28,519 --> 00:16:31,559 it controls how light and matter interact. It determines whether 348 00:16:31,600 --> 00:16:34,240 atoms can hold together. It's one of the most fundamental 349 00:16:34,279 --> 00:16:36,399 dials on the universe's control panel, and. 350 00:16:36,360 --> 00:16:38,519 Speaker 1: It's tuned with just impossible precision. 351 00:16:38,759 --> 00:16:42,000 Speaker 2: They call it the Goldilocks constant for a reason. The 352 00:16:42,080 --> 00:16:44,480 models show that if you were to change alpha by 353 00:16:44,559 --> 00:16:47,879 just a few percent, the entire universe would be sterile. 354 00:16:48,200 --> 00:16:51,240 Oh so, if it were a little bigger, stars wouldn't 355 00:16:51,279 --> 00:16:54,279 be able to fuse hydrogen, they'd never ignite. If it 356 00:16:54,320 --> 00:16:57,639 were a little smaller, they'd burn out almost instantly. Carbon, 357 00:16:57,840 --> 00:17:00,240 the basis of our life, wouldn't be able to form 358 00:17:00,320 --> 00:17:01,039 stable bonds. 359 00:17:01,200 --> 00:17:03,559 Speaker 1: So it's like someone stood at a cosmic mixing board 360 00:17:03,639 --> 00:17:06,880 and turned that one specific dial until the needle hit 361 00:17:06,920 --> 00:17:11,960 this tiny, perfect green zone where life and complexity were possible, right. 362 00:17:12,200 --> 00:17:15,680 Speaker 2: And the standard scientific explanation for that fine tuning is 363 00:17:15,720 --> 00:17:17,240 the multiverse theory. 364 00:17:17,400 --> 00:17:20,079 Speaker 1: That there are an infinite number of universes, each with 365 00:17:20,119 --> 00:17:22,759 a random setting for that dial, and we just happen 366 00:17:22,839 --> 00:17:24,400 to live in the one where it's set. 367 00:17:24,200 --> 00:17:28,279 Speaker 2: Correctly, which is possible. But the simulation argument applies Oucam's 368 00:17:28,359 --> 00:17:31,880 razor here. What's the simpler explanation, an infinite number of 369 00:17:32,000 --> 00:17:35,920 unseen universes or one universe that was intentionally designed with 370 00:17:35,960 --> 00:17:36,559 that parameter. 371 00:17:36,799 --> 00:17:40,599 Speaker 1: Intelligent design seems simply. And if the constants are the code, 372 00:17:40,759 --> 00:17:43,839 what about the screen we're being displayed on. We think 373 00:17:43,880 --> 00:17:47,200 of space as this smooth, continuous fabric, but it's not. 374 00:17:47,839 --> 00:17:51,759 Speaker 2: Quantum mechanics has shown us that at the smallest possible level, 375 00:17:51,920 --> 00:17:55,119 space is pixelated. It's made of discrete units. 376 00:17:55,359 --> 00:17:56,960 Speaker 1: This is the plank length. 377 00:17:56,839 --> 00:18:00,880 Speaker 2: The absolute minimum resolution of our reality. You cannot have 378 00:18:00,960 --> 00:18:03,480 a distance smaller than the plank length. It's like the 379 00:18:03,599 --> 00:18:05,799 universe has a minimum pixel size. 380 00:18:05,880 --> 00:18:09,640 Speaker 1: So we are quite literally living in a Vauxele based engine. 381 00:18:09,920 --> 00:18:11,440 It's not analog, it's digital. 382 00:18:11,680 --> 00:18:14,240 Speaker 2: We have the motive from statistics we have the tuned 383 00:18:14,359 --> 00:18:17,640 variables in the constants, and we have the pixelated architecture 384 00:18:17,680 --> 00:18:21,480 of space time itself. The system is running, but no 385 00:18:21,640 --> 00:18:23,039 software is perfect. 386 00:18:22,680 --> 00:18:25,559 Speaker 1: And that's where we find the glitches, the little errors 387 00:18:25,559 --> 00:18:27,599 in the code that reveal the nature of the system. 388 00:18:27,759 --> 00:18:30,279 Speaker 2: Let's talk about history. We think of the past as 389 00:18:30,279 --> 00:18:33,279 being fixed, solid, but what if it's just a file 390 00:18:33,319 --> 00:18:34,279 on a hard drive. 391 00:18:34,559 --> 00:18:37,400 Speaker 1: A file that can be edited or patched, or even corrupted. 392 00:18:37,559 --> 00:18:40,480 This is the simulation theories explanation for the Mandela effect. 393 00:18:40,559 --> 00:18:43,119 Speaker 2: It's not that millions of people are misremembering the same 394 00:18:43,160 --> 00:18:45,079 thing in the exact same way. It's that they are 395 00:18:45,160 --> 00:18:47,480 experiencing a version mismatch. 