Speaker 1: Have you ever woken up from a dream, walked around
Speaker 1: and then realize you're still dreaming? Yes, And it's made
Speaker 1: me wonder like, is reality actually part of a dream?
Speaker 1: Like an inception or the matrix? How do we know
Speaker 1: if we are living in a dream or even in
Speaker 1: someone else's dream, or like a low resolution A bit
Speaker 1: video game. Hi, I'm Daniel and I'm Jorge, and this
Speaker 1: is Daniel and Jorge explain the universe, ex playing the universe,
Speaker 1: the whole entire universe, all of it. Now you might
Speaker 1: be wondering, who are these guys who are gonna explain
Speaker 1: the universe to you? Yeah? Who are we? Daniel? Who
Speaker 1: are we? Anyway? That's a good question. Well, I'm a
Speaker 1: particle physicist. I do my research at the Large Hadron
Speaker 1: Collider in Geneva, where we smash particles together and trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what is the universe made out of
Speaker 1: and how does this all work? And mostly enjoy getting
Speaker 1: to play with enormous ten billion dollar taxpayer funded toys. Nice,
Speaker 1: And I'm a former robotics researcher. And now I'm a cartoonist.
Speaker 1: And where do you do most of your work or
Speaker 1: is it a fancy government lab. Yes, I do most
Speaker 1: of my work in my pajamas in my garage. Um,
Speaker 1: usually starting late in the morning. And how does a
Speaker 1: roboticist end up becoming a cartoonist? That is a really
Speaker 1: great question. And I have to tell you that, Um,
Speaker 1: my parents are also very worried about that whole career trajectory.
Speaker 1: But now, yeah, they're worried about their investment in your
Speaker 1: in your education. There. I think they're just concerned about
Speaker 1: my financial well being. But now I used to be uh,
Speaker 1: I used to be I have a PhD in robotics.
Speaker 1: I used to do research on legged robots and robots
Speaker 1: and could run and like jump around. Um. But then
Speaker 1: at some point I started drawing comics and I really
Speaker 1: like that and it kind of became more popular than
Speaker 1: my research, and so I draw something called PhD comics,
Speaker 1: which is how we met because I used to be
Speaker 1: a huge fan of PhD comics. Yeah, and um, and
Speaker 1: I used to be a big fan of of like
Speaker 1: the universe and so so until you know, it's almost
Speaker 1: all of the universe now, and but the universe is
Speaker 1: sort of where we overlap, right. I do research about
Speaker 1: the universe, and you try to explain the universe in
Speaker 1: your science, communication and all that stuff, and so I
Speaker 1: feel like we have a significant overlap there. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: just really like talking to people who know a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff about something and just kind of learning new things,
Speaker 1: you know. I always I always get my mind blown
Speaker 1: when I talked to someone who's a researcher on something,
Speaker 1: because it's just kind of amazing, like how much we
Speaker 1: don't know about stuff. You know, you sort of walk
Speaker 1: around feeling like, hey, we got everything figured out. Um.
Speaker 1: But I always love finding out what people are still
Speaker 1: like wondering about, and I love pretending to know stuff
Speaker 1: about stuff and blowing people's minds. So it's a perfect
Speaker 1: setup right now. I think that some of these questions
Speaker 1: are really interesting and they're really accessible, and my hope
Speaker 1: is that people out there will be listening to this
Speaker 1: stuff and think, oh, man, I wish I could have
Speaker 1: done physics in high school, or some kid who's who's
Speaker 1: listening to it out there it gets inspired and thinks about,
Speaker 1: um potentially going into physics, because there's a huge number
Speaker 1: of really deep, fascinating questions that we still have to answer.
Speaker 1: Like the topic of today's podcast Yeah Today on the
Speaker 1: program is the universe a simulation the whole universe. I
Speaker 1: love the size of these questions we're asking. Is the
Speaker 1: whole universe simulation? Yeah? That's uh so, that's a crazy question.
