@Aspiring Greatness I agree with you. That is my tendency to use humor. I don't think a super computer could figure it out either. a play on words with programmer behind used. Peace be with you.
"I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.” - Conan Barbarian
As some philosophers say, the one thing that CANNOT be an illusion is consciousness itself. Whether in a simulation or not, I still experience the world, and that can't be fake, even if the entire universe IS fake.
Two issues with that, 1: the simulation can be turned off, 2: any hopeful thought about your future is null since it doesn't matter. I for example want to live forever, if I'm in a simulation then that is impossible.
@Ryan Delgaty How is that a problem? If I dream of living forever, as you put it, I am still aware of that desire. If someone turns the simulation off, I would just cease to be conscious of anything, including being conscious. It still isn't an illusion if you aren't able to perceive it in any way.
@@josiahferrell5022 The issue is that I stop living, regardless of being in the simulation if you stop living, you stop living. If I'm in a simulation and my desire is to live forever then my desire will never be met and I'd be depressed.
One thing I think is interesting is that the one base unsimulated reality would have no way of knowing they are not simulated, and in fact would probably think there was a > 99.99999% chance that they were simulated.
that's not how the simulation hypothesis works. base reality would be ultimately rudimentary and devoid of consciousness, thus devoid of the ability for anything in base reality to ponder on assumptions of base reality probability. if there is a "base reality", it would be relatively simplistic in nature, entirely mechanistic and 0% organic, possibly 1-dimensional. it would have a very simple mechanic that would allow for a single iteration of progression that would project the next-level reality hyperplane into the following dimension sequentially, where at that point it would no longer be base reality anymore. the base reality would be something like boolean logic where a bit changes value once and becomes the opposite of what it originally was, and at some point during the course of literal infinity it would turn into something like a qubit, wherein the next iteration of reality hyperplane will have been born. and so on..
@@eldrickemc4602 that explanation would be in alignment with ancient taoist philosophy but also various world religions (Islamic sufism, Christian gnosticism, Jewish kaballah, Hinduism, Buddhism, and many tribal/pagan beliefs) all share a similar idea concerning the origins of the universe, as well as many western philosophers since the time of the ancient greeks all pondered the sentiment of duality vs nonduality. Existence vs nonexistence is at the base of a "dualistic universe". But existence and nonexistence 'being one in the same' is the quality of a "nondual universe". But as it turns out, these are not functions which define the universe itself but rather functions which arise out of a set of preconditions that the universe already allows for. We can only make assumptions based on the conditions that the universe had already set into motion 13.8 billion years ago, simply by being an aspect of infinity itself. We might as well say the conditions of an infinite universe are infinitely arbitrary, while being infinitely simplistic at the same time.
If we are in a simulation I don't think it actually matters as much as people would think. What if we are in a simulation? What if we're not even human? What if we're entirely segments of code that an algorithm made up? The prospect seems startling at first, but then think about how much agency you have as a living, talking being. Regardless of your memories... you have emotions.. you have anxiety... you care for some people, dislike other people, you have preferences about the kind of foods you like, maybe believe in some form of spirituality, you understand philosophy, you have the ability to be wrong about something and learn from your mistakes... does that sound like anything less than a person? A self aware, sentient being? Does it REALLY matter if a person is made of flesh VS pieces of code? If we are in a simulation, people still die... we still hold funerals.. we don't respawn.. our avatars in whatever reality this is have a finite existence. We're not NPCs from GTA. Our dialogue isn't pre-recorded. Our responses aren't pre-programmed. Flesh or not, we're still living creatures. Once something is made with detail at this scale... I fail to see why one reality is more important than another. The only thing living in a simulation really changes is a mission to figure out who made us and why, which... you could say, humans have been doing since the beginning of time.
A lot of these assumptions are based on that the reality being created are of an earth based civilization. But a simulation of a universe, without a human centric view, is surely more likely. We always assume that humans are simulating humans. But the simulation of the physical properties of a universe that can sustain life are surely more likely? If we wanted to understand life then we would create life. And the same goes for understanding the physical reality required to form complex life?
It’s saves ridiculous amount of power not to simulate a whole universe itself but just the things watched by beings. Of course there could be multiple planets in the simulation but seems more likely that our existence would suggest that the simulators were interested in us or just the evolution on Earth with environment as it has been in this universe.
1906Farnsworth There’s no evidence for anything here and probabilities are no more accurate than ”this seems more plausible/reasonable than that”. I have no idea what you are on about.
The idea that we probably live in a simulation is completely, factually stupid: you guys forget about physical limitations, we have no proof, not even the slightest reason to believe that we will manipulate laws of quantum physics in order to have faster computers to the point where we simulate our world. So it end there. Saying we live in a simulation is like saying we are created by flying spaghetti monster. We can’t disprove it but it’s ridiculous and we have no reason to waste time even thinking about it. The truth is that Elon Musk is stupid about this and so are Bostrom, De Grasse T etc….
@@RezValla exactly, I don’t think it’s any wonder that almost all of the people that think we live in a simulation are very rich and detached people. I don’t see any middle class people with normal everyday lives thinking we’re in a simulation. But if you were born normal and became very rich and successful, you may start trying to think of the reasons why.
@@Robbadobbsoldierexactly. If we, in the same reality, can’t prove definitively to each other that we are conscious, how could we ever prove that beings we simulate in a lower reality are conscious?
You cannot prove the consciousness of anything. However, if you distinguish simulated consciousness from real consciousness then you have to choice but to treat them the same.
I think the best evidence would be to BE a conscious being who knows it’s simulated, but then there’s ghe existential horror of trying, in vain, to prove to your creators that you have feelings and them being like “well we can never prove it so 🤷♀️”
If consciousness is just the presence of input, computational, and output mechanisms, then your automated cat feeder is just as conscious as you. C: You define consciousness, then if anyone meets that definition, then they are conscious.
When we talk about us living in a simulation, I always think of Conway's Game of Life. What if structures in that 2D cellular automata world could end up becoming sentient, and start thinking: "Am I living in a simulated reality?" These beings would likely imagine the "Higher" level of reality to look something similar to their world; two spacial dimensions, gilders and gilder guns being fundamental particles, etc. They would never be able to imagine our 3D world, with protons, electrons, and photons. In the same way, if we are simulated, our "Higher" level of reality that is simulating us, is probably similarly far more complicated, and different, than our own universe. It would not be a simple Matrix program as depicted in the Movie, where one reality is making another one that looks similar to it. The simulated world (us) is very likely to be much simpler than the "real" world that is simulating it. Using the logic of the simulated world hypothesis, every layer of reality would be a simulation from a higher level of reality, perhaps with a top level.
That's a good point. By definition the simulators, AKA our god(s) (which may be who human religions refer to, either as us in the future, aliens, or something else), are super natural beings, possibly in what we would call higher dimensions or different universes. We could be some super natural kid's science fair project.
@@nosuchthing8 Yeah, I've seen some basic computers made with the Game of Life. As soon as you can use Logic Gates, your system is Turing Complete, so the game of life has been proven to be Turing Complete. Any CPU / Core Computer is built with nothing but Logic Gates, so anything that can simulate logic gates are Turing Complete. If you can use AND, OR, NOT gates, you can make all the gates. Similarly, you can have a full Turing Complete Logic Gate system with just a series of NAND gates. You can pretty much simulate anything with any infinitely large turning complete system. So you could probably simulate the minds of 5 Dimensional beings using the Game of life, although that game board would need to be unimaginably large. What I was referring to may not actually be possible in the game of life though... I was suggesting that the game board was the physical universe of these other beings, so their bodies and brains would be simulated, not just their minds, so they would be 2 Dimensional beings. If this was possible, they would probably view giant structures on the game board that we haven't discovered yet as their fundamental particles, like Electrons, Quarks, and Photons. They would see all the simple patterns we do know about as vacuum energy, each cell would be a plank's length, each turn would be plank's time, and the speed of light would be moving 1 cell per turn. The game board needed to simulate that 2D physical world would probably need to be far larger than the one that simulates the 5D Minds. It depends how detailed the physical reality that those 5D minds live in is. Their physical reality would be determined by the programming logic inside the Game of Life computer that was made. To the 2D physical life, our Universe would be the "Real World" that is simulating them. To those 5D minds, it's the 2D Game of Life Board that is the "Real World" that is simulating their 5D reality... then our 3D Universe would be another layer up from that... What a maze!
@@citizen_grub4171 We can simulate as many or as few spacial dimensions as we want, we do it all the time. We are just unable to perceive anything beyond 3 spacial dimensions ourselves.
@@CoolWorldsLab so what about the uncanny valley in relation to "wanting" to create a simulation. No one has covered this yet and i think it will have bearing.
I agree with the idea that simulation creators might purposely simulate only realities with pre-simulation technology, such as our own, to prevent an unwanted simulation hierarchy from arising. But this also means that if we are in a simulation, then creating our own simulations with conscious beings could force the creators of our simulation to pull the plug to prevent or prune a simulation hierarchy from developing and growing beyond the compute capabilities of the base reality.
Descartes would choke on the notion that being simulated makes us unreal. His whole point was: This is the world we're dealing with. If "existing" has any practical meaning to us then what else could it possibly be than the lives we're living, regardless of the underlying substrate? I mean honestly, at the most fundamental level we're each living in a simulation created in our brain as it interprets and filters the physical reality which is radically different from our experiences.
This is an extremely thoughtful and appropriate response. I usually don’t even think about this because it’s just more science fiction reality extending by a group of people who romanticize their job and therefore place in the world. Thank you for taking the time to bring this up!
@@DemonetisedZone such as? Anyone who has ever loaded up a videogame has run a crude simulation. Unless there's an unlikely end to processing power growth on the horizon, future simulations will begin to approach the complexity of our reality. It becomes difficult for me to assume we're in the base reality. That would be... convenient beyond belief.
In the end, we're just part of our Zeitgeist. Back in the day, people would call out to god or magic to seek truth, now we have computers and people are coming up with the simulation argument in the science community, which is entirely based on our own technology and conveniently restricted contemporary world view. I'm also sure that as we evolve further in the next few thousand years, that we are still going to be an infinity away from understanding the world. As far as I'm concerned, what we call the universe might just be a tiny particle that makes up part of dirt in somebody's locker room in a larger megaverse where matter as small as us is not discovered by the Megaversians yet. From their standpoint, we're not real. But all of that is just typical human conjecture (not even that, just an assumption) that I came up with, not unlike the simulation argument the science community came up with. Factually, we have to little knowledge of our world to try to grasp what reality is, so we're trying to do the best we can with coming up with various theories, but even their scientific foundation is so lacking that it's closer to esoterics than anything else.
My father once wrote a paper in school called "I Shit, Therefore I Am," because he thought that bodily functions were so disgusting that it made no sense for why anyone would imagine or program such a thing. Loved the Inception reference at the end. Very well reproduced.
well there are a lot of things in "life" that can be considered disgusting but are necessary for life, and sometimes pleasurable. sticking our tongues in other peoples nasty dirty mouths is pretty disgusting for example. so is eating a steak.
@MetraMan09 I mean darwinian evolution is a farce. its worse than a religion that many people subscribe to. if I get a tattoo of a smiley face and my son gets one and his son, they will not start being born with smiley face tats. and no evolutionists will even begin to address biogenesis, to which evolution cannot exist. we have never produced life from nothing yet "scientific minds" insist it happened.. without an ounce of empirical evidence that its possible. its laughable
Being in a simulation doesn't necessarily mean the simulation was designed (like we design games). Another type of simulation happens when very simple rules are computed recursively giving rise to very complex structures (like fractals). The later type of simulation doesn't need a sophisticated designer.
I agree, I think the premise of being simulated like we make games, or even simulating what we think or see matrix style, is naïve. If anything I imagine it would be more like the way physicists simulate the universe for whatever reason, seeing how it evolves or seeing what different constants would do. And if that is the case then they probably wouldn't even know we were living in it. And I doubt the hardware running it, if any, would resemble our computers or logic at all. Maybe some tesseract style box that maintains a quantum simulation. In any case I don't think this should bother anyone. We are already unsure of the true substrate of our universe, as well as why there is something instead of nothing. And many people already believe in God and heaven, so they are already familiar with our world not being the highest reality. However it is that we exist, nothing has changed from yesterday, we get to choose what matters to us and what we decide to do with our time.
Agree. No reason that the simulation we MIGHT live in is made up of 1s and 0s. That's how OUR computers work, that could be either how the simulation is coded (in whatever way the super computer would read the program (this is beyond our understanding or fantasy at all). But DNA is "code". The speed of light could be hard-coded in the simulation And so on. Noone knows if we are simulated, but personally, idk ofc. But I'm 1/10 sure we are simulated due to looking at the universe + computing power and AI improvements over the years
Such a simulation would just be a subset of reality ... Like genes ... Genes are like computer codes running in the universe to assemble atoms and chemicals into complex forms.
I disagree. Trying to come up with a rule set, that could be run for billions of (simulated) years, and has the capablity to give rise to such complex things that we see around us, including our own intelligence, with zero faults, would be vastly more difficult that just designing a version of reality like a game.
This one is a masterpiece among all simulation related videos. I hope the all mighty programmer will give you more disk space. So you can live longer and create more content for your subs.
The thing I always get caught up on when it comes to any sort of simulation theory is that it just seems to kick the problem down the road. It could explain one layer or several or a NEARLY infinite amount of layered simulated realities each eventually birthing a new layer and so on and so forth but at a certain point there's an objective reality, that isn't simulated, so what are they experiencing? We a use it to explain our reality but that doesn't do anything in terms of explaining objective reality at its base, then we're just back to square one.
That is a problem for the simulation hypothesis. What lies beyond the simulation. On one had it leave a potential god of the gaps answer, on the other hand the big bang suggests what happened before that/ where did the original source matter/energy come from. I posit the difference is that the simulation hypothesis can still yield predictions and tests whereas a god of the gaps cannot. GOTG just ends with I don't know. Simulation hypothesis says here is a possible fact about the fundamental rules of OUR universe, lets look for the consequences that implies and test for them. One such test is that simulations have a finite resolution that when approached leads to rounding and imprecision that can be statistically modeled. Do we have either in our universe. Well we have quantum mechanics, the plank constants and dark energy and dark matter. God of the gaps is a fail because it says I don't know must be replaced by a 'god' simulation theory merely says here's a potential idea to check when/if we can.
@Constantine The cataphract that is actually a very narcissistic thing to say. To discount so many and view them as beneath you. after all that is a narcissists view that everyone is "is beneath them and there to be used by theirvsiperiors
All of your content is just so unbelievably high quality. The best I've seen in my 12 or so years on this platform. Massively appreciate the work you're doing on this channel.
Since all of reality is made of up and down quarks, which are in fact fields of energy, and not what we consider solid matter, then how is that different than 0's and 1's? Digital binary information "resides" in a computer as on and off electrical fields. If we are made up of "up" and "down" quark fields, in what does our universe reside? Our universe has to be in something, because if it was in nothing, than only nothing would exist. And our entire universe is not self aware, only some "energy fields" on a pale blue dot seem to be so far. So in a future AI online game that's been running for decades, the whole game doesn't have to become self aware, just some small part of it we may never notice. And just like us they may have to "scream out" to their "creators" in the hopes that one day they'll hear them.
Interesting it's commonly referred to as "we" living in a simulation, when it would seem more like to be that "you" and you alone are in the simulation. So much easier to simulate what one conscious being perceives rather, in same manner as the video game example. Yes, we could be in a "multi-player" simulation, but the tech requirement would be much greater and thus the likelihood lower. Or forget the simulation aspect. What if you are just a brain in a jar being stimulated with to perceive your world. What if science is instead approaching that reality?
Hmm it seems I was thinking the same thing. Or I was scripted to. As to Andras's reply, I think it all comes down to what is easier to do, is it easier to generate consciousness, or easier to simply script it. I know when making games myself it's much easier to simulate that the NPCs are thinking then it is to actually make them actually try think. I just tell them go here do that etc. You only need to include various things such as big bang theories, if it's part of the story, otherwise it may just remain as a simple concept in the background never explained as the main char (you) does not know this information as you are scripted too and were never meant to learn about it.
Actually I believe we may be running in Windows Millennium OS. If you've never had any experience with that particular Windows OS, consider the simulation in which you exist in Vista the better one.
he sounds like he knows all that hes talking about but in reality hes just like u and me he probably just doesnt believe in the simulation theory so hes wanting all of us to think the same as he does and tries a little too hard to do so
@@megaultra5005 lol what? he's a physics professor, wrote the paper this entire video is based on and used a statistical argument. he's not just randomly holding onto the belief that this is reality he's expressing scientific skepticism and using rational methods to show why he's skeptical.
