The Basement: Rizwan Virk | Reality Is a Video Game. Here's the Evidence

Today we're sitting down with RZswan. Burke, MIT computer scientist, Stanford. MBA video game pioneer, and one of the. early investors in Discord. >> Early investor in Discord, huh? Uh, so. he's the reason my guppies are up at. screaming at strangers in Fortnite. Uh, I have questions for this man. >> His book, The Simulation Hypothesis, is. now out in a fully revised second. edition. It argues that quantum physics, ancient Eastern mysticism, and the. architecture of video games are all.

pointing at the same unsettling truth. That what we call reality may not be. reality at all. >> Hang on, hang on, hang on. I say reality. isn't real and people call me crazy. This guy says it and gets a book deal. >> Oh, well, he lays out a better case than. you do. >> Well, does he say how to listen people. run the simulation? >> No. >> Would you? Today we're covering the. observer effect, the Mandela effect, NPCs versus RPG characters, and why UFOs. might be avatars projected into this.

reality from somewhere outside it. Oh, and RZ got to talk to Philip K. Dick's. wife, Tessa. [laughter]. She told him something about JFK that. stopped the show cold. Let's go down to the basement. Dr. Rizswan Burke, welcome to the. basement. >> Thanks so much for having me here. >> I'm excited that you're here. Um, since.

since you're an old computer nerd like. myself, what was your what was the baud rate of. the first computer you had that could. connect? >> Wow, good question. Because, you know, originally we had a Commodore 64. >> Had the 64. Okay. We even had a KCO. Atom. I don't know if you remember this. >> Of course, it was it was the plugin. >> Yeah. And then there was a tape. It used. a tape drive. >> That's right. >> But then the tapes if you left them on. top of it, it would erase the tape. >> That's right.

>> I think we eventually got an Apple 2 um. Apple 2e, I think it was, which was the. portable model. And I don't think we. really connected until, you know, much. later. Uh so, but it was like 2600 baud. modems like way back in the day. >> Yeah. I think mine was a Vic 20. >> 1981 with 150 baud connection and the. cassette tape is where you loaded. everything. >> Oh, right. Yeah, I remember those. >> Can't believe it. Well, you know, I I. started learning to program in my math. class and uh I was we were living in the.

Midwest and our math teacher allowed. myself and my best friend because we'd. finished the math problems quickly. He's. like, "Okay, why don't you guys go play. on this TRS80?" They used to call it a. trash 80. And they had an adventure. game, which was like, it wasn't Zork, it. was like the original adventure text. game. And I realized you could actually. modify the code, and you know, the. characters would say something different. than, you know, what they were supposed. to say. And that was my introduction. really to to programming. Yeah. >> Really, that was an amazing the TRS80. was amazing machine. That was Radio. Shack invented that thing.

>> That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And then later. they called it a trash 80. >> They [laughter] did. But it was a good. machine for a long time. >> What was the programming language on. that? Was it a basic? >> It was just basic. Yeah. I mean, that's. how I learned to program was basic. there. And then one day, my dad took us. to his work and they had just bought. like an Apple 2. So before we had one at. home and he was like, "Here, why don't. you guys, you know, my older brother is. like a year and a half older than me, I. think, kind of like you and Gino in. terms of age." He just took us in there. and left us. And we started to program a. tic-tac-toe game because we saw you.

could draw a line. So that was the first. game that I ever wrote from scratch was. just a simple tic-tac-toe game on the. Apple 2 at my dad's office. >> Apple 2. Is that basic on there as well? >> Yeah, it was called Applesoft Basic. That's right. In the end, it was. Microsoft Basic behind the scenes. >> Uh which was how Microsoft started as a. company, >> right? Back when they got along. >> That's right. Yeah. >> Did you go to uh Apple 2GS with color? >> No, because I think when the by the time. that came out one, it was expensive. >> Yes, it was. We could we didn't have it. We go to friends houses.

>> Yeah, exactly. Like very few of our. friends actually had like expensive. computers. I mean, I'd pull it out to. try to type a report, [snorts] you know, in high school and then print it out. Then when I got to college, I went to. MIT and they had a whole computer lab, which was the Sun Workstations. >> Oh, yes. >> Which had pretty good graphics. capabilities. >> Yes, they did. >> Yeah. So, I was ended up using the. computer lab. Uh, and very few people. actually had laptops in their, you know, dorm rooms. In fact, one of my best. friends had like a Mac, one of the very. early Macs. I forget which one, but you.

know, with the little floppy drives. >> Sure. >> The three and a half inch floppy drives, but mostly we would spend, you know, all. our time doing our assignments and. writing games in in the computer lab. >> on So, so like using Solaris? >> Yeah, it was using Solaris and it used. something called X Windows. >> Yes, of course. X is still You can't get. rid of X. >> You really can't. Yeah, it's like really. solid infrastructure that it was built. on. So, I actually learned to use. Windows X Windows on Unix before I. actually used the Windows PC, believe it.

or not. I mean, obviously, I'd seen a. Mac. >> Uh, and we would send each other. messages. Uh, it was called Project. Athena at MIT. It was one of the first. kind ofworked computer labs because if. like my my brother went to University of. Michigan and you go to the computer lab. and each computer was kind of I mean. they're connected to the printer but. they were kind of doing their own thing. whereas with project Athena they were. investigating or experimenting with you. know writing software where you would. communicate with each other and we would. just sit there and send trashy you know. instant messages to each other before IM.

was available uh on uh you know on PCs. and stuff. So, in fact, one of my. friends started the company that became. MSN Messenger. They were bought by. Microsoft uh at and so a lot of the. instant messaging stuff that we've seen. over the years um you know had its. origins in like these old MIT things. that people had just built. >> as part of this program. >> built on built on like Solaris and X. >> Yeah. Built on Solaris and X programmed. in C. >> C units basically, right? Programming. it.

>> Uh my first love is is uh SGIX. I'll go. I go back. I still have an an SGI box. I. just love that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Big the. big blue box. I used to love it. >> Um, is that how you got started. interest? That's how you got interested. in video games. >> Yeah. Well, I got interested in video. games around the same time that I was. learning to program because we had an. Atari. >> The 2600. >> Yeah, the 2600. Like the original Atari. system. Uh, and we had games like. Pac-Man and Sure. >> Space Invaders and an obscure one called.

Yars Revenge that I always thought was. cool. Yes. >> And there was a racing game. Uh I think. it was pole position. And it was while I. was playing like the racing game. I. would look at the guys in the bleachers. which were just like these little. squares, right? It was like 8bit. graphics we're talking. >> and then there'd be like a mountain and. it would look like there's something out. there. And I'd always start to wonder, well, what would happen if I drove the. car past the bleachers and pass the. mountain? Of course, you you weren't. able to, but I always wondered like, is. there a little world in here with all.

these kind of straight lines? So that's. when I really started to to wonder about. the intersection of video games and. virtual reality. >> That is an interesting game to choose. because I think Pole Position was one of. the first games back then in 8bit to. actually use background parallax. >> where it started where things started to. move at at different I think it was a. three or four level parallax, but it it. looked kind of real. >> That's right. Yeah, that's exactly. right. And I have this slide that I show. sometimes which shows whole position as. an 8-bit racing game and then it shows.

like a 16-bit racing game for the. Nintendo and then it shows like a 32bit, you know, for the PC and then it shows. like the modern games and you can just. see how much more realistic it got just. by adding a few bits. >> Sure. >> Right. And it's gotten to the point. where you look at these racing games and. I mean, even though you can tell the. characters are are graphical virtual uh. characters designed uh by game. designers, the city looks so realistic. that you literally could not tell if. that was a real city or not. In fact, I.

don't know if you saw the recent Matrix. movie, the fourth Matrix movie. >> I did. >> Uh wasn't that great of a movie, but. >> No, but the tech was good. >> The tech was good. But just when they. came out with that, they came out with a. demo on the Unreal Engine. >> Sure. uh which I I know you know about. >> I'm an Unreal guy, so yeah, I have it. >> Absolutely. And so they used the Unreal. Engine and they came out with this demo. called The Matrix Awakens. And it wasn't. like a full game. It was like a mini. game, but it started with a guy that. looked like Neo, you know, kind of. getting the message on his computer, 1999 computer. Wake up Neo. Uh and of.

course you could, this was 21, so we're. talking five years ago now. So the. graphics were not nearly as good as they. are today. But he would get up and go. with Trinity. And there were scenes. where you almost thought it was really. Canaries or Keranne Moss. But the city. they were driving around like I think. they filmed that one in San Francisco. and Berlin and it looked like a. combination of those two cities and it. it had just gotten ultra realistic and. >> the car chases looked real. >> like as soon as you pulled away from the.

kind of the uncanny valley those. cinematic shots of like the car tearing. around the corner and flipping over that. looked pretty good. Yeah, it did look. pretty good. And and you know, the key. is you stay away from the humans. Yes. And everything looks realistic. I mean, there's a reason why. So, Toy Story was. uh built or made by Pixar, >> which actually came out of Lucasfilm. So, George Lucas's, you know, special. effects company and his film company. And there's a reason why the first fully. computerenerated film was actually about. toys. It was Toy Story because it's much.

easier to make those look realistic than. it is to get humans. There was a film. based on one of the Final Fantasy games, uh, Spirits Within and and they spent. like they had like a $200 million budget. and they spent like 50 million of it on. the hair to get the hair right. And so. this is all before AI, right? Now we're. seeing a world where AI is making the. generation of realistic characters very. easy to do. >> Yes. and and but but that's kind of how.

I've seen the technology evolve, you. know, just in my lifetime. >> Sure. Well, well, take us back to how. your first game I mean, you couldn't. program a game for 2600, right? Because. you it was cartridge. >> No, you couldn't. Yeah. >> So, but on the C64, you could. >> Yeah. And so, again, I would make these. little graphical games like tic-tac-toe. and, you know, other little games that. kind of tried to imitate some of the. cool arcade games, you know, that I had. seen. And then we got an Apple 2. And. then I started to look at more from a.

game design perspective. There were. these adventure games. Like, have you. ever played King's Quest? >> Sure. >> Uh, which was, you know, super popular. But there was a whole series of these. types of adventure games. And they were. on the big floppy discs. Yes. >> Not even the small floppy discs, which. which discs, which are pretty old now. [laughter]. >> Yes, they are. >> Kids today have no idea what. >> kids today the they were five and a. quarter inch. They were huge. >> Yeah, they were huge. Exactly. And so. what would happen is you'd put in one of. the discs and it would bring up, you. know, a picture of, I don't know, a. city, let's say, and then you'd say move.

the character around. They were kind of. like the text adventure games like Zork, right? But with some graphical pictures, and then you would go to the next one. and the next one. >> Kind of like a graphic novel, choose. your own adventure almost. >> Yeah. Almost. Right. And and the. innovation that King's Quest made was. they actually added like a character. that you could actually go to the left. or to the right. >> It was bananas. >> It looked like it was real. Yeah. And. Sierra Online, the company that made. that, uh, was really considered one of. the pioneers in graphics. In fact, they. were the first to build make a game, a.

graphical game for the Apple 2. >> that was called Mystery House. >> and just line graphics and it was a. husband and wife team and she was the. artist and he was the programmer and. they figured out how to get 74 of these. or 78 some number in the 70s of these. line graphics onto a single floppy disc. >> That's crazy. That was considered a huge. innovation back then because every other. game you had to keep taking out the. discs and put in the next one. >> Yeah. >> And I remember thinking, well, how is it. that they can compress these uh these.

images which are really big and get so. many of them and and it turns out it's. because they use, you know, a. compression technique or they actually. use just vector graphics which are. commands. >> that tell it. So you don't actually. store all the pixels, >> right? You store the directions. >> Yeah. So if anybody's ever done this, I. mean they have a picture of a JPEG, >> right? >> If you un let's say it's 300 kilobytes. or something or 500K, so it's less than. a megabyte. >> And if you uncompress that, I mean, we're getting kind of geeky now, so I. don't know how far we want to go down.

this. >> This is a geeky audience. >> Okay, so you know, if you uncompress it. and save it as a TIFF, an uncompressed. TIFF, it'll be something like a 100. megabytes for that one picture, right? And if you think of a film or a TV show. like Game of Thrones, I mean, the reason. I can stream it on my phone is because. it's not sending 100 plus megabytes per. frame. >> It's compressing it down. And so I began. to think about compression really early.

as an optimization technique for games. And there was this one program, I think. it's called like the graphics magician, and it was like a hundred bucks and I. couldn't afford it. And I told my. parents I because you could take like. images and compress them down and you. could create like a little adventure. game. Uh and I think I entered a. programming contest where you could go. to different planets and you could in. fact this is funny. It wasn't even that. graphical because it was mostly text. But I called it the simulation machine. No way. >> In high school I've completely forgotten. about this. And the reason I did it was.

so you could it was like a little bit of. text you could change and then the user. has to figure out where they are and. maybe you could add a graphic or two as. well. But I actually used to call it the. simulation machine. >> Oh, synchronicities are happening all. over your life. >> I haven't thought about that in years. actually. We went to the University of. Michigan where they had a big. programming competition there. >> Do you still have that all that stuff? >> No. >> We my when my dad died recently, we uh. you know, we ended up moving cleaning up. things in that house and selling it. because my mom stays with my my siblings.

now. But we did still have the Apple 2C. sitting there. So, who knows? Maybe. there were some old floppy discs still. sitting around. It's possible. >> I love it that you were thinking about. compression that young. That's amazing. Um I can remember writing programs on. the C64 before we can afford to afford a. hard drive and just printing them out. Just printing out pages, lines of code. before. >> and then you re reenter them. >> Then you re-enter them until the 1541. drive came out and then the world. changed. Like we'll never be able to. fill this up.

>> So So where do you go from. from there? How old were you when you. started when you entered that contest? >> Uh that was in high school. So I was. probably like 16 17 somewhere. >> Were you thinking this is what I want to. do? >> Yeah, I was thinking that computer. science is definitely what I want to do. In fact, and this ties to a larger theme. we can talk about later, but if you had. asked me kind of later in high school. when I was old enough to kind of know. something about the world or even early. college, like what is it you're going to. do with your life? I would have told you. I'm going to be a software entrepreneur. >> Okay. >> And then I'm going to be a writer.

>> And then you mean later on? >> Later on when I was really old, like 28, because back then, you know, I thought I. was in high school. [laughter] That. 28-year-old is really old. You know, I'll make my millions and then I'll go. be a writer. And it's odd when you think. about it because I I believe we all may. have these scripts for our lives that. we're unaware of at a conscious level, but somehow unconsciously they seep. through sometimes and they come out. Uh. but I I definitely knew I wanted to. program computers because I was good at. it. And I I think then I got to MIT and.

I found, you know, MIT we had some. really smart people and there were guys. that were really good at physics and. there were guys that are really good at. like chemistry. There were guys that. were really good at aereroastro and I. think it was a wakeup call for most. people who went there because they were. like, you know, either validictorians or. they were, you know, top of their class. and and you're around these people and. and every now and then you'll have. somebody who's really good at X or Y. And so people say, is MIT hard? And I. say, well, it depends. If you're really. good, if you're the guy that's really. good at physics, then MIT is not that.

hard, right? >> But if you're everybody else, then. [laughter] physics is really hard at. MIT. And I was the guy for whom computer. science was just really easy. >> Well, then why why book? What why what. book did you want to write? >> I wasn't sure at that point. I just knew. that I like to write stories and I. wanted to write something someday. Uh it. was just a sense that I had that I would. be a writer. Going back to the fourth. grade when I wrote a little story about. a a dwarf that, you know, lived in some. kingdom, magical kingdom or something. like Well, you were writing storybased. games. You weren't really writing. shooters. You were writing story games.