Speaker 1: It's basically the question like are we living in the matrix? Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, the matrix is ridiculous because at its
Speaker 1: basic premise it didn't work at all, you know, like
Speaker 1: batteries what I mean, come on, humans consume and or
Speaker 1: they don't produce energy. So the whole fundamental underlying assumption
Speaker 1: of the matrix boom, toss it out the window. But
Speaker 1: the core idea there that did we could be immersed
Speaker 1: in a deeply realistic virtual reality that we're not aware of, right,
Speaker 1: that we think reality, that what we're experiencing is reality,
Speaker 1: when when actually it's something simulated. That's the fascinating way,
Speaker 1: Like what we see and what we hear and what
Speaker 1: we touch is not like actually real, it's just like
Speaker 1: a a computer feeding as these sensations to us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and only I think recently has this possibility even arisen
Speaker 1: because we do now have virtual reality, right, you can't
Speaker 1: have fairly immersive experiences and people extrapolate from that. It's
Speaker 1: getting more real and real the simulated things we can
Speaker 1: the things we can simulate. Absolutely. I had a virtual
Speaker 1: reality experience a couple of weeks ago. I went to
Speaker 1: a go kart place with my son and I went
Speaker 1: into a virtual reality go kart racing thing where you
Speaker 1: sit in a chair and the chair shakes in your
Speaker 1: car bumps into stuff, and um, it's totally immersive. And
Speaker 1: you know, every time I was about to crash into
Speaker 1: the wall, which was a lot of times, I found
Speaker 1: myself like throwing my arms up to protect myself and
Speaker 1: ducking and stuff like that, because it really it felt realistic.
Speaker 1: It definitely triggered all of my instincts and absolutely, I
Speaker 1: mean I would have wet myself ahead and pid just beforehand. Well.
Speaker 1: I had a very intense virtual reality experience too recently.
Speaker 1: I I am. I read the news and you think,
Speaker 1: I hope that because this is crazy. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's that's the idea, is that that's the question.
Speaker 1: Is the universe a simulation, Like is what we see
Speaker 1: around is real? Or is it Are we like sitting
Speaker 1: in a vat of liquids floating somewhere in some alien
Speaker 1: beings um factory, being fed all of these sensations and
Speaker 1: sights and sounds just kind of keep us happy. For
Speaker 1: some reason, you make it sound so sinister. Why can't
Speaker 1: it be like a cozy, warm, cuddly environment where we're
Speaker 1: like nestled in a sunny garden somewhere and being fed
Speaker 1: this beautiful, wonderful universe of simulations. Right, But you just
Speaker 1: have to be like, we're experiments in some you know,
Speaker 1: we're subjects in some sinister experiments somewhere. Well, why else
Speaker 1: would somebody do that? So let's take a step back.
Speaker 1: So this question has been kind of very recently come.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's always sort of been around in science fiction,
Speaker 1: but it's sort of become serious, lady, right, like Elon
Speaker 1: Musk is wondering about it. Right, And so we went
Speaker 1: out in the street. We asked people if they thought
Speaker 1: they were living in a simulation. So think for a
Speaker 1: moment yourself, listener, do you think the universe could be
Speaker 1: a simulation? Here's what people on the street had to say.
Speaker 1: We're like my trich or somewhere that it could be.
Speaker 1: But I doubt it. I doubt it, you know. But
Speaker 1: it's because I don't want to tell myself that everything
Speaker 1: I do is the universe seems so let's normal. It
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like that could be fossible. So most people
Speaker 1: thought maybe it was a possibility, but nobody really firmly
Speaker 1: believed it. Nobody thought absolutely, I'm convinced. Yeah, most people
Speaker 1: seem very skeptical, but a lot of them allowed the possibility. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: you never know, but maybe sort of a thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I have to mean I fall into like Kemp,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty skeptical about this idea. Uh. And I like
Speaker 1: one of the answers that they said, which is like,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's possible. Everything seems really realistic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a nice argument, and it's just because the universe
Speaker 1: around you feel so detailed. I mean you look at
Speaker 1: the tiniest little water droplets and the light sparkling off
Speaker 1: of it. It seems like an impossible problem to write
Speaker 1: a simulation that it's this realistic. It seems impossible, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: But I don't know if that that's really very persuasive argument,
Speaker 1: because computers are getting faster and faster, and you just
Speaker 1: extrapolate from what we can do now to what we
Speaker 1: can do in twenty years. I mean, look at how
Speaker 1: video games have improved from like Super Mario two super
Speaker 1: realistic racing games. Now it's incredible how much more realistic
Speaker 1: they are, from like Pong to like, uh yeah, like
Speaker 1: World of Warcraft. There's so realistic now. Absolutely, So I
Speaker 1: don't really think the it's impossible argument is very strong
Speaker 1: also because you have to imagine if somebody is running
Speaker 1: our universe as a simulation, who knows what kind of
