(Not So) Deep Sh*t with Chris & Steve
(Not So) Deep Sh*t with Chris & Steve
(Not So) Deep Sh*t on Simulation Theory (Part 1)
Could our universe be nothing more than a high-tech simulation, akin to a massive multiplayer video game? Join Chris and Steve as they unravel the enthralling concept of simulation theory, a notion that has permeated mainstream consciousness thanks to iconic films like "The Matrix" and "Tron." Through the lens of video game advancements and immersive technologies, we explore how these developments make the idea of a simulated reality increasingly plausible. Our journey starts with a reflection on how pop culture has shaped our understanding and moves into the profound implications for our perceptions and interactions with the world.
We navigate the intriguing intersections between simulation theory, quantum physics, and ancient philosophical ideas like Plato's cave allegory. What if our roles in this simulated universe mirror player characters and NPCs in video games? From the societal and psychological impacts of preferring digital lives over physical reality to the intellectual discourse propelling simulation theory into mainstream conversation, we leave no stone unturned. We'll also touch on how technologies like virtual and augmented reality might transform our daily experiences, blurring the lines between the virtual and the real even further.
Our discussion wouldn’t be complete without drawing parallels between religious beliefs and life as a simulated game. You’ll hear thought-provoking comparisons between spiritual practices and progressing through game levels, offering a fresh perspective on age-old concepts. Finally, we delve into the mysteries of quantum physics, including the observer effect and retrocausality, laying the groundwork for our next episode where we'll examine phenomena like the Mandela effect that intriguingly support simulation theory. Join us as we question the very nature of existence and explore these captivating ideas.
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I'm Chris, I'm Steve and we're talking to talk about some more deep shit. How's it going, steve?
Speaker 2:Pretty good, chris, how you doing.
Speaker 1:Not too bad at all. We are on a roll here putting episodes out lately, aren't we? I'm very proud of us. Yes, we have been doing pretty well keeping the consistency up. So if you're listening to this, you're probably listening to this in July, and we have been putting out episodes every other week. Yes, generally twice a month is how it works out. Yes, we're aiming for consistency and we're getting it. Yes, so far, so good. So that'll be the general plan. Going forward is we will be putting out an episode about every other week and then you and I may fill in some gaps with our own, with our own individual stuff, as you know bonus episodes as it comes and goes, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm excited.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's so. Things are going well on the recording front. Yes, yes, so today's topic today we dig into a fun one. Recording front yes yes.
Speaker 2:So today's topic today we dig into a fun one, don't we? Yes, there's a lot to talk about with the simulation theory, and if you don't know what it is, Chris, why don't you tell us a little bit about it?
Speaker 1:So the simulation theory is the idea that we are in a simulated universe, almost like a multiplayer video game, online video game kind of idea, and that the world around us is, is being presented to us but we're almost like in an avatar, kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Right, right, and there's kind of different versions of what it could be, I guess.
Speaker 1:Right, different pop culture references, do you mean?
Speaker 2:Right and I? And Do you mean Right and I and you know? I mean maybe not everyone, but some people are familiar with the matrix. That might be one of the more popular ones to think about.
Speaker 1:I think that's the one where the idea of simulation theory really entered the public consciousness. I think before that people didn't. Most people didn't even think of that, which is why the matrix was such a mind-blowing movie at the time Because you didn't see that like, wow, that's a neat twist.
Speaker 2:Right, right, and I think part of the reason why it's so popular and it's so I don't know it resonates with people. How's that? It resonates, I think, because there's really no way of knowing if it's real or not. You know, when we sat talking about some of these versions of the theory and different aspects of it, how do you even know?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true. Well, it's interesting too because, like 30 years ago, you wouldn't have been able to talk about this because our framework actually probably longer than that when. I think 30 years ago. I still think we're talking about like the 80s, 70s. Yeah right, that's not true anymore. You know Pac-Man, pong, you know it slowly evolved. The thought of us being in a video game wouldn't even enter our mind because video games were so primitive.
Speaker 2:But even now, with our technology, they've become so advanced that just the concept that that's what we could be looking at here makes more and more sense from a technological standpoint, because our own video games are becoming that realistic, right right and um, when you started talking about going back a ways, I thought one of the first um pop culture media references I remember as a kid was Tron right, oh, yes, yeah, and back then I think that might have come out in 82, 83, tron Video games at that point really weren't like they, obviously weren't like they are now right, and in that movie they entered in knowing it was a game and they kind of played the game knowing right.
Speaker 2:So it was a little different than the simulation theory that you kind of don't know what's happening to you, and I think that, like you said, that becomes something that people can contemplate more now because you look at the video games. Now sometimes it's not so easy to tell. Sometimes I'll watch, because I'll actually have trailers for video games on commercials, let's say, and I'll at the beginning of one once in a while say, oh, what's this movie? And then I realize it's a video game.
Speaker 1:Right, and everything you're looking at is CGI and that, because we're so used to seeing CGI in movies, right, that that sort of that same look, yeah, video games and movies and actually the production of video games now is like almost like a movie, like the, the amount of production that they put into it, where they actually hire actors to voice, the roles and, uh, you know, flesh out everything.
Speaker 1:It's. It's technologically, we're there. I mean especially virtual reality. That's almost like the last linchpin of getting us to that point of being totally immersed in a game. Right Before that you're still cognizant that you're in a game, like even the multiplayer games. We know because we're looking at a screen. And if you're looking at a screen, then you know where you are. It's the VR aspect of it when suddenly, what is the screen? There is no screen, there is no spoon. It's that the screen is your field of vision and that's where it's all going to, kind of. They're already talking about whether or not this metaverse, whether that concept not necessarily the Facebook one, but that concept, not necessarily the, the um uh, facebook one, but that concept of a metaverse, but whether people will retreat into it, whether, like the, with the, digital life will be more enticing than reality and will, certain, will people kind of retreat into that world and not, you know, not interact with reality.
Speaker 2:Oh right, yeah, I mean, if you think about the way video games were 30, 40 years ago and the way they are now and how quickly that's happened, I mean, you know, to a person, 30 or 40 years is a long time because it's, you know, maybe half or a third of your life, but in the grand scheme of the world it's really nothing.