>> Yeah. Well, I finally got into the video. game industry. U was, you know, much. later. So, after MIT, I did u uh. enterprise software for a while. So, I. kind of went in this other direction. And it wasn't until I moved to Silicon. Valley that I I got back into games and. into the game industry. And that was. when the iPhone was relatively new, right? So, it was like, wow, we have a. gaming platform now. Steve Jobs and the. rest of Apple, they didn't realize when. they were designing the iPhone. They.

built this thing called the App Store, which, okay, everybody knows what it is. now, but back then it was, you know, big. innovations. You could just write your. program and upload it into the store and. people can just download it on their. phone because before that, the games on. mobile phones were like, you know, these. little line games or Tik Tok and you had. to go through a big giant publisher and. then, you know, Verizon had to approve. your game. there was very few games you. could play on the old phones. Um, and. with the iPhone, anybody could upload an. app. And so they, what Apple didn't.

anticipate was that games would become. so popular. >> They didn't see that coming. >> They were actually surprised by it. Uh, and for the first 10 years of the app. store, let's say 2008 to 2018, the. number one top grossing games, grossing. apps were all games. Of course, >> even now if you look at it probably, you. know, some of the top 10 are probably. still games. And so it took off as a. gaming platform. So then with each, you. know, new hardware released, they ended. up increasing.

uh the capabilities of the hardware to. be able to play more and more games. And. at that time, a lot of the big guys. dismissed the iPhone games as, you know, no big deal. These are just, you know, little games you sell for 99 cents. Our, you know, our real games are these these. big AAA games. Uh but it turns out today. the mobile part of the gaming industry. basically dwarfs the console and the PC. games. So it's the biggest segment of. the entire video game industry which is. >> and it's bigger than movies and sports.

combined. >> Yeah. And add records music. >> and music combined. >> All of those combined. >> Combined. >> Video games is a bigger industry. So, we. really saw I really saw that evolve from. zero to a pretty major industry because. back then you could a couple guys could. just write a mobile game. Uh, and then. uh you know, we ended up building games. that were they were called simulation. games but not not in the sense that. talking about the simulation hypothesis, it was like uh if you've ever played. Farmville. >> Sure. >> Uh there were games on Facebook where. you simulated having a farm or you.

simulated running a cafe and we had a. game called Tap Fish. uh which I guess. with your your hucklefish might. [laughter] be appropriate, but you. basically had your own fish tank and you. would like, you know, raise little baby. fish and breed them and you'd have. different species and and that ended up. being the number one grossing game in. the app store for a while and then we. sold it to a big Japanese company. >> Now, since you brought it up, we got to. get into what was the Daily Show beef. with Tapfish because you handled it so. well. >> Didn't Didn't they Didn't they sandbag?

Didn't they kind of. >> They totally sandbagged. Yeah, that's. when I learned you have to be a little. bit careful with people who are, you. know, Hollywood types. >> in general because until then I was kind. of naive, you know, and they basically. came in and uh, you know, kind of. sandbagged me and kind of uh, edited. this piece. >> What What did they say? They want to. interview you about this popular game. >> Yeah. About the popular game in the. industry. >> Oh, that's not what they did. >> Yeah. No, no. So they ended up basically. we were one of the games that were the.

first free-to-play games out there. And. what happened was Apple made it so that. you know if somebody had a password you. know you could just buy stuff in the. game. And what happened is uh some kids. ended up spending like not just in our. game I mean you name it these games and. and this is when the industry was. actually pretty small. Today you have. Fortnite which is like doing I don't. know. >> million dollars a day probably if not. more than that. So, we're talking very. small numbers, but what would happen is. you'd have people who would whose kids.

would end up spending like a thousand. dollars on Farmville or [laughter]. and and and so they they sandbagged me. by having a a a parent of a kid. actually, you know, call on call me and. and have a call with us. And then they. edited out the part where the parent. thanked me. >> for for what I said and tried to explain. to him how it works. Turns out he had. given his kids his password and they had. used the password and they made it seem. like we were the villains and they. edited out the part. They even had a.

part where you know if you want to buy. you have to like enter the password. They edited that part out and made it. seem like oh you don't even need. passwords and uh so so they made me look. like the bad guy. So that was my. introduction to well what the media. tells us in general may not be exactly. true out there. We have to keep our. guard up. >> But you and I think might have been the. next day didn't you? You posted a. rebuttal on your blog which I think is. still there about here's what really. happened. >> I did but but nobody read the rebuttal. I mean a small number of people read the. rebuttal. Uh but many people saw the.

episode and so that's when I started to. really think about okay what I talk. about today is what I call the hard. simulation hypothesis which is that the. physical world is a kind of simulation. But there's also the soft simulation. hypothesis which is more like the. narrative matrix which is what we've. been told. Perhaps not everything that. we've been told is as we've been told on. TV. Whether it's the wars, whether it's. who to make fun of. You know, in 1984, they had the two-minute hate, which was. who are we going to hate today? We'll. get everybody together in a room and.

we'll put them up there and we'll make. everybody hate them. And of course, you. know, we go through that now in the. media all the time. >> Sure. >> Uh but it it was kind of a rude. introduction. Uh which is why I like. doing podcasts because in podcasts, you. know, they're not going to edit. I mean, they may edit some things in, but it's. really a conversation. Yes. And people. are able to see our whole conversation. They won't just see like a little part. made to look like somebody said. something that they didn't say. >> Yeah, that annoyed me when I read that. story, but it didn't surprise me. >> Um, eventually we're going to get to. Saucelito and uh your VR experience, but.

can you tell us what's happening between. like leading up to that? How were you. working? >> So, what happened was yeah, I was. working on different games. Uh, we did a. game company where we built games for TV. shows. Uh there was a TV show called. Penny Dreadful. >> Uh and a show called Grim. You remember. that show? >> I love Grim. >> Yeah, Grim is great. And so it was like. a In fact, I designed not not many. people know this because it was a small. game, but I designed probably one of the. first, if not the first card battle game. on a phone. Uh because the phones were.

much smaller back then and people didn't. know how you were going to do a whole. card battle game there. And I did one. called Titans versus Olympians. So we. had like the Greek uh you know the Greek. titans and then the Greek Olympians like. Zeus and you would play this game and. for so many turns and then eventually we. ended up creating a card battle engine. which we could use. This was now a. different company. We sold off the our. game company to a big Japanese company. and then uh we did some games for TV. shows and I became more of an investor. and adviser to different companies.

>> Didn't you do Game of Thrones? >> Uh one of one of the companies that I. was an investor in did a Game of Thrones. game. >> Yeah. Yeah. My mom has spent a fortune. on your on that game. >> Yeah. of sport. >> I was an investor in Telltale games as. well, which which had a Walking Dead. game that was huge. >> It was. It was. And it was great. >> And and Telltale was storybased games. >> It's really back to the same thing. It's. like a graphic novel that you play. >> Yeah. Exactly. Now, Telltale eventually. imploded. So, this happens a lot with. game industries where game industry. companies where you have a big hit and.

then you try to do too much and then the. whole thing imploded. So that wasn't. good for me as an investor, but it was. good for the industry because, you know, Telltale then broke up and all these. people went out and started new game. companies. So there's all kinds of. interesting games out there now that. were from people who used to work at. Telltale. >> So um at that point, um we're talking. maybe 2010, 2011. >> Yeah. Also invested in a small company. that's now called Discord. >> Yes, I'm aware of that. >> Which was a game company actually. It. wasn't. >> really. Yeah. They started as a a mobile.

game kind of like League of Legends but. on an iPhone. And I knew Jason Citroen. who had founded Discord because he he. was in the mobile game industry. So we. all kind of knew each other back then in. in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, like a. lot of the big AAA games were in LA, but. a lot of the the mobile games came out. of the San Francisco Bay area. And so, you know, when he started this this. company, uh he was like, "Okay, I'm. going to do, you know, either a 3D. printing company or or another game. company." So he ended up doing another. game company and I ended up investing in.

his first round. But then what happened. was that the game wasn't that successful. and these guys hated Skype. So they. wanted to build something other than. Skype for talking to each other while. they're playing their, you know, mobile. battle arena game. And then eventually. they ended up releasing that as a. separate app, Discord. And I remember we. had lunch and he said, "Oh, you know, the game's not doing so well, but this. app is doing well." I was like, "Really?" He goes, "Yeah, we have like. 100,000 downloads. It's pretty good like. per month. He's like, "No, per week.".

And I said, "Wow, how much marketing are. you spending, dollars are you spending. to get these downloads?" Because, you. know, there was an advertising industry. uh that often mobile developers use to. get people to download their apps. And. he was like, "Zero. People are just. dragging their friends into it." And of. course, now Discord is huge. It's used. >> Sure, we use it. >> You guys use it for Yep. It's used all. over the place now. But it started off. just for gamers, you know, and then it. eventually expanded. >> How did you get into investing in these. companies? Well, if you're just part of. that ecosystem, you kind of know uh you. know a lot of different entrepreneurs.

and when you sell your company, you're. like, okay, how do I you know, help. along the next generation of. entrepreneurs. Uh and then I went to MIT. and ran a startup program there for a. couple of years. Okay. >> Which was based on not all games, but it. was at the MIT game lab, which is like. within the media lab complex there. Uh. and that was a lot of fun. So, I did. that for a little while as well. >> Were you still writing code during this. time? >> No, by then I had kind of stepped back. from writing code. I think. >> you miss it a little bit, don't you? >> I I do miss it, but I don't have the. time for it. >> I hear you.

>> Which is why now with AI, uh, it's. gotten pretty good. Like a couple years. ago, I said I think this was like maybe. a year and a half ago. I said, "Okay, let me see if Chat GPT can write a. simple Pac-Man game, you know, and and. it it got something up and running. pretty quickly, but it wasn't quite. right. You know, the Pac-Man wasn't. pointing in the right direction." And I. found I had to like do so much code, you. know, vibe coding and extra prompts. Eventually, I just went in the code and. just started changing it myself. >> to fix, you know, the direction of the. Pac-Man, for example. But now, I hear.

that it's gotten so good that you don't. have to go into the code yourself. anymore. So, I may get back into it. We'll see. >> Even though you had to go in and tweak. that code back then, I still bet you got. it working faster than Williams did in. 1981. >> Way faster. In fact, that was the. benefit was you get something up and. running quickly. Yes. With AI. Now, if. you added the all the total amount of. time it took me to get it right, it. would probably have been similar, but I. wouldn't have had anything you could. really see. >> right. >> till like let's say 50% of the process.

here. I had it like 10% of the process. was the initial getting the game up and. running and then the rest of it was. tweaking. So, it's a different I I think. you know people who are building games. today now are are dealing with a much. better set of tools. >> Yes, they are. than we had or certainly. then the guys had who did like the these. original game arcade games where. whatever. >> 60 not even 64k [laughter] think of the. Atari memory on those you know Steve. Jobs and Steve Bosnjak wrote a uh a game.

called I think it was called Breakout. for the Atari uh cartridge and Steve. Jobs got paid for it but he actually had. Waznjak come in and write it for him. >> Did they write Breakout? That was the. that was the one where you hit hit the. bricks. Yeah, I think it was that one. Uh, don't quote me on that, but it was. definitely something like that. Was it. was a very early one of those. cartridges. >> It was, but it was a groundbreaking game. because of the physics was were really. cool. >> Yeah. Here's an aside on Atari, having. been in the game industry, there's. there's a great book called 8-bit. apocalypse. And if you've ever played.

the game Missile Command, >> of course, >> you know the which we've all played. because I mean that was a really popular. game. Yes. I mean, by today's graphics, it's, you know, it looks very primitive. I I doubt I could get my nephews. [laughter] interested. >> I don't know. It's pretty playable. still. >> It it is. I haven't tried it lately, you. know, but the guy who wrote it was, you. know, researching ICBMs and nuclear war. And he started to have dreams and. nightmares about a nuclear war. And so, you know, this book 8-bit apocalypse is. all about his, you know, his kind of.

moral dilemma in writing this game and. what he went through because back in the. 70s and 80s, I mean, that was a real. thing as you remember. Of course. Every. day we thought it was going to be a. nuclear war. We live with that every. single day. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> All right. So, Saucelo 2016. Um, tell me. what was going on that day before you. throw on the VR headset. Was VR a thing? Did someone invite you over and said, "We got this idea?". >> Yeah. So, what happens is virtual. reality has gone through a bunch of.

different waves over time. Even back. when I was in college back in '92, '93, there was a novel called Snow Crash. uh. and there was a wave of VR. In fact, that that term itself was coined in like. I think 1987 or 1988 by a guy named. Jiren Laneir and the movie Lawnmower Man. was very loosely based on him, right, as. I understand it. >> Uh but that wave kind of went away and. they had a glove even you if you think. of like Ready Player One. >> That's right. right? They had a glove. way back in the late ' 80s and 90s and.

then it kind of went away. >> And what happened was in 2012 there was. a new u new wave of VR. Oculus was one. of the first startups, consumer. headsets, right? Because until then they. were unaffordable for consumers. And so. there was a whole series of u of. headsets like the HTC Vive, etc. And I. had sold my last video game company. And. one of the companies that actually took. over some of the games was in Saleloto, company called Freerange Games. And they. were working with HTC to create sports.

games there. >> Ah, and so we went over to their office. uh and just to kind of meet the people. and find out more. It was a beautiful. day in Salelo. If you've been there, people who've been there will know on a. beautiful day, you can see the San. Francisco skyline. Uh, and you know, I. think it's one of the the prettiest uh. views that we have in any of our our. major cities out there. Uh, and so they. were literally right on the bay. So you. could from their offices we could see. the uh the skyline and they said, "Hey,

you got to come upstairs and try out. this new VR headset thing." And so I was. going through one of these waves. Some. of my academic research that I've done. is about how innovation goes through. waves and a bunch of venture. capitalists, you know, jump in and a. bunch of entrepreneurs jump in. >> and and that's what happened in the in. the mobile game industry. It was a new. wave. A bunch of entrepreneurs started. to build games and then a bunch of. investors started to invest in them. >> Tell me a few more of those waves. That's interesting. >> Yeah. So, you know, these waves happen. over time. I mean, we're obviously in a. major wave now, which AI wave, but but.

this isn't the first AI wave. The first. AI wave happened in the 80s and it was. with this thing called expert systems. >> Okay. >> Okay. And these were rulebased systems. So they tried to take like an expert. who's like really good at I don't know. let's say uh machine debugging or. diagnosis of problems uh in an. industrial setting and they try to. codify those rule sets into a big. knowledge system and the idea was you. could just ask the knowledge system.

what's wrong and it would guide you. through the whole thing. Now that turned. out to be not manageable like it was too. many rules uh and you know just just. like having a lot of code that you have. to manage right because they were coding. these rules often by hand. >> and that took too long and so that there. was a company called Symbolics uh in. Cambridge, Massachusetts around MIT was. a big hub for this AI wave. So that AI. wave kind of went. >> went away. Uh and then we had another AI. wave back in the 2000s which was.

starting to be based on. deep learning and big data. >> Yes. >> Uh which is this idea of neural nets and. you can have multiple you know multiple. layers of neural nets and then they make. the decision for you. Neural nets have. been around for a while. >> Sure. Machine learn Yeah. We we all we. know about big blue and chess and all of. that was happening. >> Yeah. Although most of that was still. rule rule. >> Still rule based. >> believe it or not really. So it it I. mean the guys who won like. >> [clears throat]. >> um the touring prize a guy named Jeff. Hinton uh he was I think was it.

University of Wateroo in Toronto in in. Canada anyway they kept it alive because. people weren't using neural nets for. much like even when I was a student at. MIT they showed us how to how a neural. net worked and and how we could use it. to train it to like if people with the. the number two or the number three we. would feed it examples and these were. like really simple neural nets they. weren't they didn't have many layers Um. but they worked I mean back then but. nobody was using them for anything. Uh. and it wasn't until they scaled them.

massively. That was the difference. That's where machine data and machine. learning comes from. It's like you just. run it on huge sets of. >> is that when when Jeff Hen started to. started to panic. >> because he doesn't like where things are. going. >> He doesn't like where things are going. now. Right. Well then but eventually he. did because people took up you know his. ideas. He had Google deep mind. Yep. video playing games like chess is an. interesting example because Deep Mind. had uh you know the the ability to play.

the game Go and they had the Alpha Go. platform which was one of the first. platforms that could actually beat like. a human champion of the game Go and and. it's much harder than chess in. >> much harder. >> Yeah. But but they had coded some rules. and then they used the machine playing a. human and then eventually they had the. machine just play itself like a million. times. >> Sure. And so it learns the patterns like. you don't actually have to code the. patterns. And there's a guy named Claude. Shannon and again we're kind of geeking. out on the information side of this now.