Speaker 1: computational powers they have, right, um, and and if they
Speaker 1: are their universe, the one that our universe is running
Speaker 1: as a simulation inside of doesn't have to follow the
Speaker 1: same laws as our universe. Right If we're in a
Speaker 1: video game inside somebody else's universe, our video game can
Speaker 1: have rules that don't exist outside the video game. Right,
Speaker 1: So they like F equals m A or general relativity
Speaker 1: that could have been something they just made up because
Speaker 1: they thought they would be fun or interesting, you know,
Speaker 1: like like we like we create video games with crazy
Speaker 1: physical rules. You know, Mario can jump half of the screen,
Speaker 1: he can jump twenty feet up in the air. Um,
Speaker 1: so maybe that's that's why our physical laws are. They're
Speaker 1: just kind of like, hey, let's make this fun universe
Speaker 1: where efquals are a kind of the idea that's exactly right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. And I think that's partially the origin
Speaker 1: of this idea. You know, what is physics doing? Ask
Speaker 1: yourself that physics is trying to figure out what are
Speaker 1: the rules of this universe? Right, what are the underlying
Speaker 1: code that runs this universe? And so now that we
Speaker 1: actually have pretty powerful computer programs, people wonder, well, if
Speaker 1: you were in a computer program and you were trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what the rules of that simulated universe were,
Speaker 1: you'd essentially be trying to understand what was the physics
Speaker 1: coded into that universe. So in some sense, yeah, you'd
Speaker 1: be a physicist exactly. Physicists are trying to reverse engineer
Speaker 1: the source code of the universe. Right, regardless of whether
Speaker 1: you believe the universe is real or a simulation, it
Speaker 1: does seem to follow some rules, right. So it's like
Speaker 1: when you first it's amazing that we can even discover those.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like when you first play Super
Speaker 1: Mario or something and you're you're just jumping around and
Speaker 1: move around trying to figure out how Mari moves. You're
Speaker 1: essentially like being a physicist in that world. That's exactly right.
Speaker 1: Everybody who plays a video game for the first time
Speaker 1: is being I think that's exactly everybody who plays video games.
Speaker 1: That's right. That you just gave a whole generation of
Speaker 1: listeners a reason to stop doing their physics homework and
Speaker 1: turn on their video Thank you. The PC is only
Speaker 1: valued inside the video game, that's right. But you know,
Speaker 1: I think that there's a natural curiosity there, right. The
Speaker 1: reason video games are fun is because you get to
Speaker 1: explore a new world and figure out it's rules and
Speaker 1: learn to master it. Also, the best science fiction is
Speaker 1: the same way. The best science fiction. You're thrown into
Speaker 1: a fictional universe and the rules could be different. Usually
Speaker 1: they are, and you have to figure them out. You know,
Speaker 1: bad science fiction they tell you in boring narration overtones
Speaker 1: exactly how things work. But in good science fiction, you
Speaker 1: have to puzzle it out for yourself. You have to
Speaker 1: deduce what the history is and what the rules are,
Speaker 1: and how things work in this fictional universe. Have to
Speaker 1: be like an explorer, like an experiment er. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: love how we're describing physicists as these like avant gode
Speaker 1: explorers as the couch potatoes who play video games. That's
Speaker 1: that's basically not that not that different from reality built
Speaker 1: couch potatoes. Well, you know, I find it really interesting
Speaker 1: that you so you're a serious physicist. I mean, like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, you you're like a professor, and you you've
Speaker 1: you don't sort of scoff at this idea immediately, you know,
Speaker 1: like I feel like it's a crazy idea, but it's
Speaker 1: like something physicists uh uh, actually sort of, they say,
Speaker 1: are forced to say, yeah, it's possible. Right. Well, I
Speaker 1: think part of the job of being a physicist, and
Speaker 1: I would take exception with being called too serious. Seriously,
Speaker 1: part of the job of being a physicist is being
Speaker 1: prepared for making mind blowing discoveries. You know, I think
Speaker 1: best kind of physics discoveries are the ones that completely
Speaker 1: change your view of the universe. You know that discover
Speaker 1: where you discover the universe works really differently from the
Speaker 1: way you did, And so you have to be open
Speaker 1: to crazy new ideas if you even have a chance
Speaker 1: to make a crazy discovery. I guess by serious physicist,
Speaker 1: I mean an employed physicist. That's right, I still have
Speaker 1: a job that makes me a physicist. On that note,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break I like what you said earlier,
Speaker 1: which is that you know our universe right now, the
Speaker 1: one where even if it was not a simulation, it's
Speaker 1: sort of like a simulation in that that's kind of
Speaker 1: what a simulation is. It's like there's laws and then uh,
Speaker 1: you figure out what's going to happen in the next
Speaker 1: time instant based on those laws. That's I mean, that's
Speaker 1: basically what a simulation is, right, right, But is the
Speaker 1: universe like a simulation or is a simulation like the universe?