Speaker 1:Oh right, our technological advancement has been like off the charts and the total time frame for that is such a small percentage, like almost like. I think I heard it, somebody, somebody's, I don't even remember where I heard this but basically, like if the history of the entire world were one continuous book, then, like everything that we've experienced in our life with the, you know from you go back to like, say, the 60s and sort of like the, that era of the moon, moon launches and things like that, and up till now would be like the last paragraph of that book.
Speaker 2:You know, like that that it's just such a small time frame in the big scheme of things right, right, and I do appreciate, um, considering you, we like talking about conspiracy theories, that you so called it the moon launch, not the landing, which opens us up to maybe talk about that at some point. Yeah, definitely, that's a fun. That's a fun one. Maybe talk about that at some point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely that's a fun one to talk about, just because it's so puzzling in some cases. But no, I meant just where we are from that whole thing. I didn't just mean all our space launches. So that was a way of saying it. But people have gotten sucked into video games. Even before VR, Like World of Warcraft, there were all sorts of stories for a while. You know, those who aren't familiar I think most listening are probably at least familiar here, have heard of World of Warcraft.
Speaker 2:I've heard of it. I've never played it.
Speaker 1:It's basically just a multiplayer online game where you log on and you're running around with your little character and you know you're doing stuff, okay.
Speaker 2:Like a version of Dungeons and Dragons online.
Speaker 1:Yes, any of those games where you're at home on your screen and somebody else is at home on their screen and you're interacting together in this shared virtual space. And there's different ones that have different genres. World of Warcraft is very fantasy, but that's not it. There are space ones too. There's even ones that aren't spectacular, isn't it?
Speaker 1:there was something called second life, where it was just a video game of life, like people would log in and create a character that was just in the regular world we're in now the regular world and they would, you know, get go to, go to quote-unquote school and get a job and have a family and have a home and, like people, would just kind of like, live this virtual life. And again, people would get sucked into it and literally spend most of their time doing it and they were aware it was fake, you know. So now take it to the point where if, if people don't realize it's fake or it's easier to forget that it's fake, Well, how's this right?
Speaker 2:The characters in the video game they don't know they're fake. That's the whole point. I think of that version of the simulation theory, right? Yes, those characters I know it's kind of crazy to talk about, right? Because you know we don't really there's no reason to believe those characters in that game have their own conscience right there's no reason to believe that and there's nothing that says that.
Speaker 2:But that's that's, I guess, the beginning of how that version of the simulation theory starts, because that's basically saying we're those people, right? Right, I guess. No, that's one thing. Some versions in some versions. It depends whether you're talking about a version where simulation theory we're all plugged into a people, right, right, I guess.
Speaker 1:No, that's one thing. Some versions in some versions. It depends whether you're talking about a version where simulation theory we're all plugged into a simulation that we're all going through together and that while we're in it we don't realize we're in it, but when we exit it, pass away, then we exit the simulation and it's only then we realize that it was a simulation and then we debrief on how it went and then go back into it. It's kind of that idea that we're all doing that. Now. The other flip version of that is that's true of some of us.
Speaker 1:Oh, but there are some of us who are just here that aren't real wait a minute that are npcs, that that concept of a player character and a non-player character, have you heard? I don't know what you mean. So in video games that's a very oh okay, so there's somebody that's run by this computer program itself.
Speaker 1:Yes, okay, what? You'd interact with them in the video game and they would seem to be real, but their existence is really there for your benefit. The shopkeepers, let's just say in a fantasy like World of Warcraft, all the people who run the shops. They're not real people, they're NPCs, non-player characters, and you interact with them. And in some iterations of video games these non-player characters can be pretty advanced. They can be very lifelike, but they are, at their core, fake. Actually, another great film that kind of references this idea is Free Guy, which is a Ryan Reynolds.
Speaker 2:I haven't seen that. Look, I like him, but I haven't seen it.
Speaker 1:That is a good movie. It's that idea, Actually, that one is kind of using a version of Grand Theft Auto, you know, which is another multiplayer game which is all about running around and shooting things up and all sorts of crime sprees and stuff like that, and that that movie handles it very, in a very entertaining way of the idea of a character in that game, Like you said, like an NPC realizing that that they're in a fake reality.
Speaker 2:It's, it's, very, it's, it's a it's a.
Speaker 1:I don't want to give too much away. It's a great movie, though it's another way of handling that whole situation.
Speaker 2:Interesting, interesting, and the way you had just described, where we don't realize it's a simulation until we're out of it, right that's. You know, that's a lot in even writings from before Christ.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And it's crazy to think about. I came across that. Did you come across that with Plato? Yes, that's really what. That's the whole thing, the cave thing.
Speaker 1:Right. It's that twin track of our technology is now getting to the point where we can envision such a thing, whereas before we couldn't even envision what that would be like because we had no frame of reference. Go back to Victorian times and try to explain this concept. You couldn't use video games, obviously, as a way of describing it, so there's nothing really to grapple on with. So now that we're at a technological level where we understand that concept, everyone listening kind of gets that concept, even if they don't play those games, even if they've never even been exposed to those games. They've you've probably out there been exposed to the concept of them and you can understand that. Or you log on to this game and you play with other people who are elsewhere. Call of duty is another one. You know there's tons of them now, like a lot of them are just, you know, multiplayer games. Uh, what's the one? Um?
Speaker 1:Fortnight is another kind of similar thing where it's a shared reality. But what's interesting about that is it? It's the appearance of a shared reality, but it's really not, because each person's frame, what they're seeing, isn't in a location, it's on their screen and everybody's reality is being generated on their individual screen. It just seems like we're sharing a space because on my screen I look over and I see you. On your screen you look over and see me, and we both could look to our one of us to our right, another one to our left and see something which we both see and the same with any direction we turn. So there's the illusion that we're sharing a space, but in computer, technical terms we're not. It's our. Our field of vision is being rendered on our individual machine, right, so like concepts like that. But they start to line up with like quantum physics kind of principles and it becomes an easier way to describe what's happening with that. Do you know?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, absolutely. What do you think is the driving factor in why this is becoming a topic that more the research I did, this is something a lot of people are talking about. Do you think it's because the video games are getting so much better? Do you think it's because of people that are kind of looked at as intellectuals are talking about it? What do you think is a combination of all of it?