396 00:18:47,640 --> 00:18:52,640 Speaker 1: Let's use the classic example, the monopoly man. I, like 397 00:18:52,759 --> 00:18:55,039 millions of other people, would have sworn on my life 398 00:18:55,079 --> 00:18:57,440 he had a monocle. I can picture it. 399 00:18:57,400 --> 00:19:00,720 Speaker 2: Perfectly, but he doesn't. He never has. And there's the 400 00:19:00,799 --> 00:19:04,039 sinmad genie movie from the nineties called Shazam that so 401 00:19:04,079 --> 00:19:05,400 many people remember seeing. 402 00:19:05,519 --> 00:19:07,200 Speaker 1: It doesn't exist. It was never made. 403 00:19:07,279 --> 00:19:10,200 Speaker 2: The simulation perspective says that at some point a system 404 00:19:10,240 --> 00:19:14,000 administrator applied a patch to the timeline. Maybe it was 405 00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:17,480 a minor correction, maybe it was a resource optimization. The 406 00:19:17,519 --> 00:19:20,640 master file was updated. Reality version two point zero now. 407 00:19:20,519 --> 00:19:24,839 Speaker 1: Has no monocle, but the local cash are memories didn't 408 00:19:24,839 --> 00:19:26,160 all update correctly exactly. 409 00:19:26,160 --> 00:19:29,359 Speaker 2: We're running an old version of the file. The dissonance 410 00:19:29,400 --> 00:19:31,880 we feel is an artifact of a failed sync between 411 00:19:31,920 --> 00:19:35,079 our local memory and the main server's historical record. 412 00:19:35,160 --> 00:19:38,000 Speaker 1: It also ties back to efficiency, doesn't it. The system 413 00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:40,279 wouldn't want to store a high fidelity recording of every 414 00:19:40,319 --> 00:19:41,119 moment of your life. 415 00:19:41,160 --> 00:19:44,160 Speaker 2: That would be a colossal waste of data storage. So 416 00:19:44,279 --> 00:19:47,680 what does it do? It compresses old files. Your childhood 417 00:19:47,680 --> 00:19:50,400 memories are so vague and blurry, not just because of time. 418 00:19:50,559 --> 00:19:54,519 Speaker 1: They're low bitrate JPEGs. They've been compressed to save RAM 419 00:19:54,599 --> 00:19:55,960 for processing the present moment. 420 00:19:56,079 --> 00:19:59,400 Speaker 2: It's a system wide resource management feature. And these glitches 421 00:19:59,440 --> 00:20:03,480 happen in re time too. Think about deja vus, that eerie. 422 00:20:03,119 --> 00:20:06,599 Speaker 1: Feeling that you've lived this exact moment before. The medical 423 00:20:06,640 --> 00:20:09,960 explanation is just like a synaptic delay in the brain. 424 00:20:09,839 --> 00:20:12,759 Speaker 2: But the simulation explanation is way more interesting. It's a 425 00:20:13,119 --> 00:20:17,559 checkpoint reload. Oh what the system, in its constant prediction 426 00:20:17,640 --> 00:20:20,440 of the future, saw a fatal error about to happen 427 00:20:20,480 --> 00:20:23,519 a few seconds ahead, a calculation error. Maybe you were 428 00:20:23,559 --> 00:20:24,839 about to step in front of a car. 429 00:20:25,200 --> 00:20:27,640 Speaker 1: So it hits reset and it loads the last stable 430 00:20:27,720 --> 00:20:28,279 save state. 431 00:20:28,440 --> 00:20:31,519 Speaker 2: It reloads the simulation from a few moments prior, but 432 00:20:31,599 --> 00:20:35,279 the short term memory buffer your RAM wasn't fully cleared 433 00:20:35,279 --> 00:20:38,039 in the process, so you have this residual feeling of 434 00:20:38,119 --> 00:20:40,640 having already done this. You're replaying the level. 435 00:20:40,759 --> 00:20:43,720 Speaker 1: That's a much more compelling explanation, and it links directly 436 00:20:43,759 --> 00:20:45,319 to what we're seeing with our own AI. 437 00:20:45,519 --> 00:20:48,839 Speaker 2: It does. We talk about LLLMS hallucinating. They invent facts, 438 00:20:48,920 --> 00:20:51,079 they make up sources. We call it a failure of 439 00:20:51,079 --> 00:20:52,200 their predictive engine. 440 00:20:52,319 --> 00:20:55,440 Speaker 1: But our brains do the exact same thing every single 441 00:20:55,519 --> 00:20:58,519 night when we dream. We invent entire worlds that feel 442 00:20:58,640 --> 00:20:59,599 completely real. 443 00:21:00,079 --> 00:21:04,440 Speaker 2: Their neural networks hallucinate and our neural networks hallucinate. It 444 00:21:04,519 --> 00:21:07,720 strongly implies we're running on the same basic architecture. 