Speaker 1: I mean we can think simulations I know, or Ay
Speaker 1: says whoa. I mean, we invented simulations in order to
Speaker 1: model example universes, right, We said, what would happen if
Speaker 1: the universe was like this, Well, let's see, and then
Speaker 1: we build a little simulation and we test it out.
Speaker 1: So simulations are built to mirror the universe on purpose,
Speaker 1: and and we code in the rules of the universe
Speaker 1: in that simulation because we think there are rules of
Speaker 1: the universe, and we could have a whole other conversation
Speaker 1: about like why does the universe have rules? Why do
Speaker 1: those rules seem to be fairly constant, and why can
Speaker 1: we discover them and express them in terms of mathematics,
Speaker 1: like enormous philosophy questions we haven't even scratched the surface of.
Speaker 1: And I thought, I really like thinking about, like what
Speaker 1: is the computer of the universe except for a moment?
Speaker 1: The universe follows some laws, real or simulation. Right, they're
Speaker 1: like imprinted in the way things are. Yeah, they're set somewhere, right,
Speaker 1: they're fixed somehow. How are those laws enacted? Like when
Speaker 1: a particle bounces off of another particle, how is that
Speaker 1: calculation done? You know what determines what is going to happen? There?
Speaker 1: It takes no time, right, it's instantaneous, no lag or
Speaker 1: delay in our universe that says, oh you know, um no,
Speaker 1: there's no spinning ball of death when something complicated happens, right,
Speaker 1: No matter how complicated it is, the calculation is done instantly.
Speaker 1: Like how does that little particle know to follow the rules?
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, It's just it's just done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And like, what what is there to enforce those rules? Right?
Speaker 1: If a particle was like, yeah, I'm not gonna follow
Speaker 1: the rules. I like how you try to give attitude
Speaker 1: to everything like personalities. Yeah, maybe that's why I got
Speaker 1: um fired from my robotics too. Um um, yeah, but
Speaker 1: like what what what enforces the laws of physics in
Speaker 1: our universe? Right? That's right? Well, if you if you
Speaker 1: like the simulation model, right, then member that inside the
Speaker 1: simulation the rules are followed, but the calculations are done
Speaker 1: outside the simulation. Right. If we build a simulated universe, right,
Speaker 1: you and me sit down de side when they would
Speaker 1: build a little mini universe in which cartoonists and roboticists
Speaker 1: or kings or something, and we can set the rules
Speaker 1: of that universe, but the calculations for that universe are
Speaker 1: not done inside that universe, are done in our universe. Right,
Speaker 1: in our computers, like in a simulation or a video game,
Speaker 1: you would say, all right, here's a mass of Mario,
Speaker 1: and this is the force that's being applied to Mario.
Speaker 1: Therefore he should be accelerating. You crunch the numbers and
Speaker 1: you say he should be accelerating this much, right, and
Speaker 1: then you apply that to the video games. Say we're
Speaker 1: in universe zero, right, and we're simulating universe one. And
Speaker 1: then as you said, things that happened in universe one
Speaker 1: are calculated in universe zero right outside of our universe.
Speaker 1: That's the thing I find compelling about this is the
Speaker 1: universe of simulation question because it touches on that question,
Speaker 1: where are the calculations done for our universe universe zero?
Speaker 1: Is there a universe minus one with some giant computer
Speaker 1: that's doing these calculations blindingly fast or is it just
Speaker 1: magically done? So, like, if if we're in a simulation
Speaker 1: and everyone listening to this is an assimulation, what is
Speaker 1: computing the calculations in the upper universe, in the outside universe,
Speaker 1: that's right? What is that computer? Like it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to follow the same rules as our universe, And how
Speaker 1: is it possibly doing all these calculations um to describe
Speaker 1: our universe? And this is a question that's fair to
Speaker 1: ask even if the universe is real, even if it's
Speaker 1: not a simulation, you have to wonder how is this done?