Speaker 1:Probably a combination and it starts to explain. What I find fascinating is that when you start looking at simulation theory, all the different aspects of it and how it starts to explain things, or at least gives a framework to possibly explain things that previously were hard to explain, like a lot of the quantum physics principles, deeper and deeper in things, what they're finding is more and more blank space, more and more emptiness, more and more the concept of everything that we look at, everything that we interact with exists is like data Our senses are taking in and kind of making it into reality. So, like I pick up this pen, this pen is physically here. Both you and I are looking at it, but like quantum physics, like as they dig deeper and deeper, there is no pen. It's just most of what this is is blank space.
Speaker 1:It's very little, it's weird, it's almost like everything comes down to information, right Waves that our senses are taking in and kind of converting to the physical world Right, which makes no sense when you hear it, like earlier on. But then if you kind of put that to a computer game, then you go oh, it makes sense. It's kind of similar to, you know, when we're in World of Warcraft and I take my sword and I hand it to you and I give it to you. Your character now has the sword that I had. It would seem that I gave you a physical object and you now have that physical object. But you and I both know, because we're aware that we're in a video game, that that object is not real, it's just code. But in the context of the game that item is real. So it's understandable to us now how that can possibly be.
Speaker 2:And I wonder how we as humans would change or will change. How's this? Because eventually you hear the rumors about Apple or maybe other providers with. Have you heard about the contacts?
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, that they is it real?
Speaker 2:I don't know, but they talk about this as something that might be coming in the future, where you're looking at the computer game or you're looking up information right on context, right. So, uh, it sounds great to look up quick information, I guess. But if you're playing a video game, right, um, and all you can see everywhere you look is the game, that's total, I guess. Total, you're getting into total immersion. Uh, I don't know about what you're touching with your hands, but let's say I don't know about the connection between what you're seeing and how you're reacting to it, because I think there is a lot of evidence to say that if you think it's happening, then your body to your body, it's the same as it actually happening. You'll react, people will sweat, things will happen, even though it's not really happening, because your perception says it is.
Speaker 1:And perception is reality. Right, If you perceive something, then it is for all intents and purposes Well, what you're talking about. There is the difference between virtual reality and then that is augmented reality.
Speaker 1:So, virtual reality is that idea of you're totally immersed and then that is augmented reality. So virtual reality is that idea of you're totally immersed, You're in the game. Augmented reality is where it's like an overlay of fake on top of the real. And when they talk about those goggles or contact, I mean eventually that you'll be able to see and in your frame of vision data can come up. You're seeing that data but obviously everyone around you you, they don't see it because that's only in your reality. So it's augmenting regular reality with this additional information. And, yeah, you can already see people. I actually had my first encounter seeing somebody sitting on a plane with those the apple um goggles where I can't remember what they're called the new vr goggles oh, you mean the ones you that kind of just cover your whole eye oh yeah like, just like a big goggle set that covers the whole.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they're just there and they're, like you know, touching their hand in the sky and basically interacting with screens that only they can see. And you know, I hear about people now. You know I've heard about people doing that and I saw that on a plane and, like this I think it was this guy had these on the whole plane.
Speaker 2:So if you, just say to yourself quickly, so you can put it this way If everyone on that plane was had the headset on and everyone on that plane was in the same game, or whatever is happening, right that's reality.
Speaker 1:That's right your senses. If that's all that you see, that's your reality.
Speaker 2:And what do you do if? What happens if we get to a point where that's what you do for 12 hours a day, or maybe 24 hours a day, I don't know, it's not that hard to say. If we're doing that for a long period of time, then that's reality, right.
Speaker 1:Right. You could see a world too where, as the what I'm going to quote real world gets less enjoyable in various ways. Let's just say you know, things don't go great, but there's this outlet that's suddenly available to people where they can like put on this, you know, goggles or headset or whatever, and escape to a virtual place where that's better. You could easily see a world where people do that. Like I said, you already see that and we're not even like World of Warcraft is good, but it's certainly not like totally immersive, and you already see that. I mean, there have been horrible stories where people like neglect their children because they're both addicted to parents, you know, are playing the World of Warcraft, and I think there was some case where a child actually passed away because the parents yeah, and I mean this was somewhere I can't remember where some other country, but it was basically the parents were so addicted to and I think it was World of Warcraft that they literally could not tear themselves away from it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it sounds incomprehensible to us, but I mean, we know these things happen out there, all sorts of things you know, like that. So it's very easy to believe that if virtual reality, if that world got too good and the outside world wasn't great, that people would escape into it. And then, of course, oh, another movie I think that actually handles that in some ways, like Ready Player One.
Speaker 2:Yes, I saw that. Right. So it's another idea of most people are spending Exactly because the reality kind of stunk, yeah, right, and people would escape, right. But that world actually had some bearing. It was kind of interesting, right?
Speaker 1:No, but you can see how, to a smaller degree, that's already kind of happened, with people being like lost in social media forever. I mean, it's not the same thing, but Well, it's not that different. It's not that different, right, because it's a virtual world that doesn't really exist.
Speaker 2:Right, we try to say social media is a reflection of the real world. It kind of isn't. It's a reflection.
Speaker 1:I think of the worst parts.
Speaker 2:Right or or the best parts.
Speaker 1:Some people think it's the best parts it does. It's right.
Speaker 2:But it's Two pronged, it's very, it's At its best, it's augmented reality, right? Because I mean, you know, we all know, once in a while I'll put, I'll put a Thing out, just for laughs, you know Whatever as much. But uh, and it says something like around halloween time. It says for halloween we all should dress up as the people we pretend to be on social media.
Speaker 1:You know, because you know. You know, I always say that on social media.
Speaker 2:You know if, if I was to believe everything on social media, I would believe nobody ever has a problem in their life, right? Oh, except for some people who you believe all they talk about, who?
