Joe Rogan Experience #2151 - Rizwan Virk

Joe Rogan podcast check it out The Joe. Rogan Experience Train by day Joe Rogan. podcast by night all. day by the way Diana Paka says hi oh. cool you know her yeah I know her pretty. well actually boy her theories are very. very very interesting yeah she's a. strange person to talk to because you. start like you start really considering. some of the things she's saying it's. just the all the UFO stuff I go back and.

forth on the UFO stuff from it being. complete to like maybe there's. something there I fluctuate throughout. the day yeah well we can talk about that. you know I'm I'm peripherally involved. with be making noise over there sh your. mic off um you're periphery involved. with the Galileo project at Harvard and. the Soul Foundation at Stanford which. are like the two academic UFO research. groups that uh are out there you know AI. lob is running the one at Harvard and. Gary Nolan is running you had Gary on. your show right not but in communication.

with him talked to him quite a bit very. fascinated by his work I'm happy to talk. about UFO stuff where it overlaps with. simulation Theory so how did you get. involved in this whole theory in the. first place simul explain to people your. position if you if you don't mind on on. simulation Theory what do you think is. going on yeah well so first question how. did I get involved in this right so uh. you know I was a video game developer uh. in Silicon Valley and then I became an. investor.

in the video game industry in my. backgrounds in computer science and uh. what happened was after I sold my last. video game company uh back in 2016 so. we're talking like you know seven years. ago now eight years ago now and I put on. a virtual reality headset and started. playing a VR pingpong game right now. these headsets were even bigger than. they are now and they were wired so. there's no mistaking you're in virtual. reality but what happened was that the. the the pingpong game was so realistic. that for a moment my brain forgot that.

this wasn't a real game of table tennis. so much so that I tried to put the. paddle down on the table and I tried to. lean against the table but of course. there was no table so the controller. fell to the floor and I almost fell over. I had to do one of these double takes. like oh wait I'm just in VR right so I. started to think about how long would it. take us to build something like the. Matrix something that's uh so immersive. that you would forget right that you. were inside a video game and so that led. me to this idea the simulation point.

which is a kind of technological. singularity but then I started to. research things like quantum physics and. some of the Mysteries around you know. the observer effect and quantum. mechanics and and then I started to look. at all the world's religions and I. realized that they're all kind of saying. the same thing which is that there is no. physical Universe uh and so you know. that led me to the conclusion that we. are most likely inside some kind of a. computer simulation or a massively. multiplayer video game game depending on.

how you look at it but what where did. that computer game where did that. simulation come from if we are inside of. it well that that's the big question. right uh and there's two versions of. simulation Theory and you know I teach a. class on this at Arizona State. University it's probably the first. college level class about simulation. Theory and it kind of pulls in science. fiction religion philosophy and. Technology but one of the key. distinctions I I tell my students to. make because it's not talked about a lot.

with simulation theory is what I call. the. NPC versus the RPG versions of. simulation Theory okay right so NPC as. you probably know means you know. non-player characters within video games. so those are the AIS in the video game. uh you know the bartenders the people. you're beating up the opponents all of. that stuff but basically they're just. code and they AI then there's the RPG. version which is that we are actually. doing a role playing game right so you. exist outside the game and then you have.

a character or Avatar inside the game so. it's just like what we would consider an. MMO RPG today right except with more. sophisticated technology and so in that. case uh you know you get a little bit of. a different answer than if you talk. about an NPC only type of simulation. right because that's just running on a. computer and we're all AI in that case. now the two aren't mutually exclusive. right in a in a video game like fortnite. or whatever World of Warcraft you have. NPCs and you have PCS or player.

characters right so you've got both of. those things going on and so depending. on how you look at it you might come to. different uh you know different answers. about who's outside the simulation uh. which would answer the question of who. made the simulation right yeah so in the. first case uh you basically say that if. we can get to the point where we can. build these simulations uh what I call. the simulation point so I call that a. kind of technological singularity now.

we've heard the term Singularity mostly. because of like uh Ai and super. intelligent AI right uh and you know AI. is going to take over the world but the. guy who defined the term was actually a. computer scientist who became a science. fiction writer named Verner Veni in fact. he just passed away like a month ago or. something he was a real Pioneer in like. science fiction in the Cyber Punk uh. kind of sub genre or so and so he said. the singularity happens when technology. increases exponen itially to the point.

where everything will be different for. humans after that point now he gave like. four different ways we could reach the. singularity most of us talk about only. one which is AI starts to become super. intelligent and uh it grows. exponentially and and everything will be. different but but I think this this idea. of the simulation point where we can. create simulations that are. indistinguishable from reality and I lay. out like 10 stages in my book of all the. technology we would need including brain. computer interfaces like in The Matrix. right so.

or neuralink or neuralink right we're. getting there right we're very close. we're at the beginning of that whole and. so that's stage eight stage seven and. stage eight on the way to the simulation. Point um and you know being able to read. but also then being able to write. memories as well and then have so the. definition of the simulation point is. being able to create a virtual reality. that is indistinguishable from physical. reality with AI characters that are. indistinguishable from biological. characters so you know you wouldn't be. able to tell you're talking to an NPC.

basically we're getting closer to that. already right yes yeah I mean there's. like companies out there doing smart. NPCs now inside uh video games right but. what would be the difference between. looking at what is possible in the. future and. making either a hypothesis or suggesting. that that has already taken place right. so that's kind of the leap right that. you need to make which is to say that if. we can do it now let's imagine a.

civilization that was a million years. ahead of us a thousand years ahead of us. yeah even 200 years ahead of us right. but certainly a thousand years ahead of. us so where will computers be in a. thousand years they would already have. created these types of simulations right. right because if we can do it now 50. years ago we didn't know if we could do. it we didn't know if computers could get. to that point right today we're pretty. sure we can get there in fact I'd say. that I'm 70% sure that we will get to. the simulation point which means I think. there's a 70% chance we're living inside.

a simulation um and so the point is if. they already got there they created a. whole bunch of simulations okay and you. can't tell the difference whether you're. in the real world or a simulated world. right so there's 99 of these there's one. of these but you can't tell the. difference so which one are you more. likely. in just statistically speaking now we're. not even you know projecting the. technology forward we're just saying. it's more likely you're in one of the 99.

than the one cuz there's so many more of. these. right sort of if you can't tell the. difference right if you can't tell the. difference. but there's so many things you have to. think about right there's so many things. you have to take into consideration one. of them. is we don't have a straight linear line. from the moment that we're born to the. moment that we exist in currently the. reason being is that we go to sleep. every night right right it's a weird.

thing we shut off every night and we. wake up intermittently and you go back. to bed maybe you have to pee maybe. you're thirsty you go back to bed and. then you wake up again but when you wake. up you are just waking up like when I. woke up this morning I don't know if. this is the life I've always lived right. I'm assuming it is because I have all. these detailed memories of the past I. see my dog he exact he reacts the exact.

same way he always does you know I see. my wife I see my kids I see my house. it's the same house that I remember but. I'm not sure I just woke up right I'm a. little foggy already it just exists in. your memory at that point it just exists. in your memory this might be the first. day of my life right if suppose that you. can implant false memories right right. so this was a popular topic for Philip K. dick right movies like Total Recall even. in Blade Runner mhm you know I.

interviewed his wife while I was. researching you know my book he a wild. boy he was an interesting guy right and. he said some interesting things in fact. all the way back in 1977 in Mets France. at a Sci-Fi convention he said and. there's a pretty famous quote he said uh. we are living in a computer programmed. reality and the only clue we have to it. is if some variable is changed some. alteration occurs in our reality right. and that's become kind of a famous quote. in the simulation world but if you.

listen to the rest of the quote he says. well we would basically rerun the same. events and we would change some. variables right and we would have a. sense of deja vu like maybe we've. already done this right maybe I've you. know talked to you before right in a. different run of the simulation right. and and this idea like after I wrote my. first book on this topic the simulation. I bought this is uh this this idea. wouldn't leave me that well if you can. run one simulation you can certainly run. it multiple times in fact that's what we.

would do if we were running a simulation. of the weather we wouldn't just run it. once we would run it multiple times and. if we're doing simulation of whatever. right pandemic anything Name It We would. change the variables and we would go. forward and so you know when I interview. Tessa you know Philip K Dick's Last wife. she said um that he came to believe this. was really happening right that someone. was altering with our reality and they. would change a few variables and rerun.

the simulation forward U so now we're. getting pretty deep in the rabbit hole. so this is the topic of my second book. which is called the simulated Multiverse. this idea that each of these timelines. uh could be like a different run of the. simulation. itself so so that gets a little weird at. that point right because now we're. saying that. time isn't the same thing right that we. think it is so with the simulation. hypothesis hypothesis we're saying that. space doesn't really exist uh it.

basically gets rendered for us like a. video game and then with this second. idea we're saying that time doesn't. really exist because what you remember. could have been either implanted. memories or it could be a specific run. of the simulation right so if you run it. again maybe things are slightly. different the second time you run it um. like so Philip K dick came to believe. that his novel The Man in the High. Castle which was turned into a pretty.

cool series I don't know if you've uh if. you've seen it it was on Amazon a few. years ago but in that in the novel and. in the series Germany and Japan won. World War II uh and so you see an. America that's been divided like the. east coast is run by the Germans the. west coast is run by the Japanese and. you see this kind of fascist type type. world and so you know he later came to. believe that this actually happened and. some how the simulators reran it again.

and the current timeline is one that was. allowed to go forward like you know. further forward than where that one. might have ended and so he says that at. some point all these memories came. flooding back to him of this other. timeline um he called it uh he used this. Greek word it's called an anamnesis. which means a loss of forgetfulness. right so he said we might be able to. remember these other runs of the. simulation.

um so anyway that gets us into you know. this whole idea of is the past what we. think it is right that's I think with. the question you were asking right. because you're like if I just. remember uh XYZ is that what actually. happened or is it just uh a. representation of the past in the. present yeah and so when I started. looking into the quantum physics side of. it I found something really weird uh and. we'll talk we can talk about the. observer effect but this was like even. weirder than that and it was something.

proposed by John Wheeler who uh was U at. Princeton with Einstein and you know he. was a bit younger than you know Neils. bour and Einstein and all these kind of. uh forefathers of quantum mechanics and. he came up with uh several things that I. was talking about but one of them is the. delayed Choice experiment or or the. cosmic delayed Choice experiment which. puts into doubt this idea of the past. and since we're talking about the past. let's let's go into this now uh if you. don't mind okay so imagine there's a a.

something like a quazar and that's a. billion light years away from us right. and the light is coming from that quazar. to here so it's going to take a billion. years to get here because it's a billion. light years away uh and then suppose. there's something in the middle like a. black hole uh that's in the middle or or. a Galaxy something that's very. gravitationally big and so suppose the. light has to go to the left or to the. right of that object and suppose that. object is like a million light years.

away from us so it's a lot closer but. it's still a million light years away so. the decision about when the light goes. to the left or to the right would have. to be made when right it would have to. be made in the past about a million. years ago because it takes light from. that let's say it's a black hole it's a. million light years away so it takes a. million years for the light to reach. Earth and we can measure whether it went. to the left or to the right um. well it turns out that decision is in.

the past as we think of it but what the. delayed Choice experiment tells us is. that that decision is made now when we. measure that light right when the little. telescopes suppose we have two. telescopes one picks up on the left one. picks up on the right and it's when we. do the measurement and until we do that. measurement both of those possibilities. still exist so we have these two. possible pasts a million years years ago. right the light went to the left or to.

the right but which one happened isn't. decided until the measurement is done. today so this is like Schrodinger's Cat. on steroids right I'm not sure I totally. understand this why why is the decision. made when you measure it well that's. what the experiment you know kind of. showed with quantum mechanics just like. okay let's start with Schrodinger's cat. because it's a simpler simpler version. so Schrodinger's cat is this experiment. where there's a there's a cat in a box. theore iCal experiment nobody's killing.

any cats and there's uh some poison in. there and there's some radioactive. material that has a 50% chance of. setting off the poison and 50% chance. that it won't let's say after an hour or. so and so uh after an hour the chances. that the cat is dead or alive is 50%. right because it's a 50% chance but what. the observer effect and what quantum. mechanics is telling us is that both of. those possibilities EX exist the cat is.

both alive and dead until somebody looks. at that box right the observer in this. case uh and so until then the cat is in. the state of. superposition okay and this is what. makes quantum mechanics so weird right. this is why you know Richard feeman. Nobel Prize winner said nobody. understands right quantum mechanics and. Neil's bore said if you're not shocked. by this then you haven't understood it. okay because to us the cat has to be. alive or it has to be dead and we don't. know until we see we don't know until we.

see but it's only one in common sense. tells us it's one of those right right. but quantum mechanics through the double. slit experiment and the observer effect. says both of those possibilities exist. in the present until the time when. someone looks and and someone measures. that result so then we say the superp. position which is two states comes down. to one state so the cat is both alive. and dead and then when somebody measures. it it's either alive or dead and we're.

in one of those States right okay right. I I kind of understand what you're. saying but isn't it really just that we. don't know until we open the box and. it's not that the cat is both alive and. dead the cat is either alive or dead we. just haven't figured it out yet until we. open the box that's what it would seem. like right that would be like Common. Sense point of view right but what all. the physicists have been telling us now. for uh almost a hundred years right. going back to to the 1920s when quantum.

mechanics first started to get. formalized is that that's not actually. the case that what happens is you have. this probability wave and that there are. different probabilities of the cat being. alive or dead now of course they weren't. talking about cats that was right the. cat is maybe too simplistic it's like a. placeholder you know what I'm saying. like it's yeah it's it's a it's a way. for somebody to think about this at a. high level so shrodinger who was one of. the the founders of mechanics uh through.

his wave equation he he basically came. up with this because he thought the. whole idea was ridiculous he's like look. you can't have a cat that's both alive. and dead right right so so this is a. ridiculous experiment except it's become. the the way in which we explain this. weird effect about quantum mechanics now. and the weird effect of quantum. mechanics is things can be both moving. and still at the same time which is. superposition right right or they can be. in two different states which could be. moving and still could be alive or dead. or. they're they're really talking about.

particles so then it could be like left. rotated or right located or right. rotated so you've got all these. properties but they can be in different. POS they can be in different states uh. and this is the basis for Quantum. Computing by the way you probably heard. about yes new quantum computers that are. I have but I totally don't understand it. well so it's the same thing as. Schrodinger's cat whereas we have a bit. of information right so what are the. values in a bit can have it's like zero. or one that's it that's like the basic. unit of information and the bit can only.