Speaker 1: How is this um? How is this universe run? You know,
Speaker 1: I think that's a really fun way. It doesn't It
Speaker 1: doesn't go away. That's the interesting thing. It's like, even
Speaker 1: if we are a simulation, then you still have to
Speaker 1: answer the question about the aliens is universe, you know,
Speaker 1: like what how how does it work for them? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, it's an endlessly recursive question. And you can
Speaker 1: owe is ask are we in the stimulation or not?
Speaker 1: And you know, basic things that we assume, like the
Speaker 1: universe has rules. Those rules don't change with time. That
Speaker 1: could be different in other simulations or in the you
Speaker 1: know this the universe that's running our simulation. That could
Speaker 1: be different. It could be in their universe. The laws
Speaker 1: of physics change with time, the speed of light is
Speaker 1: variable with time, all sorts of other stuff. So they
Speaker 1: were like, hey, let's have some fun. Let's create a
Speaker 1: video game where the rules don't change. Yeah, for example,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just one hypothetical, not one that I believe,
Speaker 1: but just it's a possibility. Um. And and that that
Speaker 1: touches on other really fascinating stuff like say you have
Speaker 1: some calculation you want to do. It's really complicated. It
Speaker 1: would take one of our computers a billion years, right,
Speaker 1: If you can arrange our universe in such a way
Speaker 1: so that it does that calculation for you, Well, our
Speaker 1: universe appears to be able to do these calculations instantly, right,
Speaker 1: So so you might be thinking, well, that's absurd. Well
Speaker 1: let me give you a concrete example. So you have
Speaker 1: a ball that has like ten to the ten atoms
Speaker 1: in it, and you want to understand how it drops right,
Speaker 1: how it falls right, Well, you could either do that calculation,
Speaker 1: which would take you a billion years, or you could
Speaker 1: actually just drop a ball right. So in that sense,
Speaker 1: we can use our universe as a computer if what
Speaker 1: you wanted to know was something that was going to
Speaker 1: happen naturally in our universe exactly. And that is what
Speaker 1: experimental physics is, is arranging physical systems to do instantaneous
Speaker 1: calculations of things we otherwise couldn't figure out. Right. For example,
Speaker 1: I kind of said it in a derisive way I can.
Speaker 1: I said it is like, that's a silly idea, but
Speaker 1: you're saying it's the basis of your entire research field.
Speaker 1: That's right, That's what it experimental physics. That's why we
Speaker 1: do experimental physics because the universe is faster calculating this
Speaker 1: stuff than we are. Sometimes in particle physics, we don't
Speaker 1: know how to do a calculation. We're like, well, what
Speaker 1: happens when this and this hits that? Well, we can't
Speaker 1: calcul it. Well, let's just go measure it, because the
Speaker 1: universe can do the calculation without us. If you had
Speaker 1: as a miraculous computer. You wouldn't need to do experiments
Speaker 1: because you could just simulate every possibility in this magical
Speaker 1: computer and you would know the answer that's right, And
Speaker 1: the universe is that computer. Oh that's that's wild. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know it's it's not infinitely configurable. Like on
Speaker 1: your simulation that you write on your laptop, you can
Speaker 1: control everything, you can do everything you want. In the
Speaker 1: case of the universe, we can't necessarily do any arbitrary
Speaker 1: calculation because you can't arrange the universe to do it
Speaker 1: for you. Like if you want to just know what's
Speaker 1: going to weather going to be like tomorrow in Australia,
Speaker 1: that's a really hard calculation. How would we set that up. Well,
Speaker 1: we'd have an earth, right, and we'd run it forward
Speaker 1: for a day, But you wouldn't have the answer in advance, right,
Speaker 1: you'd have the answer tomorrow when it's tomorrow in Australia.
Speaker 1: So it's not it's not I'm not saying that the
Speaker 1: universe is a perfect infinite computer that we can use
Speaker 1: to answer any question. I'm saying that's kind of the model. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: On that note, let's take a quick break. Well, I
Speaker 1: find it really fascinating that physicists have come up with
Speaker 1: ways to maybe check to see if we are in
Speaker 1: a simulated universe. Right, Like, there's actually there might be
Speaker 1: experiments we can do to test whether we are neo
Speaker 1: in the matrix or not exactly. And that's step two,
Speaker 1: right for Step one is have crazy idea. Step two
Speaker 1: is how could we test this idea? Step two get
Speaker 1: money for the crazy idea, apply for grant fundings. Are
Speaker 1: crazy idea? Um, it's pretty hard because you have to
Speaker 1: make some assumptions about how that simulation is done right,
Speaker 1: and those assumptions are just guesses really, But that's fine.