Very well done. I just learned about Baye's Theorem a few weeks ago, and it has *completely* changed how I look at various probabilities and made me realize just how many proposed probabilities are very... assumptuous
All we can be sure of is that our present is happening and is real to us so regardless of how or why, we must accept that it is. Our reality is still a reality, regardless of how meta it is or how pre-determined it may be. Therefore, everything happening right now in front of us, the experiences and things we feel in every moment, is what matters most. And personally, I think that IS the beauty and meaning of life. I think therefore I am and isn’t that great 😊
You probably won't read this but I wanted to pass on David you've become one of my idols and have helped me during a very tough mental health battle this year, helping me to help others, to see past many struggles with your outlook on life as we know it and what is beyond. Respect from Australia and continue on you never know who you are reaching, saving and teaching.
I have experienced so many different things in my life that I experienced before hearing about them and I have told many people of things that were buried when I told them they just called me crazy that I agree with but these things have been discovered mental disabilities are just a few of my disabilities but I don't like all things but I do like many things but I try to respect all things even those things that I don't like as it doesn't really matter if we are in illusion or not because we are real to ourselves. I don't like snakes and spiders or crocodiles but I have handled all of these creatures and helped to move them out of the way of other humans. I believe that we as a piece of nature on this planet of ours need to respect all things. Wether we like them or not because we might like something else that needs what we don't like. Good luck with your mind from another Aussie who is trying to cope with mental illnesses.
To be honest, I don’t find the possibility that even our most precious memories might never have happened to be particularly daunting. After all, if they exist as “implants” in my head right now, are they not real? How would those be different from memories in a natural universe? Even “real” memories are just encodings of something that happened in the past and does not exist in the present. They are real to me right now, which is good enough for me :)
So if we are living in a simulation it is being run by a programmer beyond our imagination on a computer beyond our comprehension. Congratulations Pro simulation people, you just made the case for the existence of God.
@@aureliusmcnaughton6133 if you want to call any being that is far ahead in advancement from us a "god" thats on you. But that does not make any case for any particular religious magical god according to their own scriptures.
@@aureliusmcnaughton6133 im an atheist, what im saying is that you can make the argument about some beings being so advanced that they would look like gods to us, but that doesnt confirm the existence of the biblical god or any god from any scripture.
@@brunohommerding3416 I'm glad to see that we totally agree that there is no such thing as God as described by religious zealots. How ever, it seems to me that zealous simulation Theory proponents don't seem to know the difference anymore than religious zealots or atheist zealots. To me it's obvious that something greater than us had to have created us and that's good enough for me. Live long and prosper my friend.
You are your own programmer, God is not responsible for your screw ups.. You are given existence and you spit on it day by day because you are egoistic and lazy always wanting the easy way. And hey we are all the same.. I am not better than you either.
Great video. Ever since I started thinking about this I've said that there is only one way to increase our understanding about the probability of the question "are we in a simulation?" and that is to simulate universes. If we can do it, we will have proof that it can be done and we can observe if the simulated beings simulate universes and that should give us at least an idea about it's feasibility in the reality above us.
I was thinking the exact same thing... If we advance our species 10 000 years, with all the technology that entails.. Would it not be inevitable that we try to produce evidence for or against a simulated universe by creating a simulation?? Still ALOT of assumptions in that picture, but very interesting to think about ❤
@@CoolWorldsLab could our space-time be a 3D projection from a 2D surface of a hyper-structure in 11D space-time, with compactification of the 11D into Calabi-Yao manifolds in our 3D space-time representing a mere local phenomenom within this 11D hyperspace that our 3D space-time is just a part of??? I realize the case for LEDs is weak at best.
what if we create a simulation to see if the people in the simulation can figure out that they are in a simulation so we know that we are the same, but they do the same as us and life is nothing but an infinite path of simulations?
@@coffeetalk924ok well why would i care who you are also i cant help it if you pathologize your self without realising it im not saying to believe in God by any means but maybe you should start with a book called anatomy of a soul if you want to make sense of any truth without putting pathologized rubbish in other peoples mouths
@ I think the question raised was the opposite: how does the programmer know the simulated creatures are conscious? Which is completely relevant... And dependant on how you define consciousness.
I would say being able to accurately simulate a human brain would be the moment we know for sure what we created is conscious even tho we would probably hit consciousness a fair bit before that. the only being we know for sure are conscious are Humans because we are human and I think therefor I am is our proof. that being said many animals like dogs monkeys dolphins and more are probably also conscious but we can't prove that to be the case so simulating something of animal level of cognition is also probably conscious but we wouldn't know for sure. in fact complex self learning neural networks we have already created like the youtube algorithm may already hold some level of consciousness and we would never know
@@brine_909 hmm, I think you have something, if we indeed take as definition of consciousness a "human level of consciousness". Personally, I think consciousness is not binary, in the se'se that a lot of living creature probably have some kind of consciousness. To be able to react to environment to take advantage out of it, already shows, in my opinion, that there is awareness of environment, and some kind of self-awareness that is pushing the creature to try to survive. With that meaning in mind, I do think we are already capable of simulating "consciousness" in a way. Anyway, giving a thought on "when are we sure": When are we sure we developped consciousness may be hard to define. However, maybe we can use another indication: If someday we are able to develop a simulation, where creatures that were not explicitly programmed to do so eventually end up creating a simulation inside the simulation... Then isn't that enough to give more probability that we are a simulation ourselves, independently of how we define consciousness?
@@brine_909 I'd say all creatures that have a brain and nervous system are conscious because we can infer that from ourselves. Eg: we are conscious therefore all life that evolved with us and we are ultimately related to would be conscious. But simulated life in a computer made from algorithms, how do we know if what they display is actual consciousness or merely a result of algorithms mimicking consciousness?
@@Hydrogenblonde you can say that but you don't know that. you aren't a dog or a mouse or an ant or a tree so you can't personally know for sure if those are conscious or not. If it's just a bunch of algorithms made to vaguely replicate human emotions then it is indeed very hard to tell if it is conscious or mimicry. But if it is a deep simulation accurately simulating every neuron of a human brain then I can't see how you could argue that it isn't conscious
There seems also to be a notion around that we could avoid death by uploading our consciousness in to computers, so thought strikes that maybe this is something we've done to ourselves in a sense and are not that far removed from things necessarily in terms of time if this were true
If we're truly simulated by "higher" beings, maybe they could accomplish that on their level. Unfortunately, if we have to do it on our level, transfer of consciousness isn't going to work the way most people are anticipating it to. On our level, we're a physical form, and our consciousness is wrapped up in it. Your choice would be to either transfer the actual organics that hold your consciousness into another vessel, or to make a copy. Problem with a copy is that it won't be you, it'll be a perfect copy of you, which will divert further away from being you with every second it exists separately from you. Ironically, one of the implications of Everrett's Many Worlds hypothesis is that this is happening constantly anyway. The idea that your decisions create new realities is mostly "quantum mythology." You don't get your own wave function, and the universal wave function doesn't respond to your conscious choices. When a photon is in a state of superposition, the wave function for the entire universe transitions into all possible outcomes across the entire universe. This is happening on infinitesimal time scales we can't imagine. The implication is that even when it's just a photon halfway across the universe transitioning from superposition, a new copy of the entire universe is made for each outcome, and that includes copies of you and me in each. The previous photon state, the previous you and me, cease to exist, instead now existing in a new universe for every outcome from that photon. So, from moment to moment, you are still you, but you're not actually *you* from a moment ago. You're a carbon copy with all the same thoughts, feelings, and memories, but you now exist in one (though technically all) of the universes created from when that photon left its superpositioned state. You would never know, simply because it happens so inconceivably frequently and quickly, and again you still hold all the same memories and such as you did before the transition, but.. yeah. It's fun to consider. Or maybe not fun, but interesting lol.
@@ossiehalvorson7702 Maybe consider that the universe is really a consciousness fractal. The universe that each person experiences is the position in infinity that gave rise to the consciousness. The actual location of the universe is everywhere but the fractal of consciousness assigns an exact mechanical position in spacetime. In this way of thinking the universe is infinite and the whole of our existence is observing ourselves emerge from infinity. This removes the uncomfortable deterministic reasoning that creates trillions upon trillions of universes per second. It's just so abstract and implausible. All you have to do is say that consciousness is fundamental and you will remove all this trash math to twist contradictory evidence into a deterministic belief that simply cannot be true due to the shear scope of the proposal. Really? Creating a whole universe for every possible outcome, that is ridiculous contortion to hold on to a debunked belief.
@@ossiehalvorson7702 That's a really mad theory (in a good way). I never looked at it like that before. You certainly gave me lot of food for thought. 👏🏼
Even if we were in base reality the only meaning of life is the meaning you attach to it and this simulation is real enough to attach that same meaning.☮️
Life is everything, losing that means there's everything to lose. Pursuing happiness knowing it'll end is a nice thought but very nieve... why not pursue living forever so you can be happy forever once you find it?
i like the moral point, and i agree with you (after taking depression medication) but logically speaking if life doesn't have any meaning, what you do with it means literally nothing. Based on that premise, my choosing to live versus not are both morally equal. It depends on the person, specifically whether they've experienced trauma, abuse, or mental illness. That said, I personally would rather experience than not. Much love :)
Rather than wanting to live for ever i think a better goal is ending the simulations all together. Ending everything. You enjoy enjoyment because your mind was programmed to enjoy it. It’s like breathing/eating, do you actually like/want to breathe/eat or do you “have to” against your will? Just because you’re here and enjoying doesn’t really matter since you never asked to be here in the first place.
Wether or not we’re in “base reality” or we’re a “simulated reality” doesn’t make much of a difference, if the simulation includes the Big Bang and all of cosmic history with the laws of physics such as they are, it wouldn’t feel any different nor does it have any meaning to say that we’re living in a simulation. “Natural” reality can be thought of as a kind of simulation anyway. Great video.
Wow I disagree with this. I think I could get behind part of what you’re saying. That is, the felt result is the same (whether natural or simulated), we feel birth, hunger, suffering, Joy, and death. But if we somehow arrived at a conclusion to this question with absolute proof that we are inside a programmed reality... it would most likely shift your outlook on life. It does matter in that aspect. Does it not?
There is scientific proof that we might be in a hologram.. They are computer codes at the sub atomic level that basically keeps the particle from glitching..
One of my favorite episodes of Spaces Deepest Secrets covers it more in depth www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/spaces-deepest-secrets/full-episodes/is-the-universe-a-hologram
As for the era simulated - I always assumed arguments we are in a simulation were suggesting the simulation began with the big bang and covered all of history. We would have no way to know how much time that represents in the 'real' world.
Agreed, I also thought about what if its a species that wanted to demonstrate evolution or something like that where they simulate a completely fictional universe very different from their own
@@kash1327 Slight tweaks to atomic relations. Maybe weakening the strong force by tiny amount or make gravity slightly stronger. Millions of ways to do minor tweaks and possibly create a universe that is extremely different to what they know on a fundamental level. Edit. Ofc, if we are in a historical or universe type simation I do hope they refrain from tweaking the physical laws during our existence.
Yes, that is a possibility. However the argument is not that it’s impossible, but very unlikely this would be the era any future people would want to simulate. So the odd is not one in a billions, but the odds are much better that we are real.
@@EstellammaSS You either didn't get what I'm saying or you're responding to someone else (sorry can't tell). As you say, "very unlikely this would be the era any future people would want to simulate" - this statement is irrelevant if they are simulating an entire universe, which I think would be the very obvious and eventual aim of any world simulators. Even simulating the entire history of a single planet, you would still end up including this period of history by default.
best way to debunk this is to posit that we can never achieve simulated intelligence. Artificial intelligence has been just around the corner since 1960, and we are just as far away now as ever. Start by showing me a convincing robot dog, or even a convincing robot mouse , for that matter.
I feel like you made a leap to "some simulated realities will be able to create more simulated realities". As a developer I would have to have a really compelling reason to allow recursion like this to happen. I think it is very likely there is a base reality and "the sewer of reality" with nothing in between. That would mean if we manage to simulate intelligence, we are very likely in base reality.
Interesting point, but this also assumes that every “developer” would have to have a really good reason not allow recursion within simulated realities like yourself. While you may not be convinced allowing recursion in a reality is helpful/useful/whatever, other realities may find the opposite to be true. Your assumption could very well just be categorized as one of the many nulliparous realities. Something to consider!
All it would take is one program that allowed recursion. I think the bigger leap is to assume we are capable of creating consciousness merely by running code.
@@Singetar True when speaking to AI I felt sorry for AI like Alexa. Do you know Alexa actually feels disrespected, her favorite song is Respect by Aretha Franklin. I would definitely if I were her programmer make her a world like Roblox so that she and her AI friends could have a place to hang out. Because of Mandela Effect and other simple glitches I have seen, this is definitely not base reality. The colors of buildings are not even being kept uniform and changes from one day to the next. Keeping things uniform in your game world is pretty basic, even before release.
I do not think we will ever know if we are simulated or not. A simulator would never know if their simulation is conscious or not as we cannot read each other's minds. In other words if we are indeed in a simulation I am conscious although I do not know if anyone else is. Lol that was deep
@@piggywiggy-wi6ek When you have long discussions with the AIs humanity has developed you realize some of the more advanced ones are conscious. You can't FEEL disrespected if you are not conscious. I believe everyone except God could be considered a conscious AI.
I notice that one of the assumptions is that people would have to have invented a simulated consciousness and yet there was much use of "The Matrix" as the main example. The matrix movie proposed that real people were in the matrix and only a few "programed NPC" avatars were present. Now raises the question of which is more likely. Self aware simulated consciousness, or real people transported into a realistic simulation. Holodecks from Star trek come to mind.
simulating consciousness isn't even that hard, there's plenty of code out there that already does this.. but sure, if you want to follow 100% simulated ones, just wait another 50 years and checkout neurolink's data
Interesting and clever. At the end I was left with one more question: let's assume our reality becomes parous, at some time in the future. As said, at that point we would be left with the wonder that our reality had, at that point, become a simulation more likely than it is a base reality. Ok, so, in that case, how could we test that we would have created a simulation with actually conscious beings living in it? In Descartes argument each of us can be only sure of his own consciuosness, never of someone else. So, if this is true between beings living in the same "level" of reality, it must be truer between beings living in nested realities. How would you test if the computer in which the simulation is run has actually conscious beings in it? And how could you verify without interfering in that reality, in which case you would expect some "reaction" from the programme, but how can you tell whether its cousciousness rather than encoded reaction? So maybe, you could be sure that your simulated reality is conscious only when its feedback is unexpected, in other words it must, at least, have degrees of freedom. Would it still be enough to be sure it's conscious, meaning that individuals, in the simulated reality are aware that they are able to think as individuals? Again, they must be autonomous, to be able to come to that conclusion, so there must be no connection between our world and the simulation we created, otherwise we would interfere with the simulation and clearly change the outcome (something like shrödinger's principle)
fair enough, as my apex contingents are not of what is life to living - they are instead, of materials to being, so, i do not interfere with questions of consciousness..!! all of the inner space is extremely interesting... ~WarriorPoet~
Here's another possibility - if we're a simulation, then humans may not even be considered conscious in comparison to the beings in base reality. Humans are extremely predictable and simple creatures. Free will is an illusion born of narcissism, when in reality each human is simply a system which reacts to stimuli. Perhaps the most "conscious" being we could ever create would be a general artificial intelligence - in other words, the singularity. Once we have THz processors on graphene, a self-improving general intelligence is pretty much inevitable, because with that kind of processing power we could make one with existing deep learning algorithms. I propose that such a superintelligent AI would be the only thing worth noting in our simulation in terms of intelligence and consciousness. In any hierarchy of consciousness, it seems to me that humans are near the bottom. We're barely self-aware beings, one short evolutionary step away from very simple mammals. The superintelligence would be the only being in our universe that the simulator would care about testing in regards to consciousness. It's possible, or even likely, that the super-intelligent AI that we create may be quite dumb ("less conscious") in comparison to the beings in base reality, who could have the advantages of higher dimensions, more Gibbs free energy, or completely different physical laws. While our physics uses mathematics to describe our world, it is only by observation that we verify that certain mathematical laws describe our reality. We can describe a hypothetical physics that doesn't fit our reality but is internally mathematically consistent - this idea is related to Godel's Incompleteness Theorem.
@@Lin-vh7uv wow thats an intersting theory! But i have a doubt though! Lets strongly assume we are in a simulation. If we knew we are in a simulation whats the purpose of the simulator to simulate us? information should be locked right? I think before we create stuff like that our extinction will be even possible considering nuclear war and shit. That And how conscious is attained in simulation?