Speaker 1:just have nothing but problems. But yeah, it's very true, everybody's kid is an angel. It's a fake version. It's the version, the social media version of most people is the version of them that they would like to be. Right, so that, yes, social media is sort of like the, the fake fish. Again, you can kind of see the seeds of it already, that the, when the technology is there, when the technology is that good, when you can put on like a you know headset or goggles and totally your senses, and you don't even know, like you're not even sure we're real reality. I mean, because what are the uh, what are some of the stumbling blocks right now for that sort of thing? Right, you put on that headset, great, you see the reality, right. But if you try to move too much, I don't know if you've seen any of those videos with people trying VR out for the first time.
Speaker 2:No, oh, they fall down.
Speaker 1:They'll run forward into a wall or they'll swing and knock the TV over or something like that. Because the the in the virtual world is so at odds with the reality actual reality that if you make moves like you would in the virtual world, in this wide open space, but in the real world you're knocking over, you know, a vase or something like that right and you're talking about somebody that's been doing that game for maybe half an hour or an hour I mean you can get lost.
Speaker 2:What happens to you if you're doing that for a week.
Speaker 1:Right, you can literally lose your sense of reality and not no.
Speaker 1:Now the next, you know, next stage of it and I know this has already been done is some of these places where the VR and they set it up so you can do it. You're on a multi-directional treadmill so you can move in any direction, but you're actually staying, staying put. You know, you could imagine a situation where you could be in a virtual thing but you're in such a little bubble that nothing you do in the virtual world, nothing you do in the virtual world is, you know, detrimental to the real world. Whatever that is because you're kind of sequestered Right. You're in a thing where you can't damage anything. So that's even more adds to the illusion. The longer you're in that you'd lose track of it completely, because now there's not even knocking over something in the real world to bring you back Right. It's almost like there's no reason to come back.
Speaker 2:Right but Right. There's no reason to come back. Right but Right, and that's kind of like the storyline of the Matrix, true, right. I mean, those people were kind of like held, I don't know, yeah, were they prisoners or I don't know exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were being harnessed for energy. That's what it was Right, and a little twist of us being used as batteries for the machines which doesn't really make a lot of sense when you really dig into it, but in the framework of the movie, fine, I'll accept it. Right, I'll take it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's a lot of different origins of where this came from, or applications. There's a religious implication, there's a whole bunch of different, you know, things that are happening with the simulation theory. When I was doing more and more lookup of it, which, wow it it's, it branches off so many ways. And when I I'll be honest, when I first had, when someone first brought this up to me, I was like what is this, what kind of baloney is this? And after going through it, I said, hmm, I'm not somebody that says, oh yeah, this is something that's happening. I'm sure of it because I don't think nobody is, but there's enough there. That is fuel for some pretty interesting conversations.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, you wouldn't know it until you exited it. Right, and that's the whole idea of it is. You wouldn't know that you're in a virtual simulation If the simulation is uninterrupted. You know, like you know, you put on a pair of VR goggles and, you know, you stumble around a little bit and then you take them off. It's very easy to say, okay, this is fake because you're going back and forth between it and the real world. But once you're in it for a while, the only way you would ever really know that you were in a simulation was when you exited it and went, oh okay, that was all fake was when you exited it and went, oh okay, that was all fake, and you're right, religious. You know the simulation theory is presented like a technological thing, right? Hey, we're all in this virtual world together. Okay, sounds ridiculous, you know, technological, but, like you said, religions have the same thing.
Speaker 2:The world is an illusion, like most of the major religions kind of come down to that precept of, like, the physical world is an illusion, it's a, it's a well, and I think that, well, there's a lot of religions that say that. I mean, there's some that don't right, but there's a lot of religions that say that, um, some of the religions that basically say, hey, there's just one, you know, because there's been religions through the history of time, right, a lot of the major religions now seem to be the ones where it's pretty much one God that's all powerful. If you really think about it, there's one God, all powerful, knows everything. Right, but it's really what most major religions say. I guess, I guess from Buddhism that's the only one that doesn't really say that, right, but they still have to say there's a God, but that God doesn't really have power over everything.
Speaker 2:Right, but you think about it, how is that? A lot very different from somebody that may have come up with a computer program. I mean, I'm not trying to make everybody angry, angry, but if you get down to the basics of it, that's, there's one person. Let's say you go with the christian religion, right, um, muslims the same, a lot of them the same. There's one entity, I'm not going to say a person, one entity that's decided one day that there's going to be a universe.
Speaker 1:It's going to be a thing and you're going to get to be in that thing.
Speaker 2:Before that I didn't really want a universe, but I was just chilling here doing what I don't know. Right, I made a universe and you know it's for you guys.
Speaker 1:Well, in all of religions kind of have that idea of when you leave the game of life. You're kind of let's just say kind of the score is tabulated and you're in a different reality, right? But like, your score in the game is now tabulated, you sort of you know, and depending on your score in religion, you get to go, you get one of a handful of prizes.
Speaker 2:Pretty much.
Speaker 1:yes, you score really well, you get this particular prize. If you score poorly, well, then you get this that you know. The other one, the fiery one, but it's like that same concept it's. If you think of it. What is that saying? It's like you're in a fake reality where, when you come out of that reality, what you did in that reality is kind of shown to you and said okay, this is what you did.
Speaker 1:And the only way that would work is for you not to be cognizant of the game, because if you were, you'd act differently. Right, like, if you entered a multiplayer game and you knew you were going to be dinged for a certain action in the game, then you'd do everything you could to avoid that action. And if other actions in the game were preferred, more points, then you'd try to make those actions. So it would influence your behavior. So, in order for the experiment to be sound, you can't know that you're in the simulation, which is kind of what religions say. Is that like, when you come here, you're you. When you leave here, it's like then you get to look back and go oh okay, I did this, that and the other.
Speaker 2:Thing but they do kind of give you a guidepost. If that you know, if you follow along with that, the religions kind of tell you hey, these are the things supposed to be right. This is what you're supposed to do the manual, the manual, kind of a manual the manual for the game.
Speaker 1:Right, it's. It's that it's always been there. It's that, like I said, we didn't have video games as a reference point up until very recently, and certainly not video games that could be immersive. Right, like that concept. You go back some number of years ago, that concept, you know you go back early computing.