Uh but Claude Shannon was considered the. founder the father of uh information. science. He was at Bell Labs and he. became an MIT professor and. part of the reason we can ship you know. information across the wire is because. of his work. Um, and he he wrote a paper. about computers and game playing way. back in like the 1950s 40s. And he said, you know, there's different stages that. it could go through. One of which is uh. you can tell it the rules and it'll play.

the game. And there's a little picture. of him uh and his wife sitting with a. like a big box that has a chessboard on. top. And it was one of the first chess. playing computers. And but it was it was. a physical machine and it would light up. where. >> I know it. I know the machine. >> Yeah. And you had to somebody had to. physically move like the pawn or the. horse. >> to know that place and so but he said. eventually machines will be able to. learn the rules of the game. And that's. what happened with you know there was.

like Alpha Go and then there was another. version where they didn't even teach it. how to play Go. It just said play and. we'll just tell you if you won or not. and eventually it learned the rules. >> So that's machine learning. >> That's machine learning. >> So that we got a kind of got a hint of. that in I think it was 1985 with war. games. Right. We're just playing. tic-tac-toe over and it it's learning. >> That's right. Yeah. That was a great. fictional representation. That was a I. think a era definfing movie for many of. us. >> Yeah. For me it was. >> Yeah. I mean both you saw AI where it.

might end up and how it can learn from. itself. Yes. And I think that's that's. an important lesson. I wish they would. have re-released the movie today, especially with autonomous weapons uh. and the race for using AI within the. military. I I'm less of a believer that. AI will take over the world necessarily. >> Uh but more that AI can be used for. nefarious ends. uh whether it's. censorship, whether it's automated, you. know, uh autonomous drones that are.

basically killing people on behalf of. other humans. >> That's true. >> We'll we'll get to that. That's that. that's in here for sure. Um phone call, you got to come upstairs. You got to. check this thing out. >> Yeah. So, back to the story. Yeah. So, they they had built a whole VR sports. suite. In fact, I think it was just. called VR Sports. Uh and so they said, "Try this on." And this was not like. today's headsets, which they're still. big and uncomfortable, but back then. they were really big and uncomfortable. >> Oh, they were worse. >> They were worse. I mean, literally,

there were wires coming from the. ceiling, okay, onto the headset cuz this. was there weren't even that many. wireless headsets. In fact, I don't know. if there were any. Oculus itself was you. had to hook it up to a PC. This was the. HTC Vive. So, I put on this headset and. we used to joke that it was called a. toaster on your face. It was like having. a toaster on your face. >> because it also got pretty hot. Yeah, it. got pretty hot and it was just so big. It was it was kind of heavy. In fact, okay, this is a random aside, but one of. the first VR headsets ever built was by. a guy named Ivan Sutherland back in 1968.

somewhere in I think at Harvard or in. Massachusetts. And it was, you know, this big giant thing that you put on. your head that was connected, not just. with wires, but physically connected. And they called it the sword of. Damocles, which is like this old Greek. myth that the sword's always above your. >> above your head because it felt like it. was going to snap your neck. [laughter]. It's so heavy. >> I never heard of that. That's wild. >> That was one of the first ever like real. computerc controlled virtual reality. type of things. Uh and and so in this. case, it was pretty uncomfortable and I.

started to play this table tennis. >> Now hold on. Before tennis, >> you put it on. Do you look around first. and get a sense? >> Yeah, you look around. >> So what are you thinking? like this is. pretty good. Yeah. So, first of all, the. the room was empty. It was actually. about the size of this room. >> Okay. >> Uh and I look over and there's like a. pingpong table graphically. You can tell. it was graphically generated. In fact, I. have a a screenshot of it in my book, The Simulation Hypothesis. Uh and you. can actually, you know, you saw it and. then there was an opponent on the other. side. Now, the opponent didn't look very.

realistic. It was just like a bunch of, you know, like circles and triangles and. squares and stuff. Uh, and but they said. here, you know, put the controller in. your hand and you can start to play. And. so the ball would come across and I. would start to hit the ball. And the. best thing about that game was the. responsiveness of it. Like the physics. engine was so good that if I like move. my hand fast versus if I move my hand. slow, the ball would go faster. It would. shoot across or not shoot across.

>> And you weren't feeling latency. >> It was there was no latency. That was. the best part. There was latency in kind. of the overall graphics of like that's. why they had a very simple opponent. They didn't have a photorealistic. opponent. >> The physics was dialed in. >> The physics engine was really good and. that's key for a sports game. >> of course. >> Yeah. Even for a shooter game it's it's. key. You want to be able to figure out. who shot first. But it was so realistic. that for a few moments it fooled my body. into thinking that I was playing a real. game of table tennis. So much so that I.

decided to put the paddle down on the. table and lean against the table just. like this. really [laughter] like I. might do at the end of a game of table. tennis. Now, of course, there was no. table. It was an empty room. Um, and the. the VR table was about this size, but uh. it was an empty room. So, what happened. was the controller fell to the floor and. I almost fell over and I did a double. take. I was like, whoa, wait, what just. happened? Oh, of course. There's no. table. >> Did you hear cheers around you? Who was. in the room? >> It was just like one or two other guys. So, it wasn't like. >> they had to give you the smile like you.

get it now, right? And it's the kind of thing you, you. know, even back then you had to really. just try on a headset in order to. understand what's possible. Uh, and the. headsets are still too big these days. So, we're not kind of at the point of. mass consumer adoption. >> Getting there. Getting there. >> Yeah, we're getting there. But that got. me thinking. Um, and that's really what. got me down this rabbit hole. And and. that's one of several strands of. thinking that got me down this rabbit. hole. But I started to wonder how long. would it take us to build a game or a.

virtual reality that was so realistic. that we would forget not just for a. couple of moments which is what happened. to me. Obviously I knew it was a game. but you would forget for an hour and. then you would forget for a day and then. could you forget like the Matrix. basically where Neo had lived in this. virtual reality his whole life and he. didn't really know that he was in a. virtual reality. So I I got down in the. rabbit hole by looking at how technology. might evolve over the next few decades. Um and we can talk more about that if.

you like. It was called I called it the. simulation point. But then I stepped. back and I started looking at the. quantum physics side of things. >> Oh, we're going to get to that later. >> Yeah. But no, I just want to summarize. to say it turns out that quantum physics. was telling us that the world isn't. really as real as we think it is. >> It's not. Uh and then I did a se another. thread which was looking at the various. religious and mystical traditions. >> and I realized oh they're also telling. us that the world is not really real at. least not the way we think it is and I. realized that there was a universal idea.

here that tied together Silicon Valley. technology with a physics and science. but looking at it from the point of view. of an information based world or video. game designer and mystical experiences. which are the bas is for the world's. religions. And so that's really what got. me down to this rabbit hole in a big way. and and writing the book as well. >> This is a perfect segue to my next. question is you were sort of living a. double life because you were going to.

the Monroe Institute. >> You were do learning meditation drum. drum circle what I mean all this kind of. stuff. >> Yeah. So what happened was when I was an. entrepreneur back in the 90s is when I. did my first startup pretty much as soon. as I graduated like within a year. >> So most of my career has been as an. entrepreneur. So during the day I would. deal with things like you know code. reviews right [clears throat] builds. engineers managing engineers hiring. salespeople which really sucks if you're.

like a technical guy uh and investors. and customers. And a lot of our. customers were big Fortune 5000. companies back in the day. And this was. in Boston. So it was actually you much. more conservative in the financial. industry than like say in Silicon Valley. where the guys were sitting around. smoking weed you [laughter] know as part. of their startups like that wasn't. happening in enterprise software. startups uh in Boston. But at the same. time I started to learn about different. types of meditation techniques and I. started to explore different aspects of.

consciousness. >> What drew you to that? You know, I've. always had a bit of an interest in it, but I I will say that initially I just. thought, hey, if I can learn to. meditate, I can be a better computer. programmer because then I can. concentrate. >> Of course, >> I can be a better entrepreneur because I. can visualize what I'm trying to build. But then the more you got into it, the. more you realize that it's not so much. about that stuff, right? It's not about. the selfish thing. And what what I. eventually got to realize, and I wrote. my first book, it was called Zen. Entrepreneurship about this time when I.

was living this double life. And like. every chapter, you know, one chapter is. about a problem we had with our startup. and, you know, the customer canceling on. us and the the next is about me jetting. off to the Monroe Institute, you know, for a week to try to do auto body. experiences or I I started doing lucid. dreaming. >> Um, and there was a guy named Carlos. >> Castana. >> who wrote about this way back in the. 70s. >> Sure. >> A lot of lot of young people today have. no idea who he is. >> They should learn. >> They should learn. and he was on the.

cover of Time magazine, which okay, Time. magazine would be like, I don't know. what would it be. It'd be like. >> We don't have those anymore. >> We don't have those [laughter] anymore, right? It'd be like being, you know, Joe. Rogan's top guest for the year, something like that this year. I I don't. know what you you would put in today's. terms. Uh but basically, you he was. called the grandfather of the new age. movement, and he talked a lot about. initially about psychedelics. Y. >> but eventually he was talking about. dreaming and different states of. consciousness. Some people there's some. controversy about did he really find a.

Mexican shaman that taught him this or. is he borrowing other people's ideas. But the interesting part of his. teachings for me were were about his. dream experiences which it almost didn't. matter if he was imagining this while he. was in on psychedelics or while he was. dreaming because that's what it was all. about. But it was real realizing there's. something different about our reality. Mhm. >> This really got me into thinking about. alternate models because Okay, I'll give. you a startup example because I know. you've been in the computer startup. world. One day I had a dream about this.

competitor of ours and I was like, that's odd. I've never dreamed of this. guy before. One, never. Two, I hadn't. even heard from him or his company. >> Is this Mark? >> Yeah, this is a guy named Mark. >> Okay, I like this story. >> Okay, so it was a guy named Mark. He had. a company called Edge Research and I had. a dream where I was in a business. conference and I started chatting with. him about it and I woke up I thought. that's weird like why am I dreaming. about this guy? We haven't heard from. his his company for a year and we we had. software that was connecting IBM. products to Microsoft and Oracle.

products. So we were like a big partner. of IBM back in those days using a. product called Lotus Notes. probably too. much information [clears throat] for the. audience there, but uh basically I went. in the office that day and I get a call. like right in the morning from a product. manager at IBM and he says, "Oh, hey, we're going to do a big announcement. today and I just want to tell you, let. you know because you've been a good. partner to us, but this new product. we're going to release is probably going. to kill your product." I was like, "Great. Okay, [laughter] thanks." uh.

because we had a product that you know. worked with their on top of their. product and I said well how come I've. never heard of this product before. because I mean IBM's a big company. >> sure. >> I'm sure it would have leaked somehow. he's like oh do you remember that. competitor of yours Mark who had this. company called Edge Research we bought. them like a year and a half ago and. they've been working on it in secret up. in New Hampshire and now we're going to. do the big announcement today I thought. okay that's weird I had the dream in the. morning the phone call came after right. some People think, "Oh, it's not a big.

deal because it happened the other way. around." No. No. >> The dream came first out of nowhere. It. was almost like a a precognitive sense, right? That this guy was going to show. up again today in some significant way. >> I believe it was What was the dream? >> The dream was just was not that it was. more like I was at a conference like I. used to go to and he was at one of the. booths and I was asking him, "Hey, we. haven't seen you in a while. What have. you been working on?" And you know, we. were just having that kind of a. conversation that you might. [clears throat] have with somebody who's. in your industry. Uh but he was ky about.

something in the dream. >> He was, >> but he was always ky. So, okay, as I. recall, you know, this is 30 years ago. now. So, we're we're getting into uh. details I may not even get right. But, but I do remember being a little ky. and it was sort of par for the course. because when we had built our product, our first product and announced it, he. had called me and he was being a little. bit ky. and he was asking me about it. and didn't tell us he was going to have. a competitor so [laughter]. a competitive product. uh but but but. that to me was one of many wakeup calls.

that I had around dreams uh and the. nature of reality that in fact we may be. getting clues about things that haven't. happened yet and our idea of time as. being linear uh may not be correct and. only getting information from a. materialistic point of view may not be. correct either. There may be other ways. to get information. Uh so that was one. example. You know once I ended up you.

know lucid dreaming uh and said hey let. me go visit you know my girlfriend uh at. the time who's still my partner now uh. in Cambridge. I was like let me fly over. to her apartment. And I looked over. there in the living room and there was. this weird light on the couch and I. thought that's weird cuz you know it's. the middle of the night should probably. be sleeping in the bedroom. Uh but there. was this weird light on the couch and I. didn't really think much of it cuz then. the lucid dream goes away. So, if you've. ever tried lucid dreaming, >> it's hard to stay in it. >> It's hard to stay lucid and it just goes.

away. And then I I told her about it the. next day and she said, "Oh yeah, I was. sleeping on a couch last night.". >> Whoa. >> And I would have these little. confirmations like that like like I. would be flying around Cambridge and. they had all these ultra realistic. glass, you know, high skyscraper type. buildings, but we didn't have that many. back then. I remember thinking, "Okay, what what's going on here?" And then. recently I went on a trip back to. Cambridge because I still have a place. there. And if you go to Kendall Square. now, which is just outside of MIT, they've got all these tall skyscrapers.

that are like these glass buildings and. stuff. >> So you were seeing the future. >> It might have like It's hard to say. because I don't remember exactly what. the buildings look like, but it was. definitely the tenure of the the tenor. of the future. >> Well, at at Monroe, were you able to get. out of body? >> So I tried it. So the Monroe Institute, they did um they did hemisync. >> Hemisync. What it does is it puts in. like different rhythm beats and it gets. your brain into a certain rhythm. Yep. >> Um I found that it wasn't quite working. for me to get out of my body. But I did. have an actual experience where I was uh.

what I today I would call a shamanic. journey. So later I learned uh how to do. this with just drumming and just. breathing. You can get into an altered. state and you can have you can do what. shamans do which is they they have. almost like a visualization that you're. aware you're doing something in another. reality but you're also aware of your. physical body. So this is the experience. that I had at the mineral institute. where I I I saw this guy kind of looked. a little bit like me brown guy but he. had a beard and he was a sadu sitting.

against a tree who knows maybe in in. India somewhere like years ago. I. thought, hey, this is interesting. And. and I felt somehow connected to this. guy. And so this is like a vision I'm. having while I'm in, you know, with a. hemisync. >> How present are you in the real world? Are you like, "Oh my god, this is. happening.". >> I I I was present where I I was still. aware of my body, but it was enough. And. this is for me, >> this is very close to what happens with. shamanic journey. >> Yes. >> It's you you're aware that there's some. other reality really, something. happening there. You're still aware of.

your body, but it's almost like you're. not paying attention to your body. Is. this like samadei? >> No, it's not quite samati. This is more. like you're leaving your consciousness. is leaving your body and going somewhere. else. But it's not like a full lot of. other experiences. It's like just a part. of you is is going out to this other. place. >> This other place could be a real place. It could be an imaginary place. >> It could be a place where multiple. people can validate things. I'll tell. you about that in a second. So, we used. to have those kind of experiences too. But in this case, the guy was sitting.

against a tree kind of like I am now, but maybe leaning back a little bit. more. And he's like, "You're doing it. all wrong. What do you mean I'm doing it. all wrong?" He goes, "Look, if you want. to get out of your body, don't you. remember? You learned this like in a. past life or something." He goes, "This. is what you do. You don't lay down. You. like sit against because if you lay. down, you go to sleep. You sit back. against a tree." That's what he was. doing. This is like I don't know how. many years ago this was, if it was even. real. And he goes, "You go up to your. third eye." And I could like at that. point I could be I felt like I was him. for a second and you would leave your.

third eye and you would go out and then. you would come back and and when you. left I could see him like you know. sitting his body sitting there. He's. like that's how you're supposed to do. it. >> You saw that? >> I saw that in my vision, right? >> Wow. >> And I was like that's wild. And there. was a time after that when I got back. home where I was sitting at a desk. coding or something and it was the. middle of the afternoon. You know you. get the you get tired in the afternoon. I started to doze off and I remembered. this and I went up and I and I basically. went out of my body and I saw my.

physical body and then I came back. But. for me what what happened in these. dreams is I would just wake up somewhere. else like in a lucid dream that became. an out-of- body experience. Rarely have. I had the kind of experience where. somebody actually just sees themselves. sleeping in the bed. >> And you you brought up that uh you had. out-of- body experiences with other. people. >> Yeah. So what happened was after that I. found uh an easier way for me to do that. was uh using shamanic drumming. So I. studied with a guy named Robert Moss who. wrote a book called Conscious Dreaming.

Uh really interesting guy, Australian. guy who somehow has gotten tied into all. these Aboriginal and uh Iraqua and. Native American dream practices and he. kind of pulled it together. And so we. would get into a group and you know. somebody would do drumming. It's a. certain beat of the drumming and anybody. can look it up. Look up shamanic. journey. You'll see what the beat is. It's like a dut. And what it does, it's. very similar to the binaural beat. >> Oh, okay. It puts your mind and your uh. breathing and your uh.