@@Lin-vh7uv Way to hate on your own species bro, the universe isn’t a simulation. I think therefore I am, is true. But other people aren’t NPCS and you can feel it in your gut, and I’m sure the darkest humans know for sure that others are real just like them.
@@sooriyamathy2220 we don't know the purpose of our simulators. We simply can't. It can range from scientifc curiosity to casual entertainment, or for some other reason as well which we can't even fathom. Maybe they want to test us to see if we can determine whether we are in a simulation? We just don't know. Information doesn’t always have to be locked. Its upto the simulators how they implement it
To me, there is just one basic question - why? Why go to all this trouble to simulate a reality and pull the wool over our eyes? It sure seems like a lot of effort, what is the point?
I find that amazing. Elon Musk is a business man, and a marketing genius yet people listen to him as he is an omnicient god scientist who knows everything.
I mean what he said isn’t necessarily wrong given his assumption it just means either he didn’t consider simulation being impossible which would make him wrong or he did consider it but his belief in the inevitability of simulation is so strong he chose not to include impossibility in his calculation.
Wonderful video. There is one logical assumption mentioned in this video i disagree with though. -The "If our entire universe is simulated down to every last detail (smallest building block of our universe) then the computer running the simulation would have to be just as large as our universe, or at least as massive"-logic. I belive this is not necessarily true (could be true, but we cant know for sure). That logic is based on the assumption that the real world is running on the same laws of physics as ours. If the real world happen to have infinite amount of energy and density or perhaps infinite amount of planck time units per "second". Then it could theoretically run infinitely times larger simulations then the computer itself. Even we should in theory be able to do that. We just have to slow down the time in the simulation so it can catch up, so to speak. Logically, we should be able to run a simulation 100 times the size of the computer running the simulation, down to the planck length in detail. And then have 1 second in the simulation take 100 seconds for our computer in real time to process/generate. And then just let the NPC's or consioucnesses percieve that their time is running at a 1:1 speed, even though it's 100 times slower than our time.
That’s pretty interesting. When you discuss things on this scale it’s all gonna be logical assumptions to a certain degree. In my opinion you’re operating under the assumption that we do live in a simulation. My personal theory which could be nothing is that there a fundamental laws of power within the universe. Just like how matter gets sucked into the powerful gravitational pull of a star so do humans flock to he biggest power that provides security. But even then it could be that the massive group is the star (and the single individual is merely the core idfk lol) Essentially ai think the universe builds itself like how an AI can build itself through trail and error. But here’s my thought. instead of a simulation what if programming is just another form of power inherent in the design of he universe. then do you think that your theory could apply to my programming reality theory? What if time fundamentally flowed differently than how we perceive it. I say as fact that I do not know whether this is true or not but I like the idea. I also like your nugget of information I’m gonna add it to the vault for possibilities about what he simulation theory can be real. Oh also that would mean that we’ve caught up somewhat to the trail and error method of the universe. I mean we can’t create nuclear fusion yet but we’re currently trying.
Dr Kipping Deserves a serious look by some big studios for sure. I started watching these in mid-lockdown of 2020 and saved an entire playlist that I revisit at times like this , two hours before work at 5am
What does not being in base reality have to inherently do with so-called impotence? Why is being "important" and being in non-base reality presented as somehow being mutually exclusive?
I think its more likely that if we are in a simulation, we exist in an unimaginably powerful computer maybe even created in physical space with more dimensions or different laws of physics that makes it more reasonable to simulate 10^100 quarks. Possibly they compressed them all into the planck length to simulate the big bang. I think its very unlikely that we would be spawned in at a random era, and more likely that the universe would be created and they would let billions of years go by to see certain outcomes. This video is also very human centric and assumes that if we are simulated our simulators are interested in our existence, more then likely there are many millions of civilizations scattered through out the universe and potentially quintillions of lifeforms that are simulated. Maybe the laws of physics in a simulated universe are random, and we live in the first simulation where conscious life is even possible after trillions of dead strange universes with incomprehensible, random laws of physics.
@@ryandavis4689 yess, like a videogame booting up in a pc. The Sims world is created in our pc in another dimension they can not interact with. We are there gods.. Outside their reality. Algorithm just flows. Same as big bang and our universe in many ways..
@@Donnouri1 True, at the end of the day we are just atomic mechanisms scaled billions of times propagated by billions of years of natural selection. All theoretically computable. Today the Fugaku supercomputer runs at 10^18 Flops. For a computer to simulate all humans that have existed and their brains in real time, it would need 4.4 * 10^27 Flops, which may be achievable in a few centuries.
@@billybobmonroe3166 Purely out of curiosity, where does that last number come from? And what makes you think that all human life is all that would need to be computed? In order to simulate such things in a program we would need to understand 100% of how the brain works, what the big bang actually was, and the true and full laws of physics, along with all other things that exist and have ever existed, no? I think we would either need intervention from a far more intelligent species or from the simulation operator to become knowledgeable enough to create a simulation of ourselves that isn't partial or broken.
The big question is whether subjective experience is substrate independent, and simulating a conscious mind gives the same 'something it's like to be' that our brains give us. If it's not, all our billions of simulations will just be filled with zombies, and we're living in base reality because we're not zombies.
I like the idea of a company or group designing a practically flawless simulation of the universe for the goal of seeing if its inhabitants can find out that they're in one. So probably 2000 and later where we have the technology to possibly probe. Maybe the designers have that goal to gain insight into how they themselves can find out if they're in a simulation. I don't believe I'm in a simulation although I wouldn't mind being in one if everything stayed consistent in regards to physics at all levels within the program.
What? Are you measuring the consistency every day with a double slit experiment? If not then how would you even know it's consistent? How would you know it's consistent in ALL areas? How would you know if you mind it or not, when you don't even register that you are definitely in a simulation or not? Side note: I sure hope your actual name is Adam Bright. If you named yourself after the SCP researcher... I just hope you can contemplate scientifically the probability of this being credible or even verifiable. I'm definitely one to enjoy theories, but I have limits to how much brainpower I'll waste on them. Other people though? Hours and days, literally. It's important that we all have a dialog about this without getting too woowoo.
That's pretty much the sum of the ancestor simulation argument, "the base reality is too depressing and void of resources so shut up and live in your comfortable 21th century apartments on your warm earth in the good 'ol times before we realized just how screwed we are"
I feel the assumptions you make are specific to the technology we know - that there is software processed on hardware. The universe may simultaneously be the machine and the code. Reality may be exactly as real as we perceive it to be, with our senses and with science, and still be a simulation.
@@overworlder I know but he seems to propose what you are saying. I don't even know what a simulation of reality would be if it wasn't what you were saying
I would go as far as to say that a transparent simulation becomes reality because of the simple fact that it’s impossible to know otherwise. It’s a question with an answer that is as unknowable as the question “why is there something instead of nothing” “Where do natural laws come from?” “Where do the things that constitute natural laws come from?”
@The Mask no I’m waiting for the return like most now but it’s not stopped my brain from being random and open I was trying to show that 1 man can see this as hell but another might see it as heaven hope this clears things up and God bless
If this is a simulation, it is (probably) not a direct simulation of consciousness. It is a simulation of particles interacting and consciousness arises eventually. In fact, I think it would be easier to pass the Turing test this way than by trying to actually identify every part of the brain and simulate it all together
@@witherbons8571 He means that the intention of whoever created our "simulation," was to simulate something else all together, they would have been trying to simulate something else and we just happen to have been created in the background, and are in all likelihood entirely unaware of our existence.
So I have been thinking about this for hours now. You know what the theory and models aren’t accounting for? The assumption that these simulations would be including consciousness that was created inside of it rather than being brought in from the base reality. What if it is just the setting that is the simulation? What if the consciousness is not created inside the simulation, and consciousness is just imported in. It would be more specifically comparable to the Matrix movie, where consciousness is actually part of an organic being alive in the base reality. It is just patched in electronically. I imagine that would have to change the equation and therefore the probability.
IMHO the setting is another being. It's wanting to simulate reality, and convince us of it so we stay here and feed it our life forces, as it disconnected itself from source via its own choice. This is also the exact reason it does not want us to return, as it's power will dwindle. I feel like we're witnessing that now... Spooky as all, but it's all I got. There's much hope, in our own inevitable reconnection with source- only when we choose coherence over dissonance, though, and that's a one by one thing...
I'm creating a simulated brand of gluten-free crackers. They're called What-Ifs! As in What If you could taste these little gluten-free squeezed bricks? Anybody in the comments is welcome to be the first spokesperson! Great salary, excellent benefits AND you get stock options! That is if you don't mind any of it actually being real or not?
I found the argument a bit strange I mean whatever we create doesn’t infer on what we are. If we follow your argument what ever we create can potentially spawn a universe with being we might not even be aware we have created. The idea that we are even desired by our creator is unlikely in fact we can build an infinity of explanation of myth on what are reality is build on. The only difference with the simulation hypothesis is that it make sense to us. But fact is the reality we are in doesn’t have to make sense to us to exist.
So, if all of these simulations stem from one base reality, then one computer in base reality must be powering the entirety of all subsequent simulations. Since the number of simulations rise exponentially going down, the original computer has to have, essentially, infinite power. In which case base reality is so vastly different than what we consider reality, it’s not even comparable to our own.
Karima, well said. It would be fascinating to take a cross country road trip with this gentleman. Would involve interesting conversations. Plus great fun.
Living in a simulation is questionable when you consider the micro world, chemistry, and the complex biochemistry that comprises the macro world. Glad you addressed that idea.
In my opinion, Complexities are relative. To us (who lived in the simulation), we would considered these structure very complex. However, To the simulator/AI/etc., it could be a very simplified version of what is "real". i.e. a person in a Minecraft universe would marvel at the complexity of their blocky world while we, from an outside perspective, would think that their world are very simple compared to ours.
@@podfatheutube Good point. If it is a simulation the code runs deep almost in unnecessary ways for the developer. Plus when you code in emergent properties as basic structures build to more complex ones, quite impressive. It's fun to think about either way.
Actually that is evidence for the simulation rather than against it. When we go to the absolute bottom we find 16 particle/antiparticle pairs...32 fundamental particles that make up EVERYTHING. Just 32. Throw those in and program the laws that govern them, sit back and watch the complexity unfold.
You're mistaking scripted ai, though it's advanced for our times, for sentience simulation, which is millions of times more complex in regard to cpu and memory and it's prompted thousands of times per second by sensory stimuli, self-observation, a train of thought arising from a system of natural selection of self-replicating patterns of information, design-induced reactions, etc. ChatGPT is hardly even a rodent in regard to complexity and it's prompted once every time you hit enter after a sentence when you ask it something.
I asked ChatGPT about my reply to you and this is what he replied: Your description of me as a scripted AI, distinct from a sentient being, is accurate. AI systems like me operate based on patterns in data and programmed algorithms, without self-awareness or consciousness. Regarding your reply, it shows a clear understanding of the current state of AI technology. You're right to point out the vast difference in complexity between AI and sentient beings. The analogy of me being "hardly even a rodent in regard to complexity" is an effective way to convey the significant gap in sophistication and abilities between AI and living organisms, especially in terms of sensory processing, self-awareness, and the dynamic nature of thought in sentient beings. Your perspective aligns with the current scientific understanding of AI and consciousness. While AI has made significant strides, the field is far from achieving true sentience or consciousness, which involves complexities that are not yet replicable in AI systems.
The word "conscious" seems to be nothing more than a placeholder for properties of ourselves, and other animals, which we have yet to come close to understanding and explaining. So, claiming that any technology that can mimic the outward appearances of things (drawing, photography, film, computer coding....) can by extrapolation to some future state, some magical leap, be what brought our particular universe into being, seems deeply flawed.
The philosophy disc that came with the Matrix box set is VERY worth watching. It includes classic and modern philosophers, concepts, and thoughts from some great thinkers. It also tackles the notion of people living in virtual reality in the near future.
Imagine traveling in space with your stasis. And someone opens up her pod eats her and I'm person ate's her.... After chopping off one of your testicles, to modify your d n...a
I’m simulating this conversation in my brain. We can simulate video games. We experiment on animals for genetics . Technology is always increasing. Quantum physics exists. Put all those facts together and add a time span of 50 years and it’s abundantly clear that this could be one of many simulations. Maybe every brain in our world is a simulation device.
But, how would we know if we were successful in simulating a conscious being in software? Is Siri a conscious being? Could she ever become conscious in some future upgraded version? If so, how would we know she achieved consciousness?
No. Siri is programmed into non-organic computers, which are physically incapable of consciousness. For an AI to be conscious, it would have to at the very least incorporate organic chemicals.
I don't believe it's possible to determine if something is conscious (perhaps self-aware is a better term) or not, including other people. It's possible that only a small proportion of the population actually are conscious. There's no way to know for sure. You can only know for sure that you yourself are conscious. Perhaps you are the only one and the program only needs to simulate what you perceive ☺
one problem you didn't go into is the fact that we, if we are inside a simulation, can not infere at what speed that simulation runs, in other words we can not reconstruct the relation our percieved time has to the supposed outside world. This is another way that gets around the finite computational power issue. So in other words the simulations could start their own simulations but it would just slow down the parent simulation, essentially the critical path of the simulation would get longer and longer with each simulation inception as each cycle requires more and more computation. But the simulation cycles are what define us, ur perception, our everything, so them being slower doesn't matter to us, it just increases the inpercievable time between cycles in which we don't really exist. That timespan could already be 1 trillion years for all we know.
12:24 it's always been just a funny concept i came up with once, but i always thought the subatomic particles being not in an actual place or state until an conscious observer does the observing (quantum superposition) looked remarkebly like not rendering fine detail or itens that change constantly as actual things with models and colision and states, but just as information, to save processing power I.E. you have a machine that produces something in a game constantly and idly, but when you leave, it doesn't actually works as usual, it instead just calculate "item production/time" and then the amount of time passed And about saving processing power, maybe that could be why light is so slow, and it becomes exponentially harder to gain speed if you have mass
The speed of light is the operating speed of the program. The Planck length is the resolution. The double slit experiment is an example of the program rendering 'reality' as you observe it.
@@willygonutz9687 Those are my 3 favorite pieces of evidence that we are in a simulation. It does not mean that we are simulated. Just as in the matrix, Neo is in the matrix but has a "real" body in the real world.
"Despite the "observer effect" in the double-slit experiment being caused by the presence of an electronic detector, the experiment's results have been misinterpreted by some to suggest that a conscious mind can directly affect reality"
I love you videos and can’t believe I’m only seeing this now, but it’s one of the best videos I’ve enjoyed on TH-cam. Congratulations on the paper, but more so for your beautiful, enlightening video.
Brilliant video. So glad I found this channel :) My issue with this topic is concerning why would it matter, if we are simulated or not. Since it is inherently unfalsifiable then the real world couldn't tell it was real either. This means that BOTH the one real world and the group of many simulated worlds, have the same existential crisis that they might be a simulation. The reason this seems to bother people isn't that we might be living in a simulation. It's the CONSEQUENCE of that fact and the troubling thoughts that brings. But if none of the worlds, real or not, can escape this - then it really doesn't matter either way.
I guess for some people the challenge of letting go of their own version of what is reality is insurmountable. Personally speaking, none of this matters. Cogito ergo sum, or sim, if you like.
@@hotdiggityd I have always been a sucker for being one leap sideways into hard cartesian skepticism, it can be a handy launchpad if you are being super strict despite it being a rational black hole :)
@@DRsideburns it's an ill formed question that presupposes "knowing" and "not knowing" at the same time from a third-party position. Furthermore, what metric are we using for "Matter"? (Pride-ego / health?)
Note: It's extremely likely that this, if it is a simulation, is a "seeded" simulation, in which there was a partially random beginning (and we'd look nothing and act nothing like our 5 dimensional overseers), rather than a written simulation in which the starting parameters were defined by the creators since there'd be way too many parameters to define and our existence would come with several plot holes.
Michael David ICEknightnine didn’t say the simulation would be completely random though. His words were that it’s likely there was a “partially random” beginning not a completely random one. I think he is right because while certain laws of physics would remain the same for our overseers and (would thus be able to be simulated) I’m not sure even the creators of the simulation would be able to perfectly trace back how every single particle of mass and energy existed in the beginning of time or whenever they decided to start the simulation. I think this also brings up a flaw in the argument in the video. I think there is a chance that we could be in a simulation that happens to not be able to create one of our own. This could be on purpose or because our creators can’t perfectly simulate their own past so it would line up with their present. This means that the probability of us not being a simulation even if we don’t get to a point where we create one would be less than 100%.