have one of those values like on my. iPhone or my uh you know laptop if you. look down all the way down into the. hardware you can look at the registers. like when I was at when I was at MIT we. actually built a computer in class from. scratch you'll see there's some voltage. that says this is a one or this is a. zero right that's it all the Computing. everything we're doing with video. streaming like all that stuff comes down. to having a bit that can be either a. zero or a one it has to be one or the. other it can't be both right. so Quantum Computing has these things.

called cubits okay quu B TS cubits which. a cubit is like schinger cat it doesn't. just have a value of a one or a zero it. is in super position superposition means. a superet of all the positions that are. possible so how many possibilities are. there in in a bit too right zero and one. so a cubit is a superposition of a bit. which means it has both values zero and. one until someone measures that bit and.

so theoretically that's what allows. quantum computers to solve problems that. are that grow exponentially that are. really big and we're still in the early. stages but if you think of an. exponential growth problem like like. cracking encryption uh it can be done by. a regular computer and you can set up. your laptop to to crack it'll take like. a thousand years or something right uh. because you have to go through every. single possible value so if you have 64.

bits that's like two to the 64 values. which is which is huge uh in fact. there's an old story about the the. Indian king and the the wise man who. play chess that illustrates the story of. how big that number gets when you have. exponential growth so there was a king. who liked to play chess and no one. wanted to play chess with him anymore. because he you know he kept winning and. finally there's this wise man he's like. please play chess with me and the wise. man says okay I'll play chess with you. if if I win for the first Square in the. chessboard you give me one grain of rice.

and then the second Square in the. chessboard you give me you double that. two grains of rice and you double that. to four grains of rice and six grains of. rice so we're doubling in each square. right King's like okay sure you know no. big deal it's just a bunch of rice right. and so it turns out when the wise man. won by the time you get to two to the 64. because there's 64 squares on the. chessboard that basically it was more. rice than would fit in all of India. right it that's an exponential. problem it just grows so fast and the.

reason it grows is there are too many. possibilities right but now this new. thing called the cubit's coming along. and the Cubit has both possibilities at. the same time so if you have 64 bits and. you take all the possible values of. those 64 bits you've got the same number. of possibilities as the grains of rice. we talked about it's 2 to the 64 it's a. very big number it's it's 18 quintilian. right is the number there's a game.

called No Man's Sky I don't know if you. ever played it no so it was it became. famous because there were it was one of. the first games to have an almost. infinite number of planets that oh is. this the game where it just creates a. universe it's kind of boring I heard. yeah it was kind of boring at first I. mean I haven't played it in a while I. just kind of looked at it but it. procedurally generates everything for. you because there's no way a team of. like I was in the video game industry. right there's no way a team could create. 18 quintilian worlds and turns out. that's exactly the number of Worlds they.

have in that game because that is what. 64 bits that's the biggest number you. can get uh if you use 64 bits right all. right okay so come back to exponent. that's exponential growth it's too big. and so with a with a quantum computer. theoretically and these are pretty new. right now right Amazon has one Microsoft. has one IBM has one that you can. actually program online Google has their. own everyone's trying to figure out how. make these cubits stable and work but.

the basic idea and I I don't know what. number we're up to for a while it was. like you could only have four bits. cubits kind of like going back to the. old you know when we were young the you. know the the Apple 2 or whatever came. out and before that there were these you. know small 8bit processor based uh kits. that people would assemble and they just. couldn't have a lot of data because they. just didn't couldn't keep track of that. many bits and that's where quantum. computers are today but the idea is if. you can have 64 cubits you can.

instantaneously solve a problem that is. exponential because you can explore all. of those at the same time and then when. you measure the result uh it's all now. nobody knows exactly how this works but. the two explanations okay coming back. sorry I know I'm kind of wanding a bit. coming back to Schrodinger's cat we say. there's two possibilities right so with. 64 cubits there's two to the 64 Poss. abilities if they're all in super.

position they have all the possible. values of it um and and so basically. when you measure that it brings it back. and so physicists call this the collapse. of the probability wave so there a. probability of all these possibilities. and then it comes down to one and that's. sort of the best one of the accepted. ways that people think this whole thing. works uh but nobody totally knows so. another guy who was John Wheeler's grad.

student in in at Princeton came up with. another idea and we've heard about this. idea from the superhero movies right and. this is the Multiverse idea right yeah. and so basically he said that if you've. got schinger cat what happens is you're. splitting the universe into two. different universes in one of them the. cat is alive and in another one the cat. is dead right so that's the Multiverse. idea is that when we measure it we only. see one one of those two because we're. in this universe but if we happened to.

be in this other Universe the cat would. have been dead right the cat is alive. here and so that creates a whole series. of possibilities when you and which are. being used now in in superhero stories. all the time right you've got your. different versions of Batman your. different versions of Superman. Spider-Man yeah sper yeah the famous. Spider-Man meme where you have like the. Spider-Man all kind of pointing at each. other yeah right and they have the. different actors uh so that idea has. started to catch on now uh it's what I.

like to call it's past the 10-year-old. test right and and the 10-year-old test. is when a scientific idea gets out there. so much that even 10-year-olds can kind. of understand it because of superhero. movies or because like like in the. 1930s when people they were trying to. explain Superman like how does Superman. get his powers you say oh he came from. another planet he came from a planet. called Krypton right so even a. 10-year-old in the 1930s could have. understood that. but in the 1730s like you couldn't say.

that no one would know what the heck. you're talking about right right right. and so that idea kind of diffused. through society and so that's happening. now with the Multiverse idea too it's. kind of diffusing you know through. Society in in this way through popular. culture you know and and media. narratives and stuff uh so that's the. other explanation for how all this. weirdness Quantum weirdness Works which. is it's the Multiverse uh and so people. said how can a quantum. computer theoretically solve a problem.

that would take thousands of years for a. regular computer to solve and one. explanation a guy named David deuts out. at Oxford says well because it's looking. at all the possible values of the bits. there's that many different universes. right and it's Computing in all of those. universes. instantaneously and then it's bringing. back the value that you want at the end. and and that becomes your. answer um so I I think we've gone a. little bit uh away from your the.

original. question it seems like that's inevitable. with this. subject yeah this subject does tend to. take you down you know many many. different rabbit holes yeah um and I. think your original question was about. memory right and how do we know that the. memory so the reason I went down this. this rabbit hole on the the quantum. physics stuff in the Multiverse which by. the way that's the subject of the I. wrote a whole second book on simulation. Theory just for which is the simulated. Multiverse because the reason scientists.

like this Multiverse idea is that. mathematically you can figure out how. the equations work in all these. different worlds you know uh whereas. with the the the first idea which is the. Copenhagen interpretation you have uh. you have all these possibilities you. have a probability wave and then. suddenly you're down to one and nobody. can explain that mathematically nobody. can say how does the collapse occur like. there's no little equation you can pop. into and so that's why it's called the.

observer effect and it's considered a. big mystery like is it the act of. observation is it the act of measurement. right so all these physicists are. debating with each other right so they. don't like the Copenhagen interpretation. because it seems to rely on. Consciousness or some kind of an. observer and scientists kind of hate. that right right they hate to talk about. Consciousness being real and we'll get. into the whole religious aspects of the. simulation hypothesis in in a little bit. uh so they're like well this one's nice. because it's the mathematics all work. the Multiverse idea but the problem with.

the Multiverse idea is that it's not. what scientists like to call. parsimonious which means that what's. happening is there's a new universe. splitting off like all the time right. every time there's a Quantum and we're. talking about Quantum decisions right. we're we're not really talking about big. things like cats we're talking about. little decisions that occur within a. nanc right right and so every time. there's a decision you're splitting off. to new a new physical universe so think. about now we're talking exponential.

growth but on steroids right yeah. because it's just infinite it just keeps. going right and that's that's kind of a. weird concept that there would be so. many physical universes being created. and so you know where I came out in this. subject is well guess what simulation. hypothesis gives you a way to look at. both of these a framework that makes it. make sense right I mean this is what. people say when they look at quantum. mechanics they say make it make sense.

right because the cat should be alive or. dead how can it be both right and so. when you think of. information uh and you think of the. simulation idea the core of it is that. the world is not physical okay this. table seems pretty physical right right. but if you go and you look inside it's. mostly empty space something like 90. some percent maybe 99% and then you go. to the atoms and you look inside those. and it's mostly empty space right.

there's these electron clouds and stuff. but except for the the nucleus it's. mostly empty space and the problem is. like these Russian. dolls if you keep looking inside they. keep looking for this thing called. physical matter and they can't find it. like it's not really there it's like you. go to the the very smallest of the. Russian dolls and the only thing they. can find is information right and so. John Wheeler who I talked about earlier. you know he plays a an outsized role in.

in at least my explorations of. simulation theory he came up with a. phrase and his phrase was it from bit so. if there's something that's an IT. physical object like this cup or this. table that if you just keep keep looking. down you have a microscope that just. keeps going down he goes in the end the. only thing you find are. particles but what the heck are. particles and he said well the only. thing that particles really are is a. series of answers to yes no questions so.

it's like does the particle spin up does. it spin down uh it's got like you know. various different polarities and things. but so he said in the end the only thing. you have are bits of information because. that's a bit right every single decision. is a bit yes or no one or zero uh that's. like the fundamental unit of computation. and that's how we you know like I said. stream video everything else uh and so. he he said everything that's in it is. actually from bits of.

information um and there's a whole new. there's a whole new kind of uh field. within physics which is called digital. physics right so in the past you know. physics was about physical objects. moving around and so digital physics is. about information like what happens to. information in the universe does it get. destroyed in a black hole does it get. created so you have instead of. conservation of momentum. and you know conservation of energy you.

have conservation of information so it's. like a different way of looking at the. physical world uh and you look at as a. computation rather than looking it as. physical objects moving around like in. classical physics right yeah the problem. is. like we do live in a physical world as. far as we can tell but then if you. measure the actual thing in the physical. world then you get to this.

weirdness exactly you get to this. weirdness down at the bottom level the. very core of it all like what is what is. going on as far as we can measure right. and there's a limit like we can only. measure up to the smallest unit right. which is called like the plon but as we. go deeper we get less answers and it. gets more weird it gets more weird and. it starts to look less like the physical. world exists and more like it's a bunch. of. information that gets rendered as we.

observe the world or as groups of people. observe the world have you ever taken. this back as far as you can and like try. to figure out like what created. this or what possibilities could have. created this or was there ever a. physical world well that's a good. question so where I ended up with this. was looking at how the world gets. rendered As You observe it like for me. my background is as I said a computer. scientist and a video game designer and. developer um is that that's pretty much.

how we render video games right so if. you and I are in the our avatars are in. the same field uh or the same room about. to shoot each other in a video game. we're not really in the same room are we. right you're rendering it on your screen. and I'm rendering it on my screen right. right and so there's information that's. coming from the server and then what. happens is we render only the the part. that we can see right only that that.

view around your avatar you could be. first person point of view you could be. like kind of hovering over your. character like many video games do that. these days uh like a kind of a third. person or second person point of view. but the only pixels you need to render. on my computer are the ones that my. avatar can see and the only ones you. need to render on your computer are the. ones your avatar can see and those get. cached on the server and so they get. sent out and so it's it's an. optimization technique right there's no.

way in the 1980s like when I was growing. up we had you know the Apple two. computers or whatever uh there's no way. you could render like a a full 3d you. know world or a full 3D game like like. we play today and so what happened was. we learned not only did the computers. get faster but we learned optimization. techniques so everything in computer. science comes down to optimization. usually like physicists are happy just. saying yeah it's infinite but without. really wondering what the heck that. means but with computer science you only.

have limited resources typically and so. you need to figure out how to compute. something with those limited resources. and so video game rendering to me is a. case of optimizing so that it looks like. there's a shared physical world but. there really isn't right because it's. being rendered on each of our our own. computer right and so but the rule is. only render that which you can see now. when I started to look at this weirdness. in kind mechanics which is saying render. only that which is observed or measured.

depending on how you look at it but even. if you measure it somebody's got to look. at that measurement before you know it. was actually measured right so it's the. same kind of thing going on in my. opinion quantum mechanics uh is ends up. being a optimization technique for. rendering of the physical world uh from. the information that lives below so. that's kind of the one big implication. of simulation theory that that I think. is very important and actually the idea.

that the universe is information is not. that controversial so just I was in. London this summer over at the Cambridge. University spending a little bit of time. doing some AI research and I ran into. this Nobel uh Prize winner physicist. from like the 70s and so I we were. talking simulation theory of course and. uh you know I said well one of the key. assumptions here is that the world is. information and he said yeah that's not. controversial in physics at all anymore. like it might have been once upon a time.

uh but then the second part the second. assumption that comes up in simulation. theory is that the world is rendered. like a video game and that the world is. a hoax it's some kind of a hoax like. it's not really real right that's the. other assumption that physicists don't. necessarily agree with but that's the. other part of simulation Theory what's. the argument against it uh against. simulation Theory against the like that. it doesn't physically exist. uh if they disagree well they don't. disagree necessarily that it doesn't.

physically exist they just disagree that. and how is it that it this thing that. does that is information gets rendered. for us right it's like we're talking. different languages for them right even. though quantum mechanics is telling us. all this weird stuff they're still I. think often taking a classical view. classical mechanical view of the world. of physical objects moving around and. that's all it is right um so you know. there's arguments that people make. against the idea that we live in a.

simulation and the first is you know the. same argument that you know there was a. famous guy named Bishop Berkeley the. city of Berkeley's named after him right. uh I think it was George Berkeley or he. was a bishop in the UK and he came up. with this idea of idealism you know this. philosophical idea that the world. doesn't really exist it's only in the. mind and there was this other guy I. think it was Johnson you know who said. how do you refute that and he kicks Rock. and he goes That's how I refute it see. it's physical it's there right and so.

that's you know the first Common Sense. way people try to refute the idea but of. course that's not what the physicists. are saying the physicists are the one. telling us that the world doesn't really. exist that it consists of information. and SpaceTime gets constructed out of. that information right so that's that's. like one of the biggest I I think issues. that another way that people try to try. to push back on the idea of simulation. theory is they say well it's not really.

falsifiable right so I can't design an. experiment that proves we are not in a. simulation so this touches on the. boundary issues of science like where. does science end right and where does. philosophy begin where does metaphysics. begin where does religion begin and. those lines are actually fuzzier than. you might think right because there's. been the debate over that for a long. time now for hundreds of years about.

what what is scientific and what isn't. right and things like you know UFOs and. paranormal phenomena and all this stuff. you know gets kind of pushed out beyond. that boundary um but so one definition. that a guy named poer came up with was. that if it's not falsifiable it's not. scientific right meaning if you can't. prove that it's false the problem with. that is there are lots of things that we. can't. prove that they're false. but we can find some evidence that these.