Speaker 1:It was theorized and dreamed about, I mean, even in the, you know, early 80s. I can remember them talking about, you know, the idea of virtual reality. So we, we understood that. But you go back to like the 1800s and you know, maybe you could explain basic computing, maybe, but you certainly couldn't easily get across the idea of like vr goggles right, but how could you get across that whole notion doing your thing and then you'll be judged when you leave? You know it's that it's the same concepts, it's just the language of spirituality and religion as opposed to the language of technology. So it's really fascinating as, like you said, as as I looked into this too, my first thought upon hearing it was like oh that that's kind of stupid.
Speaker 1:That can't be true. But then the more you look into it, you go huh, I don't know that. I'm convinced it is true, but I could certainly see a world where it was. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right and you look at the buddhist religion, they pretty much say there's a path to enlightenment, right, and um it's to. You know they have their own thoughts on what it's supposed to be, um, but a lot of it is pretty much, you know, being good to other people, um, if you achieve that right, which is very difficult, I guess, but if you achieve it, then you go to nirvana, right, which is, you know, their version of heaven, or however you want to phrase it, right. If you don't achieve it, you head back in right for another go and, depending on how well you did the, the, the most recent uh iteration of you, I guess, according to the but that's how the religion is that that iteration, how well you did um, uh, in terms of getting to enlightenment, um, dictates where you start, or you know the kind of life you have on the next next round, right, right.
Speaker 2:so you can kind of say, oh, I'm building my way up or I keep screwing up or whatever.
Speaker 1:Right, like a video game, like like in a video game. You start a character and you play the video game and if you beat the game in a certain way, then the next time you play the game you can unlock certain things. Video games have this now. They call it. Oh, there's a term they use for it. I can't remember what the term they use for it, but basically it's the idea that if you finish the game this is like in a lot of the single player games, where you start the game and you play through, and when you finish the game, have completed the game, you can play it again, make different choices, but because you finished the game, you start off with a little extra boost, maybe in-game currency, extra currency or in-game skills and abilities. So it's that same concept of like oh, you did well on this run-through, so you got to do it again. You got to do another run-through. But because you did well on your last run-through, here are some additional bonuses for you. Consequently, you could have hey, you didn't do great on that last run-through, so you get to play again. We're going to penalize you this time by giving you this, that or the other thing. So the concepts are there, and when you translate them into video game terms, it just at least for me, it really makes sense.
Speaker 1:Was it Arthur C Clarke that said any advanced form of technology is going to be indistinguishable from magic? Was it him who said that? I think it was. I think that was a quote from him.
Speaker 2:I don't know if it was him that said that, but I know about that.
Speaker 1:So because you think about it when technology is so good, right, and you can't decipher from that, from reality, then you have nothing to explain it, but magic, like if you, if you went back to like you know, victorian times and somebody was like flying through the air on a jet pack, I guess, if you understood technology, if you understood the potential for technology, so maybe 1800s is a wrong, wrong way, because at least the potential was there. But go back even further. Let's go back to like, go back to BC or like early AD, like a thousand years ago or whatever. You showed up on a backpack, technology not even being a concept, they would have no way to jetpack flying around. They'd have no other way to explain it, but by magic it could just be. What we're in is like an advanced. Now the question would be well, okay, if we're in a simulated reality. One is why, what's the purpose of it? Um, who created? Obviously is the next question Um, is there just one, you know, I mean, is it one reality Cause, if you think about it, let's take another video game example, right, world of Warcraft.
Speaker 1:There are millions of people who play World of Warcraft. When they're all logged on, they're not all together. Not all those millions of people are playing on the same server. There's different servers. The servers can hold this many people, this many players, but there's millions of people who play it. So there's lots of different servers and you can play a game on one and then for your next run through it could possibly be on another server.
Speaker 1:If you take into that, things that happen in that game affect the game world, because that's the next part of video games. Video games have always been rather static. The world was the world and nothing you did as a player had any long-term effects of the world. The most video games right, you log out, you log back in, the game is fresh again. Right, but they're starting to add that into video games is these shared events where something happens in the video game that has a permanent change of the world. Like in World of Warcraft, there have been several in-game events that actually changed the landscape of that world forever in some way. So if you had that, but then you move to another server where that didn't happen or those things didn't play out, it kind of explains, like it. It makes sense from that purpose of like is it just a bunch of different simulated realities and and every time you come back as something else, are you in the same world that you were?
Speaker 1:the first time right, because there could be, they could be limitless right, it could be so many.
Speaker 2:And the way you described the questions about simulation theory are not that different from the questions people have been asking themselves since the beginning of time about why we're here, why does the universe exist. People have been asking the same questions about the physical world we live in as people are now asking about why would the simulation? If there's a simulation, why would it exist? Well, why does anything exist? Nobody really knows the answer to any of that.
Speaker 1:But there has to be a purpose, and I think that I mean there has to be a reason I think we've been.
Speaker 2:humans have been searching for that since the beginning of time, since they could start contemplating those things.
Speaker 1:And it's funny because I think we used to, we as a species, just contemplate it more.
Speaker 1:I feel like ancient civilizations like the Egyptians were obsessed with the idea of what, the afterlife, what happens, like the purpose of things, like that was a focus, like a big focus, whereas I think in today's world, being very materialistic, yes, there's a spiritual component to us, but it's limited. I mean, let's face it, for the majority of people out there, the spiritual component is limited to that one day a week when they possibly go to some house of worship.
Speaker 2:Like for a lot of people, it's not some. This is not something that generally in my day-to-day life anyone talks to me about.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's not something.
Speaker 2:And it's kind of funny because I think maybe if you went back a hundred years, it is something people talked about. Yeah, actually, you know, if you go back to the 1920s it probably I don't know, not all the time but it probably came up more than it does now.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think a big part of that is that there was less. There were less distractions back then and more time for pondering. But you know, back to some of the scientific, just the quantum physics, because I find that I am not in any way, shape or form any kind of expert or even novice at quantum physics.