Speaker 1: Like a lot of times in science, we don't know
Speaker 1: how to approach a problem, so we just make a
Speaker 1: bunch of guesses so that we can at least try
Speaker 1: to answer the question. And then maybe later we re
Speaker 1: evaluate those guesses and try to widen the scope or whatever,
Speaker 1: but just so we can get somewhere. Right, Well, what
Speaker 1: are some of these ways that physicists think that maybe
Speaker 1: we could figure out if we're in a simulation. Well,
Speaker 1: one way is to look for things that move super
Speaker 1: duper fast. And the reason is that if we were
Speaker 1: to simulate a universe. The way we would do it
Speaker 1: is to slice space up into huge cubes and simulate
Speaker 1: each cube. Because you can't simulate the whole universe at once.
Speaker 1: You'd want like a bank of computers. You would only
Speaker 1: simulate the parts that are sort of relevant to the
Speaker 1: video game players, that's right. And also you would want
Speaker 1: to have a bunch of computers working in parallel. You
Speaker 1: wouldn't want a single computer operating on the whole universe.
Speaker 1: You just want to slice it up and say this
Speaker 1: cube light year cube of space is handled by this computer,
Speaker 1: and this light year cube handle them by that computer,
Speaker 1: and when things cross the boundaries, they have to talk
Speaker 1: to each other. But that's the way we simulate. For example,
Speaker 1: you know an ice cube forming you have you have
Speaker 1: a bunch of calculations of these water molecules, but you
Speaker 1: do them in little cubes um and then you interface them.
Speaker 1: And so people think, what happens when something is going
Speaker 1: super fast through the universe. It could cross a bunch
Speaker 1: of these cubes really quickly, and that would be difficult
Speaker 1: for this simulation to do correctly, and so we'd have
Speaker 1: to look for little glitches like that, like you would
Speaker 1: have to look for cases that are really kind of
Speaker 1: pushing the limits of the computer that's simulating us potentially
Speaker 1: to see if there are any like like if if
Speaker 1: the simulation breaks them out exactly and that's you put
Speaker 1: it exactly right. But we have to assume we know
Speaker 1: something about what's hard for those kind of universe simulators, right,
Speaker 1: which is like so presumptuous to even know. But if
Speaker 1: what's hard for the universe simulators is the same thing
Speaker 1: as what's hard for us when we simulate a little
Speaker 1: mini universes, then one thing that's hard is things across
Speaker 1: that go really fast. And so there are things out
Speaker 1: there in space that's that zoom around super quickly and
Speaker 1: that can potentially give us clues. So we have to
Speaker 1: assume that a it's hard to simulate the entire universe
Speaker 1: at the same time, so we have to break it
Speaker 1: up and be we have to assume that, um, things
Speaker 1: going really really really fast across these different chunks of
Speaker 1: the universe. Um, that's a hard problem, that's right. And
Speaker 1: so one thing we look at our super fast cosmic
Speaker 1: rays cosmic grains are just particles in space zooming around,
Speaker 1: and it's a whole other interesting mystery about why those
Speaker 1: particles are there and why they're going so fast. But
Speaker 1: they're going incredibly fast, like ridiculously fast, much faster than
Speaker 1: particles we make here on Earth, even at our fancy
Speaker 1: ten billion dollar accelerators, and those are going so fast
Speaker 1: that they might reveal these glitches. So if we look
Speaker 1: to see if those particles are coming at the same
Speaker 1: rate in every direction and this kind of stuff, we
Speaker 1: might be able to get hints that there might be
Speaker 1: little glitches in the simulation. Cool. So are there any
Speaker 1: other ideas for testing this? I don't think there are
Speaker 1: any ideas that have much widespread support. I mean, we're
Speaker 1: already talking about crazy theories here, but I mean an
Speaker 1: idea I have is communicate with the simulators, right, Like,
Speaker 1: let's send the message, you know, like like I know,
Speaker 1: like I know what's going on. We figured it out, right, Like,
Speaker 1: say you are running a simulation of a universe, right,
Speaker 1: and you don't tell the beings inside that universe that