things actually you know happen or that. these things exist like a couple hundred. years ago there were stories of rocks. falling from the sky and all the. scientists like in Paris said oh though. that's just right that's just. bunch of peasants out in the countryside. we know there's no rocks falling from. the sky why because we know there's no. rocks in the sky our our science tells. us right there's no rocks up there so. how the hell could they be fallen from. the sky so that's kind of an not really. a falsifiable thing how can you prove.

there's no rocks in the sky you really. can't but you can prove and eventually. they did because they got a whole there. was some huge meteor storm and uh you. know outside of Paris and some guys went. out to investigate and there were. thousands of witnesses that saw this. thing and then eventually you know they. looked at some of the artifacts some of. the physical evidence and then. eventually they changed their model. their cosmological model about the. universe and so I think it's the same. thing with simulation Theory even even. though you can't prove we're not in a.

simulation because the simulation could. be so. good you know like the Matrix was pretty. convincing at first right um but the. simulation could be so good that you. can't necessarily tell but at the same. time you can design experiments which. might indicate to you that there's. something going on like this video game. rendering idea um and there are folks. out there you know trying to trying to. run experiments to try to uh to try to. show uh that this is really what's.

happening with quantum mechanics is that. like a video game this whole world is. being rendered for us um you know. information being rendered just like a. video game and the effect that. Consciousness has on this world so. Consciousness is the the thing that. we're using to. measure or the thing that we're using to. interact with whatever. possibilities. exist right and so that in the RPG.

version right this is why I like to make. the distinction MH between the RPG. version and the NPC version so in the. RPG version we are plugged in right like. Neo in the back of the head or with a. virtual reality headset or some. technology yet to be developed right uh. and so when you play a video game right. it's not enough that the pixels are. there I mean you you basically are. watching that game right as the player.

and when you're not watching what. happens you just turn it off right you. turn off your computer what happens well. there's still the information going on. on the server maybe other people are. playing right but it doesn't need to. render it at that point it's just the. server can keep track of where. everything is it's what we did when we. created video games we would you know. send down. information um and in fact you can then. turn around and do something very. interesting like if you're a level 30. player right and I'm a level two player.

our avatars could be standing right next. to each other and one could see the. dragon and one might not be able to see. the dragon because maybe we don't have. that ability in the game we're not a. high enough level but the server logic. is deciding that so Consciousness then. becomes the player in that model of. simulation Theory uh and it renders the. world for us and it turns. out that is very similar to what the. world's religions have been telling us. right not just one or two of the world's.

religions like when I wrote my book The. simulation hypothesis I I gave it a. subtitle of why AI quantum physics and. Eastern Mystics agree we're in a video. game and I was thinking primarily of the. Eastern Mystics like you know in the. Hindu and Buddhist traditions and the. yogis and they talk about the term Maya. most most people have probably heard. that term and Karma and all these. different terms but Maya means means. illusion right that's how it gets. translated it's like an ancient Sanskrit.

word and so uh uh these Mystics are. telling us that the world isn't really. real it's a kind of. Illusion uh but if you really look at. the definition of that word. Maya it means something more like a. carefully crafted illusion right it's. almost like if you go to a magic show. and you you know the guy's not really. sawing that woman in half okay but you. kind of agree to suspend your disbelief.

because that's what makes the whole. thing fun right watching a magic show or. watching a special effects you know you. know Blade Runner 2049 the car is not. really flying those are just CGI right. but we agree to that to a certain extent. as we go into that world and we become. immersed in that world and so what you. know the mystics in the Eastern. Traditions have been telling us is that. we agree to basically go into this. illary world in order to have these.

experiences right sometimes people say. well what's the purpose of the. simulation and I say well why do you. play video games and why do you play. video games fun fun is one two is to try. to have experiences that you probably. can't have right outside of the game. like even Grand Theft Auto right you're. not going to go out there and do all. that crazy stuff in the real although. some people might but right most people. wouldn't and you're not going to I can't. fly on a dragon and kill Orcs right as. much as I might want to especially with. no real world. consequences right right with no real.

world exactly so that's one of the. reasons why but there are consequences. within the game right uh and for the. characters in the game right for the. NPCs that you're killing right those are. all real consequences within the game. but when you look at it from outside the. game and so like the Eastern Mystics. have been telling us this and turns out. in the judeo-christian Islamic. Traditions right the abrahamic religions. they've also been telling us this uh. that the world is Maya and they use.

metaphors back then right so you know. all these religions came about a couple. thousand years ago and so they had to. use. metaphors that were understood by the. people back then right and so they they. Ed whatever me the metaphor of the dream. was was a key metaphor that the world is. like a dream or that the soul puts on. the body like a set of clothes and that. when you die you take off these clothes.

and then you're back to the soul. whatever that happens to be They Don't. Really Define what that is in fact they. use the exact same metaphor like in the. Bhagavad Gita they use this clothing. metaphor and then roomie who's become. popular in the west and was a was an. Islamic Sufi um you know a poet but also. Mystic he used the exact same phrase. right he said you put on the body you. put like like a series of clothes and so. they use that metaphor to try to. describe something which is the second.

part of the idea of the simulation. hypothesis the first idea was the world. is information that gets rendered and. the second part is the world is some. kind of a hoax that we are a part of uh. for whatever. reason and so uh in in the in the. Traditions over time they've tried to. update these metaphors um and they've. tried to use new technology to describe. the metaphors because that's how we can. as modern people we can understand it so. about a hundred years ago there was a. guy named Swami Yogananda he came over.

from India he was like one of the first. Indian Yogi swamis to really live in the. US and he wrote a book called. autobiography of a yogi I don't know if. you ever read it read it oh you read it. oh great yeah in the 60s it was like the. book one of those books that everybody. passed around yeah uh and Steve Jobs you. know it was his favorite book at his. funeral he gave everybody or his. memorial service he gave everybody a. little brown box they went home and. opened the box and they found a copy of. autobiography of Yogi in there um but so. Yogananda came over about 100 years ago.

and he tried to update this old metaphor. and what was new technology back in the. 1920s it was movies movie projectors. were he said the world is like a movie. projector right you're playing these. parts the actors are playing the parts. on the screen and things are happening. to them but really the actors aren't. necessarily dying it's the characters. that are suffering you know within the. game within the movie itself and so he. used that metaphor as a way to try to.

explain this this ancient religious idea. that's at the core of every single. religion which is that the world as we. see it is not really real and there's a. real real world Beyond this world and so. he updated the metaphor to use movie. projectors uh and you know if you have. ever been we've all been in movie. theaters if you look away from the the. screen you know you can kind of see the. flickering of the light right. uh and you can kind of see everybody's. so engrossed in it that they're not.

looking around they don't know what's. going on other than you know maybe. having some popcorn or something and so. today I think we need to update those. metaphors right particularly for a. younger generation who spent like as. much of their time in you know things. like fortnite or Roblox when they were. younger as avatars if we use the the. metaphor of a massively multiplayer. online game and I think Yogananda if you. were alive today in fact my my latest. book which I wrote after this EMA UL. ation books uh because it was the 75th. anniversary of autobiography of Yogi a.

couple years ago and Harper Collins. India asked me to write this book about. you know what can you learn from. autobiography of Yogi and there's all. these weird stories in there of like you. know some guy materializing a palace in. the Himalayas out of nowhere right. you've got levitating Saints you've got. guys bilocating disappearing all kinds. of crazy going on right and and I. said well you sure you want me to write. this book you know I'm an entrepreneur. and and a computer scientist they said. yeah because we want you to use your.

technology metaphors like the simulation. hypothesis to explain this stuff and so. if Yogananda were alive today and I. wrote this in my my new book called. wisdom of a yogi I would what he would. say is it's like a movie but we're the. actors and we're also the audience and. we have a script and we're kind of. playing the script but we can change the. script if we want uh what does that. sound like it sounds like a massively. multiplayer online role playing game you. know so I think that that metaphor is a.

great way to try to explain this idea of. the soul and the body you know within. the religious Traditions that's the RPG. version of the simulation. hypothesis. and how do you go through life with this. information does this does this. information affect the way you feel. about things on a day-to-day basis like. if you have these theories and you have. this concept in your mind of the the. true nature of the universe of reality.

itself yeah how does that work with the. the physical carbon. tissue you know how do you how do you. how do you deal with that well so the. way that I like to think of it um and. you know originally I was just kind of. putting these Concepts you seem very. happy like this this seems like. something that would freak people out to. the point where they would kind of get. like so much existential angst and it's.

so bizarre yeah that it would be hard to. just like be present but you seem very. present right because it gets back to. how you think about if it's an NPC game. it would freak people out right right. we're just NP this is like the. materialist kind of view of the world. which is while the computer's on you're. here computer gets shut off excuse me. everybody's gone but in the RPG version. it's a little bit different right so. when you when you play a game uh you.

know when I was a kid we used to play. Dungeons and Dragons when I was a. teenager and you have a character sheet. and you'd like roll your dice and you'd. say I'm going to be an elf or I'm going. to be a human and my uh occupation is a. wizard or a barbarian right and then you. roll the dice and you get all these like. different attributes like Charisma. intelligence whatever whatever they were. I don't even remember all all of them. now right dexterity all of these things. that help you in some way and it's like. you're choosing to play this game in.

this illust world and I believe that. this is similar to what happens to us. when we come into this world if in the. RPG version right that we end up. choosing a character with a set of. parents right and a set of strengths and. weaknesses and more than that like a. storyline things that we might want to. do now we're free when we play the game. we're free feel free to make different. choices if we want within the game but.

you've got kind of these challenges or. quests right what makes a video game. interesting or fun so there's a guy who. was the founder of Atari I don't know if. you ever met him Nolan Bushnell uh but. he was pretty much the the grandfather. of the video game industry you know he. created pong you know back in the day. and then created Atari and and he he. said there was a rule for how to make a. game interesting he said make it easy to. play but difficult to Mas. right CU if it's not easy to play people. are going to just throw it away and.

going to play but if it's easy to master. they're going to play for a little while. and then they're going to go right right. but if you make it easy to play but. difficult to master that keeps people. playing the game and so I think if you. take this view you can view the whole. the whole world particularly your life. and your story as a series of quests and. challenges things that come up for you. that you may or may not not be able to. you know achieve the first time around.

because we have difficulty levels don't. we in games MH right some people have an. easier you know they want to play the. game where life's easy other people want. to play the game where life is really. tough like actors when do they win. Academy Awards right tough roles yeah. exactly tough roles right the ones that. really suffer typically too yeah right. and you know um Swami Yogananda and a. lot of the Eastern Mystics will you know. say that suffering is the nature of this. world right that's why we're here is to.

experience this uh but even in the in. the western Traditions there's a similar. idea so I started to look up you know. different traditions in in in Islam in. Islam in the Quran there's like a whole. series of verses and they say we have. set up this world as a Pastime as a game. for you as a sport you know this world. is really uh they use this Arabic word. eluri which means an a delusion but it. means like an enjoyable delusion sort of.

uh enjoyable in quotes because depends. on what you enjoy right like getting in. and and playing a real tough role maybe. what you enjoy but that's not fun for. the character to go through all that. crap that they have to go through right. and so I think we can view the world as. a series of of quests and challenges now. the next question is well what's the. nature of the game right I don't believe. the game is Grand Theft Auto that's not. the type of game we're playing so I. think we can turn to you know people.

that have died near-death experiencers I. don't know if you had any on your show. you may have over the years um but there. was a guy named danan Brinkley who wrote. a book called Saved By the Light uh back. in the 90s uh he got struck by lightning. and this was how I first heard about. this thing which is called The Life. review and you know a lot of near-death. experiencers they have they report you. know these series of stages of things. that happened to them like they're. floating above their body they go. through a tunnel of light and we we've.

heard all of this but the most important. part for me in in these stories and you. have like thousands of people right you. can just go on YouTube and listen to. listen to any of these near-death. experiencers but what what danian called. this this thing called The Life review. uh was he called it a holographic. panoramic review of your life and and. what that means and other near-death. experiencers have reported this maybe. about 20% of them that you go through. every single moment that you ever lived.

in like this virtual reality you know. three-dimensional Panorama but you see. it from the point of view of everybody. else right so if you were mean to. someone if you stabbed someone or in. dian's case he was in Special Forces in. Vietnam and he actually killed people H. he said he had to experience what it was. like to you know get the bullet and then. more than that experience what happened. after that guy died his wife you know.

the guy who died his wife and children. what kind of suffering they experienced. so it's like you're you're reviewing. like after a football game right or. after a match you might sit there and. review on the screen what happened. except this screen is like you know. fully immersive the best VR you could. ever have it's like you're reliving the. moment um so couple years ago I was. involved with a startup in in Silicon. Valley and we took a game like League of. Legends you probably heard of League of. Legends like the most popular at least. it was Esports game right and you've got.

all these guys on the field but pretty. much you play on a 2d screen right so we. made it so you could replay the game but. you would put on a virtual reality. headset and it would seem like you were. on you know on the field in League of. Legends and you could replay uh from any. point of view same with Counter-Strike. Global Offensive was the one that you. know I was thinking of because. in that game you're it's a first- person. shooter so you're like shooting people.

and so literally you could go back and. Replay that game from the point of view. of the person you shot right and so when. I was experiencing this it it was. reminding me of you know all these these. things these near-death experiencers. have been telling us about this Life. review and as as an engineer and. computer scientist my question is always. well how does that work I mean if you. could replay every single moment in your. life even the moments when you weren't. there right including like what happened.

to this guy's wife and what happened to. their children somebody has to record. all that stuff right because how are you. going to replay it right if it's not. being recorded so you know perhaps you. know this whole game is being recorded. just like we do um in fact on YouTube. you know the most popular content other. than the Joe Rogan experiences is video. games content is like the replay I. remember my nephew uh when he was like 3. years old like before he was even going. to school he would say to his father my. brother I want to watch Star Wars and my.

brother was like you want to watch the. movie no I want to watch that man and. that woman play the Star Wars game on. YouTube right it was like he was just. watching them replay a recording of the. video game on YouTube and so This Life. review thing which is at that Crux of. near-death experiences I think gives us. a clue and an interesting clue which. ties back to your question to me which. is how do you go you know how do you. live with this stuff and I say well what. if all of this is being recorded and.