When we dream the human brain suspends disbelief, because if we realised dream content for the illogical nonsense it is we would realise we were dreaming and wake up. A similar thing could be going on in our universe. It could be completely illogical but anytime we ponder it our minds counteract and make us think there’s nothing amiss. That we think scientists have shown Big Bang, laws, etc could be momentary belief suspension
That's interesting but I mainly have 3 thoughts on this: 1) There's no point to try and disprove that the world is real, since it hasn't been proven that the world is simulated (see Ockam's razor). The person that makes the hypothesis has to provide the evidence, not the other way around. 2) We shouldn't be bothered by this possibility, because even if it was the case it wouldn't practically change the slightest thing in our experience. 3) We may not live in a literal simulation, but simulation is all around in the sense that propaganda, the media and our society as a whole create narratives that distort logic and create constructed images and projections of reality that end up seemingly more real than reality. I think that this is real reason for concern.
It would make a whole lot of difference in one aspect, and that is what happens when you die. If we are indeed a simulation, you could live on, be put aside and waken up at some other point in "time or space". If we are real, the odds of something similar happening (aka Heaven) is much more unlikely.
Your first point is spot on. Always seems to be Elon Musk making statments and expecting others to disprove them when he has offered next to no hard evidence to begin with.
This is one of the most fascinating videos I've ever seen on TH-cam. I hadn't realised that the Simulation Hypothesis was based on Frequentist statistics and that using a Bayesian approach leads to a different conclusion. I've not read Bostrom's book, but I wonder if he (and/or Musk, along with other supporters of his hypothesis) was aware of this? I'm interested in Bayesian reasoning, yet struggle to determine when and how to apply it, so any advice on how to identify relevant problems and think Bayesian would be welcome!
I know it's become popular to denigrate Musk, especially become of his on-going Twitter fiasco, yet he's still achieved more than most of these keyboard warriors who criticize him...
Why haven't you read his book? It's my second favorite book of all time. It's a must read. It's THE BOOK to read for anyone even remotely interested in AI. It is the best book on the subject and not just on that subject. It's SO interesting on so many levels. Go read it. You can find it in google.
Elon Musk recommended Nick Bostrom's book back in 2014 when it came out. That's how I heard about it. However Elon has talked about the dangers of AI and the simulation way back before that.
In "Simulacron 3", whenever a character ran across a mistake in the program, the program would fix itself and rewrite the characters' memory so they would not remember the mistake.
I was waiting for an M.E. comment. I was going to comment here myself but was beaten to it. Yes the M.E. proves this really is a kind of Godly simulation. But there are layers of truths around this. I feel like the affected are not receiving the downloads or perhaps it is intentional. Now join aliens/demons, high strangeness, paranormal, and most importantly syncs.11s and 4s. No one like me will read this. I've tried for years. Now to look for simulacron 3.
"It's rare that a story takes place thousands of years in the past or thousands of years in the future" Me: *looks at my copies of Dune and 300 Spartans*
The fact that you have a movie about the distant future and a movie about the distant past in no way goes against what he said. He pointed out that MOST movies are simulations of times within a few hundred years of our current time, NOT ALL, and he is correct.
@Michael David look at our current situation; we are facing extinction from a variety of threats within a universe seemingly alone. Wouldn't you want to know if civilizations annihilated themselves and thus providing evidence for your lonely existence?
@Michael David either one of the Presidential nominees is ready for nuclear war, the Earth's magnetic field is shifting, global warming, AI, freaking Kim Kardashian and other stuff yo.
And in case you didn't know we are in the Holocene Extinction which is anthropic ain't like that shit you said we're not normal animals we're fucking eating the planet!
We may never know. Inspecting the quarks and planks is like inspecting the pixels in a simulation. The code could be operating in a different 'dimension'. The pixels only visualize a result. We should be asking what is our world occupying. When you boot up a computer energy from your world us used to start software. To an entity inside your computer software, energy and the universe came from nowhere. Maybe our big bang.
Absolutely beautiful way to explain this. I cannot thank you enough, not only the breakdown of all data in both counterpoints, for the empathetically wise encouragement of how we should process and apply this information personally. Well done!
I love the reality check that simulated consciousness is inevitable. Especially considering that our own consciousness is one of the great unsolved scientific mysterious.
I think we tend to anthropomorphize everything a bit too much. For instance: DNA code looks like computer code. Of course it does. We invented computer code so that's how we understand DNA as a code. Anthropomorphize is probably not the right word for what I'm trying to say. Anyway if we are in a simulation the programmers of this narrator's voice did a great job: it's so smooth and pleasant.
This is why a simulated universe doesnt make sense: If our universe is simulated, why would the simulation create galaxies, local and afar? There is no need for it. Just simulate our solar system with 9 planets and a pitch black sky, nobody would ever suspect there was something missing.
Love your videos! However, I may have found one small flaw in your assumptions: You assume that simulated minds must necessarily be simulated in computer code; but what if humans decide to use an already-proven computational substrate for consciousnesses: the human brain itself? The entire world may be digital, and it may end up being easier to compute than an entire person, who even if digital consciousness was somehow physically impossible, they would still experience the world just as a simulated being would, having a trillion trillion humans living in the solar system, as solar-powered brains in jars. Even things such as copying oneself would be possible, with high enough resolution scanning, and 3d bioprinting, down to the last memory engram. Even parts of the simulation could take advantage of our already-existing neural wetware for dreaming, and just use computers for general layout of the digital world, and interconnectivity between people, and let our dreaming minds do the physics calculations. Also I disagree that it would be horrible or unwanted to find out we'd live in a simulation; personally, I'd find it freeing! I'd no longer have to worry about death, and be able to look forward to an eternal life of exploration, entertainment, and wonder. Oh, and additionally, the simulation in a simulation problem is avoidable if the root systems are smart enough to pre-emptively detect such an attempt, and boost computational resources to worlds about to exceed their allotted computational capability; that, or graduate the population to admin level for being clever.
I While I too would welcome the potential freedom of being a simulation in the reality you describe I think you’re making some meaningless distinctions here. If a simulation can be made I think it's fair to assume you need processing power, some way to store and encode the data, some kind of framework to run and presumably end simulations, energy to power the setup, … a computer’s still a computer if it's a brain or an iPhone or the universe itself somehow and for all we know we might never understand how our brain computers work well enough to copy or emulate them. Maybe we can have more than enough storage space and digital horsepower but if the little bit of IT work I’ve done has taught me anything it's that those things are a much smaller part of how software works than most people think they are. I’ve got this beefy windows machine with a nice i7 processor, 16 GB ram … and it can barely emulate a few android apps designed for much less powerful computers with a quarter of the memory because the processors work so differently and that's still comparing two similar kinds of computers with mutually compatible programming languages and relatively similar architectures that use the same kinds of logic gates and machine language. It's not just a matter of having enough storage space and processing power, I suspect those would be the smallest problems to overcome in ancestor simulations especially if we’re able to use the kinds of computers you’re talking about here.
"Also I disagree that it would be horrible or unwanted to find out we'd live in a simulation; personally, I'd find it freeing! I'd no longer have to worry about death, and be able to look forward to an eternal life of exploration, entertainment, and wonder." That assumes that you'd be aware of anything. Even if you were a brain in a jar, let alone a fork of a brain in a jar, there would be no guarantee that you'd retain awareness or any continuity thereafter. The brain may be continually reset as a blank slate for emergent intelligence. After all if we're talking about a human brain you could only host so much information in the first place, and if the problem is that consciousness is hard to simulate... Then why do you think you were born with nothing? Because you were reset. That new 'you' on every reset is no longer you in any meaningful way. The only saving grace would be if they were able to keep an archive of backups for every individual brain's every individual life. There's also the matter that not every 'person' needs to be accurately simulated. Essentially the NPC meme in a more literal context. Not every being would need to have a "Brain" (One might say Soul, it's contextually or mechanically essentially the same concept here). Likewise, there's functionally little difference between this concept and that of having a spirit/soul, and your soul either being reincarnated or returning to wherever it came from so there's little reason to be favorable to simulation vs various forms of spiritualism.
This video is a masterpiece! It gave me chills in the beginning. Pure incarnation of the fears of every conscious being. Striking directly our core human existential questions regarding the reality. Thorough breakdown of the theories supported by solid reasoning and excellent final conclusion. Good job! Subscribed! The comment section really made me laugh though. It seems some simulation programs have a really good sense of hummor.. will they patch me too?
But its encouraging. As a 'real' entity I am finite. As a program I can be infinite. 1s and 0s don't die. If I am a successful program (whatever that means) perhaps I will endure, my consciousness (or perception thereof) will be infinite or nearly so.
The simulation hypothesis is kind of silly to worry or argue about. This is our reality. You can call it a simulation even if it's built up of "matter", whatever that is, however that came into being. If you simulate a clock, by building a clock, you have a clock. If you simulate a tree, by (somehow) creating a tree atom by atom, cell by cell, that's a tree. The idea that if the simulation hypothesis is "real" that it would be ANYTHING like what we think of as a computer, that's kind of delusional in my opinion. "Real" reality would be unimaginable to us.
When it comes to the possibility of life on other planets or simulation theory, I never understood where these scientists and experts get their numbers of probability from.
Misusing probabilities is always an easy way to get clicks. The truth is that unless you have empirical examples of universes which are either simulated or not, all your calculations will be hinging on speculation. Unfortunately this is the only universe we know of, so that isn't very helpful.
The Materialists CAN T explain action at the distance experiments, while from the point of view of a virtual reality/ simulation world , it can be very well explained.
My take: If a highly-advanced supercivilization could think of better things to do with its computational resources than simulate your experience of searching your underwear drawer for a clean pair of underpants, then you're probably doing that in base reality. ;)
If we're in a simulation, I'd really appreciate it if the God-programmer would fix my back pain, thanks.
error 404 back pain not found
@Aspiring Greatness 42
May the lord cure your back pain, make sure your not ingesting aspartame, look around your house and ask if anything could be causing it.
@Aspiring Greatness I agree with you. That is my tendency to use humor. I don't think a super computer could figure it out either. a play on words with programmer behind used. Peace be with you.
you are 1 in tens of billions of simulations... God-programmer don't give a fxxx. Better fix yourself.
"I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.” - Conan Barbarian
As some philosophers say, the one thing that CANNOT be an illusion is consciousness itself. Whether in a simulation or not, I still experience the world, and that can't be fake, even if the entire universe IS fake.
That’s exactly what a NPC would say! 👍🏾
~The Right
Two issues with that, 1: the simulation can be turned off, 2: any hopeful thought about your future is null since it doesn't matter. I for example want to live forever, if I'm in a simulation then that is impossible.
@Ryan Delgaty How is that a problem? If I dream of living forever, as you put it, I am still aware of that desire. If someone turns the simulation off, I would just cease to be conscious of anything, including being conscious. It still isn't an illusion if you aren't able to perceive it in any way.
@@josiahferrell5022 The issue is that I stop living, regardless of being in the simulation if you stop living, you stop living. If I'm in a simulation and my desire is to live forever then my desire will never be met and I'd be depressed.
One thing I think is interesting is that the one base unsimulated reality would have no way of knowing they are not simulated, and in fact would probably think there was a > 99.99999% chance that they were simulated.
Awesome comment!
that's not how the simulation hypothesis works. base reality would be ultimately rudimentary and devoid of consciousness, thus devoid of the ability for anything in base reality to ponder on assumptions of base reality probability. if there is a "base reality", it would be relatively simplistic in nature, entirely mechanistic and 0% organic, possibly 1-dimensional. it would have a very simple mechanic that would allow for a single iteration of progression that would project the next-level reality hyperplane into the following dimension sequentially, where at that point it would no longer be base reality anymore. the base reality would be something like boolean logic where a bit changes value once and becomes the opposite of what it originally was, and at some point during the course of literal infinity it would turn into something like a qubit, wherein the next iteration of reality hyperplane will have been born. and so on..
@@env0x let me woo woo this up for you. The yin and yang, pure energy that gives birth to everything else.
@@eldrickemc4602 that explanation would be in alignment with ancient taoist philosophy but also various world religions (Islamic sufism, Christian gnosticism, Jewish kaballah, Hinduism, Buddhism, and many tribal/pagan beliefs) all share a similar idea concerning the origins of the universe, as well as many western philosophers since the time of the ancient greeks all pondered the sentiment of duality vs nonduality. Existence vs nonexistence is at the base of a "dualistic universe". But existence and nonexistence 'being one in the same' is the quality of a "nondual universe". But as it turns out, these are not functions which define the universe itself but rather functions which arise out of a set of preconditions that the universe already allows for. We can only make assumptions based on the conditions that the universe had already set into motion 13.8 billion years ago, simply by being an aspect of infinity itself. We might as well say the conditions of an infinite universe are infinitely arbitrary, while being infinitely simplistic at the same time.
@@env0x nicely put
If we are in a simulation I don't think it actually matters as much as people would think. What if we are in a simulation? What if we're not even human? What if we're entirely segments of code that an algorithm made up? The prospect seems startling at first, but then think about how much agency you have as a living, talking being.
Regardless of your memories... you have emotions.. you have anxiety... you care for some people, dislike other people, you have preferences about the kind of foods you like, maybe believe in some form of spirituality, you understand philosophy, you have the ability to be wrong about something and learn from your mistakes... does that sound like anything less than a person? A self aware, sentient being? Does it REALLY matter if a person is made of flesh VS pieces of code?
If we are in a simulation, people still die... we still hold funerals.. we don't respawn.. our avatars in whatever reality this is have a finite existence.
We're not NPCs from GTA. Our dialogue isn't pre-recorded. Our responses aren't pre-programmed. Flesh or not, we're still living creatures.
Once something is made with detail at this scale... I fail to see why one reality is more important than another.
The only thing living in a simulation really changes is a mission to figure out who made us and why, which... you could say, humans have been doing since the beginning of time.
Look at it, from you’re 5 senses
A lot of these assumptions are based on that the reality being created are of an earth based civilization.
But a simulation of a universe, without a human centric view, is surely more likely.
We always assume that humans are simulating humans.
But the simulation of the physical properties of a universe that can sustain life are surely more likely?
If we wanted to understand life then we would create life. And the same goes for understanding the physical reality required to form complex life?
It’s saves ridiculous amount of power not to simulate a whole universe itself but just the things watched by beings. Of course there could be multiple planets in the simulation but seems more likely that our existence would suggest that the simulators were interested in us or just the evolution on Earth with environment as it has been in this universe.
My name's not Shirley!
@@dr.catherineelizabethhalse1820 I'm always just trickling in the background
1906Farnsworth There’s no evidence for anything here and probabilities are no more accurate than ”this seems more plausible/reasonable than that”. I have no idea what you are on about.
@@dr.catherineelizabethhalse1820 Fair enough. I did not make myself clear. More reflection needed. sorry to take your time.
So i need to buy more RAM?
Just download more.
Matthew Little haha beat me to it, GG! 🤪
Exactly and while you are on it a new CPU and GX.
@@matthewdtwo alien kicking human from their room
This simulation we are in, can not run Crysis.
This idea never bothered me because I asked this question: "If I set you on fire, would it matter if the pain was simulated or not?"
I still have to go to simulated work so I don’t simulated starve
The idea that we probably live in a simulation is completely, factually stupid: you guys forget about physical limitations, we have no proof, not even the slightest reason to believe that we will manipulate laws of quantum physics in order to have faster computers to the point where we simulate our world. So it end there. Saying we live in a simulation is like saying we are created by flying spaghetti monster. We can’t disprove it but it’s ridiculous and we have no reason to waste time even thinking about it. The truth is that Elon Musk is stupid about this and so are Bostrom, De Grasse T etc….
@@AlexPavy16 sounds like something a simulation would say
@@RezValla what? Are you saying my message could have been written by a simulation? Or perhaps a bot, or a video game character
@@RezValla exactly, I don’t think it’s any wonder that almost all of the people that think we live in a simulation are very rich and detached people. I don’t see any middle class people with normal everyday lives thinking we’re in a simulation. But if you were born normal and became very rich and successful, you may start trying to think of the reasons why.
Even if we could simulate conscious beings, how could we ever prove that they are conscious?
Prove that you are
@@Robbadobbsoldierexactly. If we, in the same reality, can’t prove definitively to each other that we are conscious, how could we ever prove that beings we simulate in a lower reality are conscious?
You cannot prove the consciousness of anything. However, if you distinguish simulated consciousness from real consciousness then you have to choice but to treat them the same.