>> Oh, it's frequency related. >> Frequency related. Yeah. So, it puts you. into kind of this altered state and then. you you basically have an intention that. says, "Hey, let's all. >> go to, you know, RZ had this weird dream. last night at a business conference. Let's all see what we can do." And we. would all go into there and try to, you. know, we'd all look around and then we'd. come back and say, "Hey, what did you. see?" "Hey, what did you see?" And every. now and then there would be like a lot. of correlation. And you know, I have a. skeptical engineer side. >> Sure. >> As well as this kind of intuitive side.

where I'm intrigued by all of these. things. >> Of course. >> Kind of like you, I'm sure. Right. >> Absolutely. >> And so, but but the times. >> I study Monroe, I do lucid dream, I do. all this stuff. >> Oh, yeah. That's great. >> Could you see each other or No, >> sometimes not necessarily. Some people. could, but. >> they could, >> you know, some people were better at it. than others, >> of course. >> But for me, one of the most interesting. ones, and again, you might go to what. Robert used to call a stable uh place in. the dream world. Like meaning it's it's. >> like my dreams are subjective, your. dreams are subjective. 90% of our dreams.

are are. And I write more about this in. my book, you know, Zen entrepreneurship. and my book treasure hunt, which is. about dreams in the business world. Uh. not so much in the simulation books, but. it's a fun topic anyway. And so one one. day he said, "We're going to journey to. Sirius." And I was like, "What does that. mean, journey to Sirius? What are we. talking about? Let's just do it." So he. started the drumming, set the intention, and then you say what you saw. And I. remember going to this weird planet that. maybe was orbiting Sirius. Again, this.

was, you know, a vision I was having, so. hard to say how realistic it was. I saw. these giant buildings, but they were on. stilts. It was just bizarre to see these. giants and it was like a ruins of an. ancient uh civilization, but there was. an even more ancient civilization that. had ruins at the bottom. And so that's. why these big buildings were on still. >> Wow. >> And then I went off to the side and it. looked like Superman, you know, like did. you ever see uh in the original movie? Do you remember the Fortress of. Solitude? >> Of course. >> So there were like all these little.

points and so after. >> white crystals and stuff. >> Yeah, white crystals. Uh and then there. was this group of people that were. looking out over like different planets. Uh but like. >> living beings. >> There were some living beings there too, but they weren't like they weren't there. physically. It was it was a little. bizarre. Let's leave that part off for. now because fair enough because that I. might have then transitioned to. something else. >> I just love this story. >> Yeah. So I went and described all these. details to Robert and some of the other. people who went on the journey with us. and they were like there were like.

something like 17 points [laughter] that. many of us saw including the s right. down to the Superman crystal line. structures and buildings on stilts. >> They saw that. >> Yeah. There's no way. >> several of them saw that like not 100%. of the people don't always see it but. that's why you you do it in a group and. you say okay. >> what is the what are the correlations we. can make uh now is that a shared. dreamscape in an imaginary world could. it be like an actual planet uh on Sirius. could it be something else uh you know.

my skeptical mind kicks in and says well. okay I don't know but there certainly. was something going on here that whether. it's an archetypal thing. Uh but the. fact that there were so many instances. where this would happen, >> the stilts is very that's a very strange. detail. >> It's very specific, right? >> Because anyone can say futuristic. buildings or something, the stilts is. very specific. >> Yeah. And it was stilts on top of like. an ancient ruins almost like a like an. older civilization and that's why they. built on stilts so that when they built. new buildings.

>> that you wouldn't ruin like the old. buildings, you know. Uh and that was the. reason why. Um, and then eventually, I. think the second part of it was they had. moved off the planet and they were. somewhere monitoring what was going on. in different parts of their local. quadrant of the galaxy. So, now it gets. into a little more Star Trek. So, that. could just be my sci-fi self coming out. at that point, right? >> But whatever it was, there there's. [snorts] something there. And um, we'll. talk about that more with simulation. Before we go to break, uh, can we talk. about the uh asalent uh the asalent.

synchronicity and how weird that was? >> Sorry, which one? Um I sailing to uh. Jacqu Valet, Jeffrey and. Morpheus. >> Oh yes. Yes. So the the Matrix. synchronicity at the uh. >> at the Selin Institute. Yeah. >> Yes. >> Uh so those people who don't know Eselin. is like this um kind of a hippie commune. setup in big su north of LA and they. have conferences there. And so Jeffrey. Krele is a professor at Rice University.

He's he's one of the few academics. that's been looking into UFOs and. mysterious subjects. In fact, I I just. wrote a paper uh that that I put a. pre-print of online which is I wanted to. call it aliens over Harvard, but it's. it's actually called Aliens over Harvard. in Stanford, but it's actually called. UFOs in Academia, a case study in. stigma, uh boundary work and the edges. of legitimate science. So I interviewed. a whole bunch of professors about who. had studied the UFO subject openly about.

why is there a stigma about studying. this seriously in some way and. >> that's a great idea for a paper. Is that. out yet? >> Yeah, the paper preprint is available. online. If people search for it, they. can find it or they looked at my Twitter. account which is RZ Stanford. I guess. it's called X Now. >> I keep calling it Twitter still. But so. I interviewed people and it turns out, you know, going back a little bit, I. graduated from MIT in June of 1992. And. there was one other major interesting. thing that happened at MIT in June of. 1992. There was a abduction alien.

abduction conference at MIT in June of. 1992 and I heard about it. >> What a strange place to have that. conference. It was an invite only. conference and John Mack who. >> surevard many people will know from. Harvard was one of the co-chairs along. with a physics professor from MIT. >> Uh and I remember thinking this is. weird. Why are we having an abduction. conference here and I mean I didn't go. to the conference because it was invite. only. Bud Hopkins was there and. >> wow the big names. >> and that was like the last serious.

abduction conference in that phase. because you know John Mack got in. trouble for studying the subject but so. I went back and I interviewed people. like David Pritchard who's the MIT. professor who hosted it John Mack has. passed away but Ralph Blumenthal. >> who is his biographer who wrote a book. on him uh and Jeff Karriel actually kept. you know these alive with these secret. conferences that you know were invite. only and so they used to happen at. Eselin. Um and so at at Eselin I came. out with um uh the book The Simulation.

Hypothesis on on March 31st, 2019, which. was the 20th anniversary of the release. of The Matrix. >> Yep. >> Um and. >> intentionally or no? >> Intentionally. >> Okay. Nice. >> Uh and that's why I ended up. self-publishing the first version. because there's no way uh publisher. could have got it out on time because I. only finished it in December and I was. like, "Okay, I'm going to get this out.". Uh, the second edition was Penguin. Random House. So, they did all the the. usual. >> usual publishing timeline things. But, so I had met Jacques Valet, who I'm sure.

your audience knows him. >> very well. But, but what is he like as a. person? >> He's super nice guy and he's really. >> u what's the word I want to use? Thoughtful, I think. Uh, and that's what. I like about him is he'll present, you. know, what he's heard, what people have. told him, but he won't necessarily. present his conclusions. Uh, so I I. think he's one of the few people in the. entire UFO world. And for those who. don't know him, he was part of the. inspiration for the French scientist in.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind and. been involved since Project Blue Book, but he's a computer scientist at heart, which is how we connected. Really nice. guy. He even wrote a a forward for the. French edition of the simulation. hypothesis in French. >> He did. >> Yeah, he did. So, >> what an honor. >> It really was an honor. And and and. again, it was it's just in that French. edition. Uh so, but it was really. awesome that he did that. >> He's a very important person, >> I think. So, yeah. And and um you know, he's getting up there now. Heneck is. Heneck passed away, you know, many years.

ago, so I never got to meet him. But, >> you know, Jacques has lots of stories, but he started telling me about some of. the overlap between um well, he started. telling me about UFO cases that led me. to start thinking about the overlap. between the the UFO phenomena and. simulation theory. But so, there was a. really interesting synchronicity that. happened right when my book came out. Uh, and Jacques had given me a little. blurb for for the English version of the. book. And I heard about this afterwards. So I actually wasn't there but it was a. synchronicity involving me and he said. Jacques gave a presentation at Esselin.

at one of these conferences that they. have there and it was just before let's. say lunch right and his last slide had a. picture of my book and he was talking. about RZswan Burke and the matrix and it. probably had a picture of the matrix and. so they left it as the last slide okay. and they all said oh that's interesting. because the book had literally just come. out. >> and so then they left the classroom and. they walked over to the cafeteria if you. ever been to Eselin they're not that far. it's like right on big are beautiful. They walk into the cafeteria and who's. there but Morpheus. I mean, they.

literally see Lawrence Fishburn sitting. there in the cafeteria, you know, while. they had just been talking about the. Matrix and and my name. And so, I heard. this from multiple people, including. Jeff Griel and other people who were. there. They're like, "Hey, you know, you. had this big synchronicity about you and. Morpheus in the book." And I was like, "Oh, damn. I wasn't there." But it was. an interesting synchronicity. >> It is. I mean, that the simulation is. always listening. All right, let's take. a quick break and uh when we come back, we'll talk simulation theory. Be right. back. So, you've had this VR experience,

pre-cognitive dream, a weird. synchronicity, and then. I think you start to realize that. simulation theory is not just a thought. experiment, that. technology, physics, and religion are. all starting to point in the same. direction. Yeah, that was the. realization that I came to was that. there's no way in just a pure.

materialist model for some of these. weird things to be happening. Not just. the things that have happened to me, but. things that others have reported. And so. I really first wrote an article about. simulation theory. I was actually. visiting Sri Lanka. And in Sri Lanka. there was a famous science fiction. writer who lived there, Arthur C. Clark, whom you know, anybody who's into. science knows Arthur C. Clark. He wrote. 2001 of Space Odyssey and his office is. still well preserved there. >> Really? >> Yeah. It's technically not a tourist.

attraction, but a buddy of mine was. there. He's like, "No, you can go." He. just slipped the guy a few rupees. [laughter]. >> I didn't know that. Awesome. >> So, a buddy of mine from MIT had started. a company in Sri Lanka and I had. invested in his company and I was. helping him out. So, I went out to visit. him and I really want to see Arthur C. Clark's office. So I went there and his. desk is preserved and it's got all these. books behind him and it's got uh like. you know 2001 2010 but it's got like. different versions and so I see this and. sometimes I think we have a recognition.

of something right it reminded me of. something. >> and I was like yeah that's right I was. supposed to be a writer like like you. you kind of have this vision and it. flashes in your mind and you don't know. all the details right. it it's like you remember the storyline. and somehow it dawned on me that I. needed to do more writing. But at that. point I had gotten this idea that the. video game was a good way to explain uh. this idea of the physical world being.

virtual. And I had also spent a lot of. time in a a game called Second Life. which was from a decade before that. >> Sure. >> But it was a virtual world. So, the. difference between a virtual world and a. game is in a game you're trying to score. points and you're you're trying to win, but in a virtual life, you're just kind. of living there. >> Uh, and people would like have jobs. inside Second Life. Like like they would. come home from their real job and then. they would log in to be a bartender at a. club. >> That's right. >> In Second Life. And so I'd ask them. like, "Why are you doing this?" They're.

like, "Well, because it's fun, right?". Because they got paid in lynen dollars. This is precoitcoin. Uh, which were. worth peanuts. So they weren't doing it. for the pay uh even though technically. they were being paid. It was like that. was part of their virtual life, their. character's life and people would have. relationships and get married. And you. know that made an impression on me as. well. But uh I decided to write an. article, a long article about why I. think we might be living inside a video. game. And I tried to pull in some of the. elements that I'd been thinking about.

So that article allowed me to pull. together these different ideas. And uh I. wrote it I was like end of 2017, beginning of 2018 partly because of uh. you know the Arthur C. Clark experience. uh and it was just a flash point that. said oh I'm going to have a bunch of. books that are going to be translated in. a bunch of languages. >> You at that moment. >> at that moment like it was like but I. got to get busy. You're doing more. writing. And so I wrote the article and. I said ah that's enough for now. You. know I'm done. I was running this.

program at MIT. I'm doing other stuff. Uh but that that got me into uh talking. about the technology side of it. initially more because uh when I uh. started to think about how long would it. take us to build something like the. matrix I came up with this idea of the. simulation point which is I define it as. a type of technological singularity. Now. most people know that term because they. think of like you know Skynet super.

intelligent AI. >> going to kill us all and take over the. world. So the AI singularity is what. when AI supersedes. >> exponentially grows to the point where. it yeah it's become super intelligent or. >> beyond us. >> beyond us that that's one example but. the guy who coined the term. >> the technological singularity was. actually a guy named Verer Vinci. >> who was a science fiction writer and a. computer science professor and he. defined it uh in many different ways. So. it wasn't just AI. He said it could be.

computers networking with each other to. become intelligent or us merging with. computers which is what Ray Kerszswe. talks about. Y. >> uh the merger of biology and silicon but. VI was relying on an earlier famous guy. named Yulom John vonoman. >> of course. >> who's famous Hungarian mathematician. He. basically defined the vonoyoman. architecture that all of these computers. still pretty much use the vonoman. architecture. The guy really was a. genius. uh and he borrowed the term. singularity from physics because in.

physics you know singularity is when you. know you're approaching that line like. at the center of a black hole and he. said it's the point at which technology. grows exponentially such that everything. is different from the human for the. human race. >> and you can't come back from a. singularity that that's the it. >> yeah at that point everything is. different and yes uh and so Vinci wrote. the paper and then Kurszswwell wrote a. book about it but uh so a technological. singularity is when technology gets to. the point or you can't come back. And so. I started to think, well, if we were to. build a u a virtual world that was.

indistinguishable from physical reality, then we would have reached what I called. a simulation point. Uh and if there are. AI characters inside there that you. can't tell if they're AI characters or. not, then you know, we're basically able. to create a full virtual world. And. there's something called the touring. test, which most people have heard of. It's again going back to 1950 back in. the time of Claude Shannon. It was. actually Alan Turring. He wrote a paper. called the imitation game. Y.

>> actually that's what he called it. And. for people who don't know, most people. have heard of it by now, but there's a. computer behind curtain A and a person. behind uh curtain B and you're passing. messages back and forth. Now, how did. they pass messages back in those days? They didn't have cell phones. It was. teletype machines. >> Sure. >> That was how he decided to do it. uh and. he said if you can't tell the difference. between the AI now again back then they. thought AI was physical computer so if. you can't tell the difference between a. computer and the human then computer has.

passed the touring test um and of course. today many people think with chat GPT. and claude and Google and and all and. and Grock that we've pretty much passed. the touring test for text because it's. all the chatbot is all a textbased. interface there used to be a prize. called the loer prize which was set up. in the 90s and it was for the chatbot. that actually came closest to passing. the touring test. And there was a a. chatbot named Alice that was one of the. winners of it. It was the first chatbot.

that actually took on like a personality. of a young woman. >> I don't remember. I remember Eliza. I. don't remember Alice. >> Eliza was even before that. So Eliza was. like in the 1960s. So this was like 90s. or so, like 90s. >> And there was a guy, a Hollywood guy who. saw this chatbot like back in the 2000s. He's like, "Huh, a chatbot that has the. personality of a young woman.". >> And his name was Spike Jones. Yeah. And. he decided to write a script called Her, which became the film, you know, uh, with who was it? Was it Wen Phoenix?

>> And Scarlett Johansson. >> and Scarlett Johansson played the voice. And so you see what's called the science. fiction feedback loop at work where. science fiction inspires technology and. then technology inspires science. fiction. And then when you know Sam. Alman and these guys came out with I. think it was chat GPT3 or 3.5 one of the. versions they came out with they like. started referencing her and there was a. big blow up because the voice of the the. woman who sounded like the guy's. girlfriend in the video sounded like. Scarlett Johansson. >> There was just someone who sounded like. her. He promised it wasn't her.

>> Yeah. It was just someone kind of like. her. >> Right. Right. Right. >> Was it Samantha? I think in the film was. her character. >> Yeah. >> Um and and so you and he literally. referenced the movie her. So you start. to see the science fiction feedback loop. over time. But coming back to uh what I. was talking about was uh in my book the. second edition of simulation hypothesis. I defined something called the virtual. touring test or the metaverse touring. test. And we're not quite there yet. And. that is if you're inside a multiplayer. game or a virtual world like a Second. Life or World of Warcraft or Fortnite.