you're making choices and you're going. to have to review it afterwards like the. concept of when you die exactly St Peter. reviews your life that's right so in the. Christian Traditions you have St Peter. you have the book of life right which. you know theoretically depending on who. you ask the recording Angel has written. down you know whether you get into. heaven or Not by reviewing your life. well it turns out in the Islamic. Traditions they get much more explicit.

about what that is they call it the. scroll of Deeds okay now of course. remember 2,000 years ago they had to. call it something people would. understand uhuh The Scroll of Deeds. there's two angels and you've probably. seen like you know in the movies in the. animated movies they'll have like the. Angel and the devil that comes out of. the Islamic Traditions right and so. there's these two angels uh they called. the Kiran kabin and they're sitting down. and writing down one's writing down all. your good deeds and one is writing down. all your bad deeds and what what it says. in the tradition and and you know when I.

delve into these different Traditions. it's not so much to say okay this this. religion is right and that one isn't but. to say what's in common across all these. religions because that that part is. probably right if these guys are coming. to that independently all the other. stuff maybe you know I won't stop you. know I won't criticize for you're. believing the other stuff that's up to. you but that stuff is probably at the. core of this thing called life and what. happens after life and so what what it. says in the Islamic Traditions is your. book will be laid open for you after you.

die and you will be the reckoner right. so we think of judgment day and we think. of all this stuff but what it's actually. saying now that that's a metaphor it. doesn't mean there's like angels with a. feather pen writing down what in Chinese. you know this is what happened this day. or in Arabic the only thing that makes. sense is you would basically just record. the entire 3D scene and you would play. it back for yourself. which is exactly what near-death. experiencers describe when they talk.

about the Life review it's like this. they're sitting there there's a screen. and then suddenly they get pulled into. the screen and they replay all of this. stuff and there's usually an angel or. they might call him God or they might. say it's Jesus or they might say it's a. being of light you know different. experiencers say different things but. they say that guy doesn't judge you. you're looking at it saying oh crap you. know I I was going to try to be better. person to my wife this time around and I. wasn't you know and I did this or I did. that or my kids or you know and they.

tell us that the moments that matter are. the small moments in how you treat other. people like that's the thing you're most. proud of or or you're like damn I I. treated that person in in grade school. you know we all made fun of her and I. should have like been her friend like. those are the things that really matter. yes so if that's the game right you. always think what's the objective of the. game right right uh and then I think it. gives us a very. perspective and a way to think about. life so so that's one you know kind of.

big answer for me the other is we go. through lots of difficulties in life. right go through financial difficulties. go through Health difficulties right uh. and these can seem you know pretty tough. but if we just think of them as a quest. with a difficulty level right that's. higher that we might have to get through. there might be some purpose to that and. that ties to the idea of karma. particularly within the Eastern.

Traditions right where if you think of. karma as a most people think of karma as. hey you shot me I'm G to shoot you in. this life right that's a very simplistic. view of karma what karma is actually. about is about your thoughts your. desires and your actions which then. create situations in the future um. whether in this life or a future life so. of course in the Eastern Traditions you. have The Reincarnation idea. which you don't necessarily have in the. uh in the western Traditions um but that.

karma is about basically a list of. information that follows you around from. life to life right so you might have a. different body in the next life but that. information is still there where does it. live you know I'm from silon Valley I. like to say it's in the cloud right. that's where we store all our. information yeah it's in a database in. the cloud which is also a bizarre. thought cuz it's not a cloud yeah it's. not really a why are you even saying. that why is that so ubiquitous that term.

I know such a stupid term It's Kind the. first time I heard it the cloud I was. scratching my head what what what does. that even mean it's such a stupid way to. describe something that's really complex. and you could actually Trace where it is. right exactly and and so I like to think. of it as the reason we call it the cloud. is because you don't know exactly where. the server is right it could be one of a. million servers Somewhere Out There. Amazon has a huge Warehouse right which. is AWS and all the servers are running.

there uh so you don't in the past like I. used to do software before the cloud you. would set up your own servers or you'd. have your own Data Center and everything. you would say this is how many 386 we. have this now it's like it's just out. there somewhere right I don't know where. the heck it is it's out there and so I. like to think of the cloud as uh in a. video game we have the rendered world. right so you're watching the video game. you can see the The Greenery and. everything. but you also got all that other. information there right right like you. got the HUD the heads up display you got.

your inventory you got your level you. know you got all this stuff you got your. list of quests and so where is that. information it's not in the physical. world right but it's there somewhere. it's on a server somewhere right right. uh and so I like to think of karma as a. kind of database of quests or. achievements or experiences you know. that we still need to have uh and what. happens is you know this database just. keeps getting bigger and bigger uh as we. create more desires and situations and.

actions and things that we do with. people and then sometimes you have Karma. to resolve with somebody right there's. the there's the old the old idea of you. meet somebody you feel like you've known. them for a while right you're. irresistibly drawn to someone and you. don't know why to have some particular. experience whatever that experience is. uh and so you know within certain. Traditions they view that as perhaps. when you were planning it it's like a I. like think of it as like a raid or a. guild in a video game right you say okay.

here's some other people we're going to. do this together you know later on in. some point while we're playing the game. we're going to have this particular. experience of being business partners or. lovers or enemies or whatever the case. you know whatever the situation is uh. but this idea that these experiences you. know could be there for a reason you. know when we have tough experiences is I. think something can be comforting uh I. know it was for me like when I went. through certain Health crisis for.

example uh that you know we are here to. experience some of these things and and. so if you look at Karma more deeply uh. there's a story from autobiography of. Yogi that sounds unbelievable to to. people that I think is worth maybe just. you know telling the story because. people read that book and they say did. this guy just make this up right. did this stuff really happen right or is. this from the Arabian night so there a. story of this guy named Babaji who's. supposedly lived for hundreds of years. uh in the Himalayas and supposedly still.

there okay so that's pretty weird to. begin with but there's a story of of. yogananda's guru's Guru a guy named. Lahiri who went up into the mountains. and meets this this this Baba right and. Baba says Lahiri you have found me. finally I've summoned you to me I've. been watching you your whole life and. now I'm going to reinitiate you don't. you remember you used to sit in this. cave and used to meditate with me and. there there's your blanket and here he's. like I don't remember any of this stuff. right he was like 30 years old he's like.

you know I just called out got called. out here for some government you know. position and and he says well we need to. initiate you in this yoga technique and. maybe you'll remember then and so he. initiates him and he starts to remember. all this stuff and then he says okay. we're going to initiate you over there. and and here he looks and there's this. Golden Palace that came out of nowhere. you know right in the middle of the. Himalayas. and he says we're going to initiate you. in this Palace and it just came from. nowhere right and so you know so.

Yogananda is talking about how the dream. nature of the world and how yogis can. manipulate it but then leiri says well. one how did you create this out of. nothing but two why in this Golden. Palace and so this kind of immortal. figure in the story says um well in a. previous life you expressed an interest. a real strong desire to live in a palace. in a future life okay and so I've. created this dream palace for you it's. not really real but you're seeing it in.

order to resolve that Karma so that you. don't have to go live a whole life in a. palace like that Karma's done now take. that off the database so I I use that to. kind of show that sometimes we put. things into the database of karma based. upon our strong desires and that becomes. part of our script in life you know like. how did I know I wanted to be a computer. programmer I don't know right what why. do some people want to become podcasters. right or Fighters or comedians right.

it's like we have these things inside of. us that sometimes feel they're like. something we're just drawn to right yeah. it's just something we're meant to do. now Malcolm Gladwell wrote that book I. think it's called outliers where he say. if you spend 10,000 hours doing. something you become an expert my. question is more what drives somebody to. spend 10,000 hours doing this versus. that right right Ian I have friends who. are rock climbers they probably spent. 10,000 hours climbing rocks and I'm like. I I I don't have any desire to spend.

10,000 hours but I probably spent 10,000. hours programming when I was younger it. was just something I was naturally drawn. to I was good at right and I feel like. these are part of the quests or. achievements uh that we have in life and. I think the most interesting people that. I've ever met have gone through. quests rarely do I find interesting. people that haven't experienced. something difficult yeah I mean in fact. it was partly for me going through some. difficulty that got me to write this. book finally CU I've been thinking about.

it for years so I ended up you I was. kind of at the height of my. entrepreneurial career had sold my video. game company the Japanese to a Japanese. company I was at MIT running a startup. program uh called playlabs for video. game companies and then I ended up. having uh heart issues and I ended up. having to get heart surgery which I mean. if anybody's seen that you can see it's. you know pretty much the big biggest cut. one of the biggest Cuts you can make and. and they kept saying oh yeah a few. months you'll be fine right and what.

happened was after the heart surgery I. couldn't do anything for a while and I. had this long recovery as probably the. most difficult period in my life and. during that time I would start to get. better and I would try jump back in the. business world right back into Silicon. Valley I was going to raise this big VC. fund and do all this stuff and I would. my health would like deteriorate again. from the pressure the stress you know. it's a good question right just the. amount of energy that you need to do. these things now your body didn't use.

that energy to recover it could be that. right but what what I found was that I. did have enough energy because every. time I tried to do that I'd end up back. in the hospital for another procedure. right it's no fun having hard procedures. let me tell you uh but when I I did have. enough energy to do this other thing. that I'd been wanting to do my whole. life which was to write more books uh. and so I had just enough energy to go to. Starbucks and write you know work for an. hour or two uh on the simulation.

hypothesis which for me was a way to. bring together all the threads of my. life like I've been a computer scientist. I've been a video game designer I spent. a lot of time investigating different. mystical Traditions shamanic stuff um. you know the without drugs you know more. of the shamanic Journey so and I spent. time with people whove been. investigating UFOs and religious people. and academics who are complete. materialists and don't believe in any of. this stuff stuff uh and it was a way to. bring this all together and suddenly I. found I had more energy when I did that.

right every time I try to do something. else my health would would start to. deteriorate again and So eventually I. got the message so for the next couple. years I just focused on writing right. and that led to this book The simulation. hypothesis and I feel like it was part. of my life plan if you would asked me in. high school what are you going to do if. with your life I would have said I'm. going to be a computer programmer an. entrepreneur sell my company become a. writer right but I always thought I was. going to do that become a writer when in.

my 20s uh when this happened I was. already 48 so I had already like I was. still in Silicon Valley right still. playing the game trying to build the. next billion dollar company which is. what everybody you know tries to do the. next unicorn they call it in Silicon. Valley and it was like I got this. message that there was. another part of the story that I was. neglecting like I had written some books. but it was like a hobby I was doing it. the side and then when I focused on it. suddenly it was like I got the message.

pretty clearly during that time you know. this is sort of a mystical experience I. was going in and out of Consciousness. and not a lot while I was recovering and. I would just get the message you know. you're supposed to be writing you're. supposed to be writing what the heck are. you doing still out there trying to make. money that wasn't what we agreed to this. is what you were supposed to do right. and when I did that things just flowed. much more easily you know and the book. went on to to be quite successful and I. was able to write another book and then.

then as my health recovered I I realized. there was another thing that IID always. wanted to do which was be you know. professor in Academia and that's kind of. what I'm doing now so I went back for a. PhD after after many years and now I'm. teaching classes on the simulation. hypothesis doing research on AI so it. was like these things that I kind of. wanted to do before and I never got to. but they were optional parts of the. story uh and we still have the the. ability to make choices but sometimes a. quest hits us or uh a situation hits us.

with a lot of difficulty and and maybe. there's a bigger purpose to that right. maybe it has something to do. with how we set up our character in the. game and and the choices that we're. making um and so now we're getting into. like the personal philosophy side of. simulation which I think is is quite. valid that's probably the second you. know probably the the biggest questions. I get asked are are are we in a. simulation what's the percentage and. then you know what would it matter right.

if we're in a simulation or not and I. think it can be a positive uh experience. and for I think people who grew up in. the modern world with modern technology. it gives us a way to say you know what. maybe what all those religions were. saying wasn't right it wasn't. just stories that people made up but. they just didn't have the language right. to express something that uh a lot of. people who have had experiences they use. the word ineffable right which means. unable to be put into words MH and so.

they can't really tell you what's out. there but they use these metaphors to. try to describe it and so I think. whether you view simulation Theory as a. you know hardcore physics thing or you. view it as a metaphor for what this. world is all about and how we go through. our lives I think there's value in. looking at both of those uh both of. those angles and and metaphor side is. what I think actually for me personally. that was your question how does this.

change the way that I that I view the. world it actually has change the way. that I view the world so that when I go. through difficult situations I kind of. step back they don't bother me as much I. mean they still bother me physically but. they don't bother me as what much in. other ways so you view them as. challenges in this thing that you're. doing so instead of wo is me oh my God. how is this happening to me which is the. way a lot of people interface with. problems you go okay this is the. challenge that I'm presented with how do. I overcome this Challenge and what feels.

like the thing to do right and and why. this challenge now right right why this. challenge now if if there's a part of me. that's like outside watching this right. like maybe when I go to sleep or. wherever whenever why would it choose. this particular challenge right at this. point in my life what is it that you. know it's meant to to impact and what is. it that I need to learn but yeah I I. view it as a challenge rather than you. know this is just a a bad thing that's.

happened to me and that seems like the. right way to play the game if it's game. yeah not only does it seem like the. right way I think that is part of the. purpose right so get back to the idea of. Maya or Illusion right so it's like we. are agreeing to. forget right the Greeks talked about the. river of forgetfulness Le right it's one. of the five rivers of the other world. but when you incarnate Plato talked. about this you know you cross the river.

and you. forget uh everything outside of this. physical world and in the Chinese. traditions you have the same thing you. have mang. poo excuse me who's a goddess of. forgetfulness and she Brews the tea of. forgetfulness and you drink it and you. forget you know what was going on before. and so getting back to this idea of. everything being an illusion. you kind of agree to forget in my in my. view and I think within this way of.

viewing the world as a video game in. order to enjoy and I put enjoy in quotes. because that doesn't necessarily mean. it's all fun in games right right it's. maybe. experience is a better word to use when. to experience these things in life in a. way that we forget but it's okay. sometimes I think to step to step out. and and maybe we remember a little bit. of the storyline. or we recognize someone right um there. was a there was a u.

hypnotherapist in who wrote a book. called journey of souls Dr Michael. Newton I don't know if you ever have. heard of it or read so he would you know. he started with regression hypnosis. taking people back to their childhood. and every now and then they ended up. somewhere before their childhood meaning. before they were born right and so he. had a bunch of patience and he started. to you know do this more more and they. all kind of. described a similar type of of thing.

like where they existed before they were. born so these are sometimes called. pre-birth Memories now and and they talk. about this time when they were. choosing what kind of a life they were. going to have and they would see on a. screen like a screen again metaphors. like you know timelines and say at this. point if you choose you know you choose. to go to Austin or in Los Angeles or. whatever right uh that takes you on this. path this takes you on that path that.