I think the best evidence would be to BE a conscious being who knows it’s simulated, but then there’s ghe existential horror of trying, in vain, to prove to your creators that you have feelings and them being like “well we can never prove it so 🤷♀️”
If consciousness is just the presence of input, computational, and output mechanisms, then your automated cat feeder is just as conscious as you. C:
You define consciousness, then if anyone meets that definition, then they are conscious.
When we talk about us living in a simulation, I always think of Conway's Game of Life. What if structures in that 2D cellular automata world could end up becoming sentient, and start thinking: "Am I living in a simulated reality?" These beings would likely imagine the "Higher" level of reality to look something similar to their world; two spacial dimensions, gilders and gilder guns being fundamental particles, etc. They would never be able to imagine our 3D world, with protons, electrons, and photons.
In the same way, if we are simulated, our "Higher" level of reality that is simulating us, is probably similarly far more complicated, and different, than our own universe. It would not be a simple Matrix program as depicted in the Movie, where one reality is making another one that looks similar to it. The simulated world (us) is very likely to be much simpler than the "real" world that is simulating it.
Using the logic of the simulated world hypothesis, every layer of reality would be a simulation from a higher level of reality, perhaps with a top level.
That's a good point. By definition the simulators, AKA our god(s) (which may be who human religions refer to, either as us in the future, aliens, or something else), are super natural beings, possibly in what we would call higher dimensions or different universes. We could be some super natural kid's science fair project.
Good post! And yes I believe Conways game of life is turing complete. You can create computers with it. And theoretically minds.
@@nosuchthing8 Yeah, I've seen some basic computers made with the Game of Life. As soon as you can use Logic Gates, your system is Turing Complete, so the game of life has been proven to be Turing Complete. Any CPU / Core Computer is built with nothing but Logic Gates, so anything that can simulate logic gates are Turing Complete. If you can use AND, OR, NOT gates, you can make all the gates. Similarly, you can have a full Turing Complete Logic Gate system with just a series of NAND gates. You can pretty much simulate anything with any infinitely large turning complete system. So you could probably simulate the minds of 5 Dimensional beings using the Game of life, although that game board would need to be unimaginably large.
What I was referring to may not actually be possible in the game of life though... I was suggesting that the game board was the physical universe of these other beings, so their bodies and brains would be simulated, not just their minds, so they would be 2 Dimensional beings. If this was possible, they would probably view giant structures on the game board that we haven't discovered yet as their fundamental particles, like Electrons, Quarks, and Photons. They would see all the simple patterns we do know about as vacuum energy, each cell would be a plank's length, each turn would be plank's time, and the speed of light would be moving 1 cell per turn.
The game board needed to simulate that 2D physical world would probably need to be far larger than the one that simulates the 5D Minds. It depends how detailed the physical reality that those 5D minds live in is. Their physical reality would be determined by the programming logic inside the Game of Life computer that was made. To the 2D physical life, our Universe would be the "Real World" that is simulating them. To those 5D minds, it's the 2D Game of Life Board that is the "Real World" that is simulating their 5D reality... then our 3D Universe would be another layer up from that... What a maze!
Problem: We can simulate all known spatial dimensions.
@@citizen_grub4171 We can simulate as many or as few spacial dimensions as we want, we do it all the time. We are just unable to perceive anything beyond 3 spacial dimensions ourselves.
If this is a simulation, patch 2020.1 has a lot of game-breaking bugs that need a hotfix, like now!
#Bethesda
@@luminati5820 *Bugthesda
Hah. You assume its a bug.
Best start believing in well made games. You're in one.
my life needs a hot fix
@@democrrrracymanifest exactly! People love watching drama!.
Honestly your content is amazing and the way you narrate is so chilled and easy to listen to. Absolutely love this channel! Thankyou
Glad you enjoy it!
@@CoolWorldsLab btw, Cool world (1992) is Amazingk movie
@@CoolWorldsLab so what about the uncanny valley in relation to "wanting" to create a simulation. No one has covered this yet and i think it will have bearing.
Maybe it's an A.I. talking to you 😮?
I agree with the idea that simulation creators might purposely simulate only realities with pre-simulation technology, such as our own, to prevent an unwanted simulation hierarchy from arising. But this also means that if we are in a simulation, then creating our own simulations with conscious beings could force the creators of our simulation to pull the plug to prevent or prune a simulation hierarchy from developing and growing beyond the compute capabilities of the base reality.
Descartes would choke on the notion that being simulated makes us unreal. His whole point was: This is the world we're dealing with. If "existing" has any practical meaning to us then what else could it possibly be than the lives we're living, regardless of the underlying substrate?
I mean honestly, at the most fundamental level we're each living in a simulation created in our brain as it interprets and filters the physical reality which is radically different from our experiences.
Dreams are proof that the brain hallucinates the reality.
This is an extremely thoughtful and appropriate response. I usually don’t even think about this because it’s just more science fiction reality extending by a group of people who romanticize their job and therefore place in the world. Thank you for taking the time to bring this up!
Simulation Hypothesis has so many assumption in its foundation that it is nearer to religious faith than science
@@DemonetisedZone such as? Anyone who has ever loaded up a videogame has run a crude simulation. Unless there's an unlikely end to processing power growth on the horizon, future simulations will begin to approach the complexity of our reality. It becomes difficult for me to assume we're in the base reality. That would be... convenient beyond belief.
In the end, we're just part of our Zeitgeist. Back in the day, people would call out to god or magic to seek truth, now we have computers and people are coming up with the simulation argument in the science community, which is entirely based on our own technology and conveniently restricted contemporary world view. I'm also sure that as we evolve further in the next few thousand years, that we are still going to be an infinity away from understanding the world.
As far as I'm concerned, what we call the universe might just be a tiny particle that makes up part of dirt in somebody's locker room in a larger megaverse where matter as small as us is not discovered by the Megaversians yet. From their standpoint, we're not real. But all of that is just typical human conjecture (not even that, just an assumption) that I came up with, not unlike the simulation argument the science community came up with. Factually, we have to little knowledge of our world to try to grasp what reality is, so we're trying to do the best we can with coming up with various theories, but even their scientific foundation is so lacking that it's closer to esoterics than anything else.
My father once wrote a paper in school called "I Shit, Therefore I Am," because he thought that bodily functions were so disgusting that it made no sense for why anyone would imagine or program such a thing.
Loved the Inception reference at the end. Very well reproduced.
well there are a lot of things in "life" that can be considered disgusting but are necessary for life, and sometimes pleasurable. sticking our tongues in other peoples nasty dirty mouths is pretty disgusting for example. so is eating a steak.
And yet that might be part of the brilliance of a programmer to cause doubt that we are participants in a program. Lol
@MetraMan09 darwinian evolution itself is a dumb theory that makes no sense and in all probabilities impossible.
@MetraMan09 I mean darwinian evolution is a farce. its worse than a religion that many people subscribe to. if I get a tattoo of a smiley face and my son gets one and his son, they will not start being born with smiley face tats. and no evolutionists will even begin to address biogenesis, to which evolution cannot exist. we have never produced life from nothing yet "scientific minds" insist it happened.. without an ounce of empirical evidence that its possible. its laughable
@MetraMan09 selective breeding has nothing to do with evolution. its not even in the same field
If this is all stimulation can you bring my daughter back to me
I'm so broken and sad with out her
Please 😔😔😔
I hope you see her again.
Love you
❤️💜💗
Im sorry for your loss and i send you endless love
Stay strong, show her, that she made you a better person.
Watching this now hits differently. I love and respect your presentation. It's the most respectable presentation I've seen so far.
Being in a simulation doesn't necessarily mean the simulation was designed (like we design games). Another type of simulation happens when very simple rules are computed recursively giving rise to very complex structures (like fractals). The later type of simulation doesn't need a sophisticated designer.
I agree, I think the premise of being simulated like we make games, or even simulating what we think or see matrix style, is naïve. If anything I imagine it would be more like the way physicists simulate the universe for whatever reason, seeing how it evolves or seeing what different constants would do. And if that is the case then they probably wouldn't even know we were living in it. And I doubt the hardware running it, if any, would resemble our computers or logic at all. Maybe some tesseract style box that maintains a quantum simulation. In any case I don't think this should bother anyone. We are already unsure of the true substrate of our universe, as well as why there is something instead of nothing. And many people already believe in God and heaven, so they are already familiar with our world not being the highest reality. However it is that we exist, nothing has changed from yesterday, we get to choose what matters to us and what we decide to do with our time.
Agree. No reason that the simulation we MIGHT live in is made up of 1s and 0s. That's how OUR computers work, that could be either how the simulation is coded (in whatever way the super computer would read the program (this is beyond our understanding or fantasy at all).
But DNA is "code".
The speed of light could be hard-coded in the simulation
And so on.
Noone knows if we are simulated, but personally, idk ofc. But I'm 1/10 sure we are simulated due to looking at the universe + computing power and AI improvements over the years
Like John Conway's game of life for instance
Such a simulation would just be a subset of reality ... Like genes ... Genes are like computer codes running in the universe to assemble atoms and chemicals into complex forms.
I disagree. Trying to come up with a rule set, that could be run for billions of (simulated) years, and has the capablity to give rise to such complex things that we see around us, including our own intelligence, with zero faults, would be vastly more difficult that just designing a version of reality like a game.
Sounds exactly like one of the server admins would say...
Exactly.
Totally
I mean, they would probably just reprogram your brain.
Elon Musk talks a lot
when the day is long...
Elon Musk is wrong
This one is a masterpiece among all simulation related videos. I hope the all mighty programmer will give you more disk space. So you can live longer and create more content for your subs.
The thing I always get caught up on when it comes to any sort of simulation theory is that it just seems to kick the problem down the road. It could explain one layer or several or a NEARLY infinite amount of layered simulated realities each eventually birthing a new layer and so on and so forth but at a certain point there's an objective reality, that isn't simulated, so what are they experiencing? We a use it to explain our reality but that doesn't do anything in terms of explaining objective reality at its base, then we're just back to square one.
Exactly
an the infinity answer to everything. This is impossible they say, but given an infinite amount of time it will happen. easy way out.
It's just another God of the Gaps theory
That is a problem for the simulation hypothesis. What lies beyond the simulation. On one had it leave a potential god of the gaps answer, on the other hand the big bang suggests what happened before that/ where did the original source matter/energy come from.
I posit the difference is that the simulation hypothesis can still yield predictions and tests whereas a god of the gaps cannot. GOTG just ends with I don't know. Simulation hypothesis says here is a possible fact about the fundamental rules of OUR universe, lets look for the consequences that implies and test for them.
One such test is that simulations have a finite resolution that when approached leads to rounding and imprecision that can be statistically modeled. Do we have either in our universe. Well we have quantum mechanics, the plank constants and dark energy and dark matter.
God of the gaps is a fail because it says I don't know must be replaced by a 'god' simulation theory merely says here's a potential idea to check when/if we can.
Exactly the same as 'God' being the answer for everything. Really it answers nothing because if so then where did God come from?
My question is how can any of these assumptions hold weight when we as humanity have not even determined what consciousness truly is.
@Big Perx or maybe we’re just not smart enough to know
The vast majority of humans have no internal monologue and act kinda like npcs
@@constantinethecataphract5949 cause some other smarter NPCs benefit from that
@Big Perx who is they?
@Constantine The cataphract that is actually a very narcissistic thing to say. To discount so many and view them as beneath you. after all that is a narcissists view that everyone is "is beneath them and there to be used by theirvsiperiors
All of your content is just so unbelievably high quality. The best I've seen in my 12 or so years on this platform. Massively appreciate the work you're doing on this channel.
Since all of reality is made of up and down quarks, which are in fact fields of energy, and not what we consider solid matter, then how is that different than 0's and 1's?
Digital binary information "resides" in a computer as on and off electrical fields. If we are made up of "up" and "down" quark fields, in what does our universe reside? Our universe has to be in something, because if it was in nothing, than only nothing would exist. And our entire universe is not self aware, only some "energy fields" on a pale blue dot seem to be so far. So in a future AI online game that's been running for decades, the whole game doesn't have to become self aware, just some small part of it we may never notice. And just like us they may have to "scream out" to their "creators" in the hopes that one day they'll hear them.
Interesting it's commonly referred to as "we" living in a simulation, when it would seem more like to be that "you" and you alone are in the simulation. So much easier to simulate what one conscious being perceives rather, in same manner as the video game example. Yes, we could be in a "multi-player" simulation, but the tech requirement would be much greater and thus the likelihood lower. Or forget the simulation aspect. What if you are just a brain in a jar being stimulated with to perceive your world. What if science is instead approaching that reality?
Hmm it seems I was thinking the same thing. Or I was scripted to. As to Andras's reply, I think it all comes down to what is easier to do, is it easier to generate consciousness, or easier to simply script it. I know when making games myself it's much easier to simulate that the NPCs are thinking then it is to actually make them actually try think. I just tell them go here do that etc. You only need to include various things such as big bang theories, if it's part of the story, otherwise it may just remain as a simple concept in the background never explained as the main char (you) does not know this information as you are scripted too and were never meant to learn about it.
Yeah, one should not do do
many Assumptions.
Elon Musk talks a lot
when the day is long...
@@slevinchannel7589 *Butt Head voice*: heh hehe heh heh heh.... You said doodoo. Heheheheh!
What if there's no brain at all and you're just harmonic waves of energy hyper-focused via electromagnetism into a dimensional observer
Watching this after a good bong rip is great. Always a great presentation to ponder. Thanks Dr.
Sht nig I wish I cud b high rn
2020 must be a simulation made on Windows Vista. That would explain the virus.
😅😅😅
Fuck me, this is the brilliant commentary I love about our species. Take my like, you bastard.
Have you tried turning it off and on again.
Actually I believe we may be running in Windows Millennium OS. If you've never had any experience with that particular Windows OS, consider the simulation in which you exist in Vista the better one.
Top comment 🤩👍
Love this guy. His theories are well thought out. Cool worlds is easily one of the best channels on TH-cam.
He is smart, but to be honest, while he is of course well educated and informed his videos are made for simple minds and too dramatic. POP Science!
he sounds like he knows all that hes talking about but in reality hes just like u and me he probably just doesnt believe in the simulation theory so hes wanting all of us to think the same as he does and tries a little too hard to do so
Mega Ultra so you know we’re all the same person as well huh? 😏
@@michaelbeee3801 You mean accessible and educational, which is the case for a majority of science channels on TH-cam.
@@megaultra5005 lol what? he's a physics professor, wrote the paper this entire video is based on and used a statistical argument. he's not just randomly holding onto the belief that this is reality he's expressing scientific skepticism and using rational methods to show why he's skeptical.
Very well done. I just learned about Baye's Theorem a few weeks ago, and it has *completely* changed how I look at various probabilities and made me realize just how many proposed probabilities are very... assumptuous
All we can be sure of is that our present is happening and is real to us so regardless of how or why, we must accept that it is. Our reality is still a reality, regardless of how meta it is or how pre-determined it may be. Therefore, everything happening right now in front of us, the experiences and things we feel in every moment, is what matters most. And personally, I think that IS the beauty and meaning of life. I think therefore I am and isn’t that great 😊
You probably won't read this but I wanted to pass on David you've become one of my idols and have helped me during a very tough mental health battle this year, helping me to help others, to see past many struggles with your outlook on life as we know it and what is beyond. Respect from Australia and continue on you never know who you are reaching, saving and teaching.
To hear that I helped you in some small way means a lot, that’s why I make these. Stay thoughtful, stay curious.
I have experienced so many different things in my life that I experienced before hearing about them and I have told many people of things that were buried when I told them they just called me crazy that I agree with but these things have been discovered mental disabilities are just a few of my disabilities but I don't like all things but I do like many things but I try to respect all things even those things that I don't like as it doesn't really matter if we are in illusion or not because we are real to ourselves. I don't like snakes and spiders or crocodiles but I have handled all of these creatures and helped to move them out of the way of other humans. I believe that we as a piece of nature on this planet of ours need to respect all things. Wether we like them or not because we might like something else that needs what we don't like. Good luck with your mind from another Aussie who is trying to cope with mental illnesses.
To be honest, I don’t find the possibility that even our most precious memories might never have happened to be particularly daunting. After all, if they exist as “implants” in my head right now, are they not real? How would those be different from memories in a natural universe? Even “real” memories are just encodings of something that happened in the past and does not exist in the present. They are real to me right now, which is good enough for me :)
So if we are living in a simulation it is being run by a programmer beyond our imagination on a computer beyond our comprehension. Congratulations Pro simulation people, you just made the case for the existence of God.
@@aureliusmcnaughton6133 if you want to call any being that is far ahead in advancement from us a "god" thats on you. But that does not make any case for any particular religious magical god according to their own scriptures.