I'm sure there's a lot more recent. recent examples now. And your avatar is. controlled by you. And there's two other. avatars. one of which is controlled by. uh a human player and one of which is. controlled by an AI. And if you can't. tell the difference between those two. and you can do anything you want in the. virtual world, you can you know drive. cars, you can fly on dragons, you can go. skiing, you can you can talk to each. other, you can flirt, you can have. virtual sex, whatever you want. Uh and. if after say an hour you can't tell.

which of those avatars and you're. talking too. So there's voice element. Uh, which of course today, you know, if. you've seen any of the the latest AIs, they can. >> they can do it. >> They can have a voice. In fact, I got a. call from an AI not that long ago. >> Could you tell it was AI? >> Uh, they made it so that they told you. it was AI. >> Oh, okay. >> It was called Bory. It was a an AI. venture capitalist. who basically was like, well, as an AI. venture capitalist, I can talk to every. single founder on Earth, right? Because.

it's just making calls and it's. automated. But it was actually pretty. good. I mean, in taking what I said, it's an example of where they're putting. in, you know, the LLM is behind the. scenes, but it's basically the brain. that's driving the character. Uh, and in. fact, we were talking about the Matrix, uh, Awakens. Uh, and that was a virtual. city, and there was a guy, he put a. smart NPC engine into it. um which. basically was has an LLM behind it. So.

that all the NPCs in that city, you. know, they were kind of dumb dumb NPCs. in most games, but now we have smart. NPCs. And so he walked around uh this. retro world and he started telling. people, you know, you're in a video. game. >> Yep. I remember this. >> You're an NPC. >> And some got upset, didn't they? >> Yeah. Some were like, you know, that's. ridiculous. Or some were like, I got to. go to work. I don't have time for this. crap. Others were like, oh, that's. interesting. Tell me more. >> Right. And this was back in like 22, right? So looking at how fast looking at.

how fast AI technology evolves. I mean, we're already many generations beyond. that. But they they reacted kind of like. real people might. Um, and so we're not. quite at passing the the virtual or. metaverse touring test yet, but I think. we will be eventually. And that's one of. the stages of these 10 stages to get to. the simulation point to build a matrix. And another would be like BCIS, putting. in brain computer interfaces. Yes. Like. in the Matrix. >> So before we go too far down, um one.

thing I I don't think I've seen anyone. else do this is uh your NPC verse RPG uh. inside the simulation. But before we get. there, take us back to your paper and. what was your argument for this could be. a simulation? I mean the the actual. technology. >> Yeah. Yeah. So the techn technological. argument was that video games can get to. be so good that we will reach the. simulation point at some point. Uh and.

it could be soon, it could be 100 years, could be a thousand years. It really. doesn't matter that much as long as we. get to that point. And so if we will. eventually be able to immerse ourselves. in virtual worlds. that we can't distinguish if we're. having the real experience or not. And. one of the stages also included like. false memories like Philip K. Dick. We. can talk more about him. I hope so. >> Yeah. Because he's, you know, one of my. favorite u authors. And in Bladeunner, for example, you had the android that.

had Rachel who remembered being a little. girl growing up. So she didn't think she. was AI, but she had those memories. implanted in her. But if we can have. those experiences and you can't tell the. difference, then how do we know for sure that we're. not inside a virtual world right now? That was the crux of the argument, but. it was built on the idea that technology. is developing uh and people like to have. virtual lives. And then the quantum. physics was part of the argument as.

well. So I don't know if we want to get. into that. >> in just a second because I want to. dispel something. Um, and this was in my. episode about simulation theory. Physicists will physicists will argue. you can't this can't be a simulation. because to simulate all this material, all consciousness down to the quantum. level, you would need a simulation. bigger than the universe itself. And my. response was that's not how simulations. work, >> right? Exactly. I mean, the way that. simulations work is you simulate the. parts that you need, >> right? >> And you So, physicists love the law of.

big numbers, right? Mhm. >> They love to say infinity. Oh yeah, it's. infinite or there's an infinite number. of particles. Uh but computer. scientists, we hate infinity because we. always dealing with limited resources, right? >> So it's all about optimization. >> And I tell people, so in in the book. there's a we mentioned King's Quest, so. I'll bring it up again. Yep. >> If you look at King's Quest, you'll see. that each of the the screens when that. guy is walking, it almost looks. continuous, but it's really not. all the. pixels of all the screens are laid out.

which means they're called raster images. or bit map images. Uh but they're. basically rendered like the pixels are. sitting there on disk and it's just a. matter of loading it. Now. >> back in the 80s and you know this. because you were you were around if you. tried to build something like World of. Warcraft uh or Fortnite or a CS GO which. is a first-person shooter. Yep. You. wouldn't be able to do it because. there's too many pixels to keep track. of. and they didn't know how to compress. that down in such a way that you could.

render it on the fly. The hardware. wasn't that good either. But the thing. that I learned as a computer scientist. is that it's yes, the hardware gets. better, but it's the algorithmic. improvements that really make the order. of magnitude difference. Like hardware. might go from one to two, but if you. want to go from one to 10 or one to 100, you need to change the way that you're. doing things. And so the reason we can. render. uh a World of Warcraft today is we don't. need all the pixels for all the castles. to be on your computer. What we do is we.

generate it through 3D models based upon. where you're looking. And the first game. that got really popular that did this. was Doom, >> of course, >> back in the 90s. I mean, they had Castle. Wolfenstein and before that as well, but. the the the game that really got popular. and it simulated a first-person. perspective. And so it basically, you. know, just showed you what your. character could see. And the rule of. thumb was only render that which is. observed. >> Mhm. >> And by the way, that's what. >> sounds familiar. >> It sounds familiar, right? And that's.

what we do with Zoom, too. Like if you. and I I mean, we happen to be in the. same room, although. >> how would the audience know that we're. not in the same room? Uh, but if we're. on Zoom and I'm in, you know, Los. Phoenix and you're in Los Angeles, then. my computer doesn't have to render all. of Los Angeles. It just renders your. background. And similarly, your computer. doesn't have to render all of Phoenix. It just needs to show the part that is. visible from the camera. >> So that that castle that's way out in. the distance is really just a few. pixels. That's all we're rendering until. you get there. And then we give you more.

and more information. >> Yeah. And it's rendering it on demand. Yes. >> And this is a key feature of how 3D. particularly 3D video games are built. Uh and the information for that castle. is still out there. And sometimes it's. even that is generated on the fly. There. was a game in 2016 called No Man's Sky. >> Oh, procedural. Yes, >> procedural, right? And it had 18. quintilian planets. Okay, >> that's an interesting number, actually. >> It is, right? You probably know why.

>> I do, but but you have to explain. >> So, >> but that's an that's an interesting. number. >> Yeah. But first of all, it's a really. big number. >> Yes. >> So, it pretty much seemed infinite at. that point. And the way video games used. to be designed is you would have to have. your your design team design every one. of those planets. Now, there's no way. that anyone could design 18 quintilian. worlds. It's it's just too much. Uh so. what they did was they use procedural. generation, >> which is what. >> which is basically code that runs and. generates the scenery for you as needed.

So when you get to the planet, it would. generate like the trees, uh the forests, the landscapes, the mountains using a. whole bunch of algorithms. And there. there's a whole bunch of algorithms that. you know there's algorithms that can. simulate water. There's fractal. algorithms. If you've ever looked at how. like you know you can have trees being. generated. Um in fact in my second. simulation book the simulated multiverse. there's a whole chapter on like these.

types of algorithms and how it looks. like nature is algorithmic. >> It does. >> in nature. U nature is algorithmic in. nature. No pun intended. Uh because you. know you look at like the the sea shells. and. >> right the Fibonacci numbers. >> Fibonacci numbers but you see all these. um uh similar sequences of things or or. algorithmic generation or fractals right. which are fractalss are when you have. self similarity at different levels. >> right no matter what where how close or. far away it looks the same.

>> it's very similar right because it uses. a similar algorithm even though there. might be some randomness in the. algorithm still and it fractals came. from a guy I think What was his name? Mendel brought it. There was a guy in. the 70s who said, "How long is a. coastline?" So if you were to measure a. coastline, how how long would it be? Like say in England. Well, it depends on. the scale because if you're measuring it. from satellite, you know, you'll see. kind of like almost like a straight. line. >> Sure. >> But if you go into the bays and nooks. and crannies, it'll be longer because. now you're going like this. Well, if you.

got really small, you would start to see. even within one rock, you would see all. of these little variations, right? And. so it depends on what scale you're at, but there's some self similarity at. larger scales. >> Uh, and so all of these algorithms. So, so that's what this game was was known. for. Uh, it's still out there now. Uh, but it was considered a boring game when. it first came out, but now they've added. supposedly. I haven't played it in a. long time. >> Me neither, >> but supposedly it's gotten better. Uh.

but it was known for this large number. of worlds and almost infinite generated. on demand. Like that's the key phrase. that we need there. And so why 18. quintilion? Well, it's because it's two. to the power of 64. >> Right. >> Right. That's why it's that very. specific number. >> So this is 64 bits. >> You had 64 bits that kept track of, you. know, how many worlds do you want to. keep track of? Now there's no reason. that's the limit. I mean they could also. have used 128 bits but it was very.

convenient to to use like 64 bits. because that's that's a commonly used. size of what's called a word which is. like multiple bytes um within coding. Uh. and so you see this very interesting. interesting number. It's also by the way. a big number related to the chess u the. chess story from ancient India. >> Yes it is. Go now you have to tell that. story. It's a great one. I'll tell that. story and and later we'll tie it to. exponential problems and quantum. computing but for now I'll just tell the. story. >> because we're talking about that number.

So there was a king in India who loved. to play chess. >> and he beat everybody and he there was. this wise man or sage and he's like I. want to play chess with you and the sage. goes nah I don't really want to play. King goes really I'll give you anything. you want if you'll just play chess with. me. >> anything. >> Anything. And the wise man goes, "Okay, if I win," meaning if the king loses, you'll give me one grain of rice for the. first square in the chessboard, and then. you'll give me two grains of rice for. the second square, and then double it to. four, and double it to eight, double it. to 16 for all the squares of the.

chessboard. King of Okay, that's not a. very big price to pay. >> That's only 64 squares. >> Yeah. And I And I told you I'd give you. anything. This is all you want. Well, of. course, the the wise man wins the game. of chess. And then the king realizes. when you go two to the power of 64, you. double it 64 times. It was more grains. of rice than would fit in all of India. >> That's right. >> Uh and that's an example of a big. exponential problem. Uh and how it. grows. And so what we do as computer. scientists is we. >> optimize and figure out how much of that.

do we really need at any given time and. we cache it. So that's I think ties. together this idea of how video games. only render that which is observed. >> So tell us about caching and and lazy. loading as well. >> Yeah. I mean do should we draw the. analogy first to the quantum physics? However you want to do it. >> Yeah. So in quantum physics there's this. thing called the observer effect. >> which I think everybody has heard of. Uh, and it's based on the double slit. experiment where light goes through two. slits and if it's a particle, if you.

have if a particle is solid, you can. really only go through one of those. slits. You can't go through both. >> But if it acts as a wave, >> it basically, you know, spreads out with. this weird interference pattern. It's. like it's going through both. And what. quantum physics is telling us is that. it's not until it's observed or measured. that the particle decides which slit. it's going to go through or even which. slit it just went through. Now, that's a. weird kind of thing because if it's a. particle, it could only have gone. through one. But quantum mechanics has a.

thing called superposition. >> And the superposition says it's in. multiple states. >> or in all states. >> in all states. And so it's at the same. time it's a supererset of all the. possible positions. >> if you will. That's where the term comes. from, right? >> It's also used a lot in quantum. computing which we can talk about later. if we get if we have time. >> But it's in a state of superp position. and then when it gets observed it gets. rendered. Now this is usually where I. bring up Schroinger's cat.

>> Oh, we can if you want to. >> People have heard it. >> People have heard it and I and and. Schroinger was trolling because he. didn't like this. But but we can use it. We can use it. >> Shining thought it was bizarre, right? And didn't like it. And he said, "Look, it's ridiculous to say that a cat is in. superp position, right? >> It's either alive or dead. We won't get. into the details, right? But it's in the. superp position until you open the box.". >> Now, common sense says, "No, no, no. Hold on. It's either alive or dead. already. We just haven't looked in the.

box, so we don't know if it's alive or. dead." Uh but no, that's not what. quantum indeterminacy is actually. saying. Right. >> It's saying it's in both of those. states. >> That's why he was wrong. >> Right. He was wrong. Yeah. He ended up. being wrong. Uh and there there's an. aside to this if we get on to talking. about multiple timelines with Schroinger. that we'll get. >> We have to. >> Yeah. But I looked at that as a a guy. doing video games and a guy who's been. optimizing code all my life and I. realized, oh, the rule of thumb there is.

only render that which is observed. Until then, it stays as a set of. information and a set of probabilities. And I thought that's just like how we. build video games. We render the part of. the world that gets observed. Uh now in. the old Newtonian model, the world just. exists. all the particles are there and. we move through it. It's kind of like. King's Quest where you can move the guy. around but all the pixels are there. But. in quantum mechanics, it's like the. pixels are generated in dynamically. And.

so that was a big uh that was a big. insight for me that oh. quantum indeterminacy is so bizarre. Why. would it possibly exist? And I said well. because it's an optimization technique. >> That's right. If you have limited. resources, you only need to render that. which is observed. Now, that brings up. all kinds of questions about what. happens if there's multiple observers or. different people seeing different. things. But there's also something.

called caching in computer science. And. what we do is if I have just been to. this world and it gets generated or this. room, let's say, and then you bring your. avatar into the room, well, your. computer is going to render it faster. because the the data is already there. But more than that, the next room is. cached and so is the next room over. there on the. >> because there's a probability that you. might go into one of these places. So. you can sort of preload the algorithm. >> Yes. It's preloading. Right.

>> Right. >> It's like, oh, he didn't go in there. That's So that's fine. We have this one. preloaded. So render that. >> Right. Exactly. So you render it. quickly. So it's all about performance. because uh there are operations which. are slower or more expensive and. operations which are quick. And in a. multiplayer game, the most expensive. operation is to go from your computer to. the server on the internet. That's the. slowest part of the whole process, >> right? >> And then bring information back. Now, imagine there's, you know, a million. players all doing this. Well, you have.

to kind of optimize in such a way that. assets can be loaded. It was funny a few. years ago, uh, these filmmakers called. me called me up. Uh it's been a while. since I've talked to them and they said, "Hey, we're trying to develop this show. for Netflix and it's called the these. guys are live in a little uh small town. and they look up and they see this. dialogue box that says sky not found, [laughter]. >> you know, which is like an asset. What. happens in video games when it can't. find your assets?" Uh but so co caching. is basically a way to save what's.

needed. And so in this model of using. the observer effect like a video game, as long as there's at least one. observer, then you still have that. rendering there. >> And then you also have multiple levels. of what game designers would call LODs. just in case, right? >> Yes. Right. >> So that LOD is a level of detail. So. we'll show it to you, but just just as. much as you need to, >> right? Especially like we're we're. talking about things off in the. distance,

>> right? And then you can go in and the. assets can become higher and higher. resolution. Kind of like I I don't know. if people remember this, but like when. JPEGs used to load on uh old web. browsers. >> Sure. >> You know, that was an expensive. operation. Today we think, oh, it's no. big deal. I'm going to download a whole. video like on wireless, but back then it. was a big deal. And so the text would. load first and then slowly it would fill. in y, >> you know, the actual images over time. And that's it's it's an optimization. technique. So. >> and now that's called lazy loading on. >> Yeah. And so lazy loading is a good way.

to think about it. Uh and in fact. there's an underlying concept called. lazy evaluation. which goes down to the code level. So it. basically says don't execute any code. unless you absolutely need to. >> So what is it holding on to? >> So what it does is it looks for. references. >> Oh. >> So it's actually a timing issue more. than right. So before we're talking. about optimizing the number of bits you. send, we're talking about optimizing.

your GPU, your graphics processing unit. for for drawing things. But this is. optimizing the CPU. And what it says is. if you had like a really long equation. x= 1 + 2 to the power of this plus blah. blah blah blah blah and then you never. use that variable x later in the. program. It's not needed. Now maybe it's. used, you know, a couple days later the. program's running and now it needs x. Okay, I'm going to go back and calculate. that big long equation because that's an. expensive operation, >> right?