Speaker 1: it's a simulation because that would spoil your experiments somehow, right, Right, Well,
Speaker 1: if they discover it, then you kind of want to
Speaker 1: know and maybe you be interested in talking to them, right,
Speaker 1: So I think let's try to send a message, you know,
Speaker 1: let's write something on it. It's the equivalent running s
Speaker 1: OS on the beach or or something. But they would
Speaker 1: because they're overseeing our our universe, so they would know
Speaker 1: that we're actually bluffing. We say, ha ha, we found out,
Speaker 1: and they'd be like, no, you didn't. They haven't talked
Speaker 1: to us so far. Why would they start out we
Speaker 1: started bluffing. Mmm. That's a good point. But you're assuming
Speaker 1: we are bluffing, right, What if we sincerely, honestly believe
Speaker 1: the universe is a simulation. You're right, we don't have
Speaker 1: any evidence for it, so we can't so we can't
Speaker 1: scientifically sincerely believe that. Well, I think the biggest sign
Speaker 1: that we're in a simulation is the fact that Kenna
Speaker 1: Reeves has an age to day. Surely that's that is
Speaker 1: a glitch in the matrix right there, the matrix. Yeah, well, um,
Speaker 1: what would it be like to be in a simulation? Like?
Speaker 1: What implications with that? It might be just like this,
Speaker 1: It might not be any different. Yeah, I mean, if
Speaker 1: we are in a simulation, then we already know the answer.
Speaker 1: What's it like to be in a simulation? But you
Speaker 1: probably meant something else you probably meant like you mean, oh,
Speaker 1: I see, Like are we simulated minds? Like maybe we're
Speaker 1: not um humans in a vat in a warehouse, in
Speaker 1: an alien warehouse. Maybe we're like actually like pieces of coding.
Speaker 1: We're like artificial intelligences. Oh my god. Like maybe we're
Speaker 1: like the fodder in a video game. We're like the
Speaker 1: mushrooms in Super Mario. You know we're here form right,
Speaker 1: sort of two levels there, right, Like one level is
Speaker 1: you are a brain, and your brain exists in the
Speaker 1: real universe, but you're being fed information about a fake universe, right,
Speaker 1: But your brain exists in the real universe. That's sort
Speaker 1: of level one. Level two is you don't exist in
Speaker 1: the real universe at all except in that simulation, right,
Speaker 1: a piece of code that describes a virtual person. Right,
Speaker 1: you could just exist in that simulation until the question
Speaker 1: is like basically that are we real, are we conscious?
Speaker 1: Are we actually something? Or are we like completely fake
Speaker 1: or right? Which is right now an open question in philosophy,
Speaker 1: Like say, for example, I could perfectly simulate Jorge's brain
Speaker 1: and Horee's body, right, and I had that inside a computer,
Speaker 1: and it's a completely faithful reproduction right, and just like you,
Speaker 1: it's spent most of its day in pajamas and taking
Speaker 1: naps in the afternoon. Right, Totally accurate. The question is
Speaker 1: would that, Jorge feel anything? Would it be a where
Speaker 1: would it be self conscious? Right? Because really we're sort
Speaker 1: of computer ourselves, right, Like if we are real, we're
Speaker 1: just a bunch of like neurons, which are really just
Speaker 1: like little computers. We're just a massive computers in our brain.
Speaker 1: So maybe maybe there's no difference. Maybe there's no difference,
Speaker 1: right exactly. Maybe the thing that makes us us is
Speaker 1: just the arrangement of these bits, right, just the information
Speaker 1: stored in the physical computer that is me, of the
Speaker 1: physical computer that is you. That's a little hard to grasp.
Speaker 1: It's a little hard to feel comfortable with thinking I
Speaker 1: am just this representation, right, because that means that you
Speaker 1: could translate me into a totally different representation. Right, bits
Speaker 1: inside a computer which are also a physical system, or
Speaker 1: a computer is a physical system with switches and and
Speaker 1: bits and stuff, and that that could be somehow equivalent
Speaker 1: to me. The problem is, I don't think we could
Speaker 1: ever know. And what I mean by that is, say
Speaker 1: I have a computer simulation which is a perfect reproduction
Speaker 1: of Jorge, Right, I mean not that I'm not perfect already.