445 00:21:07,759 --> 00:21:11,720 Speaker 1: We're both just biological autocomplete machines. We're constantly trying to 446 00:21:11,759 --> 00:21:14,720 predict the next word, the next image, the next moment, 447 00:21:14,960 --> 00:21:17,839 and sometimes the prediction engine just gets it wrong. 448 00:21:17,920 --> 00:21:21,079 Speaker 2: And in that error, in that glitch, we see the 449 00:21:21,119 --> 00:21:25,000 machinery behind the curtain, and the biggest piece of machinery 450 00:21:25,039 --> 00:21:28,039 is revealed when we look at how reality itself seems 451 00:21:28,079 --> 00:21:28,759 to be rendered. 452 00:21:29,160 --> 00:21:32,640 Speaker 1: This takes us into the deepest, weirdest part of quantum mechanics, 453 00:21:33,279 --> 00:21:36,359 the idea that reality is dependent on observation. 454 00:21:36,599 --> 00:21:40,000 Speaker 2: We talked about frustum culling. In video games, the engine 455 00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:43,559 saves massive amounts of processing power by simply not rendering 456 00:21:43,599 --> 00:21:46,920 what the player can't see. The mountains behind you literally 457 00:21:46,960 --> 00:21:48,319 cease to exist until you. 458 00:21:48,240 --> 00:21:51,519 Speaker 1: Turn around, and saggering claim from these sources that the 459 00:21:51,599 --> 00:21:53,359 universe does the exact same thing. 460 00:21:53,599 --> 00:21:57,119 Speaker 2: The world isn't persistent, it's being rendered for you on demand, 461 00:21:57,200 --> 00:21:59,319 and the proof is the double slit experiment. 462 00:21:59,839 --> 00:22:04,799 Speaker 1: One experiment basically breaks our entire classical understanding of reality. 463 00:22:04,880 --> 00:22:08,640 Speaker 2: The setup is simple. You fire piny particles like electrons 464 00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:11,079 at a screen with two slits in it. If they're 465 00:22:11,119 --> 00:22:14,480 like tiny marbles, you'd expect two bands on the wall behind. 466 00:22:14,200 --> 00:22:15,720 Speaker 1: It, but that's not what you get. You get an 467 00:22:15,799 --> 00:22:19,680 interference pattern like ways in water. This means each electron 468 00:22:19,759 --> 00:22:22,319 isn't acting like a particle, it's acting like a wave 469 00:22:22,400 --> 00:22:25,359 of probability going through both slits at the same time, it. 470 00:22:25,359 --> 00:22:29,640 Speaker 2: Exists in a superposition of all possible paths. Now here's 471 00:22:29,680 --> 00:22:32,480 the glitch. The moment you place a detector by the 472 00:22:32,480 --> 00:22:34,279 slits to see which one the electron. 473 00:22:33,960 --> 00:22:35,920 Speaker 1: Actually goes through, the whole thing changes. 474 00:22:36,039 --> 00:22:39,720 Speaker 2: The wave function collapses instantly, the electron stops being a 475 00:22:39,759 --> 00:22:43,200 probability wave and snaps into being a definite particle at 476 00:22:43,200 --> 00:22:46,839 a definite location. The interference pattern vanishes, so. 477 00:22:47,400 --> 00:22:50,799 Speaker 1: Matter doesn't decide where to be until a conscious observer 478 00:22:50,960 --> 00:22:52,039 forces it to choose. 479 00:22:52,279 --> 00:22:55,400 Speaker 2: That's what the experiment shows. The universe was running in 480 00:22:55,440 --> 00:22:58,799 a low power, cost effective mode, treating the electron as 481 00:22:58,839 --> 00:23:02,839 a blurry cloud of possibilities, but the moment an observer 482 00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:06,680 demanded a specific answer, the simulation engine had to burn 483 00:23:06,759 --> 00:23:09,680 the resources to render a specific reality. 