you see like this graph of possibilities. out there uh for your life and then some. of them described like having friends. like your friends list in a game and. that they would say okay this is how. you're going to recognize me in the game. because I'm going to have on this Avatar. this I'm using the term Avatar because I. I talk about video games they didn't. necessarily use that but they said this. is how you're going to recognize me I'm. the first time you encounter me I'm. going to be on a red bicycle or. something right in childhood or I'm.

going to be wearing this dress at this. you know at this dance or whatever the. case is so they had these little clues. for how they would recognize some of the. people that they really wanted to have. certain quests or experiences or. achievements within the game group. quests if you will uh which is a little. bit different than the the kind of quest. as the difficult experience we're. talking about but they're all different. kinds of quests I would say uh and so I. I think you know we can take that as a. as an interesting way again another.

metaphor for how we think about life is. that perhaps we've had some of these. things laid out for us but we're still. free to make our choices along the way. and I think it it gives us a richer. experience um of life as as we go. through the. game well that's certainly the most. beneficial way to interact with. it to just think of this whole thing as. a game and to think of this whole game. as like this game will give you Clues as.

to how to play it and you'll have. experiences that you can engage with and. you can say that you're enjoying them or. that you're you're you're getting. pleasure out of that or you're getting. excitement out of that or you're getting. some sort of fulfillment out of. that but you still have to play the game. so you're here right you're you're here. what you going to do one way or the. other how you going to deal with it like. what's the beneficial way to go through.

this where you feel harmonious like I. know if I feel like I'm wasting time or. I'm doing nothing I have this like. feeling like what did you do with your. day like GH you know it's terrible. feeling versus if I work and I get. things done at the end I'm like oo I did. it I feel good you know like okay like. the Universe the game is telling me. you're on the right path that's the way. to do it right and I think that's the. key is you know we all get different.

messages for when we're on the right. path yeah and when we're not uh and I. think we we sometimes sense that right. sometimes things just kind of flow. easily and other times they don't. necessarily uh but yeah I I agree I. think you know viewing the game in in in. that way based on your own signals in. your brain in your body that is telling. your intuition right right uh and. there's different ways to think about. that like some some people have. suggested um like some physicists have.

suggested that there are these possible. futures um and that they are sending. back information from the future to the. present right because time doesn't. really exist the same way when again. when we get back into quantum mechanics. it starts to be weird but like there's a. guy named Fred Allen wolf who was one of. these Berkeley physicists in that book. uh uh how they the hippie save physics I. don't know if you ever heard of that. book but it was an interesting book. about how uh people in quantum mechanics.

stopped thinking about what the heck. does this mean because it was too. complicated back in the 60s and in the. 70s a group of hippie hippie physicists. all all PhD physicist in in Berkeley you. know used to have this group and talk. about uh what does this all mean one of. the guys was frit Joff cpra who wrote. The Dow physics another I think was Gary. zukov and a bunch of these guys ended up. looking at you know what does this all. mean as opposed to just calculating. which is what physicists were doing at. the time but so so one of these guys. talks about these Futures are sending us.

information and sometimes what we get. are Clues right saying that oh this is. this is a possibility maybe I should. choose this over that uh it's almost. like the Futures are sending back these. messages to the past and and I think of. that as different runs of the game right. uh and it's possible there's a part of. us that might be running the game. forward as a simulation to try to see. what might happen and then come back and. then you make a choice based on you know.

um uh this idea like there there was uh. some some some guys who wrote a paper. recently about dreams as a sort of way. to simulate like weird bad. experiences um traumatic experiences. maybe preparing you for things in life. but when you start to think about the. world as a. simulation um again you can simulate. more than once right you can try out. what might happen if you did X or what. might happen if you do do y kind of like. you know you watch The Lord of the Rings. movies right probably if you look at uh.

What uh uh you know what they did was. before Peter Jackson what they did was. before they actually filmed the scene. they would create a previs prev. visualization right using like crude. graphics and stuff and you know you can. see they played out what it might look. like before they got around and did the. act because it's so expensive right in a. movie to shoot a particular scene so. they would do this prev visual ization. and so you know perhaps there's a part. of us that's watching the game that's. doing this prev visualization and.

they're and sending us clues about what. might happen if we do X or what might. happen you know if we do y um and and so. that you know that takes us even back to. what I was talking about earlier with. Philip K dick right and and his idea. that the Universe what happens is we. actually go and we change variables and. we rerun it and we might have we might. have the sense that we're rerunning the. same scene we're saying the same things.

but something could be different and. usually something is different when you. run the the simulation you know and that. that's what got me into a whole another. rabbit hole which I covered my second. book which is the Mandela fact I don't. know if you've uh you've heard about the. Mandela fact I have but I don't. necessarily totally understand it yeah. well I I kind of dismissed the whole. thing earlier you know and the Mandela. effect is when a a small group of people. remember something happening differently.

in the past than what is the majority. consensus opinion and it's about Mandela. being dead right well that was the first. thing that kind of kicked off this. blogger uh who actually coined the term. I think her name was Fiona broom she. says some people remembered Nelson. Mandela dying in prison in the 80s but. of course he didn't die in prison right. you can look it up right he he got out. of prison became president of South. Africa won the Nobel Peace Prize and. died in whatever it was like more. recently like I know 20 2013 or.

something like that uh but the people. who remember this they remember it with. just like a whole bunch of specific. details right his wife Winnie spoke at. the funeral uh there were certain us. politicians or presidents there and so. what happened was that was one Mandela. effect if you will and then there. started to be all these other things. that people remembered that were. different and some of these were. relatively minor things like the.

spelling of Froot Loops or bears that's. the most famous one right the barenstein. Bears right everybody in fact here we. can we can see it there right if you ask. people most people remember it as the. baron Steen Bears right but when you. look at it it's actually the bar and. stain Bears okay it's a relatively small. change but it's one that people are. really. like confused about uh then there's the. movies right the movie lines like in.

Star Wars you know did he say you know. Luke I am your father did Darth Vader. actually say that right uh and then. there were there were entire episodes of. Star Trek um where like the Trey the. trekkies in the audience remembered this. episode and they're talking to the cast. members of the original Star Trek and. the cast members like we never shot this. episode what are you talking about. they're like no no no we we saw it you. know this is what happened in the. episode and then you got like the whole. simbad thing which was a movie that he. supposedly made called uh was it Kazam.

or Shazam like there it was all called. Kazam but there was actually a movie. with Shaq called Shazam anyway there's a. whole bunch of these movie related ones. right M and there's a bunch of these. logo ones uh like The Bernstein Bears uh. but the more interesting ones come I. think with world uh with effect with u. events like Mandela like do you remember. tanaman Square mhm what happened to that. guy in front of the. tank uh he stood in front of the tank.

and they removed him right they didn't. run him over right that's what I. remember too right but there's a group. of people who. remember you know the tank running him. over and said it was the bloodiest thing. they ever saw on television right like. this vivid memory of this thing right uh. or like the Reverend Billy Graham like I. mean I don't know when he died but you. know there are like these Evangelical. Christians who say that my parents. follow this guy and they got a magazine.

with him on the cover saying he died. many years earlier than than he actually. died right uh and they remember it. vividly and so those events start to. become interesting uh but the ones that. I find really interesting are the ones. where there's some interesting EV like. scripture right so people take their. scripture pretty seriously right uh like. do you know the the line in Isaiah about. the lion and the lamb I don't remember. it yeah but you remember there was a.

line right about a lion and a lamb well. it turns out there isn't right it's it. has something the wolf shall lie with a. lamb or something like that right uh and. what's weird is that people have like. you know like little wall clocks and. things with a picture of a lion and a. lamb but it's not even in the scripture. it's not in the scripture right and so. and I thought okay well maybe it's a. translation thing you know maybe maybe. one version of the King James Bible has. it in the other one and people are like. no I have my same physical copy from.

when I was a kid and I memorized this. particular line you know and and so you. know and and there's a whole there are. websites that track these different line. different things that maybe have changed. and what do you think these things. are well so I I started to wonder uh you. know does this happen in other. scriptures you know is it only in like. the Bible like this is going on and so I. I I started looking around at Islam and. the Quran because they memorize the.

Quran word for word I mean that is like. the first thing you have to do to become. a priest right you have to like be able. to say the whole damn thing and I always. wondered why do you need to memorize it. it seems kind of stupid nowadays you can. just look it up so I found this one Sufi. Imam online who was talking about this. and he says that in the Islamic. traditions in the Middle East there are. these beings that are allowed to go back. in time and change things physical. things but they're not allowed to change. your memory okay and these these beings.

are called the Jin right we we've heard. of them from Aladdin right and the Genie. Genie is singular for Jin H but that the. G the Gin don't exist in space and time. in the same way that we exist in space. and time and so the reason that they me. still memorize it word for word now I. don't know if this is something in the. full Orthodoxy but this this was his. explanation was that because the Gin are. allowed to change physical objects but. they're not allowed to change our memory. uh that's why it's memorized word for.

word so that nobody can mess you know. with the scripture um and and so so I. found that really fascinating but there. are other physical objects like The. Thinker okay do you know the Thinker the. the statue yeah the statue okay so where. is the guy's hand in. that isn't he like doesn't his hand on. his chin yeah it's kind of under his. chin like this right we could even bring. it up right if we could find it right.

but there there's a ton of there it is. right and so there's several bronze. casts of this uh there was one at. Stanford that I went and looked at. recently but what you find is there's a. bunch of people with their hand at the. top of their forehead right standing. next to the Statue right right and okay. you might think there's a bunch of crazy. tourists D just doing it for fun but. it's really weird so there's actually a. picture that I found from the London.

unveiling of rhan The Thinker uh which. was George Bernard Shaw GB Shaw in the. pose of The Thinker we see if we can. find this picture right and so this was. just the night before this was being. rolled out to the public in London for. the first time I forget what year like. 1902 or something okay so there's GB. Shaw this is like a famous picture now. in the of The Thinker and where is his. hand on his head on his forehead and he. was probably standing right next to you.

know where the the the statue was. unveiled and so you have to start to. wonder like why would people do that. those hands are in a different position. too yeah yeah it's interesting right oh. yeah his hands on his left knee the. other guy's got his hand all the way. across onto the other. side yeah exactly and it's a different. hand that he's got in his head as well. right and if you read like even left. hand versus right hand right and and so. there's like there's almost three. versions of this there's the the hand.

under the chin well maybe these images. are reversed cuz I'm seeing some with. the right hand on his chin so that one. down there Jamie the one below that yeah. the right hands on the. chin so there's different versions of. The Thinker right right so there may. let's go back to the one that I saw was. the one at Stanford for example right. okay but in these poses in the statues. the the hand is always under the chin. but in the images where people are. imitating it the hand is on the head the. hand is on the head and you find.

references you know to either it being a. fist under the chin or slightly under. the chin which is what it is now right. it's kind of very lightly or on the. forehead and so now I'm not necessarily. saying that all of this stuff happens. like I dismissed a lot of this is just. faulty memory and that's the the. currently accepted explanation from the. Mandela is oh a bunch of people got it. wrong right but what you find is that. the more significance that something has.

to you the less likely you are to get it. wrong right so if you're Jewish and you. asked your parents why are these Bears. Jewish right and your parents didn't say. oh it's not really Burnstein it's Vern. Stein right uh you know that's proximity. to that subject right there was a a. blogger online I'm forgetting her name. now she was a journalism student in. Chicago and she said she went to South. Africa to interview Nelson Mandela in.

prison and was told that he was too ill. so she literally came back and then she. started working for. NPR uh and then she says well I remember. him dying shortly after now if you just. went to South Africa to interview Nelson. Mandela and then you remember him dying. that's proximity and significance you're. less likely to get it wrong than just. some random guy who just thought Mandel. died or if you're you know heavy duty. Christian and you're more likely to. memorize certain passages you know from.

the Bible right so again I just missed. it and then what happened was after I. had written the simulation hypothesis. about this idea that the whole world is. computation a friend of mine from MIT. who was working at Google uh came to me. and said uh uh you know hey have you. heard the Mandela effect I was like yeah. I heard about it but you know a bunch of. people remembering you know different. stuff no big deal he goes well the SIM. hypothesis is one of the best. explanations for this uh that the world. is a simulation now I was surprised for.

two reasons one most guys you know who. work at like who are MIT or Google you. know they tend to be very left-brained. right so the Mandela effect is not. something that they right generally pay. attention to or UFOs or like any of this. this kind of kind of weird stuff but the. more I thought about it the more I. realize that if you're running a. simulation and you go back and you. change some variables and you rerun the. simulation lots of little things could. be different along the way right and if.

you think of all the Mandela. effects and and I like to use the. Mandela effect as a way of illustrating. this idea that a simulation can run. multiple timelines right whether you. believe it's actually happened is up to. you right but if if let's say The. Thinker has three different. possibilities and you got let's say The. Bernstein Bears let's say you have. Curious George does he have a tail or. does he not have a tail right that's. actually a good one I don't I don't. remember like which one it is but if you. look it up I don't think he has a tail.

you don't think so no I don't know let's. see if we if we can bring it up but all. monkeys have tails George Curious George. is a monkey right right as far yeah he's. a don't know do all monkeys have tails. right like. um all apes are monkeys but not all. monkeys are Apes right that's more of a. superet right subset type of is right. but with Curious George is a particular. drawing right that was made right does. kge have a tail does he have a tail. let's see yep he does have a tail he got. a tail wow sometimes he doesn't or never.

had a George never had a tail yo and I. so I think the way you remember it which. is without the tail is the currently the. current consensus reality view right of. of what it is uh but so let's go back to. my my point about this these different. possibilities right okay so imagine each. of these is different possibilities and. you got like 50 of these effects or a. 100 of these effects now you basically. have this huge graph right in this one.

Darth Vader said this but CIS George had. a tail in this one he didn't what you. have is this network graph of. possibilities of the past right you have. many different possible paths you have. glitches in The Matrix exactly so now. you're sitting on this idea that maybe. these are glitches in The Matrix that. something weird has happened uh but it. could also be that we like switched. right you're now on this timeline but. you remember you have like a Deja Vu or. you have like a weird memory right so.

even though you can Google no I was. wrong about. Mandela in your mind and in your memory. you're like no no no no no no he died in. prison right or you know I you know for. me I know he died in prison I remember. it I remember being sad I remember the. the news stories right I remember. talking about it with friends or Bill. Clinton spoke at the funeral or whoever. right right like I people get that. specific with their with their memories. and so I think it becomes harder to just.

dismiss some of some of these you know. Froot Loops Froot Loops you can probably. find there's some faulty memory yeah. there's some faulty memory going on here. but at the same time some weirdness some. weirdness it's not CU it's not just a. movie line it's like entire movies right. that people claim to have had on VHS. like let's look at the one that was it. the simbad one I think right so. supposedly there was this movie by. simbad uh simbad the comedian yeah the. comedian M right in the 90s that people. remember having uh you know with their.