Speaker 1: But um, I'm not saying I wouldn't make a few tweaks.
Speaker 1: You want to make a few tweaks? Oh um, But
Speaker 1: say we had the simulated version before hey, and we
Speaker 1: asked it, are you real? Well, if I ask you
Speaker 1: if you're real, you'll say yes. So if the stimulation
Speaker 1: is a perfect reproduction of you, it will also say
Speaker 1: it's real. How do we distinguish between something that says
Speaker 1: it's real, seems real, and but isn't actually aware? Wow,
Speaker 1: we can't. That's a that's a topic known as a
Speaker 1: philosophical zombie in philosophy circles. Yeah, well, the whole reason
Speaker 1: we're talking about this is basically, um is that the
Speaker 1: computers are getting so advanced now that it's actually kind
Speaker 1: of a possibility A and B. Physicists can't categorically say no,
Speaker 1: that's impossible, and so that's why we're talking about it.
Speaker 1: That's right, And there are even some people that make
Speaker 1: the argument that it's likely, okay likely. Some people even
Speaker 1: say that's not just like a crazy idea, that's not impossible.
Speaker 1: It's like there's there's strong evidence for it. Not strong evidence.
Speaker 1: But here here's the argument. You can judge for yourself
Speaker 1: how strong it is. The idea goes like this, say
Speaker 1: this one real universe, and inside that real universe, somebody
Speaker 1: invents a simulated universe. Inside that simulated universe, somebody invents
Speaker 1: a simulated universe. So now imagine a whole set of
Speaker 1: nested universes, right, each of which is very realistic and
Speaker 1: high fidelity, and his beings in it to feel alive
Speaker 1: and love and hate and and all this kind of stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: then if there are this whole nested set of universes
Speaker 1: and only one is real, then what is the probability
Speaker 1: that ours is that real one? So they argue that,
Speaker 1: therefore the probability that our universe is real is small. Right,
Speaker 1: It turns the question on its head, is you see
Speaker 1: universe is simulation two? Is the universe real? And it
Speaker 1: suggests that that's unlikely? Oh, meaning that it is it
Speaker 1: is possible to simulate a universe. Therefore, in the infinity
Speaker 1: of a time him in space. Um, what's the likelihood
Speaker 1: that we are real? Not a stimulation? Um, It's it's
Speaker 1: like non zero, yeah, exactly. It's like if you're in
Speaker 1: an infinite crowd and only one person is real and
Speaker 1: everybody else is fake. What are the chances that you're
Speaker 1: the real one? Pretty small? Um. I think that's not
Speaker 1: a very strong argument because it makes a lot of assumptions.
Speaker 1: You know, it assumes that universes will always simulate another universe,
Speaker 1: and those universes would be high fidelity, and that all
Speaker 1: of them would be like ours, um and that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. But you know, it does have that cosmic context.
Speaker 1: I like the sender, the fact that it reminds us
Speaker 1: that we don't really know where we are and what
Speaker 1: the context is, and that is important. As we think
Speaker 1: we are sometimes it could just be that we are
Speaker 1: Super Mario brothers bouncing around inside a video game. That's
Speaker 1: that's I think a useful reminder. I've always identified more
Speaker 1: with LEGI, to be honest, because he's the taller one.
Speaker 1: He's I think he's a yeah, he's just kind of
Speaker 1: the alert, the clearer brother. He doesn't care about getting
Speaker 1: all the spotlight right. He's he's over that, he's above it. Well,
Speaker 1: whether we are in a simulation or not. Um, it's
Speaker 1: really fun to kind of question the nature of the universe. Right, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And it's only in asking these crazy questions that we're
Speaker 1: going to make crazy discoveries. Right, the universe might not
Speaker 1: be a simulation, but in thinking about ways to test it,
Speaker 1: we might discover other weird stuff that that gives us
Speaker 1: another crazy idea, and that one might actually be true.
Speaker 1: So this is we're all physicists in the sense that
Speaker 1: we'd like to all think about big questions about the universe.
Speaker 1: It's like in trying to break the video game, that's
Speaker 1: when you discover the hitting easter eggs. That's right, the
Speaker 1: easter eggs of the universe. That's where we're all hoping for. Cool. Well,
Speaker 1: I hope you guys are keeping it real out there,
Speaker 1: and I enjoyed this discussion. I hope you're keeping it simulated.
Speaker 1: And have a great day until next time.