Speaker 1:Quite frankly, most of it is way over my head, but the parts that I understand are so fascinating. The idea of the Schrodinger's cat. You know that experiment. Have you heard that one? That's the… Maybe I have, if you explain it. It's the way they explain the idea in quantum physics that things change depending on the observer. It's such a strange notion. But the Schrodinger's cat basically is there's a cat in a box and the box has some poison that's going to hausseize a 50-50 chance of killing the cat, okay, poison that's going to haas as a 50 50 chance of killing the cat, okay. And so when you, before you, open that box, there's a possibility that that cat is dead and there's a possibility that that cat is alive.
Speaker 1:I've heard this before, but you don't know until you open it.
Speaker 2:You don't know you find you, but furthermore, it's not real until you open it is. Is that kind of?
Speaker 1:It is the choice is not made until it is observed. Until it is observed, it's in a state of probability, like a probability wave, where either possibility is.
Speaker 2:Because people have I as well. I am a person uh have a hard time wrapping their heads around that.
Speaker 1:So it's almost saying well, it's exactly saying that in another application what's behind the door of your office or your bedroom isn't real until you observe it, right basically it's very similar to the, the old saying that I used to hear about if a tree falls in the forest and no one's around to hear it, does it make a noise? Right, and you know, back when that question. Now in early school days, when I'd hit that question, it would just be like, well, yeah, obviously that's the stupid, that's a stupid, stupid question. But now, quantum physics is kind of like shining. Does it make a noise If no one is there to observe it? Does it even happen?
Speaker 1:Because in a video game, let's say in a video game, in the programming of this video game, you pass by a forest. Later on you come back to that forest and that forest has been cut down. In the context of the video game, that forest didn't get cut down. When you saw it the first time, it was up. When you saw it the second time, the trees were leveled. There was no point in the video game where those trees went physically, unless a player character were in the vicinity. But if no player character were there to witness the event but the event was scheduled to happen at that certain time then all the players, when they came back to that forest, would find all the trees down. But there was never a point where they went down. They went from a state of being up to being knocked down, right, you know?
Speaker 2:our linear minds right, which I again, I am a person. I have a linear mind, we all do so. I, you know. Honestly, I can't get my head around it when someone says that right, because you say, well, something had to have happened for that to happen, and you know what I'm going to do and this is what we all do and I don't. You know, sometimes you don't think about it, but we all do it. When you notice something like that, on a large or small scale, your brain tells you what had to have happened, fills in the gap. It fills the gap and we do it all the time. Most of the time we don't know it. That's how we understand the world.
Speaker 1:Right, there's so much information for our brains to process that it cannot process it all at once. It's too much, it's overload. So one of the brilliant things that our brain does is it almost like, distills the world around us down to what we need to observe, right, because we can't handle it all. You know another concept of quantum physics, that is, that retro causality, which I find to be such a fascinating.
Speaker 1:All right. So taking the principle that something doesn't happen until it's observed, okay, like, take that further, all right, that something doesn't happen until it's observed.
Speaker 2:Okay, like take that further, all right.
Speaker 1:And I heard this on that episode of Joe Rogan with the. What's his name? Rizwan Virk. I find him fascinating. Rizwan Virk, I find him fascinating, but he talked about it. Basically, it's the idea of retrocausality, so things that happen in the future can influence the past.
Speaker 1:So, because of quantum physics, because of picture light traveling through space, right and 10, let's just say, a million, a million light years from here, right, this light is traveling 10 million light years away, so it takes 10 million years to get to us right? Yes, but 1,000 years out, 1,000 light years out, there's an object that the light has to either go left or go right. It's got to go one way to get around it. It can't go both, it can't go through it, so it has to go one direction, right. Then, a thousand years later, the light reaches us. We observe that light. The choice of whether it went left or right, from our perspective, would have had to have happened a thousand years ago when that light hit that point. Right. But quantum physics is showing us that that decision isn't made until we observe it. Yes, because if nobody was there to observe that light, going left or right, it doesn't matter. It's only when we observe it that it becomes relevant. And again, I use this as a video game referencing what is the um, the application of that?
Speaker 1:it's. You know, that's a good, that's a good question. The application of that it's a principle. I mean so much. This quantum physics is just so mind-blowing that, like you said, it doesn't sound like it'd be, and obviously in the schrodinger's cat there is no real cat. It's just a concept of a way of understanding the principle well, there's the, there's the, um, there is this.
Speaker 2:This blew my mind, right, the, the one with the electrons. That blew my mind, because this is what we're talking about, this, this theoretical cat, right? So we're talking theories, and so if you're listening to this, you say well, what is that? It's just some theory. We all know. You know, the cat is either alive or dead, because when you open it and it's alive or dead, then it had to have been like that before you opened it. And it's alive or dead, then it had to have been like that before you opened it. That's how we all think, right? Right, then I was looking into this, uh, observed, called the observer theory, observation theory, um, and they did this experiment with electrons shooting it, I guess it's like a called a particle collider, right, and um, they put up these, this metal piece with slits in it, right, this is mind-blowing, right.
Speaker 2:So I don't know if anyone else has heard of this, but I'll explain it. They, they have a way of shooting the electrons at this piece of metal, right, and on the other side, that piece of metal is, is a solid object, call it a wall, right, those electrons will go through those, that, those slits, and if it's being observed, those electrons will hit the wall in the same pattern of the slits it went through. Right, which it? That follows all the principles of physics that we know. Right, everything does that. Everything we do. You put water through, anything through, it's going to do that. Right, if you're not watching it, the electrons go through those slits and then hit the wall in a random nature. Right, right, and there is no explanation for it. There are theories for it. There is no explanation for it.