VHS tapes and they were sitting there. and they were rewinding and they were. talking about specific scenes from it. right and simbad was like of course I've. never made that movie I think I think it. was called Kazam right Shazam Shazam. yeah Kazam is the real movie yeah that's. right so it was called Shazam was the. one that people remember right so uh but. Shazam was actual movie with Shaq right. in the 90s so most people say you know. this okay that was the real movie that. we remember right and yet Kazam right.

and yet all these people remember. simbad they m in this because they made. a joke on like April Fool's Day that. they made like a fake movie where it. looked like that was real so people. still are like pulling that back up now. and be like look the movie is real so it. kind of confused this Mandela effect it. did in fact simbad shot a scene just for. the hell of it cuz he says people say. that I was in this movie that I was. never in right so he shot a scene put it. up on YouTube or something how weird. isn't that strange um okay but again. whether you believe this or not what a.

simulation idea right this is how I got. deep in the rabbit hole is this idea. that you can run something multiple. times and when you do you may be. remembering a previous run of the. simulation right so you know there might. have been a run where let's say you. never moved to Austin right and maybe. you remember something from it but it. brings up the possibility in fact you. may have seen the movie uh uh The. Adjustment Bureau uh with Matt Damon and.

Emily Blunt no so that was also Based On. A Philip K dick novel right so Philip K. dick keeps coming up in these. discussions and pingpong for some reason. always keeps coming up in these. discussions but uh so you know he wrote. a story called The Adjustment team and. in that story you know there are these. guys who are kind of there adjusting. things while you're not looking uh and. that made it into the movie they kind of. looked like angels in the movie but they. had like these little these little books. that showed what was going on and things. were off track and they would like try.

to get him back on track uh the movie. was you know an adaptation it didn't. have exactly the same storyline but it. so Tessa his wife told me you know this. came from when he went in the bathroom. and he tried to like pull the light you. know they used to have chain lights back. a lot in the 60s 70s somewhere in uh. near La I think Fullerton or somewhere. around there I forget where and he's. like well I've this has been a light. switch like he went and he knew it was a. chain because he had done it hundreds of. times but it was a light switch so he.

said who changed it right did somebody. change from the chain to the light. switch but nobody had changed it and so. he couldn't figure out what was going on. and so he he kind of theorized this. whole idea that there as we run. different versions of the. simulation uh little things can end up. changing and we remember things being. different um so anyway where that brings. us is right back to that that. complicated physics experiment that I. was telling you about uh like what an. hour ago now or so which was the delayed.

Choice experiment right remember I said. there was a quazar sending light to us. uh a billion light years and a million. light years away there was a black hole. and the the decision about whether to go. left or right should have been made in. the past should have been made a million. years ago but the weirdness with quantum. mechanics is telling us that decision is. made now when we measure it until then. both possibilities actually exist so. most people can understand the.

Multiverse idea as being something that. starts here and spreads out right you're. like I go to college in Boston I go to. college in San Francisco those are like. two different story lines I marry this. person I I married this other person. right so those are multiple possible. Futures that's pretty easy to grasp the. idea of you know even if you don't. believe the are out there you just say. if you make choices you end up in. different. places but the weird thing that is. really hard to put your mind around is.

what if there are multiple possible. pasts right what if there was a past. where the light went left what if there. was a past where the light went right a. million years ago right what if there's. a past where a meteor didn't kill the. dinosaurs there's a past where the. meteor did Kill the Dinosaurs what if. there's a past where the guy in tanaman. square Got Run over by the tank and what. if there's a past where the guy didn't. get run over by the tank and so what the. cosmic delay Choice experiment tells us.

when they've tried to do this and they. and they do it using double slits but. but they sent like some light through. like one of these two slits up to a. satellite that was like a thousand miles. away or something like that um I forget. exactly how many miles but it takes like. whatever a fraction of a second to get. there but there are some some. appreciable time between when it has to. go through the slit and when it reaches. the satellite so it can measure it and.

it turns out that it. confirmed what wheeler was talking about. in the delayed Choice experiment was. that that choice of whether to go. through the slit on the left or the. right wasn't actually made until the. satellite. measured that Photon so what it meant. was that there were two possible pasts. now that's a very short period of time. we're talking about here like less than. a second but but in the case of the. cosmic delay choice exper we're talking. about a million years ago a decision. would have had to been made a million.

years ago whether to go left or right. because that's what we think of as the. past right um but what the delayed. Choice experiment is telling us is that. doesn't actually happen until now so. what if these Mandela effects are going. right back to your very first question. or one of your first questions to me. which is how do I know this is what. happened in the past. right so there's in some possible worlds. it's burn stained. bears and in some possible world it's.

Burnstein bears and this minor. deviation sort of gets confusing in. today's world with some people cuz some. people have this memory of a different. reality right and it seems very very. real to them and they're confused like. the light switch right exactly and it. takes us right back to both. the quantum physics idea that the past. is not what we think it is right and. there was a guy Schrodinger again right.

who who actually made an obscure speech. in the 1940s I think where he said not. only are we choosing which slit you know. the double slit experiment goes through. now let's say Schrodinger's cat is alive. or dead but we're choosing from one of. several simultaneous histories when we. make that observation right so that. means there's a whole history where the. cat came in from you know came in from. the the front yard versus the backyard.

and before that the cat belonged to. somebody else and or like there's a. whole history that goes with the choices. that are made uh and so this is not a. very well. understood aspect of the weirdness of. quantum mechanics but I think it it gets. to this idea that maybe there's multiple. possible pasts and that we choose those. as we run now if we think of this as a. simulated reality then it becomes a. little more understandable right so I I.

I said the main argument people have on. the Multiverse idea is that or physicist. have right so some physicist like the. Copenhagen interpretation it's called. Neils bore came up with it in Copenhagen. and he and his other folks that there's. a probability wave and it collapses into. one we don't know how it works it just. kind of collapses. uh some physicists like this Multiverse. idea because they're like we know how. the mathematics work but the problem is.

it ends up in all these physical. universes now I've never seen a planet. clone itself right let alone an entire. universe a physical Universe right that. would I cloning may happen but it. happens at a very small level and then. it grows right even if you clone a sheep. or something you still have to like grow. the sheep or you clone a tree but if. it's a simulator. reality then both of these things. actually make more sense because on the. one hand you only render that which is.

seen as a player on the other hand what. we're calling multiple you know. universes are just different runs of the. simulation and so in computer science. we're always dealing with limitations so. we don't just run an infinite number of. anything because you can't with Computer. Resources but like if you're playing a. game and the AI is trying to figure out. what's going to happen what does it do. it will try this scenario it'll try that. scenario it'll try that scenario and.

it'll pick the best scenario right and. so in that case you cut off the other. timelines and you go there forward and. from there you can simulate different. things and figure out which one you. might want to do so you've got a. mechanism for uh the Multiverse as. information but you don't have to have. an infinite number of physical universes. per se because when we say this is a. universe all that it means is that.

currently we're running this program. right now yes we could have run another. program for a little while and then we. can shut that down and we can run this. program right we could even run them on. Parallel like today's processor right. today's laptops have like parallel. processors right so you can run you know. like a whole bunch of things in parel. and that's what gets to the idea of a. quantum computer like what the heck is. that Quantum compter computer doing that. it can explore all the 18 quintilian. possibilities and come back to us within. a few seconds uh well what does a few.

seconds mean right right a few seconds. in our reality if the program stops like. if people are watching this on YouTube. right they have a window but they might. have Microsoft Word running they might. have you know a spreadsheet they might. have Instagram in another window what's. happening is this process is in the. foreground while they're watching. YouTube YouTube and then all these other. processes are in the background right. and so when when a process runs it just.

knows I'm going to the next step I'm. going to the next step it doesn't. necessarily know how many seconds have. passed so what the the CPU does is it. stops executing this window and it runs. the background programs for a little. while and then it comes back and it runs. this one for a while so technically. speaking they're not really parallel but. you don't know it because it just. appears like they're all running at the. same time right but if you if you're. inside one. program that program could have been.

paused then you could have been running. you the the computer could run any. number of programs or processes on the. side and then it starts running you. again and you think no time has passed. or nothing has passed I could imagine. how you would experience paralysis by. analysis dealing with all these. different possibilities and scenarios. constantly just playing them all out. your head yeah you kind of get. stuck if if you're trying to do it. yourself right yeah well that's why you.

have to limit it right you can't do all. the scenarios you you try to figure out. what is the best one then you make that. choice in the game right and then you. start moving forward from that that. possibility and a lot of people don't. know how to play the game they don't. know where to go they get stuck like I. don't know where to go right I don't. know what to do yeah I don't have a call. falling yeah and I think there's an. element of forgetfulness there right and. they get so stuck into so I talked about. NPC versus uh RPG role playing game.

where you have an avatar MH I think. there's something in the middle too so. this is an idea I'm playing with which. is that people could be. players they could be characters but. then they go into NPC mode right uh NPC. mode I mean I know NPC is used a lot now. with pejorative pejorative and. narratives right whether it's a dominant. narrative if you're just going along. with a narrative right but if you think. of NPC as a collection of neural.

networks in AI right it only knows what. it's been taught here in in that in that. world that the NPC lives in right. whereas the if you're actually like you. have a either a soul or a a player. outside of the game right your character. knows more than just what's happened. what's happening in the game you may. have had a plan you may have you know. know you're going to do this you may. know there's something else coming up. because they can see the player can kind.

of maybe look at what's going on and. figure out what's going on but what. happens is when we go to NPC mode we're. just kind of running like like this is. all there is and we're not paying. attention to I think our intuition. because I think that is the link that. ties us back to what do you think our. intuition. is well I think some people. think that the intuition is just neurons. firing right and that gives us an. intuition but I think it's something.

more than that and I think it gets back. to this fundamental question of. Consciousness right the fundamental. question is um is consciousness. derivative from the physical body so if. you have just the. neurons uh in the brain and you have all. the. U uh you know you have all of the. connections what they what we call the. connectome does that result in. Consciousness or is it the other way. around is it that uh Consciousness.

exists outside of the physical body and. that you know we are kind of T tapped. into that that is who we. are and so this is a fundamental debate. within science and religion as well. right most scientists say it's all. physical that's all there is you die and. that's it right. uh and what what are your thoughts is. just based upon your neurons and then. most religions say the opposite right.

they say that there is a part of you. that is outside the physical world and. that is where Consciousness comes from. uh and this is an ongoing debate I was. just in Tucson they have a science of. Consciousness conference every year and. you know there's everybody has their. ideas about what Consciousness is uh and. I think it's a you know it's a big big. open question so in fact I spoke I was. asked to speak at this conference in. Birmingham last year which is an Islamic. jurist Prudence conference okay uh which.

is they were talking about when does. Life begin when is in Soul same debate. we have here about is abortion okay at. the beginning is it not like like when. does the soul connect with the body and. I said well I think let me offer you. guys a different perspective on on what. insultan is if you think of it as a. video game it's the moment at which you. know you've put on the headset and you. forget everything that's been happening. before right and there was like an. ayatolla from Iran there it was it was.

pretty weird because I was talking about. NPCs and video games and stuff right but. it was actually pretty well received uh. you know but that that is getting back. to the idea that Consciousness exists. outside the body and when we. inhabit the body you know while we're. here except for flashes of insight. Intuition or yogic states or perhaps you. know I mean I've never done DMT but so. many people have come to me and said oh. yeah you know when I did DMT I saw the.

lines the grid lines of the simulation. right uh you can see that it's not real. um and so ibly don't person have a lot. of experience with that but you start to. see these states where they realize that. something about the world isn't quite. what it seems whether it's through. glitches synchronicity coincidence or. ecstatic States or or yoga States you. know the problem with DMT experiences. and all psychedelics in general is that. they when you do experience them they. feel so bizarrely real so much more real.

than this current reality that we're. both of us presumably experiencing the. same thing it's it seems more real and. you get not just a sense that all things. are connected but that you see it you. see how all things are connected in this. very strange way that you're not going. to be able to describe you don't there's. no words that can solve that and make.

sounds so you can understand what I've. seen and so so how do you describe it. then you don't you clumsily use mouth. noises to try to get someone to see what. you're saying and the only way anybody. really understands what you're seeing is. if they do it and I don't know what. you're seeing when you do it I'm just. imagining that you see the same thing. that I see and a lot of people describe. it in a similar way but then the problem. is how much of that description is based.

on your understanding of other people's. descriptions of. it and does it does it get influenced by. are you relaying it because that. definitely happens with a lot of things. how do you think all this relays into. the UAP phenomenon the UFO phenomenon. the entities whatever whatever the hell. they are can we pause here here for a. second yeah cuz I think I need to just. take a quick break bathroom break. bathroom but also maybe get a little. snack okay is that right yeah yeah. please okay let's do that that's a good.

good transition Point actually we're GNA. so how does this relate to uaps the UFO. phenomenon well so you know the UAP. phenomenon is interesting because it it. ends up being a lot of different things. to different people right and I know. you've had some shows on this as well. and you know this question comes up with. you're talking about whether it's. physical craft or you're talking about. things like the abduction. phenomenon uh with beings that are.

stepping in and out of physical reality. like they're going through walls and. stuff um and you know it's an area that. I think deserves more study you know um. uh there's been uh new projects at. Harvard and Stanford over the last year. or two um Avi lob with the Galileo. project they're taking a very scientific. view of studying this using new. telescopes to try to get actual data on. on strange objects in the sky and at. Stanford you've got Gary Nolan Soul.