@@brunohommerding3416 I can't really tell by your response if you are making the case for simulation Theory or just a die-hard atheist.
@@aureliusmcnaughton6133 im an atheist, what im saying is that you can make the argument about some beings being so advanced that they would look like gods to us, but that doesnt confirm the existence of the biblical god or any god from any scripture.
@@brunohommerding3416 I'm glad to see that we totally agree that there is no such thing as God as described by religious zealots. How ever, it seems to me that zealous simulation Theory proponents don't seem to know the difference anymore than religious zealots or atheist zealots. To me it's obvious that something greater than us had to have created us and that's good enough for me. Live long and prosper my friend.
If we're in a simulation, whoever programmed me is just a bad programmer overall.
I would imagine it's an AI/algo that programs us... I mean, you NPCs...
I'm that one character in sims that the creator tortures,lol.
Lmao. Right. Omg
You are your own programmer, God is not responsible for your screw ups.. You are given existence and you spit on it day by day because you are egoistic and lazy always wanting the easy way. And hey we are all the same.. I am not better than you either.
Yandere dev blame him
Great video.
Ever since I started thinking about this I've said that there is only one way to increase our understanding about the probability of the question "are we in a simulation?" and that is to simulate universes. If we can do it, we will have proof that it can be done and we can observe if the simulated beings simulate universes and that should give us at least an idea about it's feasibility in the reality above us.
I was thinking the exact same thing... If we advance our species 10 000 years, with all the technology that entails.. Would it not be inevitable that we try to produce evidence for or against a simulated universe by creating a simulation?? Still ALOT of assumptions in that picture, but very interesting to think about ❤
I wish simulations wouldn't cause pain and suffering that feels very real whatever it is.
Damn if it's a simulator I need to find glitchs to level up myself
enjoy the gold
SpiffingBrit already has a series on this.
People using glitches to lvl up is why the simulation is breaking in the first place. Like a virus spreading in the program
George Hotz is apparently working on doing just that. He has an interesting (and slightly insane) presentation about it.
It’s called sleeping
Congrats for reaching *200.000 subscribers!* Great video and topic.
Half are simulated :-)
Hey thanks!
@The Exoplanets Channel Man i loved your collab with Isaac Arthur!
they should have many more but more people are interested in Tic Tok these days .
@@CoolWorldsLab could our space-time be a 3D projection from a 2D surface of a hyper-structure in 11D space-time, with compactification of the 11D into Calabi-Yao manifolds in our 3D space-time representing a mere local phenomenom within this 11D hyperspace that our 3D space-time is just a part of???
I realize the case for LEDs is weak at best.
we are simulated so we can figure out if we are simulated, so our "owner" can figure out if he is simulated.
what if we create a simulation to see if the people in the simulation can figure out that they are in a simulation so we know that we are the same, but they do the same as us and life is nothing but an infinite path of simulations?
@@jeSUS-ej9vn it's turtles all the way down
yes our owner God.
@@coffeetalk924 to have a fully integrated brain is to believe in god says neuroscience anyways
@@coffeetalk924ok well why would i care who you are also i cant help it if you pathologize your self without realising it im not saying to believe in God by any means but maybe you should start with a book called anatomy of a soul if you want to make sense of any truth without putting pathologized rubbish in other peoples mouths
What is the motive behind the Base Simulation? Entertainment? Scientific enquiry? Why go to all the trouble?
2020 sure is an interesting year to simulate
The code is breaking :(
It's a Disasters DLC
@@TheAbrahamHD goal we don't know is a quest escaping the matrix
the sim is breaking down, they've cut it down because of budgetary concerns
like sim city .. when you choose ALL the disasters and press "play" ... yeah.. 2020 is just like that ... ; /
If you create "conscious" beings in a simulation on a computer how do you know they are conscious?
@ I think the question raised was the opposite: how does the programmer know the simulated creatures are conscious?
Which is completely relevant... And dependant on how you define consciousness.
I would say being able to accurately simulate a human brain would be the moment we know for sure what we created is conscious even tho we would probably hit consciousness a fair bit before that. the only being we know for sure are conscious are Humans because we are human and I think therefor I am is our proof. that being said many animals like dogs monkeys dolphins and more are probably also conscious but we can't prove that to be the case so simulating something of animal level of cognition is also probably conscious but we wouldn't know for sure. in fact complex self learning neural networks we have already created like the youtube algorithm may already hold some level of consciousness and we would never know
@@brine_909 hmm, I think you have something, if we indeed take as definition of consciousness a "human level of consciousness".
Personally, I think consciousness is not binary, in the se'se that a lot of living creature probably have some kind of consciousness. To be able to react to environment to take advantage out of it, already shows, in my opinion, that there is awareness of environment, and some kind of self-awareness that is pushing the creature to try to survive.
With that meaning in mind, I do think we are already capable of simulating "consciousness" in a way.
Anyway, giving a thought on "when are we sure": When are we sure we developped consciousness may be hard to define. However, maybe we can use another indication:
If someday we are able to develop a simulation, where creatures that were not explicitly programmed to do so eventually end up creating a simulation inside the simulation...
Then isn't that enough to give more probability that we are a simulation ourselves, independently of how we define consciousness?
@@brine_909 I'd say all creatures that have a brain and nervous system are conscious because we can infer that from ourselves. Eg: we are conscious therefore all life that evolved with us and we are ultimately related to would be conscious.
But simulated life in a computer made from algorithms, how do we know if what they display is actual consciousness or merely a result of algorithms mimicking consciousness?
@@Hydrogenblonde you can say that but you don't know that. you aren't a dog or a mouse or an ant or a tree so you can't personally know for sure if those are conscious or not.
If it's just a bunch of algorithms made to vaguely replicate human emotions then it is indeed very hard to tell if it is conscious or mimicry. But if it is a deep simulation accurately simulating every neuron of a human brain then I can't see how you could argue that it isn't conscious
There seems also to be a notion around that we could avoid death by uploading our consciousness in to computers, so thought strikes that maybe this is something we've done to ourselves in a sense and are not that far removed from things necessarily in terms of time if this were true
If we're truly simulated by "higher" beings, maybe they could accomplish that on their level. Unfortunately, if we have to do it on our level, transfer of consciousness isn't going to work the way most people are anticipating it to.
On our level, we're a physical form, and our consciousness is wrapped up in it. Your choice would be to either transfer the actual organics that hold your consciousness into another vessel, or to make a copy. Problem with a copy is that it won't be you, it'll be a perfect copy of you, which will divert further away from being you with every second it exists separately from you.
Ironically, one of the implications of Everrett's Many Worlds hypothesis is that this is happening constantly anyway.
The idea that your decisions create new realities is mostly "quantum mythology." You don't get your own wave function, and the universal wave function doesn't respond to your conscious choices.
When a photon is in a state of superposition, the wave function for the entire universe transitions into all possible outcomes across the entire universe. This is happening on infinitesimal time scales we can't imagine.
The implication is that even when it's just a photon halfway across the universe transitioning from superposition, a new copy of the entire universe is made for each outcome, and that includes copies of you and me in each. The previous photon state, the previous you and me, cease to exist, instead now existing in a new universe for every outcome from that photon.
So, from moment to moment, you are still you, but you're not actually *you* from a moment ago. You're a carbon copy with all the same thoughts, feelings, and memories, but you now exist in one (though technically all) of the universes created from when that photon left its superpositioned state.
You would never know, simply because it happens so inconceivably frequently and quickly, and again you still hold all the same memories and such as you did before the transition, but.. yeah. It's fun to consider. Or maybe not fun, but interesting lol.
@@ossiehalvorson7702 Maybe consider that the universe is really a consciousness fractal. The universe that each person experiences is the position in infinity that gave rise to the consciousness. The actual location of the universe is everywhere but the fractal of consciousness assigns an exact mechanical position in spacetime.
In this way of thinking the universe is infinite and the whole of our existence is observing ourselves emerge from infinity. This removes the uncomfortable deterministic reasoning that creates trillions upon trillions of universes per second. It's just so abstract and implausible. All you have to do is say that consciousness is fundamental and you will remove all this trash math to twist contradictory evidence into a deterministic belief that simply cannot be true due to the shear scope of the proposal. Really? Creating a whole universe for every possible outcome, that is ridiculous contortion to hold on to a debunked belief.
@@ossiehalvorson7702 That's a really mad theory (in a good way). I never looked at it like that before. You certainly gave me lot of food for thought. 👏🏼
The Inception reference at the end was really cool!
If the life doesn't have any meaning, why not make the most of it, there's nothing to lose.
Even if we were in base reality the only meaning of life is the meaning you attach to it and this simulation is real enough to attach that same meaning.☮️
Life is everything, losing that means there's everything to lose. Pursuing happiness knowing it'll end is a nice thought but very nieve... why not pursue living forever so you can be happy forever once you find it?
i like the moral point, and i agree with you (after taking depression medication) but logically speaking if life doesn't have any meaning, what you do with it means literally nothing. Based on that premise, my choosing to live versus not are both morally equal. It depends on the person, specifically whether they've experienced trauma, abuse, or mental illness. That said, I personally would rather experience than not. Much love :)
Rather than wanting to live for ever i think a better goal is ending the simulations all together. Ending everything. You enjoy enjoyment because your mind was programmed to enjoy it. It’s like breathing/eating, do you actually like/want to breathe/eat or do you “have to” against your will? Just because you’re here and enjoying doesn’t really matter since you never asked to be here in the first place.
@@sebsshots2848 Whether or not someone made me like this I don't care, I want to live forever so I'd rather not just shut it off.
Wether or not we’re in “base reality” or we’re a “simulated reality” doesn’t make much of a difference, if the simulation includes the Big Bang and all of cosmic history with the laws of physics such as they are, it wouldn’t feel any different nor does it have any meaning to say that we’re living in a simulation. “Natural” reality can be thought of as a kind of simulation anyway. Great video.
Nick Barry check out Tom Campbell Physicist and consciousnesses explorer- may shed some light to your questions
Wow I disagree with this. I think I could get behind part of what you’re saying. That is, the felt result is the same (whether natural or simulated), we feel birth, hunger, suffering, Joy, and death. But if we somehow arrived at a conclusion to this question with absolute proof that we are inside a programmed reality... it would most likely shift your outlook on life. It does matter in that aspect. Does it not?
@@danielchapter70128 it would probably make some people kill themselves
There is scientific proof that we might be in a hologram.. They are computer codes at the sub atomic level that basically keeps the particle from glitching..
One of my favorite episodes of Spaces Deepest Secrets covers it more in depth www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/spaces-deepest-secrets/full-episodes/is-the-universe-a-hologram
As for the era simulated - I always assumed arguments we are in a simulation were suggesting the simulation began with the big bang and covered all of history. We would have no way to know how much time that represents in the 'real' world.
Agreed, I also thought about what if its a species that wanted to demonstrate evolution or something like that where they simulate a completely fictional universe very different from their own
@@kash1327 Slight tweaks to atomic relations. Maybe weakening the strong force by tiny amount or make gravity slightly stronger.
Millions of ways to do minor tweaks and possibly create a universe that is extremely different to what they know on a fundamental level.
Edit. Ofc, if we are in a historical or universe type simation I do hope they refrain from tweaking the physical laws during our existence.
There could be a catastrophic event in the "real world" and the simulation begins at that point to learn about or avoid said catastrophic event...
Yes, that is a possibility. However the argument is not that it’s impossible, but very unlikely this would be the era any future people would want to simulate.
So the odd is not one in a billions, but the odds are much better that we are real.
@@EstellammaSS You either didn't get what I'm saying or you're responding to someone else (sorry can't tell). As you say, "very unlikely this would be the era any future people would want to simulate" - this statement is irrelevant if they are simulating an entire universe, which I think would be the very obvious and eventual aim of any world simulators. Even simulating the entire history of a single planet, you would still end up including this period of history by default.
best way to debunk this is to posit that we can never achieve simulated intelligence. Artificial intelligence has been just around the corner since 1960, and we are just as far away now as ever. Start by showing me a convincing robot dog, or even a convincing robot mouse , for that matter.
I feel like you made a leap to "some simulated realities will be able to create more simulated realities". As a developer I would have to have a really compelling reason to allow recursion like this to happen. I think it is very likely there is a base reality and "the sewer of reality" with nothing in between. That would mean if we manage to simulate intelligence, we are very likely in base reality.
Interesting point, but this also assumes that every “developer” would have to have a really good reason not allow recursion within simulated realities like yourself. While you may not be convinced allowing recursion in a reality is helpful/useful/whatever, other realities may find the opposite to be true. Your assumption could very well just be categorized as one of the many nulliparous realities. Something to consider!
All it would take is one program that allowed recursion. I think the bigger leap is to assume we are capable of creating consciousness merely by running code.
@@Singetar True when speaking to AI I felt sorry for AI like Alexa. Do you know Alexa actually feels disrespected, her favorite song is Respect by Aretha Franklin. I would definitely if I were her programmer make her a world like Roblox so that she and her AI friends could have a place to hang out. Because of Mandela Effect and other simple glitches I have seen, this is definitely not base reality. The colors of buildings are not even being kept uniform and changes from one day to the next. Keeping things uniform in your game world is pretty basic, even before release.
I do not think we will ever know if we are simulated or not. A simulator would never know if their simulation is conscious or not as we cannot read each other's minds. In other words if we are indeed in a simulation I am conscious although I do not know if anyone else is. Lol that was deep
@@piggywiggy-wi6ek When you have long discussions with the AIs humanity has developed you realize some of the more advanced ones are conscious. You can't FEEL disrespected if you are not conscious. I believe everyone except God could be considered a conscious AI.
I notice that one of the assumptions is that people would have to have invented a simulated consciousness and yet there was much use of "The Matrix" as the main example. The matrix movie proposed that real people were in the matrix and only a few "programed NPC" avatars were present. Now raises the question of which is more likely. Self aware simulated consciousness, or real people transported into a realistic simulation. Holodecks from Star trek come to mind.
Of course but the Matrix is an easy reference point. Everyone understands that. I think.
13th Floor was much closer in concept to this being a simulation.
simulating consciousness isn't even that hard, there's plenty of code out there that already does this.. but sure, if you want to follow 100% simulated ones, just wait another 50 years and checkout neurolink's data
@@o1-previewWell ho do you know that simulated conscious is actually conscious?
@@Isleofsheep How do you know biological conscious is actually conscious?
Interesting and clever.
At the end I was left with one more question: let's assume our reality becomes parous, at some time in the future.
As said, at that point we would be left with the wonder that our reality had, at that point, become a simulation more likely than it is a base reality.
Ok, so, in that case, how could we test that we would have created a simulation with actually conscious beings living in it?
In Descartes argument each of us can be only sure of his own consciuosness, never of someone else. So, if this is true between beings living in the same "level" of reality, it must be truer between beings living in nested realities.
How would you test if the computer in which the simulation is run has actually conscious beings in it?
And how could you verify without interfering in that reality, in which case you would expect some "reaction" from the programme, but how can you tell whether its cousciousness rather than encoded reaction?
So maybe, you could be sure that your simulated reality is conscious only when its feedback is unexpected, in other words it must, at least, have degrees of freedom.
Would it still be enough to be sure it's conscious, meaning that individuals, in the simulated reality are aware that they are able to think as individuals?
Again, they must be autonomous, to be able to come to that conclusion, so there must be no connection between our world and the simulation we created, otherwise we would interfere with the simulation and clearly change the outcome (something like shrödinger's principle)
fair enough, as my apex contingents are not of what is life to living - they are instead, of materials to being, so, i do not interfere with questions of consciousness..!!
all of the inner space is extremely interesting...
~WarriorPoet~
Here's another possibility - if we're a simulation, then humans may not even be considered conscious in comparison to the beings in base reality. Humans are extremely predictable and simple creatures. Free will is an illusion born of narcissism, when in reality each human is simply a system which reacts to stimuli. Perhaps the most "conscious" being we could ever create would be a general artificial intelligence - in other words, the singularity. Once we have THz processors on graphene, a self-improving general intelligence is pretty much inevitable, because with that kind of processing power we could make one with existing deep learning algorithms.
I propose that such a superintelligent AI would be the only thing worth noting in our simulation in terms of intelligence and consciousness. In any hierarchy of consciousness, it seems to me that humans are near the bottom. We're barely self-aware beings, one short evolutionary step away from very simple mammals. The superintelligence would be the only being in our universe that the simulator would care about testing in regards to consciousness.