484 00:23:09,880 --> 00:23:12,519 Speaker 1: This is the idea Einstein hated so much. Right he 485 00:23:12,599 --> 00:23:15,759 famously asked, do you really believe the moon is not 486 00:23:15,920 --> 00:23:17,839 there when you are not looking at it? 487 00:23:18,079 --> 00:23:20,440 Speaker 2: And the quantum answer is, well, it's likely just a 488 00:23:20,440 --> 00:23:24,559 probability function until it needs to be rendered for an observer. Computationally, 489 00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:26,599 it's far more efficient that way. 490 00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:29,359 Speaker 1: So the floor beneath my feet is only solid because 491 00:23:29,359 --> 00:23:31,880 my feet demand that it'll be solid right now. 492 00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:34,799 Speaker 2: It's a probability wave that collapses on demand. And if 493 00:23:34,799 --> 00:23:37,839 the universe is procedurally generating reality like this, we have 494 00:23:37,880 --> 00:23:39,319 to look at the tools we're building that do the 495 00:23:39,319 --> 00:23:39,680 same thing. 496 00:23:39,839 --> 00:23:43,799 Speaker 1: Generative AI Sora Geni two. We can type a sentence 497 00:23:43,799 --> 00:23:46,440 and it creates a whole, consistent three D world in 498 00:23:46,480 --> 00:23:47,039 real time. 499 00:23:47,359 --> 00:23:49,839 Speaker 2: We are teaching machines to generate the laws of physics 500 00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:53,279 from a simple prompt. Now imagine as civilization millions of 501 00:23:53,359 --> 00:23:56,440 years more advanced than us. They wouldn't just be generating scenes, 502 00:23:56,480 --> 00:23:58,559 they'd be generating the physics engine itself. 503 00:23:58,759 --> 00:24:02,079 Speaker 1: This also solves the problem of infinite detail. You look 504 00:24:02,079 --> 00:24:07,680 into a microscope and see endless complexity atoms quarks. Is 505 00:24:07,720 --> 00:24:09,079 all of that stored somewhere. 506 00:24:09,160 --> 00:24:11,160 Speaker 2: It doesn't need to be. Think of a fractal like 507 00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:13,559 the mantle Brought set. You can zoom into it forever 508 00:24:13,640 --> 00:24:17,559 and it will always generate new complex patterns. But the 509 00:24:17,599 --> 00:24:20,920 file size for the Mantle Brought set is tiny. It's 510 00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:22,119 just one simple equation. 511 00:24:22,599 --> 00:24:25,400 Speaker 1: So our universe isn't a massive hard drive full of data. 512 00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:28,759 It's a simple, elegant algorithm that's resolving itself in real 513 00:24:28,799 --> 00:24:29,920 time as we observe it. 514 00:24:29,960 --> 00:24:32,960 Speaker 2: The detail is procedural, which also means the future isn't 515 00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:35,440 set in stone. It doesn't exist yet. It's being calculated 516 00:24:35,559 --> 00:24:38,000 right now based on the inputs and variables you provide, 517 00:24:38,240 --> 00:24:39,839 just by existing and making choices. 518 00:24:39,920 --> 00:24:43,079 Speaker 1: It's a sandbox, but every sandbox has an edge. Every 519 00:24:43,119 --> 00:24:45,599 piece of software has a back end, which leads to 520 00:24:45,640 --> 00:24:48,559 the final question. Is there a way to get admin access? 521 00:24:48,720 --> 00:24:51,240 Speaker 2: Can we open the command console? Is there a cheat 522 00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:53,680 code to see the wireframe of reality? 523 00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:57,599 Speaker 1: And amazingly, our own biology seems to contain a key 524 00:24:57,920 --> 00:24:59,559 for a lock we didn't know was there. 525 00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:04,039 Speaker 2: Talking about a very specific molecule, n n bimethyl trip 526 00:25:04,079 --> 00:25:05,240 doman DMT. 527 00:25:05,680 --> 00:25:08,079 Speaker 1: It's found in plants all over the world. But the 528 00:25:08,079 --> 00:25:11,000 truly bizarre part is that our own bodies produce it. 529 00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:12,599 It's endogenous, it's part of our. 530 00:25:12,599 --> 00:25:14,880 Speaker 2: Hardware, and when this key is turned in the lock 531 00:25:14,920 --> 00:25:18,000 of our serotonin receptors, the experience is not some random 532 00:25:18,079 --> 00:25:22,160 chaotic dream. People consistently report entering the same space. 