>> Uh and so lazy evaluation is actually. built into a lot of programming, you. know, languages and compilers and. virtual machines like Java etc. which. says basically only run the code that. you really need to run. It's like having. comments like when when when you have. comments in code. I mean again coding is. becoming a lost skill now because of AI. but the comments aren't part of the. actual program. they're not really. needed. So when it gets compiled, it. doesn't compile the comments. It just. gets rid of them and it's just compiling.

the code parts. Now when you're running. it, I I remember I was back at MIT and. we did a I had a professor who was. studying parallel processing at the. time. >> I think later he became CTO of Sun uh. Sun Microsystems and bunch of other. things as well. But but he was like. trying to come up with a way when you. have multiple processors. uh and like with AI today GPUs are the. constraining factor. Um this is you see. video games in most technology advances. Uh like AI uses GPUs. Cryptocurrency you.

know mining uses GPUs. Uh and GPUs were. developed for graphics in video games. >> Is this why most games are built on. engines? Because a lot of that math has. already been handled. >> Yeah. Because engines make it much. easier to build a game because what. would happen is in the old days everyone. had to write everything from scratch. including the physics engine. Sure. >> The loading engine like the things we. just talked about you'd have to write. you know how do you take a 3D model and. put like the rendering or the textures.

which is like putting the the clothes. and the the skin on top of the person. >> particle systems. particle systems, all. that stuff is a has been built over many. years. And in the old days, every team. had to write all that themselves, >> which would just take way too long, >> right? >> Uh now there's Unreal and there's Unity. Unity became big partly because the. mobile game industry. >> Yep. >> Because it was a way of doing uh a game. on iOS and on Android, >> right? once write the code because.

before that people used to write their. games. >> directly on in C or objective C or Java. for the other one. But so it the whole. engine makes it easier to build new. worlds on top of it. And then some. companies like you know the Unreal they. they made their engine available to. other people as a product so they can. build games on I think it was the Unreal. Tournament initially. >> Yeah it was. >> is what it was built as right. Yeah. And. then it became you know a pretty solid. engine. And it's probably one of the. best ones out there right now.

>> My favorite. >> Oh, yeah. You got you guys use it here, right? Yep. >> U and and so where were we going with. this? Oh, >> parallel. >> Yeah, the parallels between quantum. mechanics uh and the way that we write. code. Uh because the big question is not. just does this happen because I think. you know quantum mechanics has been. validated. >> Yes. >> Uh this stuff happens. We don't know why. it happens and we don't know how to. think about it or interpret it. Now. there's another uh B. So the first most. popular interpretation is the Copenhagen.

interpretation, >> right? >> Which basically says that all these. probabilities exist and then the. probability wave collapses down when an. observation or a measurement has been. made. >> Right? That's the wave function. collapse. >> The wave function collapsed. And that to. me reminded me of what I've just been. talking about. >> Yes. >> Which is the optimization and the lazy. evaluation and the caching and the. rendering and the first person point of. view. >> You didn't need to know the position. yet, >> right? Yeah. We didn't really need to. know. No, it was there. >> What's going on? >> And you can calculate it.

>> You can calculate what might have. happened before then as well. This will. get more interesting if we talk about. multiple timelines. So I'll come I'll. come back to that. >> Um and so so the other popular. interpretation of quantum mechanics with. it with physicists is now they didn't. like this idea that you needed an. observer, right? >> No, they didn't. >> Especially a conscious observer. And so. they're like, okay, can we find an. alternative? So, you know, one of my. favorite physicists from the 20th. century is a guy named John Wheeler. >> Mine, too. >> Yeah. He was a great. >> delayed choice. Yes.

>> Delayed choice. And so, he not only was. at Princeton down the hall from. Einstein, uh, but he was also the. supervisor, uh, a PhD supervisor for. Richard Fineman. Yeah. >> Who's a Nobel Prize winning physicist at. Caltech. And many people know about him. from the Challenger explosion. Was it. the Challenger? Columbia Challenger in. 1986 when he he like took the little. O-rings and put them in uh in ice water. and said, "Look, let's look at what. happens to these.". >> That's right. Yeah. >> Yeah. And this was much later in his. career. He also [clears throat] wrote.

the paper. There's an interesting story. here about uh. >> how quantum computers came about, but. we'll come to that later if we have. time. >> Um and so Wheeler was a supervisor for. him, but also he was a supervisor for a. guy named Hugh. >> Everett. >> uh who was looking for an alternative. And he basically said that all these. wave functions get separated and that. would kind of mean that there's multiple. worlds where each of these things. happened. So that became known as the. multiverse. u or the many worlds interpretation. right. >> is the more formal representation of.

that. And Einstein didn't like it. >> No no. >> and bore Neils Boore who was you know. the other kind of really big giant at. the time um didn't like it either. And. so Wheeler said, "Take out the stuff. about there being multiple physical. worlds. Just stick to the math." And so. Hugh Everett needed a job and he's like, "Okay, fine. I'm just going to finish. this dissertation and go off and get a. job in industry." Uh, but that became. the basis for, you know, a lot of great. science fiction today. >> Why do you think Neils Moore and. Einstein didn't like I know that they. didn't really like quantum mechanics,

but they accepted it. Why didn't they. like many worlds interpretation? Because. you can still have your block universe. theory just in a different universe. I. think Einstein just didn't want to go. there for the implications because, you. know, he had his the univer God does not. play dice. >> That's right. That's true. >> With the universe and that became, you. know, it wasn't so much that he didn't. like he didn't it wasn't that he. disagreed with the math that was in the. dissertation. >> He tried to disprove it. He couldn't. >> Yeah. He couldn't. And then he didn't.

want to get into this the interpretation. element of it. Uh and then Boore didn't. like it because it was different than. his Copenhagen. In fact, it's called the. Copenhagen interpretation because Boore. near Boore was in Copenhagen and he had. his group of people around him. >> and a bit of ego. >> And a bit of an ego, of course. Yeah, that happens a lot in science. >> Uh, and so that's the other big. interpretation of quantum mechanics. >> Where do you land? >> So, this is what's interesting is when I. looked at both of those and I said, okay, what are the problems? The first.

one, you know, they don't like that they. need a conscious observer. Uh there's no. way to define what this collapse is. That's the real mathematical problem is. it's like it goes from all these. possibilities to this one and nobody. really knows how it works. It's like. magic. >> It's like magic. >> There's this old cartoon comic where. it's got a professor on the board. writing a whole bunch of equations step. one and then over here step two and then. step three's got the answer and his. professor or the other professor is.

sitting there saying, "Can you tell me. more about step two?" And step two says, "Then a miracle occurs. [laughter]. >> [gasps]. >> That's what happens. >> That's what happens, right? Uh but if. it's a video game, well then there we. have a mechanism for that observation. We have a player. We have an actual. conscious entity that exists that is. that causes the collapse to happen based. upon the choices and what they're. seeing. And so that's where it ties to. the video game. Now the big inter the. the big problem I mean there's great, you know, superhero movies. You probably.

seen the the Spider-Man meme where. you've got like the Sure. Sure. the. three Spider-Mans, Andrew Garfield, Tom. Holland, and who's the third one? Toby. Toby McGuire. Yeah. They're all pointing. at each other. Well, you know, they're. coming from a different branch of the. multiverse, right? >> That's that that's what we're told. That's how you can have all these. different stories. >> Um, but the problem from a a science. point of view is they say it's not. parsimmonious. >> And what that means is it requires too. much faith. You're you're you're. creating a new world. Okay? Not just. every day, not just every hour, not just.

every second, but at each quantum. determiny point at each choice, >> which would be at the plank scale. >> At the plank scale and maybe even at the. plank time. >> at the plank time, >> which uh you know, by the way, the plank. scale is another reason why I think, you. know, >> same. >> physics is showing us that we're we have. pixels in the. >> sounds like pixels. >> It's the smallest measurable distance. >> and plank time sounds like frame rate. >> Exactly. a clock speed or frame rate. Yeah. Which is And now we.

>> we we do know that the universe is. probably quantized. Scientists don't. agree on whether time is quantized, but. it might be. And that would make sense. if it was inside a simulation. Most. people have bought like, you know, a. MacBook or that's like x megahertz or. gigahertz pro. They don't know what that. means. What it means is hertz is in is. instructions per second or cycles, >> right? >> Per second. And so you can only do so. many and you can't really do anything in. between that minimum time, >> right? >> And that's what the plank time is is. like the the amount of time it takes.

speed of light to get through the plank. length basically. And so if we have a. minimum uh pixel and we have a minimum. frame rate or a minimum clock speed of. the processor of the universe then. everything is a multiple of those and. it's more likely we live in a um in a. pixelated type of reality which is like. a computer program. >> That's a lot of universes. >> That's a lot of universes. [laughter]. So so it's not parsimmonious and you. have to create all these universes, right? >> But there was a physicist named Amit.

Gowami. Um he wrote uh what did he. write? It was the conscious universe. I. forget his book, but he wrote he wrote a. few really he's a physicist uh who. writes about consciousness as well. And. I was listening to one of his talks and. you know somebody says something that. you kind of store away and you don't. think about till later and he said look. those probabilities. aren't really probabilities in the sense. that we think of them. He goes it it's. what would happen if you did it again if.

you kept doing it a bunch of times. Right. Oh, >> then that's the then it's a probability. >> Yes. >> Right. So, where does probability come. from? By the way, there was a a. mathematician, I don't know if it was. Pascal, it was one of these French. mathematicians who began with a P and. some guy was rolling dice. He was. playing dice. And he asked him, hey, can. you quantify, you know, how I can win at. dice. So, he came up with this idea. He. said, if you have one die, a single d. single dice, a die has six. possibilities. He called them six. possible futures. I mean, he literally. used that term. And he said, "So your.

chances of getting one of those futures, if it if it's evenly weighted, you know, we're in Vegas, so [laughter] use a. gambling analogy. If it's properly. weighted is one out of six, but you. can't really have a probability until. you've tried something multiple times. Like, you know, you could try the coin. flip once, but you're not going to get. real probability unless you flip it a. bunch of times, >> right?" And so, >> but yeah, a lot of times, >> a lot of times you need to get up to a. certain number. And then it got me.

thinking, well, if it was a simulated. universe, >> you could actually run as many times as. you wanted. You also didn't have to. infinitely run every single possibility. Okay? Why? Because you would basic, if. you think of it as a big tree that just. keeps expanding. This is the the problem. with it being infinite. You could prune. >> large parts of the tree. Like the. universe has something called. fine-tuning. >> Mhm. >> Which is if a certain number of. constants like the gravitational.

constant or these other constants were. like slightly off by like 1%. The. planets would fly apart, the galaxies. wouldn't stay together and there's like. so many of these people can look them. up. There's at least 12 and there's. probably more than that now. Uh, but it. looks like the universe is fine-tuned. and well, if you were running a. simulation, you would run it multiple. times and then you would basically prune. the tree for all the versions which. don't have life. So, there's no need to. go down that tree. >> That's right. >> Again, thinking like a computer.

scientist, you're not going to want to. run all your processors on everything. You're like, that's not interesting to. the simulation. So, let's just focus on. this subset of possibilities. >> Right? So you tune Avagadro's number. until it's just about right. Yeah. Or. Moles's constant or speed of light. Yeah. It's. >> like this is what works. Throw that. stuff out. >> Right. Exactly. And you tune that stuff. and that leads to what I like to call a. simulated multiverse. So this is why I. ended up writing the second book on. simulation which is now the older book. because I have the second edition. And.

also I I interviewed Philip K. Dick's. wife, >> Tessa Dick. >> Tessa Dick. Yeah. >> Wow. What was that like? >> It was really interesting. I mean it was. over the phone. Um, and but she had so. many stories, you know, of. >> Oh, wow. >> and she's still around. Um, and you. know, she would tell me these stories. and and I interviewed her because the. Wowskis who made the Matrix were. inspired by Philip K. Deck. >> Of course. In fact, she told me I I I. asked her what would uh, you know, what. would Philip think of the Matrix? And.

she said, well, first he would like it. That's the first reaction would be this. is awesome because it's very similar to. his ideas. And his second reaction was. he'd call his agent to see if he can sue. these guys and get some of the money. >> probably good. >> for using his ideas. >> I think their deja vu explanation came. from his talk at Mets in 77. >> Yeah. And so she encouraged me to go. watch that whole talk and there's a. written version. >> Everyone should. It's amazing. >> and there's a famous line from it where. he says we are living in a computer. programmed reality and the only clue we.

have to it is when some variable is. changed some alteration occurs in our. reality. And so when I originally I was. just interested in the first part of. that which is we are living in a. computer programmed reality. And if you. see that video the camera pans away from. him and looks at the audience and. everyone's like what? >> I love it. They think they're going to. see a sci-fi author talk and they're. getting this philosophical it's it's so. important that talk. >> It really is. Uh and in fact they show. this woman who's like turns out her name. is Joan Simpson. She was his friend. She. went with him to the conference and even.

she had no idea. And if you look at the. written version of that speech, the rest. of the speech is there, but that line is. not in the written essay. So he must. have added it in in his notes while he. was flying over there. And but if you. read the rest of the speech, what he. what the next line is u we would have a. sense of reliving the same moments uh of. deja vu that such an impression is a. clue that at some point in the past a. variable was changed and reality was.

rerun. And so he claimed to remember a. different alternate past. And uh his most famous book while he was. alive was actually The Man in the High. Castle. >> It won like all these awards back in. 1960. And for those who who don't know, they may have seen some of you may have. seen the u the Amazon series, which is a. really good series by the way. Uh I. talked to his wife, she said he would. have loved it that adaptation. But in. that uh Germany and Japan have won World. War II and they end up, you know,

splitting America between them and you. have kind of a police state on both. sides. and he came to believe that that. was a real timeline. that actually happened uh where the axis. powers won the war and now we're on a. different timeline and he said at some. point all the memories came flooding. back to him he was writing a sequel to. the book too by the way was he. >> that's what Tessa told me and she said. but once he got all the memories he. didn't want to go there because he there. were such bleak memories in that.

timeline. >> yeah he said he saw it he said this. happened but but somewhere the variable. was changed. Exactly. Who changed it? >> He called it the programmer and. counterprogrammer. And so, you know, he. used this idea of orthogonal time. >> which he compared it to a bunch of suits. in the closet. You can try on one suit, you can try on the other suit. But what. he also said uh so so Tessa encouraged. me to read his um uh his speech and I. looked at that speech and I said this is. really about rerunning the simulation.

and changing variables each time. He. also said we would need to find a group. of people like him who remember an. alternate timeline. >> Uh and of course back then it was hard. to do that. But now we have this thing. called the Mandela effect. Uh and. whether you believe in the Mandela. effect or not, it's a great way to talk. about this idea that maybe we are having. multiple possible histories. >> Well, let's talk about that because. people love it. Mandela effect never. worked on me until there is one that got. me. Uh otherwise the Baronstein bears.

all that never fruitless the uh well you. tell the story. >> Yeah. >> What's the Mandela effect? So the. Mandela effect is when some subset of. the population remembers a different. version of some past event or some. object in the past. And the it's named. after Nelson Mandela because some people. remember him dying in prison back in the. 80s. And of course he didn't in our. timeline, right? He actually, you know, was released from prison. He became. president of South Africa, won the Nobel.

Peace Prize and died I think at like. 2013 or something. >> They remember his funeral on TV. >> Yeah. They remember details. Winnie, his. wife, taking over the AMC. >> Uh, they remember all of these. And then. Fiona Broom was the blogger who coined. this term. She was actually at a Star. Trek at a a Comic-Con convention in. Atlanta. >> Let's call it Dragon Con. And it was a. Star Trek uh uh panel. And the panelists. were like actors from the original Star. Trek series. And if you know your. Trekies, you know, they know their uh.

you know, >> they know their stuff. >> They know their stuff. They know their. episodes. and and and people in the. audience were like, "Don't you remember. the episode where Captain Kirk did this, >> Mr. Spock did that and maybe Mr. Saloo. did that." They're like, "No, we never. saw shot such an episode." And multiple. people in the audience remembered this. And so she started to think, is it. possible that there are other ones? So. she set up a website and started to. explore and she used to find all these. different Mandela effects. Now, someone. came to me and I always thought it was. just faulty memory, by the way. >> Same. Uh, if you ask me what it was, I. mean, fine, a letter changed here, a.

word changed there. Uh, but a friend of. mine from MIT who typically, you know, a. lot of my MIT friends don't get into. this stuff. They're very kind of. leftrained about these things. He said, you know, if you go down that rabbit. hole, see, your simulation theory ideas. are a pretty good way in which this. could actually happen. >> And so these, you know, between Tessa. talking about it, Philip K. Dick talking. about it and him talking about it. I. couldn't get this out of my mind that if. you reran the simulation, you would. actually end up with slightly different.

versions. You could have small changes. like little things changing or you could. have big versions. And then if you try. to merge these multiple timelines, some. people may have the memories from one of. the other timelines. Uh and so I. categorize these into different. categories. You know, things like letter. changes is one. Uh then there's things. like movies is another category. The. events. >> the Moon Raker one is the one that got. me the. >> Oh yeah. So yeah, the Moon Raker one. >> that she doesn't have braces, but I. remember the braces.