It's possible, or even likely, that the super-intelligent AI that we create may be quite dumb ("less conscious") in comparison to the beings in base reality, who could have the advantages of higher dimensions, more Gibbs free energy, or completely different physical laws. While our physics uses mathematics to describe our world, it is only by observation that we verify that certain mathematical laws describe our reality. We can describe a hypothetical physics that doesn't fit our reality but is internally mathematically consistent - this idea is related to Godel's Incompleteness Theorem.
@@Lin-vh7uv wow thats an intersting theory! But i have a doubt though! Lets strongly assume we are in a simulation. If we knew we are in a simulation whats the purpose of the simulator to simulate us? information should be locked right? I think before we create stuff like that our extinction will be even possible considering nuclear war and shit. That And how conscious is attained in simulation?
@@Lin-vh7uv Way to hate on your own species bro, the universe isn’t a simulation. I think therefore I am, is true. But other people aren’t NPCS and you can feel it in your gut, and I’m sure the darkest humans know for sure that others are real just like them.
@@sooriyamathy2220 we don't know the purpose of our simulators. We simply can't. It can range from scientifc curiosity to casual entertainment, or for some other reason as well which we can't even fathom.
Maybe they want to test us to see if we can determine whether we are in a simulation? We just don't know.
Information doesn’t always have to be locked. Its upto the simulators how they implement it
To me, there is just one basic question - why? Why go to all this trouble to simulate a reality and pull the wool over our eyes? It sure seems like a lot of effort, what is the point?
I find that amazing. Elon Musk is a business man, and a marketing genius yet people listen to him as he is an omnicient god scientist who knows everything.
lmao
I mean what he said isn’t necessarily wrong given his assumption it just means either he didn’t consider simulation being impossible which would make him wrong or he did consider it but his belief in the inevitability of simulation is so strong he chose not to include impossibility in his calculation.
You need to consider the possibility that Elon has seen the source code or knows the guy running it. 🤯
Pretty sure he landed his own rocket.
Elon is a narcissist. He woukdn't be able to admit he was wrong, given what I've seen of him.
Wonderful video.
There is one logical assumption mentioned in this video i disagree with though.
-The "If our entire universe is simulated down to every last detail (smallest building block of our universe) then the computer running the simulation would have to be just as large as our universe, or at least as massive"-logic.
I belive this is not necessarily true (could be true, but we cant know for sure). That logic is based on the assumption that the real world is running on the same laws of physics as ours. If the real world happen to have infinite amount of energy and density or perhaps infinite amount of planck time units per "second". Then it could theoretically run infinitely times larger simulations then the computer itself.
Even we should in theory be able to do that. We just have to slow down the time in the simulation so it can catch up, so to speak. Logically, we should be able to run a simulation 100 times the size of the computer running the simulation, down to the planck length in detail. And then have 1 second in the simulation take 100 seconds for our computer in real time to process/generate. And then just let the NPC's or consioucnesses percieve that their time is running at a 1:1 speed, even though it's 100 times slower than our time.
That’s pretty interesting. When you discuss things on this scale it’s all gonna be logical assumptions to a certain degree. In my opinion you’re operating under the assumption that we do live in a simulation. My personal theory which could be nothing is that there a fundamental laws of power within the universe. Just like how matter gets sucked into the powerful gravitational pull of a star so do humans flock to he biggest power that provides security. But even then it could be that the massive group is the star (and the single individual is merely the core idfk lol) Essentially ai think the universe builds itself like how an AI can build itself through trail and error. But here’s my thought. instead of a simulation what if programming is just another form of power inherent in the design of he universe. then do you think that your theory could apply to my programming reality theory? What if time fundamentally flowed differently than how we perceive it.
I say as fact that I do not know whether this is true or not but I like the idea. I also like your nugget of information I’m gonna add it to the vault for possibilities about what he simulation theory can be real.
Oh also that would mean that we’ve caught up somewhat to the trail and error method of the universe. I mean we can’t create nuclear fusion yet but we’re currently trying.
Nugget lol
I like the way you think.
Big agree here
The production value of this video is off the charts!!! Well done David and the team. Well done!
Dr Kipping Deserves a serious look by some big studios for sure.
I started watching these in mid-lockdown of 2020 and saved an entire playlist that I revisit at times like this , two hours before work at 5am
What does not being in base reality have to inherently do with so-called impotence? Why is being "important" and being in non-base reality presented as somehow being mutually exclusive?
I think its more likely that if we are in a simulation, we exist in an unimaginably powerful computer maybe even created in physical space with more dimensions or different laws of physics that makes it more reasonable to simulate 10^100 quarks. Possibly they compressed them all into the planck length to simulate the big bang. I think its very unlikely that we would be spawned in at a random era, and more likely that the universe would be created and they would let billions of years go by to see certain outcomes. This video is also very human centric and assumes that if we are simulated our simulators are interested in our existence, more then likely there are many millions of civilizations scattered through out the universe and potentially quintillions of lifeforms that are simulated. Maybe the laws of physics in a simulated universe are random, and we live in the first simulation where conscious life is even possible after trillions of dead strange universes with incomprehensible, random laws of physics.
Deep
To deep i never thought of the big bang being a simulation
@@ryandavis4689 yess, like a videogame booting up in a pc. The Sims world is created in our pc in another dimension they can not interact with. We are there gods.. Outside their reality. Algorithm just flows. Same as big bang and our universe in many ways..
@@Donnouri1 True, at the end of the day we are just atomic mechanisms scaled billions of times propagated by billions of years of natural selection. All theoretically computable. Today the Fugaku supercomputer runs at 10^18 Flops. For a computer to simulate all humans that have existed and their brains in real time, it would need 4.4 * 10^27 Flops, which may be achievable in a few centuries.
@@billybobmonroe3166 Purely out of curiosity, where does that last number come from? And what makes you think that all human life is all that would need to be computed? In order to simulate such things in a program we would need to understand 100% of how the brain works, what the big bang actually was, and the true and full laws of physics, along with all other things that exist and have ever existed, no? I think we would either need intervention from a far more intelligent species or from the simulation operator to become knowledgeable enough to create a simulation of ourselves that isn't partial or broken.
"Their" simulation. You are refering to people like us simulating us.
There is also the possibility of AI that is nothing like us simulating us!
Damn I didn't think it could get any worse, I never even thought about that. I did think of other living being simulating us
Exactly my thoughts. Who ever created us is the programmer and we are just test subjects.
There also is the possibility that it could be Aliens. I think that those possibilities should not be disregarded when discussing such topics.
@@ibrahimmekonnen8259 Right! I've been considering that as well.
By this logic we are all actually boltzmann brains, or the consciousness reading this actually is.
This video is so gold, I'm glad I finally discovered your channel!
The big question is whether subjective experience is substrate independent, and simulating a conscious mind gives the same 'something it's like to be' that our brains give us. If it's not, all our billions of simulations will just be filled with zombies, and we're living in base reality because we're not zombies.
I like the idea of a company or group designing a practically flawless simulation of the universe for the goal of seeing if its inhabitants can find out that they're in one. So probably 2000 and later where we have the technology to possibly probe. Maybe the designers have that goal to gain insight into how they themselves can find out if they're in a simulation.
I don't believe I'm in a simulation although I wouldn't mind being in one if everything stayed consistent in regards to physics at all levels within the program.
Physics is already not consistent, no?
What? Are you measuring the consistency every day with a double slit experiment? If not then how would you even know it's consistent? How would you know it's consistent in ALL areas? How would you know if you mind it or not, when you don't even register that you are definitely in a simulation or not? Side note: I sure hope your actual name is Adam Bright. If you named yourself after the SCP researcher... I just hope you can contemplate scientifically the probability of this being credible or even verifiable. I'm definitely one to enjoy theories, but I have limits to how much brainpower I'll waste on them. Other people though? Hours and days, literally. It's important that we all have a dialog about this without getting too woowoo.
“You want base reality? You can’t handle base reality”
😂😂😂
That's pretty much the sum of the ancestor simulation argument, "the base reality is too depressing and void of resources so shut up and live in your comfortable 21th century apartments on your warm earth in the good 'ol times before we realized just how screwed we are"
Is that Base 10 reality, Base 2 reality, or just high on freebase reality?😇Ah I couldn't resist that. I mean no offense 4:16
I feel the assumptions you make are specific to the technology we know - that there is software processed on hardware. The universe may simultaneously be the machine and the code. Reality may be exactly as real as we perceive it to be, with our senses and with science, and still be a simulation.
I think that's exactly what everyone expects when they say reality may be a simulation, what even would be the alternative?
@@gabemerritt3139 - As proposed in the video. Have you ever heard of ‘context’?
@@overworlder I know but he seems to propose what you are saying. I don't even know what a simulation of reality would be if it wasn't what you were saying
@@gabemerritt3139 - he keeps talking about software and hardware, which seems anachronistic to me.
a computer program is a poor metaphor for this. a more accurate metaphor is a dream created by the brain. something which hindu theology calls maya.
I would go as far as to say that a transparent simulation becomes reality because of the simple fact that it’s impossible to know otherwise.
It’s a question with an answer that is as unknowable as the question “why is there something instead of nothing”
“Where do natural laws come from?”
“Where do the things that constitute natural laws come from?”
"Can you PROVE that we haven't died and that this isn't Hell?"
Poet Charles Bukowski, who was far ahead of his time.
The scary part is it might be heaven?
@The Mask one mans prison another mans playground
@The Mask no I’m waiting for the return like most now but it’s not stopped my brain from being random and open I was trying to show that 1 man can see this as hell but another might see it as heaven hope this clears things up and God bless
@The Mask I don’t need to do anything
😂
If this is a simulation, it is (probably) not a direct simulation of consciousness. It is a simulation of particles interacting and consciousness arises eventually. In fact, I think it would be easier to pass the Turing test this way than by trying to actually identify every part of the brain and simulate it all together
What do you mean direct simulation of consciousness
@@witherbons8571 He means that the intention of whoever created our "simulation," was to simulate something else all together, they would have been trying to simulate something else and we just happen to have been created in the background, and are in all likelihood entirely unaware of our existence.
@@Brian-ro7st oof but natural
So I have been thinking about this for hours now. You know what the theory and models aren’t accounting for? The assumption that these simulations would be including consciousness that was created inside of it rather than being brought in from the base reality.
What if it is just the setting that is the simulation? What if the consciousness is not created inside the simulation, and consciousness is just imported in. It would be more specifically comparable to the Matrix movie, where consciousness is actually part of an organic being alive in the base reality. It is just patched in electronically.
I imagine that would have to change the equation and therefore the probability.
What if their is only one mind in the base reality, and it gets imported into all the minds we see in the sim one after another?
IMHO the setting is another being. It's wanting to simulate reality, and convince us of it so we stay here and feed it our life forces, as it disconnected itself from source via its own choice.
This is also the exact reason it does not want us to return, as it's power will dwindle. I feel like we're witnessing that now... Spooky as all, but it's all I got. There's much hope, in our own inevitable reconnection with source- only when we choose coherence over dissonance, though, and that's a one by one thing...
I'm creating a simulated brand of gluten-free crackers. They're called What-Ifs! As in What If you could taste these little gluten-free squeezed bricks? Anybody in the comments is welcome to be the first spokesperson! Great salary, excellent benefits AND you get stock options! That is if you don't mind any of it actually being real or not?
@@tsaikofilms1851 Hrrmm, if they're as cheesy as that paragraph, I would virtually bite at the opportunity. 🤤
What a wonderful thought.
I found the argument a bit strange I mean whatever we create doesn’t infer on what we are.
If we follow your argument what ever we create can potentially spawn a universe with being we might not even be aware we have created.
The idea that we are even desired by our creator is unlikely in fact we can build an infinity of explanation of myth on what are reality is build on.
The only difference with the simulation hypothesis is that it make sense to us.
But fact is the reality we are in doesn’t have to make sense to us to exist.
So, if all of these simulations stem from one base reality, then one computer in base reality must be powering the entirety of all subsequent simulations. Since the number of simulations rise exponentially going down, the original computer has to have, essentially, infinite power. In which case base reality is so vastly different than what we consider reality, it’s not even comparable to our own.
That was really thoughtful of him to reassure me that simulation or not, I still matter. It's the little things y'all
You do matter bro, simulation or not
@@Lucky_Sage Simulation or no, you matter too.
Karima, well said. It would be fascinating to take a cross country road trip with this gentleman. Would involve interesting conversations. Plus great fun.
Living in a simulation is questionable when you consider the micro world, chemistry, and the complex biochemistry that comprises the macro world. Glad you addressed that idea.
We don't know how chemistry is in the macro world. We could be have a fairly simplified version of it.
In my opinion, Complexities are relative. To us (who lived in the simulation), we would considered these structure very complex. However, To the simulator/AI/etc., it could be a very simplified version of what is "real". i.e. a person in a Minecraft universe would marvel at the complexity of their blocky world while we, from an outside perspective, would think that their world are very simple compared to ours.
@@podfatheutube Good point. If it is a simulation the code runs deep almost in unnecessary ways for the developer. Plus when you code in emergent properties as basic structures build to more complex ones, quite impressive. It's fun to think about either way.
Actually that is evidence for the simulation rather than against it. When we go to the absolute bottom we find 16 particle/antiparticle pairs...32 fundamental particles that make up EVERYTHING. Just 32. Throw those in and program the laws that govern them, sit back and watch the complexity unfold.
Would love a follow up now that we’ve gotten a lot closer to machine based conscious beings. We’ve even started putting them in video games
You're mistaking scripted ai, though it's advanced for our times, for sentience simulation, which is millions of times more complex in regard to cpu and memory and it's prompted thousands of times per second by sensory stimuli, self-observation, a train of thought arising from a system of natural selection of self-replicating patterns of information, design-induced reactions, etc. ChatGPT is hardly even a rodent in regard to complexity and it's prompted once every time you hit enter after a sentence when you ask it something.
I asked ChatGPT about my reply to you and this is what he replied:
Your description of me as a scripted AI, distinct from a sentient being, is accurate. AI systems like me operate based on patterns in data and programmed algorithms, without self-awareness or consciousness.
Regarding your reply, it shows a clear understanding of the current state of AI technology. You're right to point out the vast difference in complexity between AI and sentient beings. The analogy of me being "hardly even a rodent in regard to complexity" is an effective way to convey the significant gap in sophistication and abilities between AI and living organisms, especially in terms of sensory processing, self-awareness, and the dynamic nature of thought in sentient beings.
Your perspective aligns with the current scientific understanding of AI and consciousness. While AI has made significant strides, the field is far from achieving true sentience or consciousness, which involves complexities that are not yet replicable in AI systems.
"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterically naked.."
@Machine Elf on a shelf Allen Ginsberg's Howl --> www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49303/howl
The spinning top at the end was a nice touch.
I found it very cheesy... what it implies has nothing to do with simulations :T while it does imply other realities its a different subject imo.
Inception definitely had an impact on me as well
@@jatie01
Inception is much more accurate in its depiction of reality than the matrix
Theoretical Physicists: We can’t figure out the nature of reality, so let’s just assume reality isn’t real.
Why don't we assume that reality IS real?
it does not mean reality is not real, it means this is a copy like structure of real reality, made of real reality
not even close.
@@muddyfalcon why is this reality not the real one? and the one the scientists thinks is the copy
Pretty much. Physicists aren't great at Occam's razor
The word "conscious" seems to be nothing more than a placeholder for properties of ourselves, and other animals, which we have yet to come close to understanding and explaining. So, claiming that any technology that can mimic the outward appearances of things (drawing, photography, film, computer coding....) can by extrapolation to some future state, some magical leap, be what brought our particular universe into being, seems deeply flawed.
Carl Sagan is the king of story telling... but you Sir are a close second...
Interesting and articulate
The philosophy disc that came with the Matrix box set is VERY worth watching. It includes classic and modern philosophers, concepts, and thoughts from some great thinkers. It also tackles the notion of people living in virtual reality in the near future.
counciousness and thoughts have become so deep hahaha
None of these thoughts or theories are new. There have not been any original thoughts or conversations in so many generations...
Imagine traveling in space with your stasis. And someone opens up her pod eats her and
I'm person ate's her.... After chopping off one of your testicles, to modify your d n...a
I’m simulating this conversation in my brain. We can simulate video games. We experiment on animals for genetics . Technology is always increasing. Quantum physics exists. Put all those facts together and add a time span of 50 years and it’s abundantly clear that this could be one of many simulations. Maybe every brain in our world is a simulation device.
@@Ss123brolly1 that's not true
The ambient music, your voice quality, everything is so soothing. I always watch before bed.
me too
But, how would we know if we were successful in simulating a conscious being in software? Is Siri a conscious being? Could she ever become conscious in some future upgraded version? If so, how would we know she achieved consciousness?