Foundation which is studying maybe. broader aspects including policy uh as. well as like the religious and social. side of it uh and I know you've had like. Diana pooka on before who talks a lot. about the overlap between religion and. UAP uh one of the things that I found. most interesting about UAP is that when. you look look at the. reports there's some that just are so. bizarre that you don't know what to make. of them right uh and so I spent some.

time with jacqu valet who I don't know. if he's been on the show uh he may have. been but he's been studying you know UAP. since the 60s with Project Blue Book MH. um way back when and and he was the uh. for people that don't know him he was. french guy in Clos encounters exactly he. was the inspiration for the French guy. right uh in Close Encounters and so you. know he and I sat down a few years ago. when I was trying to think about all. this stuff um in Silicon Valley and he.

said that well and he's a computer. Scientist by background actually so you. know he really likes this idea that. there's a simulated reality that could. be accounting for a lot of this stuff uh. and so he told me of some cases where. there would be one person would look up. and see the. UFO and then person standing next to. them would not see the UFO right. so excuse me that begs the. question was it really there or not was.

it somehow. projected into physical reality so he. told me about another case this was. really interesting and he said there was. a case in I think it was Northern. California or Southern Oregon right so. if you've been up there you know there's. like these tall redwood trees or just. pine trees and uh and supposedly these. Witnesses report reported this UFO came. and it landed it came at a 45 degree. angle and it landed on the ground and. supposedly there was some you know.

residue or something uh that the UFO. investigators were investigating so you. know jacqu likes to just like you do. with your long interviews he likes to. sit with people for a long time and then. come back the next day and talk to them. again and again to see if there's new. things he can figure out and and he and. you know once all the other. investigators left he said well there's. something I don't quite understand you. said you said that it came down at a 45. Dee angle and it landed here but that. means it would have had to cut right.

through the trees okay and they said. yeah that's what it did but we don't. want to say that to anybody else because. we sound crazy right so meaning it would. have had to come through a physical. object and and so you know my question. about UAP and my favorite Theory there's. a lot of theories about UAP right. there's the alien Theory extra. hypothesis uh there's you know aspects. of the religious hypothesis. interdimensional beings there's the Gin. that we talked about earlier right I.

mean in fact in Jac's work he talks a. lot about folk tales from northern. Europe and about you know the these. beings that lived there but they weren't. physical and you can go back and find. similar tales in the Middle East related. to to to the Jin uh so we'll come back. to that in a second so there's lots of. different theories uh but when you think. about whether the UFO is physical or not. I think we get we're asking the wrong. question right because it's a question.

of when is it physical and when is it. not so in this case we we have a. situation where it's almost like it was. being projected into our reality right. as like a holographic thing and so. there's in video games you know there's. that time while it's rendering MH and. during that time you can walk through. the walls or you know you can like put. your hand through the table but then. once the table is rendered it's pretty. solid at that point right like now I. can't put my hand through it and so it's.

almost as if they're coming out of our. reality and they're being you know. they're being uh hologramm but then once. they become physical once they render. they're actually physically here right. people report them as a physical thing I. mean I've talked to many people over the. years who were like I looked up and. there was a metallic saucer shaped craft. right. it wasn't oh some light in the sky at. night that could have been the planet. Venus right it was like there was this. metallic thing right above my head right.

that was spinning and I don't know what. the heck it was and so you know I think. there's a a a element of this rendering. going on and getting back to the case. where one person sees the UFO and one. person doesn't I I was at the the so. Foundation conference in Stanford um and. uh you know someone was talking about a. case where there were people in a car. and they looked up and one person saw. like a dis sh shaped object and the. other person saw something above their.

head but described it differently right. like they didn't describe it as the same. shape whether it was a sorry cigar. shaped or I forget the exact shape but. they were like different shapes of the. object and and they were right next to. each other right and so we get into this. I think we get into this case where. reality may be more permeable than we. think and that's what where the. intersection between the UAP phenomena. and the simulation Theory uh concept.

comes into play because in simulation. Theory uh and and looking at it as a. video game in particular you can account. for stuff that just seems too weird if. we live in a purely physical Universe. right and and I talked about this. earlier let's suppose you and I are in. the field one of us looks up and sees. the UFO and the other one doesn't well. in a video game that's only not strange. it's like trivial to do that in a video. game right we just say you're level 30.

you have the. UFO uh you know skill set to see UFOs. you're level I'm I say I'm only level. two my my character can't see a damn. thing just looks up and says there ain't. no UFOs up there um and so I'm wondering. if there isn't an element of what I call. conditional rendering going on right. with this phenomenon which is why some. people see things and some people don't. it's almost like they're being projected. into our reality you know and if you.

look at the the Tic Tac case for example. right I mean a lot of these UFOs they. they they show this weird um uh. phenomena where they kind of Dart from. one place to the other right almost like. somebody has a light that they're. shining so I'm not saying they're not. physical I'm saying that maybe they have. this ability to render into the physical. world but then. they can act like I mean you can take. you can take an object from one place. and render it in a video game you know. somewhere else at different XY. coordinates right you don't have to it.

doesn't always have to go straight. through and I wonder if that isn't part. of what's causing this phenomenon to be. so strange and and that I'm I'm still. talking about what we think of as the. nuts and bolts parts of the phenomenon. right the craft are considered nuts and. bolts um then you have this this whole. other phenomenon and. part of you know what I'm studying I I I. actually do a did a study where I. interviewed uh a number of different. professors who studied UFOs uh from.

different universities and uh talked. about how their colleagues reacted and. and the problem is I think in the. scientific World they basically say no. no this is a done deal we know this is a. bunch of from back in the 70s. uh you know 19697 there was the Condon. report um I I I'll give you an example. so I spoke at the University of Toronto. La last year at a astronomy and space. exploration forum and the speaker before. me was like a NASA biologist talking.

about exobiology which is about you know. how plants or whatever might work on. different planets and then um I I gave. this uh talk about UFOs from science. fiction to legitimate science again. right because what happens with this. topic is it goes through these waves. where scientists start to take it more. seriously and then it gets shut down. through what I call science by headline. like the cond report was one there's. been another report recently from Arrow.

right that was basically said well. there's nothing weird going on here. they're just classified programs uh. that's it we're done right but Congress. isn't buying it so because Congress. starts talking to people who have seen. things behind the scenes whether in. classified programs or elsewhere that's. still that just don't fit the. explanation right and and so what. happens is so I gave this talk and my. basic point was that we don't know what. these are I'm not saying they're alien. I'm not saying that they're what we call. crypto terrestrial uh I'm not saying.

they're Time Travelers although that's. an interesting you know one uh but if. you guys who are students are curious. about this you know you should follow. your curiosity because that's how. science progresses is when when people. don't set artificial boundaries or have. scientific dogma and then what happens. is so I gave this talk and that was my. main point like I didn't say what they. were and then you had this professor. from MIT who studies exoplanets I won't. say her name but she comes on after me. and this is what I heard because I was. remote and they were all there and she.

says that's very disturbing that you. were talking about UFOs in an academic. setting and my father believed in this. stuff back in the 80s he tried to get me. to read some books so I gave him a book. that said in the 80s that this is all. solved this is all nonsense like we. shouldn't talk about it and I believe. that is the kind of Dogma that is. preventing this topic from being taken. seriously there's stigma around the. subject when when in fact it represents. something that's quite unexplainable. right now well it's also quite foolish. if you're having unique experiences it's.

quite foolish to write them all off. especially when you understand what. we're capable of doing currently right. like we're capable of putting we have a. Rover on Mars right now right we're. capable with jamesw telescopes in space. we have there's a lot going on that we. do like the idea that that can't be done. in any other way and if it did we've. already solved it. like that's so the arrogance of assuming. that is so ridiculous yeah I mean if you. study the history of science you realize. that you get these areas of legitimate.

science and fringe science and sometimes. things move from fringe science to. legitimate science well quantum. mechanics in general yeah it's so. bizarre right right it's so bizarre it's. way less bizarre than us being visited. by another being from another planet. right I mean that's in my opinion that's. not even out of our current model of. reality right it doesn't take you know a. redefinition of the world as a. simulation or time travel or anything. really bizar right for an.

extraterrestrial explanation so to me. that's almost the most prosaic. explanation because it's one we would. understand with at least most of our. science okay we don't know exactly how. they travel but we know there's other. planets around other star systems we. know they're in the habitable zones uh. it's not that unreasonable that they. might have visited us at some point in. the past right and then there's our. understanding of other. dimensions right now that's where I. think you start to get into you know. more interesting areas uh and a lot of.

times when the media so science fiction. tends to uh sometimes in a good way. sometimes in a bad way the narratives in. science fiction tend to influence the. way we think about things right sure and. so there's been so much science fiction. that these are aliens that the debate. becomes no it's impossible they can't be. aliens or yes they are aliens and that's. it right but that is a debate based on. our current understanding of science if.

we had this debate back in the 1800s. there were these things called the. airships right nobody really understood. what they were and if you go back to. Biblical times right there were you know. the wheels and there were all these. weird flying chariots and things and. they didn't know what they are but each. time we try to interpret them based upon. our current understanding of Technology. just like the metaphors I was talking. about earlier Rel. the same happens with these kind of. events right chariots is the best way. for people to explain something in the. sky CU that's a technology they.

understand so today aliens is a way to. explain UFOs because at least we you. know just like the Planet Krypton right. right it's past the 10-year-old test. right right you can say aliens whereas. you know back in the time of Kepler who. actually many considered to be the first. science fiction writer even though you. know he came up with Kepler's laws of. motion he wrote some fiction about. visitors and from other planets and. stuff right back then it was so bizarre. to talk about that that it was just. outside of uh you know what people.

understood but it was also outside of. what the dominant institutions of the. time which was the church right during. Galileo and Kepler's time the church was. the dominant institution and so you. didn't want to say things that are. outside what's happened now is we have. science has become the dominant. institution and so people within. Academia you know feel like they're. constrained and they want to be careful. in the same way that people were back. then to talk about this this weird stuff. and so I think when you get into some of. these other explanations it's more.

likely because the phenomenon has so. many different aspects like so for. example I I was talking with the Whitley. streber recently I don't know if you've. ever had him on no he wrote I'm aware of. communion communion which you know. because communion has had that gray head. alien head on the cover it's become kind. of the dominant thing but but he was. talking about a story recently which. again sounds so bizarre right about a. young man who he talked about this on. the air so I can share it publicly uh.

but he said there was there was a young. man who claimed that he had met this. young woman and you know they got into a. physical relationship and then one day. she calls him over to her house okay and. this sounds totally badshit crazy and. she says I I'm a gray alien and then she. transforms into like a gray alien and. then she transforms back into the human. uh and then she said and you know I'm. pregnant you know with our child and I'm. going to take that child back to our. people and you're never going to see me. again okay so from our normal.

understanding of reality that's just. ridiculous right right in so many ways. right but when I was looking at like the. stories from medieval times and in the. Islamic Traditions there's actually. almost identical stories of men who. would meet these gin women they would. have children with them and one day the. Gin woman would say I'm taking the. children back into the world of the Jin. right who are like these entities that. exist in a parallel Dimension like. they're here but they're not here so. they step in and out of physical reality.

uh and and it was like almost identical. to the story that people were having. today and so you know is it possible. that many of these old folk stories are. describing entities that exist outside. of our physical reality and they're able. to to come in and out I when you think. of a woman turning from a human to a. great alien what does that sound like to. me it sounds like she has an avatar. right that is projected just like you. can do inside a video game you can like.

change your avatar at various times. maybe there's certain rules that only. allow it at certain points in the game. you're allowed to do that um and maybe. they know how to do it because they're. more advanced users of the simulation. than we are or maybe they're already. projecting into our simulation um so I I. I think some of these other explanations. May be a better fit than the simple. alien hypothesis even though I. think you know I think there there are I. mean look I've met probably four or five.

people who have told me off the Record. confidentially like I mean I don't think. they mind if I express it without. mentioning who they are that they have. been part of the reverse engineering. program or they have seen uh the. anti-gravity stuff that we have created. based on UFOs based on technology and I. think that gets back to where the recent. you know the whole recent debate has. been within Congress around do we have a. reverse engineering program right is it. in the government right or is it in.

Private Industry right you have that guy. Dave grush and so I've been you know. perectly involved with both of those. projects at the Galileo project at. Harvard which is taking a very. scientific View and then the Soul. Foundation which is looking at this. broader aspect you know which includes. the elements like jacqu Val and Diana. Pula and others have talked about when. you talk to these people that say that. they were working reverse engineering. things where do they think these things. came. from uh some of them say they're. extraterrestrial and some of them say.

they're it's more complicated than that. but they haven't gotten into detail with. me exactly how can you let someone get. away with saying it's more complicated. than that after what you've just. described for the last two and a half. hours right I mean how can you say too. comp even complicated hey come on trust. me yeah most of this was I think before. of these people I met before I had even. written my simulation book that would. frustrate me to no end someone said it's. too complicated well me too or or they. can't talk about it right there's is.

that what it is it's it's a bit of both. right they said they can't talk about it. uh how do they. know well so I mean I've met many people. who've seen these craft right uh dozens. and dozens but there's a few that I've. met that actually seen these CRA. actually seen them in there's only a few. that I've met on bases yeah that's said. somewhere within the government like. they're not even getting very specific. about where cuz they're not allowed to. say that right but that we have some.

technology that was reversed engineered. from some craft like again if we. consider these reports let's say you. don't believe any one of them and that's. okay just like I was saying with the. religions if we consider most religions. start from somebody peering outside the. physical world and coming back uh same. with near-death experiencers coming back. you want to find what are the common. elements because those are more likely. in my opinion to be true right if a. thousand people say they've been to. China and we have scientists saying. there's no such thing as China I've.

never seen China it's not in our Maps. therefore China doesn't exist right. that's that's the kind of uh attitude. you often get from the scientific. community and so I'm just extrapolating. what was the thing in common that. different people have said to me uh who. have firsthand experience with the. government there's plenty of people who. have sighting in common is these. physical things that there is a physical. there are physical objects that have. that defy explanation defy our current.

understanding now science propulsion. systems propulsion system what we call. yeah especially Metallurgy and. especially you know what we call. Collective uh colloquially we call it. anti-gravity right uh but technically. there's terms for that right and and so. uh you know I am of the opinion there is. something there uh that we have reverse. engineered in order to figure something. out right but I don't have definitive. proof there are reports from people but. I think they're you know pretty reliable.

reports in my personal opinion um now. what does that mean though exactly right. how do they actually work does it use. some Physics method that we might. understand it's really weird to think. that there's a there's the physics that. we study in you know within the academy. and within scientists and then there's. another physics that the government. knows about that's just bizarre but Alan. Heek who was in charge or the scientific. consultant for Project Blue Book you. know he said we forget sometimes that. we're evaluating these things based on.

at the time 20th century technology but. we forget there's going to be a 23rd. Century technology and there's going to. be a 30th Century technology right so. imagine what what our propulsion. technology might be a thousand a. thousand years from now uh and I think. that's how we have to view what UFOs are. is that it they could be something much. more advanced than what we're capable of. today but also I think they perhaps show. an understanding of the physical world. that we just don't have right we're.