Speaker 1:It's the idea that that electrons can be either particles or waves, depending on whether they're observed or not. That it's not a principle in and of itself, it's. It's the observer has power over the experiment. Yeah, and it's such a mind-blowing thing. But when you think of it, like, let's translate it to video game terms, right, world of warcraft, because it's very easy to understand, right, I'm on my screen, you're on your screen, and we're seeing the shared reality, right, and we come to a place where something had happened, something, there was something, but it's randomly determined because it's, you know, a lot, of a lot of these video games, in order to keep the content fresh, it randomly generates certain aspects of the game. Has to be random, otherwise it would get boring, right? And so let's say, we come to a certain point and it's going to randomly generate, I don't know, let's. I'm just trying to think of a good example of, you know, a body on the ground that we find that we're supposed to do something with. And you know this, the way the blood comes out of, the way that it's distributed, is going to be determined by the video game when we come across the scene, that's when it's determining this, because until then it doesn't matter, right, the concept of there's a dead, because until then it doesn't matter the concept of there's a dead body over there. But does it really matter exactly what it looks like, how the murder scene is laid out? It doesn't matter, it's just a concept. But when you and I, our players, get there and you're looking at your screen and I'm looking at my screen and so we think we're seeing the same thing, but really what we're seeing is just something that's being rendered on each of our screens separately. But when we come across it, that's when the computer will determine what we see. Because up until that point it's kind of irrelevant, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:But if that body had been there for, say, in-game we're talking in-game some number of days, then there you go, it's the same thing. That body would have had to to existed there for some number of days. But the details are not really worked out until we come along. And if you and I, as players, never encounter this, if we go a different direction and we just don't we don't ever interact with this part of the game. You know, we jump a different quest and we just never follow this one up right, then maybe that decision, that decision is really never made in our screens Like it's, but somebody else, another player, comes across it and that decision is made for them.
Speaker 1:But again, that decision is relevant to us. So it's that idea that the decision is made at a point but it would have to influence something that would have had to have happened before, but because nobody was there to observe it, it's just sort of on hold until observed. And it's such a mind-blowing concept. But when you translate it to video game terms it starts to kind of like ah, that's kind of true, that's how it works in video games.
Speaker 2:And that's where it becomes for me, a little. I don't want to say creepy, but it gets a little. Hmm, you know, and we just talked about the electrons. The part about electrons that has always fascinated me is nobody really knows why they even exist. It's the building block of everything Electrons right, that's the base of an atom, right, where do they come from? Oh well, um, they say, yeah, we think they got formed during the big bang. Okay, um, but do you know we, that's that. It's. Nobody can, nobody knows right, where the heck electrons came from. Right, it's a theory. So you think about the how a computer program was made, how the universe was made. Where did the universe come from? Oh, um, it was a small spec and you know, it blew up and here we have it, here we have everything right. So can, and I'm not gonna, I'm not denouncing science okay, I'm just saying it's a.
Speaker 2:it's very convenient to, when you get to a point and you can't figure it out, to just say oh well, this is just what happened. It just blew up and it made all these planets. It made everything you can see around you, including the building blocks of everything. Well, how did that happen? Well, I mean, you know, all gases came together. That's basically what they say, and that's just how it happened. Well, is there any evidence that's just how it happened? Well, is there any evidence that that's how it happened? Well, no, there really isn't. There really isn't evidence that that's how it happened. There's evidence that something dramatic happened. There isn't evidence that it happened that way.
Speaker 1:That's a theory. Exactly. Well, that's true in most science. Right, they have a theory and they find evidence to support the theory. When there's enough evidence to support the theory, then the theory is. You know, that is right. But if you're missing evidence if there's pieces of information that has not been discovered, which has happened numerous times through our history a key piece of information comes along.
Speaker 2:Well, when they know it's a fact, when they get enough facts, it's called a principle right. When it? When they know it's a fact, when they get enough facts, it's called a principle right. When it's not, it's a theory.
Speaker 1:But even like the big bang, is this I'm not saying it's been denounced, but the web telescope, certain findings are calling into question certain elements of the big bang theory. Right, the, the theory itself, not, not the tv show, right, that that like, and it we're not at a point yet where the big bang theory has been up, you know, uprooted and basically, you know debunked, but they're, you know, the hub, the, the web telescope is detecting things that don't make sense in that framework. It's new information which is putting into question that. And so if you're in the video game, in world of warcraft, and let's say you're lost in the game, you're, you're in the game in the sense that you don't, you don't perceive of the real world. Then you'd come up with very complicated ways to explain how the hills and the trees and the forest got there. Right, oh, this is, this is what happened. But if you knew the game, if you were outside the game, then you know that was programmed and created by someone, right, like you know that the forest came about because you know, chuck in programming, really, you know, saw a forest once that stuck with him and he's like I, he interacted so, but in the game you could never come up with that right, like you don't have the framework, and I think that's very interesting is that in the simulation theory, because we're in it, it's impossible for us to grasp it because we lack certain pieces of information that we would only have when we exit simulation.
Speaker 1:When we exit simulation, when you leave, assuming in this, you know, in this example, when you log into world of Warcraft, that you're the real, you is lost and you're in the world of Warcraft. You know Rothgar, the barbarian or whatever, running around doing stuff. In that context you could never explain these things. So it's just it's. It's an interesting kind of way to approach it, like it starts to, it starts this, the scientific, the quantum physics stuff at least supports this thought. I'm not saying it proves it, it's just it. It adds to it and go, ah, that's how it works. You know, um, the observer effect, like we're talking about and you know that that really, at its core, everything is just information.
Speaker 1:Everything is just waves and particles that our brains are interpreting as solid objects and that's taken as sort of granted right. That's kind of what they say. You know, our brains are, you know. So does that mean all these things don't really exist? I guess that's kind of what you're saying. You're saying that these things aren't real, that our brains they're only real because our brains are interpreting them as real. These things aren't real, but our brains they're only real because our brains are interpreting them as real. So if our brains weren't here to interpret it as real, what reason does it have to exist In a computer game?
Speaker 1:Computer games have limited space, limited render capability.
Speaker 1:They only ever render what is in the field of view for the player Once it's out of the field of view, even if it's just a little further off to the left or right or behind you. For the player, once it's out of the field of view, even if it's just a little further off to the left or right or behind you, for the purposes of the game it's there intellectually but it's not really there because the computer is not going to spend any energy making it real, because there's no reason to, because nobody's looking at it and it's like it's such a video game thing. But then with the quantum physics it's kind of the same idea the observer is needed for the thing If nobody's there to observe it. If the tree falls in the forest and nobody's there to hear it, it doesn't do anything. It didn't even really fall. You went by it once and it was up and you came by it again and it's down. You assume there was a moment where it fell and it probably was you know, and again any way.