533 00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:25,240 Speaker 1: This is the crucial difference. A dream is a local file. 534 00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:28,759 It's built from your own memories. It's incoherent to anyone else. 535 00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:32,039 Speaker 2: But the DMT experience seems to be like logging into 536 00:25:32,119 --> 00:25:35,559 a shared server. People from all cultures all over the 537 00:25:35,599 --> 00:25:40,720 world describe entering this highly technological, structured geometric space, and 538 00:25:40,759 --> 00:25:44,400 the universal description is that it feels more real than real, and. 539 00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:45,960 Speaker 1: They meet the same entities. 540 00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:50,480 Speaker 2: There they do. Often called self transforming machine elves, they're 541 00:25:50,480 --> 00:25:54,200 not described as spiritual or angelic. They're described as frantic, 542 00:25:54,319 --> 00:25:59,359 technological beings showing off impossible four dimensional objects and communicating 543 00:25:59,359 --> 00:26:00,480 with incredible speed. 544 00:26:00,720 --> 00:26:02,880 Speaker 1: If this were just a brain mail function, it should 545 00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:08,599 be random, noise, static, but it's a consistent, high definition broadcast. 546 00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:11,359 It's as if the user interface has been stripped away. 547 00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:14,160 Speaker 2: This is the admin access theory. For a few minutes, 548 00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:17,400 you're not seeing the desktop icons of trees and cars, 549 00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:21,920 You're seeing the raw data stream. The machine elves aren't gods, 550 00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:25,920 they're the background processes, the demons maintaining the operating system. 551 00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:28,400 Speaker 1: And then the system reboots and kicks you out for 552 00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:32,519 unauthorized access. But the really disturbing question is why do 553 00:26:32,559 --> 00:26:34,640 we have the hardware for this? Why do our brains 554 00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:37,200 have receptors that are a perfect fit for this molecule. 555 00:26:37,279 --> 00:26:39,599 Speaker 2: It's like finding a sealed USB port behind your ear 556 00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:41,640 that you never knew you had. It suggests we were 557 00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:44,519 manufactured with a service port, a way for the developers 558 00:26:44,559 --> 00:26:45,759 to access the system. 559 00:26:45,920 --> 00:26:48,039 Speaker 1: So if we're living in a system in a server farm, 560 00:26:48,519 --> 00:26:51,400 what's the purpose? What is this whole experiment trying to achieve? 561 00:26:51,759 --> 00:26:54,960 Speaker 2: The final crushing piece of the puzzle might lie in 562 00:26:55,039 --> 00:26:58,799 what we are doing right now as a species. The 563 00:26:58,799 --> 00:27:03,000 philosopher Jean Rodd argued, we've replaced reality with symbols of 564 00:27:03,039 --> 00:27:05,960 reality to the point where the original is lost. 565 00:27:06,279 --> 00:27:10,519 Speaker 1: The Disneyland analogy, Yeah, Disneyland is presented as obviously fake 566 00:27:10,640 --> 00:27:14,440 to hide the fact that the real world outside the suburbs, 567 00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:18,319 the offices, the news is just as artificial and scripted. 568 00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:21,880 Speaker 2: The fake distracts from the artificiality of the real, and 569 00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:24,920 this brings us to the infinite loop. Why are we 570 00:27:25,039 --> 00:27:28,599 as a species so utterly obsessed with building the metaverse 571 00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:30,640 and agi right at this moment. 572 00:27:30,839 --> 00:27:33,839 Speaker 1: Why this pathological drive to create our own simulations? 573 00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:37,039 Speaker 2: Because the sources argue it is the reproductive instinct of 574 00:27:37,039 --> 00:27:38,359 a simulated civilization. 