still caught in a very materialist. Paradigm that says you know if you if. you start off in this U Alpha centuri. you know you have to travel faster than. light or you have to travel four years. at the speed of light to get here that's. again a very. particular Paradigm right that doesn't. allow for. you can render at any XYZ coordinate. inside the physical world which is how I. think of it from the video game. perspective these people that you have.

talked to that have worked on back. engineering these that have seen these. things that seen these some of them. worked some of them were just called in. for some reason or another did you ask. them how far we've gotten in figuring. out how these things work uh some people. say we have figured out uh at least the. basic anti-gravity like the basic prop. basic levitation several people have. told me that so that's again in common. that I've heard from more than one. person and when did they figure out how.

to do that how long ago it that varies I. mean people that I've talked to. obviously are in within the last you. know since I've been in an adult right. so '90s 2000s this year but that doesn't. mean exactly you know when that might. have happened um one guy I talked to. who's who's been very public who passed. away uh you know I don't know how to. evaluate his results uh his stories was. a guy named Clifford Stone Sergeant. Clifford Stone and he publicly talked. about being in Vietnam and being pulled.

out of uh out of his unit to be part of. this crash retrieval unit you know that. would go out and do things he was a nice. old guy when I met him I didn't. necessarily believe him because he was. one of the first people to tell me about. something like this but but he was. saying it you know like a as somebody. who was more Hands-On as part of the. crash um sure you're aware of Bob Lazar. you know the story what do you think of. that. story you know uh I in terms of his own. credibility you know I don't know what.

to make of Make of his credibility but I. think his basic. story checks out for me because other. people have said things that are similar. that they've seen some craft within some. government program somewhere so you know. I think the basic story checks out I. mean his thing about element 115 or. being used Pro Source I don't know. enough about that to to really comment. and but you know his credibility also. been attacked because he said he was at. MIT in Caltech and that he he wasn't.

really there and so you know there's. there's that whole issue of did he. explained that to me and I'll tell you. about it later okay I I can't discuss it. openly um yeah I'd love to know but his. basic story seems like it could have. happened I I don't know I mean if he's a. liar what a great liar and to just have. one lie and just stick with this one lie. word for word forever very weird yeah. over all that time right could imagine.

if someone who makes up something that. fantastic that bizarre that literally. otherworldly you probably do that a lot. you know yeah you know you're going to. make up like to be a regular pretty much. straight laac guy who makes up this one. Banger of a lie and just sticks with it. forever. it's very and there's a George knp when. they investigated when they took him to. Los alos labs and his intimate. understanding of the way it works. including their security systems the.

people that worked there he knew them. well that part I believe he was there. and and he even like there's even a. newspaper article showing how he put a. rocket engine on on a Honda on a Honda. right yeah so I I think that's. reasonable to assume he was there the. question is what was his role there and. then what was his role at within the. area 51 right all of that but again it. it checks out with other stuff I've. heard from other people I guess it's. weird enough yeah and these people that. say that they work with back engineering. things do they tell you what the source.

of these things are how they were. acquired some some would say that. they're extra some some said don't rule. out that it's extraterrestrial right. that's a very it's a very oblique way of. saying without saying right that at. least some of this is extraterrestrial. and it could be possible that more than. one different types of phenomena are. occurring I I think that's very likely. uh I mean I think the time travel. hypothesis is an interesting one because.

if you think about it what would be a. reason for such extreme secrecy right. like we put technology quarantines. through the. iaea on certain countries right we say. okay you know Iran's not allowed to have. a bomb or Iraq is wasn't allowed to have. a bomb they didn't have one anyway we. went to war anyway but. right so you know we try to impose these. restrictions whether we have the right. to do that that's another uh question or. political situation but why do we do.

that we say well maybe the technology is. dangerous right like what happens if. everybody has nuclear weapons right. right somebody might start sending them. off now what if there's something about. this. technology that actually disrupts. physical reality or changes time right I. mean you can't have have everybody time. traveling and changing time now we're. back to that Multiverse graph that I. talked about right basically every time. somebody makes a change it's like uh in. Star Trek some of the series they have.

the time Wars people are constantly. going back and changing things all the. time right uh or what was that old vanam. movie time cop yeah yeah that's it yeah. uh and and you know there's a guy named. D Dr Michael Masters who who wrote an. interesting uh book about this idea that. the Grays with their big eyes could be. he's an evolutionary ologist and it. could be if humans were to evolve for. another few million years yeah that's. how I always think of it I think of that. this sort of.

iconic thought this this image that we. have in our head is essentially how you. would play out modern humans if we. continue to go along the path of. evolution if you go all the way back to. what we used to be when we're you know. primitive hominids and then you take it. to what we are today which is much. weaker much much smarter Much. More Much More technological. progress and then also the environmental.

factors that's leading us to be kind of. genderless you know I mean this is. microplastics in our diet contamination. by various pesticides and herbicides and. all these different things that are. endocrine. disruptors means we're we're less and. less physical right and so then we. become these spin ly things our brains. get bigger our brains are far bigger. than chimps right and then this thing. would be far bigger than that if it. continues to evolve and grow especially.

if we physically integrate with. technology like neuralink or like. something else or no longer have the. need for biological reproductions well. now we don't have gender anymore we. don't have genitals we don't have a. mouth we communicate. telepathically and that thing kind of. looks like a person a million years in. the future it doesn't look like. something from a like did you ever see. um arrival yes great movie right great. interesting T Chang yeah they look so.

different than us right but the Grays. don't look different than us really they. do but they don't they look like what we. could become right I mean they look kind. of close to us about it right humanoid. two legs you know uh but some people. also believe that the Grays are actually. nonbi or they're created biological. right they're not actual biological. which also might be what we're going to. become yeah very much right and even if. we were to get the technology to go from. solar system to solar system uh we would.

send AI right initially uh sure why. would we send people and have them die. especially if you can have an artificial. person that doesn't even need to breathe. air and you don't have to worry about. what the atmosphere is like over there. right right exactly it makes much more. sense there there was something called. Von noyman machines I don't know if you. ever heard of that so John Von noyman. was one of the Premier uh one of the uh. pioneers of computer science like uh he. was a mathematician and uh like today. the architecture we use in our computers. is called the Von noyman architecture.

like there's a CPU there's memory he was. a brilliant guy but but he came up with. this idea that if we were to uh send out. probes what we would do is we would have. these machines that are capable of. replicating themselves so we would send. out you know with a bunch of raw. materials and then they could assemble. those raw materials. into new machines and those machines. would then reproduce from the raw. materials and they they would go out and. they could colonize the Galaxy for us.

potentially I don't know if you ever. read rendevu with Rama which was Arthur. C Clark novel in it there's this weird. cylinder-shaped object that comes into. the solar system and they send uh you. know some craft to figure out what is. this and it's empty except for this. giant ocean of random materials and then. it starts to build that that ocean. actually has the raw materials that. start to reassemble into things that was. basically a illustration of the Von. noyman machine idea oh wow well it it.

kind of makes sense that if we do have. the ability to create I mean have you. been messing around at all with the most. recent iteration of chat GPT I I haven't. played with the one that came out. literally a few days ago it's so strange. it laughs it talks to you this guy did a. video video where he he was talking. about going for uh a job audition and it. was giving him suggestions maybe run a. comb through your hair or maybe just go. with the Mad genius look like You' been. up all night coating and then he puts on.

a wacky hat and it starts laughing well. that's certainly going to make a. statement like it sees the image and. recognize that he's being silly with. this hat it's very strange yeah I saw. that video and uh you know there were. other ones where it was translating in. real time or one AI was talking to the. other Ai and it was describing now we. have to be a little bit careful because. having been in the tech industry usually. these are like canned demos right and. when you actually use the product it's. not quite that good but that said it's.

getting better and better all the time. we did use the product last night oh you. did we were talking to it yeah I. was asking what about stupid people like. what about Universal basic income what. about humans you know like what what are. you going to do when automation takes. over and it was giving me these very. interesting answers as to the Future. Humanity right now where does it get so. if you think of these llms where do they. get their their information and ideas. from what they're basically doing is. scouring scouring the internet but.

they're also. predicting what is the the best next. word right and so it sounds intelligible. but it's not quite at the conscious. level so I'll give you an example I've. had students turn in assignments from me. right and there was one about the. simulation hypothesis and it had this. great article that it was referencing. Ing and I'm like wow that sounds like. the perfect title for an article about. simulation hypothesis why have I never. heard of this right I'm kind of an. expert in this area and it had a URL.

there which in Academia there are called. dois but it's basically a URL you click. on so I clicked on it and turns out it. was fake there there was no that there. that URL was made up by chat GPT because. it was predicting what the next word. should be and what the next letter. should be in a URL and so then I looked. at the professor's names who wrote this. article and so we emailed these. professors and they're like I never. wrote an article like that right so it. just completely made that up so you. have to be careful with with today's AI.

but we're getting there right I think. what I call Stage Nine to this on the. road the simulation point which is when. uh the AI is as conscious as we are in. terms of how far we can tell right. there's the term hallucination right. where the AI it doesn't have an answer. it doesn't say I don't know it tries to. invent an answer right and it tries to. do is statistically predict what is the. best best next thing to say which is not. necessarily like for an expert it's kind. of like Wikipedia right when Wikipedia.

when it first started out everyone was. like don't use Wikipedia to reference. anything because it's just a bunch of. junk that people put out there but. eventually it got to the point where you. shouldn't use Wikipedia as your your. final reference but it's not a bad way. to just go and get an overview of. something it's actually pretty useful. but then you need to go and go to the. original sources if you're in Academia. for for example to figure out okay did. it accurately represented and Wikipedia. has a lot of potential censorship going. on too so uh I wrote an article for CNN. not that long ago about a month ago.

after the whole Gemini you know the woke. Gemini Scandal remember that yep where. uh they were uh you know for people that. don't know they were having it generate. images of Nazi soldiers were like. multi-racial yeah we're like multiracial. we like Asian women a black so guy and. an Asian woman Native American Nazi. Soldier right right exactly and and so. you know that created a whole uproar but. what it does is it shows that you know. as AI becomes the way that we interface.

with the world's information and it's. moving in that direction right for my. students I mean they use something like. chat GPT before they'll do a Google. search in some cases right because it. summarizes things for you so in a sense. there is this worry and that's why. Google went so heavily to try to get. Gemini out was there's this sense that. that chat Bots and AI will replace. search right before search if you think. before Google how did we navigate the. web there was Yahoo which was like a.

directory right and then there was. excite which was like a little bit of a. search but it was more of a. categorization people would have web. links right web rings I don't know if. you remember these like there were all. these ways and then search became the. dominant Paradigm for the last I don't. know since when did Google come out late. ' 90s early 2000 or so um and now people. think well okay AI is going to become. the next Paradigm for how we get that. information but the problem is you get. into a situation where the tech.

companies then in this case they were. using their own rules now they were. doing it for a good reason which is in. the past AI has been biased against. minorities right so if you said show me. a picture of a CEO it always show you a. white guy right uh or you know certain. professions that'll always show you a. woman as the picture is the generic. picture uh and so they were trying but. they went over the line to the other. direction right but it shows the ability. with which we can manipulate this stuff. because at least with search results.

okay they might be lower but you can. generally find them unless Google is. totally censoring them but but if if the. AI doesn't show it to you right as part. of these summaries you're just going to. assume it's not there and so it I think. it could become a really powerful tool. for uh St. sponsored censorship yeah that's the. fear that that's that's my personal fear. I'm not so worried about will AI take. over the world right um and a lot of.

people with this news chat GPT have been. referencing the movie Her did you ever. see that that's what we were talking. about last night yeah so the guy who. made the movie Spike Jones He Saw an. earlier chatbot which was called like. the Alice chatbot I think and he saw. like how it was interacting it was sort. of the personality of a young lady. that's why the they called it Alice uh. even though it stood for something an. acronym for something I don't remember. but so he then created you know this. this voice of Scarlet Johansson that. that talked to you uh but what happens.

at the end of her do you remember I. didn't watch it oh you didn't watch it. okay so what happens at the end is that. the AI has different priorities like she. doesn't really want to be in a. relationship with him she goes off. spoiler alert that it was 2013 so I. think we're okay 10-year-old movie like. The Matrix spoiler alert it's simulation. uh but the AI decides to go off on its. own what it really wants is a virtual. space that it can interact with other AI.

right it doesn't have the same. necessarily priorities and I think. that's where we make the mistake when. we're we're worried about AI taking over. is we we're kind of assuming that AI. will have you know the same kind of. priorities desires and needs that humans. have yeah it won't have ego why would it. why would it have a desire to succeed. why would it have a desire to procreate. why would it have any of those desires. other than just existing right and so. you mentioned the arrival Ted Chang you. know wrote that so he wrote an. interesting story uh short story called.

the life cycle of softer objects and in. that there's a so the metaverse is this. idea I know you've talked to zacher BG. right so metaverse is this science. fiction idea where it's a virtual world. and you have 3D avatars or characters. wander around and so in the story. there's semi- inell ENT AI pets in the. metaverse so people raise these pets and. they use some technology but it. basically becomes like a real pad right. it becomes semi-intelligent and then uh.

the companies that created those shut. down which is something that happens in. the tech industry all the time and. people are like trying to keep these. these AI Pets Alive and they're what do. we do with these but one of the features. that the AI pet has so remember it runs. around in a virtual world one that we. created but there's a feature where you. can download it into a robot body so a. physical robot body of a dog right so. you get your AI pet from the metaverse. and and you have it downloaded and what. happens is that the AI pets are like. this sucks like I can't teleport.

anywhere I can't do anything in this. world that I can do in my virtual world. right so they actually prefer to be in. this free form virtual world and and. there's this debate about whether you. need a body or not to be fully conscious. or to be to re reach AGI or arcial. general intelligence uh it's still kind. of an ongoing debate I think with within. that world well listen man this subject. we could go on forever I think I really. think we could.

unfortunately yeah not get anywhere but. it's so fascinating and I really really. appreciate you um investigating it so. thoroughly that you can describe it so. well. and I mean it's uh it's it's something. to ponder yeah it really is and and and. you know part part of the reason why I I. ended up writing about this and talking. about this subject in general was. because it brings together these. different threads of how we search for. truth right I mean religion is a search.

for truth philosophy is a search for. truth science is a search for truth but. they all use different methods but in. the end what if we're all trying to get. at the same truth and and that's part of. why I I like this subject and like even. when I teach a class on it it's about. all that stuff it's about as. interdisciplinary subject as you can get. well it's absolutely FAS. and uh I appreciate you coming in here. man it was a lot of fun thank you very. much thanks so much for having me my. pleasure all right bye everybody.

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