>> Right. It was Jaws who had the steel. teeth and then he meets Was her name. Dolly? >> Dolly meets Dolly. >> at the end. And I remember that too. >> You remember the braces? >> I remember the braces, too. I mean, that. was the whole point of what got me. >> Yeah. And and so there's a few like that. that really got me. I most people know. the Bernstein Bears one. Uh, and what I. like to say is if someone has proximity. or significance to an event and they. remember it differently, that's more. interesting to me than just some random. guy remembering different things. So, there was actually a blogger online, I'm.

forgetting her name now, but people can. find it in the simulated multiverse book. where she was a journalism student and. she flew to South Africa to interview. Nelson Mandela and he was too sick to be. interviewed. So she went all the way. there and she came all the way back. Then she graduated probably back in the. 80s now and was working for NPR. So. again, she was in the news industry and. she heard that Nelson Mandela had died. And now you're not going to get that. wrong if you went there to meet the guy. No, >> you're not going to say, "Oh, that was.

the other black guy, Steven Vo, which is. what the the standard explanation." Most. people remembering him wrong, I can. understand it. And so if there's more. significance and each time I look at. these events, I find people who have. more significance. So one of my favorite. ones is Tianaan Square. You remember. that? The tank the tank boy. Yep. >> And the tank went What do you remember? >> I I remember it the way it happened that. the tank went around him. >> That's how I remember it as well. But I. I started asking people about this and. there's always a certain percentage.

>> that remember. the tank running over the guy and they. remember it as one of the bloodiest. things they saw. >> Yes. >> On on the news like they were shocked. that they were actually showing that. >> Uh and so usually it's like 10 to 20% uh. in a group. I was on a panel once at. contact in the desert. Paul Heinneck and. a few other people were on it with me. Two of the people were like what? I. absolutely remember him being run over. So I asked at a recent conference and I. always do said does anyone remember Tank.

Boy being run over and nobody raised. their hand. So I thought okay this this. audience doesn't have this Chinese woman. comes up to me afterwards and she said. she lived in Beijing at the time and she. remembers him being run over there but. she didn't raise her hand and didn't. want to say it. So that's the first time. I met someone who had more proximity to. that specific one. And similarly there. are people who are Jewish who remember. asking why are the Bernstein like why. are they Jewish bears to their parents. Now, they're not going to get that. wrong. No, >> the rest of us might get it wrong. >> Sure. >> Uh and so, and then there's the Bible.

verses. Okay. Have you heard of Isaiah. with the lion and the lamb? Do you. remember that verse? >> Yes, I know the verse. >> So, there's a verse about the lion will. lay with the lamb. >> Yeah, that's not the verse. >> It's not the verse, but that's how a lot. of people remember that verse. >> The lion lays with the kid. The leopard. lays with the kid. >> The wolf lays with the wolf with the. lion. The leopard with the kid. That's. So, that's a Mandela effect. >> That's a Mandela effect because people. remember the lion and the lamb laying. together. And there are even like, you. know, people with wall calendars that. show a lion and a lamb and say Isaiah, >> yeah, that's not it. >> 111. And again, it's one of those things.

that people take a little more seriously. with their scripture, right? Because. they remember. So, and I thought, okay, well, maybe they're looking at two. different translations of the Bible. They're looking at, you know, one that. happened to translate it. >> Uh, but they're people are telling me, no, in their King James Bible, it used. to be the lion with a lamb, >> and the physical object has changed. So. recently I met uh someone who's a. actually another blogger and podcaster. named Alexis Brookson. She said she went. to her Catholic priest and she said, "Do.

you remember the lion, the verse with. the lion?" He goes, "Yeah, the lion will. lay with a lamb." And she's like, "Okay, now go look it up." And she he looked it. up and he's like, "What?" So you have a. Catholic priest, again, somebody who's. closer to it. >> Uh and there's another interesting. scriptural element which we'll come to. in a second. But the other one that. really got me was the thinker. The. >> the statue. >> Yeah, the statue. >> So if you look at it today and and. there's a cast of it at Stanford. I was. happen to be in Silicon Valley. So I. went to look at it. You know where's his. hand? Do you remember where his hand.

was? >> On his chin. >> On his chin. And was it clenched or was. it kind of like this? >> I don't remember that. I thought I. thought it was kind of fisty. >> Yeah. If you look at it, it's kind of. like kind of not really clenched too. hard. It's kind of. >> Right. Right. But there are all these. people who took pictures standing next. to the thinker like this with their hand. on their forehead. That's weird. >> And there are people who remember it. that way, but if you look at the. pictures, it's not there. And so again, I thought, okay, maybe they're pranking. us. Like what's going on? Why are these. random people putting these pictures? Because usually when you take a picture. next to a statue and you you get the.

pose, you're trying to do the actual. pose. And then turns out there's a. picture uh an actual picture of George. Bernard Shaw. So GB Shaw was a uh you. know he's a well-known guy in England. He also modeled for Rodan and for other. people and they were doing uh the London. release uh of the thinker uh and they. were unveiling it in London. I forget. what year, like 1900 something, 90, 1901, maybe it was 1910. And they took a.

picture of him, this one photographer, and it says, the title of the picture, and you can find it online, is GB Shaw. in the pose of the thinker. And guess. where his hand is? It's up on his. forehead. >> Wow. >> And that picture is still there in. museums, and there are plenty of uh, you. know, people can find it online. And so. is is it possible that some variables. are being changed in a way? U and and so. I I began to think, >> well, which ones got you? >> So that one got me, the thinker. >> The thinker.

>> Not not because I didn't remember it. I. mean, I remembered it. >> I wasn't that close to it, so I didn't. think too much about it, but seeing the. physical evidence. >> of this picture really got me. That's. one that got me. Uh I mean, there the. the Jaws one was another one that I. remember. >> I mean, Jif Jiffy Peanut Butter wasn't. that big of a deal to me. Uh there's a. famous one about in Star Wars and the. Empire Strikes Back where you know Luke. I am your father again I think that. could be just faulty memory. >> I think so. >> collective faulty memory uh I mean there. there's so many now that I've come.

across and so Chick-fil-A is another one. like does it have a K in the. Chick-fil-A? >> That's right. That's right. That would. probably get me. You know, I read an. interesting theory about um Jaws that. made me feel a little better is. sometimes when you're remembering, especially if it's a long time ago, your. brain fills in what would be most. logical cuz that joke works better if. she has braces, >> right? Yeah. >> So, that made me feel better. But that. was one that blew my mind because I was. like, I remember all this stuff.

perfectly. No, I don't. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's there's so. many of these. Uh, so I was looking. around at explanations. Um, and uh, so. we'll go down the the quantum rabbit. hole again in a second, >> please. >> But I I began to wonder, the scripture. stuff really got me, too. Not because I. remembered the scripture. I mean, I. remembered the lion lamb, too, but I'm. not that religious. I began to wonder if. there's other scriptures. that have changed. And in Islam, the. Quran, right? Islam is the second. biggest religion after Christianity. The.

Quran is memorized word for word. Uh, and you can think of the the reason why. and like the the exoteric or normal. reason why is probably just because not. a lot of people could read back then or. you know so they but they literally. recited it word for word and and there's. even a designation of a guy who knows. all of that and uh and and I looked. around to say hey is anyone claimed that. this has changed at all and there's one. Sufi imam uh and again the exoteric.

reason is is because not everybody has a. physical book the esoteric reason he. gave he said that there are beings. that are allowed to go back in time and. change objects. >> Oh, >> but they are not allowed to change your. memory. >> I know these beings. Uh tell us about. >> these beings are called the jin. >> The jin. Yes. >> Yeah. In in Middle Eastern lore. And you. go to the Middle East and people take. you know these beings very seriously. Oh. yeah. >> Uh I mean people get possessed by these. beings. There are well I mean when I I I.

was born in Pakistan and you know it was. kind of like the boogeyman like you know. there's a gin over there don't pee don't. pee on that tree but then it turns out. there are actual people who like poured. scalding Jacques Valet told me a story. of a guy in Saudi Arabia where a kid who. like poured scalding water and then got. possessed and supposedly there was a gin. and a priest had to come in and do kind. of like an exorcism but he had to talk. the jin out of it saying he's just a. young kid he didn't know what he was. doing and the jin was like okay and they. released him and wow Wow, >> there's so many interesting stories.

That's that's a huge different rabbit. hole to go down. But I got. >> in tune, I think, though. >> Yeah, it's so in tune. And I got. interested in it because it became a way. to think about simulation theory as if. you have run this more than once. You. could have changed things along the way. Now, it's very easy for us to think of. multiple possible futures like, okay, I. go to New York, I go to London, I go to. live in LA. Those are three different. possible futures. But it we're not used. to thinking of multiple possible past. I.

mean that's that sounds weird to say. there could be more than one past. Well, it turns out there's something called. the delayed choice experiment. >> I I was hoping this was going to come. back to John Wheeler. >> Yeah. So, we're going to come back to. John Wheeler. >> Actually, could we take a quick break? >> Yeah. Take quick break and we'll talk. about how the past is not really the. past. Yeah. Be right back. >> Take some photons, shoot them at two. slits, you get two lines. Observe it. You get an interference pattern. Got it. John Whiddler said, "Wait a second. What. happens next?". >> Yeah. So, he came up with what's called.

the delayed choice double slit. experiment. >> Okay. >> And. you know what it's telling us is that. time is not what we think it is. That the present, the past, and the. future are different from the way we. think about it. I mean, we think of the. past as being linear. >> We know what happened, right? It's just. one timeline. This is what's happened. along the way and that the delayed. choice experiment opened up an. opportunity that the past could also be.

in superp position. Now the best way to. understand this actually is not so much. the slits but it's what what what called. the cosmic delayed choice experiment. >> Okay. And um he said suppose there's. something like a quazar which puts out a. lot of light and it's really far away. from us like a billion light years. Right? So that would be outside the. galaxy beyond the Andromeda galaxy. And. how long would it take for the light to. reach Earth? Let's say Earth is here. It's going to take a billion years,

right? >> But suppose right in the middle there's. a big black hole or some other big. gravitational object and the light has. to make a decision about whether to go. to the left or to the right of. >> ah okay. >> Okay. And that's kind of like two slits. Yeah. And we can have telescopes here on. Earth that will measure. through what's called polarization of. light whether it went this way or that. way. >> Right? >> Okay. So the measurement happens now, >> but it has to go one way or the other.

>> like. >> let's say it's halfway. So how long ago. would the decision have to have been. made? It would have been half a billion. years ago. Right. >> Right. So we're back in the age of the. dinosaurs now at this point. Right. Or. even Yeah. before the dinosaurs. It's. kind of like saying if you're going to. go to, you know, San Francisco from New. York, are you going to go up towards. Chicago or are you going to go down. through Tennessee, Arkansas? You have to. make that decision like well before you. get to San Francisco. >> Yes. Um now what the delayed choice.

experiment is telling us is that it's. when the measurement of the light is. done today on earth that the decision. gets made on whether the it the light. went to the left or to the right of that. black hole. Okay, that's weird because. now we're saying that the past isn't. fixed that the past is in superp. position and it's only when the. measurement is done here. It's like an. observer effect but for time not just.

for space. >> Those photons went back in time to make. the decision about today's observation. >> Well, that's one interpretation of it. Okay. The other interpretation is that. both of those existed as possibilities. and they didn't get fixed until today. So again, did Germany or Japan win World. War II? Germany and Japan, did the. allies win World War II? What if that. decision isn't made until somebody.

observes the result and then that result. is cashed now so that everybody is on. that timeline for some period of time? Uh and this to me was an interesting. revelation because it reveals that there. could be a simulated multiverse of. multiple timelines. Okay? Because what. if what we're really thinking about is. we ran the simulation one way and we. also ran it the other way and we are. basically pulling the past in on demand.

Now, you'll appreciate this because not. only do we optimize resources with lazy. evaluation, but we also say, you know, don't run something until it's needed. >> Right. >> Right. And so in a computer game, let's. say like Farmville or Minecraft, okay, kids still play Minecraft today. They. have crops that grow. And what happens. is you log in and it you see that the. crops have grown since you logged in. yesterday or four hours ago or whatever.

the case is. Uh and now. what happens during the time that you're. not logged in? And the answer is. nothing. >> Nothing. >> because it would take too many resources. to sit there and calculate every single. growth of every single blade of grass or. of wheat, you know, for that time. So. what the computer does is it's when you. log in, >> it basically renders what might have. happened over the last x period of time,

right? >> Let's say 24 hours. And it uses a. database of probabilities to say, what's. the probability that your crops were. destroyed by a locust? >> What's the probability that your. neighbor came in and stole some of your. crops or that the fox got in and ruined. a few crops? And you see it as this is. what's happened now. my crops are all. grown. I can now sell my crops. But what. just happened there was that the past. was generated on demand. So it's not so. much that you're changing the past.

because physicists don't like that. Physicists don't like when you say. retrocausation. It's that you are. filling in the past based upon the. observations as it's made. And there. could have been multiple possible. versions of that. >> Oh, I like this. >> So that's a different way to think about. time. Now, is it possible that some of. us are remembering one version of the. Mandela effect? And you know, we talked. about uh ones that got you, like the. Jaws one. >> Uh you know, there's another one. >> There's a there's a famous one about.

Simbad being in a movie. Oh, yeah. That's right. Shazam. And it turns out. it was Shaq and Kazam. >> That's right. But so many people, you. know, would swear they had a VHS tape. and the story was like this and the kids. are asking the genie about his dad that. Simbad actually recorded in like 2017 a. little clip from this movie that never. existed [laughter] as kind of a joke to. say, "Okay, here's here's the scene you. guys all say you saw but never existed, >> right? >> But people remembered it." Uh, you know, so so many different versions and.