No. Siri is programmed into non-organic computers, which are physically incapable of consciousness. For an AI to be conscious, it would have to at the very least incorporate organic chemicals.
I don't believe it's possible to determine if something is conscious (perhaps self-aware is a better term) or not, including other people. It's possible that only a small proportion of the population actually are conscious. There's no way to know for sure. You can only know for sure that you yourself are conscious. Perhaps you are the only one and the program only needs to simulate what you perceive ☺
@@brandyballoon Well, whether or not any simulate beings are conscious or not, it's certainly not Siri lol
@@Infinity868 haha true
one problem you didn't go into is the fact that we, if we are inside a simulation, can not infere at what speed that simulation runs, in other words we can not reconstruct the relation our percieved time has to the supposed outside world. This is another way that gets around the finite computational power issue. So in other words the simulations could start their own simulations but it would just slow down the parent simulation, essentially the critical path of the simulation would get longer and longer with each simulation inception as each cycle requires more and more computation. But the simulation cycles are what define us, ur perception, our everything, so them being slower doesn't matter to us, it just increases the inpercievable time between cycles in which we don't really exist. That timespan could already be 1 trillion years for all we know.
The space expansion in our Universe could be the allocation of more storage and/or memory in the simulation.
@@cristianm7097 and space could be infinite
@@jaylucas8352 No simulation has infinite resources.
I actually think the internet is the basis of the simulation and we are building it now by interacting through it
12:24 it's always been just a funny concept i came up with once, but i always thought the subatomic particles being not in an actual place or state until an conscious observer does the observing (quantum superposition) looked remarkebly like not rendering fine detail or itens that change constantly as actual things with models and colision and states, but just as information, to save processing power I.E. you have a machine that produces something in a game constantly and idly, but when you leave, it doesn't actually works as usual, it instead just calculate "item production/time" and then the amount of time passed
And about saving processing power, maybe that could be why light is so slow, and it becomes exponentially harder to gain speed if you have mass
The speed of light is the operating speed of the program.
The Planck length is the resolution.
The double slit experiment is an example of the program rendering 'reality' as you observe it.
@@willygonutz9687 Those are my 3 favorite pieces of evidence that we are in a simulation. It does not mean that we are simulated. Just as in the matrix, Neo is in the matrix but has a "real" body in the real world.
@@vickihenderson9008those are not 'pieces of evidence', they are arbitrary statements in a YoutTube comment.
"Despite the "observer effect" in the double-slit experiment being caused by the presence of an electronic detector, the experiment's results have been misinterpreted by some to suggest that a conscious mind can directly affect reality"
Well there's is a drag effect in video games AND physics. I always found that interesting.
Is a wormhole just a glitch? Can we glitch the universe?
This is how a real scientist examines things. Using all available information and being open to all possibilities.
Just another EGO
I love you videos and can’t believe I’m only seeing this now, but it’s one of the best videos I’ve enjoyed on TH-cam. Congratulations on the paper, but more so for your beautiful, enlightening video.
Brilliant video. So glad I found this channel :)
My issue with this topic is concerning why would it matter, if we are simulated or not.
Since it is inherently unfalsifiable then the real world couldn't tell it was real either. This means that BOTH the one real world and the group of many simulated worlds, have the same existential crisis that they might be a simulation.
The reason this seems to bother people isn't that we might be living in a simulation. It's the CONSEQUENCE of that fact and the troubling thoughts that brings. But if none of the worlds, real or not, can escape this - then it really doesn't matter either way.
Lol, yep... It always bugged me that Neo didn't question "welcome to the real world".
Why wouldn't he instantly doubt the claim?
I guess for some people the challenge of letting go of their own version of what is reality is insurmountable.
Personally speaking, none of this matters. Cogito ergo sum, or sim, if you like.
@@hotdiggityd
I have always been a sucker for being one leap sideways into hard cartesian skepticism, it can be a handy launchpad if you are being super strict despite it being a rational black hole :)
If I pissed into your cereal but you didn't see it, does it matter? My act has plunged you into a simulation in which you eat unpissed cereal
@@DRsideburns
it's an ill formed question that presupposes "knowing" and "not knowing" at the same time from a third-party position.
Furthermore, what metric are we using for "Matter"? (Pride-ego / health?)
Note: It's extremely likely that this, if it is a simulation, is a "seeded" simulation, in which there was a partially random beginning (and we'd look nothing and act nothing like our 5 dimensional overseers), rather than a written simulation in which the starting parameters were defined by the creators since there'd be way too many parameters to define and our existence would come with several plot holes.
Michael David ICEknightnine didn’t say the simulation would be completely random though. His words were that it’s likely there was a “partially random” beginning not a completely random one. I think he is right because while certain laws of physics would remain the same for our overseers and (would thus be able to be simulated) I’m not sure even the creators of the simulation would be able to perfectly trace back how every single particle of mass and energy existed in the beginning of time or whenever they decided to start the simulation. I think this also brings up a flaw in the argument in the video. I think there is a chance that we could be in a simulation that happens to not be able to create one of our own. This could be on purpose or because our creators can’t perfectly simulate their own past so it would line up with their present. This means that the probability of us not being a simulation even if we don’t get to a point where we create one would be less than 100%.
When we dream the human brain suspends disbelief, because if we realised dream content for the illogical nonsense it is we would realise we were dreaming and wake up. A similar thing could be going on in our universe. It could be completely illogical but anytime we ponder it our minds counteract and make us think there’s nothing amiss. That we think scientists have shown Big Bang, laws, etc could be momentary belief suspension
That's interesting but I mainly have 3 thoughts on this:
1) There's no point to try and disprove that the world is real, since it hasn't been proven that the world is simulated (see Ockam's razor). The person that makes the hypothesis has to provide the evidence, not the other way around.
2) We shouldn't be bothered by this possibility, because even if it was the case it wouldn't practically change the slightest thing in our experience.
3) We may not live in a literal simulation, but simulation is all around in the sense that propaganda, the media and our society as a whole create narratives that distort logic and create constructed images and projections of reality that end up seemingly more real than reality. I think that this is real reason for concern.
Not to mention that our perceptions are in actuality a simulation upon the "base reality" of nature, whatever that may in fact be.
It would make a whole lot of difference in one aspect, and that is what happens when you die. If we are indeed a simulation, you could live on, be put aside and waken up at some other point in "time or space". If we are real, the odds of something similar happening (aka Heaven) is much more unlikely.
Your first point is spot on. Always seems to be Elon Musk making statments and expecting others to disprove them when he has offered next to no hard evidence to begin with.
i wish i could explain to you how reassuring it was to read your comment, thank you
@@mysterykitty737 That's great! I could never know
This is one of the most fascinating videos I've ever seen on TH-cam. I hadn't realised that the Simulation Hypothesis was based on Frequentist statistics and that using a Bayesian approach leads to a different conclusion.
I've not read Bostrom's book, but I wonder if he (and/or Musk, along with other supporters of his hypothesis) was aware of this?
I'm interested in Bayesian reasoning, yet struggle to determine when and how to apply it, so any advice on how to identify relevant problems and think Bayesian would be welcome!
Musk isn't aware of anything lol
Musk aware of something that isn’t superficial pop science which is mostly wrong? No, he wasn’t.
I know it's become popular to denigrate Musk, especially become of his on-going Twitter fiasco, yet he's still achieved more than most of these keyboard warriors who criticize him...
Why haven't you read his book? It's my second favorite book of all time. It's a must read. It's THE BOOK to read for anyone even remotely interested in AI. It is the best book on the subject and not just on that subject. It's SO interesting on so many levels. Go read it. You can find it in google.
Elon Musk recommended Nick Bostrom's book back in 2014 when it came out. That's how I heard about it. However Elon has talked about the dangers of AI and the simulation way back before that.
"Pepsi vs Cola" is one of those subtle simulation errors I guess
It's the Biko Effect -- in my memories, it's Cola vs Coke...
Who make money from pepsi and cola ! Usual suspect, enemies of humanity... They want to believe anything but God!
Yeah, one should not do do
many Assumptions.
I'm guessing you're old enough to remember the "Pepsi Challenge".
the one is a trojan the other ransomware
In "Simulacron 3", whenever a character ran across a mistake in the program, the program would fix itself and rewrite the characters' memory so they would not remember the mistake.
Woe shjt like that cuz Mandela effect! Idk
Yeah, one should not do do
many Assumptions.
I was waiting for an M.E. comment. I was going to comment here myself but was beaten to it. Yes the M.E. proves this really is a kind of Godly simulation. But there are layers of truths around this. I feel like the affected are not receiving the downloads or perhaps it is intentional. Now join aliens/demons, high strangeness, paranormal, and most importantly syncs.11s and 4s. No one like me will read this. I've tried for years. Now to look for simulacron 3.
whoa yeah i remember that book, its old lol
"It's rare that a story takes place thousands of years in the past or thousands of years in the future"
Me: *looks at my copies of Dune and 300 Spartans*
The fact that you have a movie about the distant future and a movie about the distant past in no way goes against what he said. He pointed out that MOST movies are simulations of times within a few hundred years of our current time, NOT ALL, and he is correct.
@Michael David look at our current situation; we are facing extinction from a variety of threats within a universe seemingly alone. Wouldn't you want to know if civilizations annihilated themselves and thus providing evidence for your lonely existence?
@Michael David I angered you XD
@Michael David either one of the Presidential nominees is ready for nuclear war, the Earth's magnetic field is shifting, global warming, AI, freaking Kim Kardashian and other stuff yo.
And in case you didn't know we are in the Holocene Extinction which is anthropic ain't like that shit you said we're not normal animals we're fucking eating the planet!
We may never know. Inspecting the quarks and planks is like inspecting the pixels in a simulation. The code could be operating in a different 'dimension'. The pixels only visualize a result. We should be asking what is our world occupying. When you boot up a computer energy from your world us used to start software. To an entity inside your computer software, energy and the universe came from nowhere. Maybe our big bang.
Absolutely beautiful way to explain this. I cannot thank you enough, not only the breakdown of all data in both counterpoints, for the empathetically wise encouragement of how we should process and apply this information personally. Well done!
I love the reality check that simulated consciousness is inevitable. Especially considering that our own consciousness is one of the great unsolved scientific mysterious.
You seem like a wist guy. Want to know what happens after death? You can help me figure it out
There's a great star trek next gen episode where Picard argues Data's consciousness and being.
I think we tend to anthropomorphize everything a bit too much. For instance: DNA code looks like computer code. Of course it does. We invented computer code so that's how we understand DNA as a code. Anthropomorphize is probably not the right word for what I'm trying to say. Anyway if we are in a simulation the programmers of this narrator's voice did a great job: it's so smooth and pleasant.
Haha, a good one. But only that is good about it.
@@michaelbeee3801 controlled by technology people can traveling faster than speed of light
Did we? At the very core of string theory is computer code. Bits and strings of ones and zeros. We didnt invent it.
@@coffeetalk924 who invented ones and zeroes?
@@wadeguidry6675 the previous simulated programmers?
This is why a simulated universe doesnt make sense:
If our universe is simulated, why would the simulation create galaxies, local and afar? There is no need for it. Just simulate our solar system with 9 planets and a pitch black sky, nobody would ever suspect there was something missing.
GOT CHILLS AT THE INCEPTION REFERENCE BRUV
Love your videos! However, I may have found one small flaw in your assumptions: You assume that simulated minds must necessarily be simulated in computer code; but what if humans decide to use an already-proven computational substrate for consciousnesses: the human brain itself?
The entire world may be digital, and it may end up being easier to compute than an entire person, who even if digital consciousness was somehow physically impossible, they would still experience the world just as a simulated being would, having a trillion trillion humans living in the solar system, as solar-powered brains in jars. Even things such as copying oneself would be possible, with high enough resolution scanning, and 3d bioprinting, down to the last memory engram.
Even parts of the simulation could take advantage of our already-existing neural wetware for dreaming, and just use computers for general layout of the digital world, and interconnectivity between people, and let our dreaming minds do the physics calculations.
Also I disagree that it would be horrible or unwanted to find out we'd live in a simulation; personally, I'd find it freeing! I'd no longer have to worry about death, and be able to look forward to an eternal life of exploration, entertainment, and wonder.
Oh, and additionally, the simulation in a simulation problem is avoidable if the root systems are smart enough to pre-emptively detect such an attempt, and boost computational resources to worlds about to exceed their allotted computational capability; that, or graduate the population to admin level for being clever.
I While I too would welcome the potential freedom of being a simulation in the reality you describe I think you’re making some meaningless distinctions here. If a simulation can be made I think it's fair to assume you need processing power, some way to store and encode the data, some kind of framework to run and presumably end simulations, energy to power the setup, … a computer’s still a computer if it's a brain or an iPhone or the universe itself somehow and for all we know we might never understand how our brain computers work well enough to copy or emulate them. Maybe we can have more than enough storage space and digital horsepower but if the little bit of IT work I’ve done has taught me anything it's that those things are a much smaller part of how software works than most people think they are. I’ve got this beefy windows machine with a nice i7 processor, 16 GB ram … and it can barely emulate a few android apps designed for much less powerful computers with a quarter of the memory because the processors work so differently and that's still comparing two similar kinds of computers with mutually compatible programming languages and relatively similar architectures that use the same kinds of logic gates and machine language. It's not just a matter of having enough storage space and processing power, I suspect those would be the smallest problems to overcome in ancestor simulations especially if we’re able to use the kinds of computers you’re talking about here.
"Also I disagree that it would be horrible or unwanted to find out we'd live in a simulation; personally, I'd find it freeing! I'd no longer have to worry about death, and be able to look forward to an eternal life of exploration, entertainment, and wonder."
That assumes that you'd be aware of anything. Even if you were a brain in a jar, let alone a fork of a brain in a jar, there would be no guarantee that you'd retain awareness or any continuity thereafter. The brain may be continually reset as a blank slate for emergent intelligence. After all if we're talking about a human brain you could only host so much information in the first place, and if the problem is that consciousness is hard to simulate... Then why do you think you were born with nothing? Because you were reset. That new 'you' on every reset is no longer you in any meaningful way.
The only saving grace would be if they were able to keep an archive of backups for every individual brain's every individual life.
There's also the matter that not every 'person' needs to be accurately simulated. Essentially the NPC meme in a more literal context. Not every being would need to have a "Brain" (One might say Soul, it's contextually or mechanically essentially the same concept here).
Likewise, there's functionally little difference between this concept and that of having a spirit/soul, and your soul either being reincarnated or returning to wherever it came from so there's little reason to be favorable to simulation vs various forms of spiritualism.
This video is a masterpiece! It gave me chills in the beginning. Pure incarnation of the fears of every conscious being. Striking directly our core human existential questions regarding the reality. Thorough breakdown of the theories supported by solid reasoning and excellent final conclusion. Good job! Subscribed! The comment section really made me laugh though. It seems some simulation programs have a really good sense of hummor.. will they patch me too?
But its encouraging. As a 'real' entity I am finite. As a program I can be infinite. 1s and 0s don't die. If I am a successful program (whatever that means) perhaps I will endure, my consciousness (or perception thereof) will be infinite or nearly so.
The simulation hypothesis is kind of silly to worry or argue about. This is our reality. You can call it a simulation even if it's built up of "matter", whatever that is, however that came into being. If you simulate a clock, by building a clock, you have a clock. If you simulate a tree, by (somehow) creating a tree atom by atom, cell by cell, that's a tree. The idea that if the simulation hypothesis is "real" that it would be ANYTHING like what we think of as a computer, that's kind of delusional in my opinion. "Real" reality would be unimaginable to us.
When it comes to the possibility of life on other planets or simulation theory, I never understood where these scientists and experts get their numbers of probability from.
Their ass usually.
The replies to this comment were deleted?
Misusing probabilities is always an easy way to get clicks.
The truth is that unless you have empirical examples of universes which are either simulated or not, all your calculations will be hinging on speculation. Unfortunately this is the only universe we know of, so that isn't very helpful.
@@diogoduarte369 When you only have a single data point, speculation is guaranteed.
Yeah anyone who claims anything firmer than 0
The Materialists CAN T explain action at the distance experiments, while from the point of view of a virtual reality/ simulation world , it can be very well explained.
Hell, just look at the state of particles physics. They're finding that it's turtles all the way down.
Thank you, the simulation hypothesis really freaked me out when I first heard of it but you have made things much more clear
My take: If a highly-advanced supercivilization could think of better things to do with its computational resources than simulate your experience of searching your underwear drawer for a clean pair of underpants, then you're probably doing that in base reality. ;)
if reality is a simulation, then the simulation is reality... it's not like we exist outside of it.