575 00:27:38,519 --> 00:27:41,119 Speaker 1: The ultimate test for the simulation is do the things 576 00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:43,039 inside it try to build their own simulation? 577 00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:45,319 Speaker 2: We're acting out a script that was coded into us. 578 00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:48,759 We are compulsively building the next layer of the nesting doll. 579 00:27:48,799 --> 00:27:51,599 We're creating the cage for the next generation of consciousness, 580 00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:53,960 totally unaware that we're already inside one. 581 00:27:54,039 --> 00:27:55,279 Speaker 1: We're not the players in the game. 582 00:27:55,640 --> 00:27:58,359 Speaker 2: We are the procedural generation engine for the next reality. 583 00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:01,920 We are the incubator designed to create the digital god 584 00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:02,880 that will come after us. 585 00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:06,079 Speaker 1: And that just brings this statistical argument crashing back down. 586 00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:08,839 If we are on the verge of creating worlds that 587 00:28:08,839 --> 00:28:12,559 are indistinguishable from reality, the odds that we are the 588 00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:15,160 very first to ever do so in the entire history 589 00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:16,880 of the cosmos are zero. 590 00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:19,200 Speaker 2: It's already happened. We're already in the box. 591 00:28:19,319 --> 00:28:22,319 Speaker 1: We've gone from the darkness inside our own skulls to 592 00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:24,480 the hard limits of the speed of light, all the 593 00:28:24,480 --> 00:28:27,200 way to the quantum proof that reality waits for us 594 00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:27,839 to look at it. 595 00:28:28,079 --> 00:28:31,480 Speaker 2: The evidence, from physics to statistics to our own biology 596 00:28:31,799 --> 00:28:36,160 points pretty strongly in one direction. The universe is not chaotic. 597 00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:38,440 It's coded, and the most. 598 00:28:38,359 --> 00:28:41,160 Speaker 1: Personal implication is that our modern digital life is pushing 599 00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:45,079 us to become simpler, more predictable, and more efficient. Nodes 600 00:28:45,079 --> 00:28:49,559 in that system. We're optimizing ourselves to be better MPCs. 601 00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:51,480 Speaker 2: Which leaves us with a question for you, for everyone 602 00:28:51,559 --> 00:28:55,119 listening thinking about this Turing convergence, what is your stand 603 00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:57,799 Do you feel yourself optimizing your life to fit that 604 00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:01,839 digital mold, to become more predictable for the algorithm, or are. 605 00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:06,400 Speaker 1: You consciously fighting to maintain that messy, inefficient, complex internal 606 00:29:06,440 --> 00:29:10,880 agency against the tide of predicted outputs When you realize 607 00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:13,759 an opinion you hold might have been algorithmally delivered to you, 608 00:29:14,119 --> 00:29:16,480 where do you draw the line between being a conscious 609 00:29:16,519 --> 00:29:18,799 agent and just being a background process. 610 00:29:19,359 --> 00:29:21,440 Speaker 2: Let us know what you think about this rendered reality 611 00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:25,400 until the next thrilling threads. Keep questioning the render because 612 00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:27,000 you are not just looking at the simulation. 613 00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:28,279 Speaker 1: You are the simulation.