Speaker 1:That you would know that it did would mean you're observing it. If you had a camera there, then you're observing. It obviously did. But if nothing was around to observe it, logic would tell us it had to have a fall. It had to get in that state somehow. It's just quantum physics doesn't seem to support that. It seems to say it didn't. Until you observed it, that tree was in a state of being up and being down. It could have been either and it wasn't. Until you came along where it was sort of determined. The probability field broke and at that point it was determined it fell. That's just such a strange.
Speaker 1:It's mind blowing it is. It's so mind blowing that that's what caused a lot of people to just turn this theory off. Ah, that's crazy. But once you start to learn more the existence of these things in quantum physics in in quantum physics, it's wow. It starts to explain some of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting that there are some people that you know not as open-minded thinking about some of these theories or however you want to postulate these things, right, and a lot of people will say, well, you know, the science doesn't support that. Well, the science generally kind of doesn't support a lot of things, right, and what we think science supports today in 100 years could be something totally different. Of course, right Happens all the time. It happens all the time right. It happens all the time right.
Speaker 2:And we're kind of stuck lately in a mindset that well, the science today says this, so that's it and let's move on. Right, instead of questioning it. Right, we don't question a lot now, right, and if you question it a lot now, you're kind of looked at as a person. You know maybe you're not all there or what's going on with you, but you should be able to question things. And if you don't have a good answer for the question, well, maybe that's an indication that whatever you're trying to support needs more support, instead of just telling somebody you know you shouldn't answer that I asked that question. I mean, no, you know what do they say? The truth can be questioned, of course, Right, and if it can't be questioned. It's propaganda. It's not the truth.
Speaker 1:I would say that the I'm not calling this stuff propaganda, I'm just saying that's something people say and and I and I understand there's the other flip side of the coin is that, built into that assumption, it has to be questioning from a point of knowledge and not a questioning from a point of ignorance, because I always, you know, say when, like, just because somebody doesn't know something doesn't mean it's not true, you know it's, there are. There are facts independent of people's, you know.
Speaker 1:So you know, I run into this a lot in the in the uh, talking about ufos with people, because I'll bring up things that happened whether you know in government or events that happened this, that or the other thing, and oftentimes, if the person I'm talking to wasn't aware of them, they have almost instant doubt that it happened. So subsequently, let's go back to the idea of questioning science. Knowledgeable, good-natured, honest questioning is good. When you're questioning from a place of ignorance and not accepting answers because they don't fit in with your theory that I can see people going against and saying oh yeah.
Speaker 1:But that's the thing is. How do you human beings, generally speaking, like things black and white, on or off, yes or no? We're binary creatures. That's just how we're wired right, so nuances are often very hard for us to grasp. But that's the thing is. When you question, when you start to question some scientific precepts, everyone automatically goes to the well, you're just being difficult and instead of being honest and saying, okay, do you have good questions? All right, are there questions that can be answered? Do you understand good questions? All right, are they questions that can be answered? Do you understand the answer? Can the answer be verified by other data? And at that point, but you're right, science is about questioning what we know. Because if you were to go back some amount of time, people were convinced that the earth, that everything, revolved around the earth.
Speaker 2:Well, you heard about the doctor with um, with hand washing. Yeah, right, right, that guy, you know he was pretty much driven out of medicine I talked about that in my um the, the solo episode.
Speaker 1:I did a little bit back about considering versus believing the idea of like that. So he said that was only about 150 years ago. Maybe we should wash our hands and everybody's like what are you an you know?
Speaker 2:what you don't belong in medicine.
Speaker 1:Okay, this guy was working with, I think, maternity Right, right, 150 years ago, not really that long ago, Not as long ago as you would have thought if you said hey, there was a point where everybody was not trusting that you should wash your hands.
Speaker 2:There was a guy 150 years ago. He was a doctor and you know, I just let you know he thought everyone should wash their hands prior to touching patients Right. And he thought that could help not spread illness, because he thought illness was spread through these small germs, right. That's crazy and the rest of the medical community said you're a whack job.
Speaker 1:Right, right. Because we have not seen these, because we don't know about these germs you speak of we haven't seen them.
Speaker 1:What is it? Therefore? They don't exist. Therefore, you're making stuff up, exactly right, right, and no matter how many times we're shown the limits of our knowledge, we come back with the sure you know, as sure as shit that our knowledge is. What's is we know everything now, right, come on, we're that. I mean, that was 100 years ago. Come on, we were pretty primitive 100 years ago. Now, now we know everything. We wouldn't do that.
Speaker 1:We know every and now we're really good at when a piece of a fact comes along that disrupts our, our our view of things. The easier course of action is just suppressing the fact rather than reevaluating our positions on things right and telling and telling anyone who brings up said fact that you're crazy, right.
Speaker 1:But in the context of you know, going back to if you're in the simulation, does it really matter, like in the context of World of Warcraft? If you're a character in World of Warcraft and your job is the shopkeeper and you get up every day and you go to your shop and you sell swords and weapons and things like that to various adventurers who come running through and that's your existence, then the reason why it's all there, the ability to be able to sit back and think about, ponder things like that is kind of a. It's kind of a, is like a privileged situation, because if you're, you know, if you're just trying to get by, then the reason for all of this existing is meaningless to you. You just got to get by today and get you know. So that's the when you're in the simulation. Maybe the reasons why the simulation is running or who created it aren't as important.
Speaker 2:If you're really mired in.
Speaker 1:It's only when you have time to sit back and go. All right, I'm in this thing. I wonder why it's here, I wonder who created it, I wonder how it works and things like that, so I don't know. It's certainly interesting. Well, you know what? This is a good place, I think, to wrap up part one Okay, and we'll come back in part two, because I really want to dig in on the weirdness of, like, the Mandela effect and all those weirdnesses, yes, things that they talk about and how they kind of, in a weird way, support simulation dairy all right all right, so we're gonna be coming back soon, uh, to talk about that, but uh, until we're back next time.
Speaker 1:This is I'm chris and I'm steve, and this has been some deep shit. We'll be you next time.