Mandela effects. Gino has one for you. that I can't reveal to you. He's going. to tell you later. >> Okay. But is it possible that we are all. remembering a different version? Now I. thought, okay, that's the delay choice. experiment. Wheeler proposed it as a. thought experiment. He couldn't do it at. the time. It required like like pretty. complex setup. >> And so, you know, is it just a thought. experiment? Well, it turns out no. >> People have actually run this. experiment. >> They have. Now they obviously they. haven't run it for like you know the. cosmic version but what they've done is.

they've gone through two slits and. they've sent uh a particle up to a. satellite a thousand miles away and so. the question is when they measure the. particle or let's say the light using. our example from the satellite it it was. a thousand kilometers from the slits. themselves and the question is is the. decision made about which slit to go. through like here like when when it. first starts out in the slits or is it. made after the light travels a thousand. miles and 1,000 miles is not that far in.

the scope of things but when you're. talking about you know nanconds it takes. a lot of you can measure it. >> yeah you can measure it and it's very. measurable by today's instruments is the. point and they did this experiment and. they found in fact that it was in superp. position until it was measured by the. satellite okay so then I said well how. come more physicists don't talk about. this and so I went back and I found an. obscure speech by our favorite quantum. founder Schroinger. >> Okay,

>> this was an obscure speech he made in. the 1940s. I think it was a Caltech and. nobody talks about this for some reason. U people talk about the multiverse which. was you know late 50s early 60s. Uh. people talk about the Copenhagen. interpretation. Um he said that in. effect once the observation was made we. would not just be deciding the state the. superposition. but we would be choosing from one of. several.

simultaneous one of multiple. simultaneous histories. So literally. Schroinger is telling us there are. multiple simultaneous histories and it's. like when you choose look at the cat. you're not just choosing whether it's. dead or alive. Sorry for bringing the. cat back. That's okay. But what did the. cat do before it jumped in the box? Was. Did it come from the living room or did. it come from the the dining room? Before. that, was it in the backyard or was it. in the front yard? >> It's like you're choosing this history. >> and that is the one that is now being.

part of our simulation is what I would. say. >> I've got to read that speech. >> Yeah, it's very obscure. And I have a I. have a reference to it in the simulated. multiverse. Uh but I've never heard. anyone else talk about it. I found it, you know, when I was looking around. online for the earliest references to. the multiverse. And again, we think of. the multiverse as, you know, branching. out this way. There's a good uh there's. a series on Apple TV called Dark Matter. I don't know if you've seen it. >> I did. I did. >> It's based on a book by Blake Crouch. And when I was researching the. multiverse, I had read that book along.

with many others. Uh and uh basically, you know, this guy has multiple versions. of of his life. And one of what happens. is he gets kidnapped by somebody and he. gets taken away and he wakes up in a. whole another university than he was. working at and he finds out who it was. that kidnapped him. It was himself from. another. >> version of the multiverse who had made. different choices. And that guy although. he was like almost like a Nobel Prize. winning physicist he didn't have a. family and kids. And so that guy is.

taking over his family and kids. Uh, I. won't tell the rest of the the the book, but that that's pretty much described. Even if you just look at the series, you'll know that's what it's about. But. so the multiverse, I think, brings up. this idea that we could run multiple. processes and maybe they're running, you. know, to try to see what the outcomes. are. And maybe the outcomes that are. less than ideal. Um, just like I talked. about with pruning, maybe we prune, we. meaning whoever runs the simulation runs. these different things because you never.

run a simulation just once, do you? No. >> simulation of the weather, simulation of. virus, simulation of, you know, financial or whether an asteroid is. going to to hit us. There's something. called the threebody problem. I'm sure. you've heard of that. Y. >> it's when we have three bodies that are. kind of circling each other. The. question is, will they stay in a stable. orbit. >> or will one day one of them fly off? And. it turns out we don't know the answer to. that, >> right? >> Because there's no shortcut. You have to. just keep running it to see. And there's.

a a term that came from a a computer a. physicist turned computer scientist. named Steven. >> Wilfrram. >> called computational irreducibility. >> right. >> and Wilfrram was pioneer in many things. He wrote the Mathematica software but he. also was a pioneer in cellular automa. which for those who don't know they're. like simple rule sets. Y. >> it's like you could have one row of. squares and the squares would light up. or not depending on if the next square. is lit up or not and it'll go dark. following these rules. So these are very. simple rules, a very deterministic.

version uh of reality. And then there's. what's called the game of life. Yes. Which is a two-dimensional grid. And if. you watch it, >> it in and nowadays, you know, we run it. on computers, but when the guy Conway. came up with it, he literally had a grid. sitting at the University of Cambridge. and his mathematical students would like. erase squares [laughter] and fill in. squares. Well, what would happen is you. get these very complex arrangements. Every now and then you'd get a stable. arrangement. Y. >> which means you know it's going to stay. this way or or it flips back and forth.

but they have what they call complex or. chaotic uh results or processes and. those you don't know what's going to. happen. This is the kind of the basis of. complexity theory. >> And the game of life is just quickly the. rules are the. >> rules are if you're if the next square. is lit up and the one next to it is lit. up then you light up, right? >> And if the maybe the one on top of it, I'm making up these rules, but these are. the types of rules. Sure. And the one. below it is lit up, then you go dark, right? >> And so at each step, every square. follows these rules. So it's a very. simple computer program. Now for complex.

and chaotic processes and you would. think we could predict what's going to. happen but it depends on the initial. conditions and this is what led to the. whole uh science of chaos theory. >> Sure. Loren and all that. >> Yeah. Loren and also you know people. remember Jurassic Park with Ian Malcolm. who's a kayotician. That's right. The. the point point was with the butterfly. effect where you know they say the. butterfly flaps its wings in let's say. Hong Kong and the stock market crashes. in in in London. uh there's a whole.

chain of events that has to happen along. the way. And so what computational. irreducibility means is you don't know. what's going to happen at step 1 million. until step 99999. 999, you know, and then you don't know. what's going to happen at that step. until you go to 998 and to 997 and all. the way back. So you have to run the. computer program. And so even for a. deterministic process that has no free. will, >> okay, you don't know what's going to. happen for chaotic and complex. processes. And I believe our simulation.

would qualify as a complex or chaotic. process. And so Philip K. Dick believed. that the timelines were altered. And I. asked his wife, well, did he tell you. any other examples of this? And she. said, yeah. She goes, they told him. And. I said, well, what do you mean they? you. know, did you see them? She goes, I. looked like he was talking to somebody, but it looked like a little blur to me. or something. >> like the they that runs this. >> that runs the simulator. People outside. it looked like did they look like gray.

aliens? Did they look like she's like I. couldn't really tell, you know, because. only Phil could see them, but she could. tell there was something weird that he. was talking to like an entity. >> And she said they told him that they. prevented the assassination of JFK in. [snorts] Dallas, [clears throat]. >> but then he was assassinated in Orlando. Wow. >> And then they prevented it in Orlando. and then he was assassinated somewhere. else and every time they changed it, it. resulted in a worse outcome like a. nuclear war or he just ended up dying. somewhere else.

>> So he had to be assassinated. >> Yeah. It's kind of like if you've ever. read that book by Stephen King or uh uh. you know the the the miniseries 112263. where goes back in time. >> and tries to prevent the assassination. I won't give it away, but you have to. read it to see like how the past doesn't. necessarily want to be changed. But for. for me, that's like it's very similar to. what we would do if we were running a. simulation. We would run it and we'd get. to a point and say, "Okay, that's that's. enough on this time. Now, let's run the. next one. Now, let's run the next one.".

And so it provides simulation theory. provides a bridge between the Copenhagen. interpretation uh the collapse of the. probability wave because there's an. observer who's playing the game and the. multiverse idea because it doesn't. require an infinite multiverse. So it's. like at people often ask me what's the. purpose of the simulation this is. >> well sure who's running it and why. >> who's running it and why. And in in the. new edition of simulation hypothesis I. have a. >> uh there's about a hundred new pages for. those who read the over. big update because all the AI stuff.

that's right happened uh all the brain. computer interfaces the technology side. and then I went deeper on the religion. but but there's about 20 pages of FAQs. which are the most commonly asked. questions over since the 20th. anniversary I was I ended up writing. this on the 25th anniversary of the. matrix u and one of those questions were. you know what's the purpose of the. simulation who's running the simulation. I say, "Look, I let me ask you a couple. questions back. One, why do we run. simulations? And two, why do we play. video games?" Uh, and I believe the.

answer to those two questions gives us. an answer for why we might be in a video. game in a video game type simulation, a. personal purpose and a bigger societal. purpose. And the reason we run. simulations is to see what is the likely. outcome under this set of variables. And. then we would change the variables. And. we also want to know what is the the. most favorable outcome, right? We're. like, hey, if we do this to the. asteroid, what will happen? Will it miss. Earth or will it hit the moon? And. that's just as bad,

>> right? [laughter]. >> As it hitting Earth because if the moon. gets really smashed, then you know, we'll be screwed or whatever the. simulation is. So, it's to find the most. likely outcome, the most favorable, and. maybe to avoid the least favorable. outcome. And you have to do that, you. have to run it multiple times. But at. the personal level, why do we play video. games? Entertainment. >> Entertainment. We want to have fun. So, we want to experience certain things. Like I can't, as much as you know, I. used to read Lord of the Rings, you. know, when I was sure teenager still now. I just watch the movies, but I used to. read it every so often. I can't jump on.

a dragon and shoot, you know, arrows at. orcs in this particular reality, but I. can do it inside a virtual world. And. it's a safe a safe quote unquote way to. do it. And to have bad experiences, too. Like I I I don't believe the purpose of. the simulation is Grand Theft Auto, right? >> Probably not. >> Yeah. So, so anyway, that that ties to. to to you know, some of these these. bigger questions around why would there. be a simulated universe in the first. place and why would there be a.

multiverse? >> But that's projecting our sense of. morality and intent onto some greater. consciousness. So, what do what do you. think their endgame is? Are they looking. out for us? Because there's a lot of. suffering. There's a lot of suffering in. this world and I I often say people say. to me, well, I can't be in a simulation. because if I was, I would be a. billionaire and I would be an actor. >> My kid wouldn't have got cancer. >> My kid wouldn't have got cancer. You. know, Holocaust, all these things, right? >> But it depends on the nature of the game.

and what we're trying to experience. Like when we run a simulation, we the. better they get, we're going to run uh. you know very bad scenarios through the. simulation. What happens if the virus. spreads to everybody? Right. >> Right. And we want it to be as realistic. as possible eventually. Now, this gets. back to the NPC versus RPG versions. >> Yes. >> Which which we started talking about. And I think it ties to this bigger. question because in an NPC version, of. course, they're going to have suffering. on us because that's why you build. simulations and that's why you run NPCs.

like like that doesn't imply that we. couldn't be in a simulation just because. there now in the RPG version it gets. even more interesting in my opinion. because there people are choosing roles. that might have bad experiences bad. quote unquote u or suffering if you were. >> now you know I used to play Dungeons and. Dragons and right back before now it's. popular again because of Stranger Things. >> right. >> but back in the day when we used to play.

it back in the 80s you know we with. pencil and paper and you would choose. your character. Yeah. You would choose. the race. You would say it's a elf, >> dwarf or human, let's say. And then you. would choose the general profession, thief, cleric, right? >> Warrior, you know, it's not. >> Paladin. Oh, yeah. That's right. And and. it's not that, >> you know, you couldn't, you know, the. the wizard couldn't also be a good. fighter. It's just that that's not their. skill set. So you're choosing almost. like aptitudes in a sense and you're. choosing a storyline or a profession in.

And then you choose the campaign that. you're going to be on, >> but you also choose the morality whether. evil, good, chaotic, evil, all that. stuff. >> That's right. Yeah. There's all of this. stuff that you're choosing. And some of. those roles are not good roles. >> No. >> Yeah. But that to me gets back to this. idea whether you can you can treat the. simulation theory in one of two ways. And again, it's an access just like NPC. and RPG is an access because you can. have both NPCs. >> and RPGs in the same game. It doesn't.

have to be 100% of one or 100% of the. other. In fact, most games have both. >> Uh, and I'm I'm assuming the audience. might be familiar with that term, but if. they're they're not NPC stands for. non-player character or non-playable. character, and it actually comes from. Dungeons and Dragons. Sure. The tabletop. game. Yeah. Because, you know, you had. to interact with a bartender at the inn. you had to interact with the guy at the. armory who's selling you, you know, the. plus five crossbow or one of these. other, you know, items. Uh, and there's.

going to be enemies there that you have. to fight as well. >> Well, which are we? Were we the NPCs or. we the RPGs? >> Well, that's that's an interesting. question. Uh, and I like to say that. we're we may be both because there's. something in between. Okay, which is. that we choose roles and we are playing. the roles but we also go into NPC mode. for other people in that we are playing. certain role like there are people who. may have had a role in your life that's. a relatively small role or a major role.

uh but and one woman came to me once and. said you know I think my husband is an. NPC. >> oh no. >> I said that's not a healthy way to think. about in fact it's better to think about. everyone as a source player. >> with their own storyline their own. difficulties and their own quests, but. they're going to play roles for us and. which could be they're going into NPC. mode because that is a role that we have. agreed to kind of like in a film. Uh now. I I like to say that the other way to. think about the simulation hypothesis is.

a metaphor for reality. So the one way. is it's literally code running on a. machine. And if we really get into it, I. think it's closer to a quantum computing. device uh than a regular digital. computing device. But. >> the other way is to say the video game. is a metaphor for this idea that we are. coming into this fake or hoaxed reality. >> Uh and that we are playing a role and we. have agreed to forget that we're playing. that role. Um and. >> so there's a consciousness out there.

that that we're not even aware of that's. driving this reality. >> Yeah. So it could be that we're a. player. Wow. >> And we So AJ, Riz, Dino, Joe, all these. guys, we are the avatars of our. consciousness which is which is sitting. outside of the simulation and playing. the game. Now in the Matrix, you know, Neo, Morpheus, and Trinity existed. outside of the Matrix. Uh, and of course. they look the same because if you're. going to hire Ka Reeves in a movie, sure, you want him to be, you know, the.

same character. But in a game when you. choose your avatar, you don't have to. look like that. It doesn't have to be. exact. You would choose the role that. the character has. And outside you could. be something else entirely. You could be. >> This feels like reincarnation a little. bit. >> It does. So. >> you respawn. >> You respawn as a new as a new character, but you may have some of the skills that. you learned. >> There's evidence of that. >> I'm playing right. There's like the work. of Ian Stevenson in particular. >> uh with the children who you know have. marks where they claim you know they.

were killed violently uh there's people. who remember languages. >> yep life between lives by Michael Newton. talks about. >> yes so I I spent a lot of time looking. at life between lives and I you know. when he talks about the in between time. so what he did was he hypnotized people. and and also Dolores uh. >> Cannon did the same thing I was about to. Dolores Claymore. That's [laughter]. I mentioned Stephen King earlier. It's. probably why uh but there's a period. just before you go into the life which.

first there's life selection and they. lay out here's the possible trajectories. that you might take in your life and. here's the major decision points you. might make. Now you're still free to. choose to go this way, you go live in. California or you live there. But if you. go there, how are you going to meet this. other charact player who's going to be. your wife or your husband? >> Uh, and but there's different challenges. along and these are the quests or. challenges that you're going to deal.

with in this life. >> Yes, that's very interesting. >> So, if you think of games and how. they're built today, you have difficulty. levels of quests. We have like a quest. tree typically. >> where you start off with simple quests. and then you unlock the more difficult. quests. That's very interesting because. Michael Newton talks about and many. researchers about soul groups that. always sort of reincarnate together and. that makes me think it's just a bunch of. nerds around a table saying, "All right, let's play again. Reset the table. I'm. going to do this. You do that and we'll. start rolling dice.". >> Exactly. Or like, "Hey, we're all going.

to meet on Tuesday at this castle to. have a raid." Right. And Michael Newton. even talks about these little clues that. you're gonna I mean, I call them clues. uh you he called I forget what he called. them exactly but they were like signs. that oh when you meet this person you're. going to recognize them because you know. she's going to be on a red bike or she's. going to have an earring and you just. can't stop looking away from that. earring right have you ever had that. experience of course deja vu or you know. where does it come from is it because we.

made an agreement to meet that person at. this point in time now that helps us to. reframe the idea of suffering as well. because another metaphor that was used. by spiritual in spiritual traditions. So, uh in the Hindu traditions, they. talk about the Leela, the grand play of. the gods and Maya, which is an illusion. The world is an illusion, >> right? >> It's a hoax. And the Buddha talks about. the world is a dream. I mean, Buddha. literally means wake up, woken up, like. I have awoken. Like a woman said, "What.

are you?" And he said, "I am both." And. what did that mean? It meant he was. awake. Which meant the rest of us were. asleep and dreaming. Um and you know. Shakespeare had his metaphor of the. world's a stage stage right. >> uh so Swami Yogananda who was one of the. first Hindu swamies to come and live in. the US he wrote autobiography of the. yogi. >> which was passed around during the. hippie generation and it was Steve. Jobs's favorite book right. >> so much so that at the end you know. after his death at his memorial service. at Stanford everyone got a little brown.

box and they opened it up and there was. a copy of autobiography yogi in there. Uh so it really introduced a lot of. westerners to these eastern ideas. Now. yoga had a challenge. It was 1920s. There's this brown guy with long hair. He's here and he's trying to teach about. yoga and karma and and Maya and and he. needed to translate it into newer. technological metaphor. So he used the. metaphor of the video of the sorry the. film projector because that was new. technology. >> right? So right back in 1920 films were. relatively new to the a to the world and.

he said that we are like actors in this. film and there's suffering happening to. those characters but the actors aren't. dying but they choose the role with. suffering uh but there's a part of us. that's outside and you have to look away. from the screen to see the light. It's. just a projection of of all of that onto. the screen. And so he would use that. metaphor. And I believe if he were alive.

today and actually wrote a book uh. called wisdom of a yogi about his. teachings, they asked me to write it. Harper Collins India emailed me one day. and said, "Will you write this book. about yoga nandanda? Why do you want me. to write the book about yoga for Indians. like young Indians, professionals, >> a Pakistani American with an Islamic. background. >> who grew up in Michigan. >> from [laughter] Michigan? >> I was like, are you serious?" They're. like, "Yeah, we want you to write it." I. like, "Why is that?" They said, "Because, you know," and I do reference, you know, yoga. I reference other. mystics. Like there in the subtitle. there's quantum physics and eastern. mystics. But, uh, they said because, you.

know, you use these technology analogies. that younger people, meaning like young. professionals will understand. And I. thought about it and I thought if. Yogaandanda were alive today, he would. say we're like in a film, but we're the. actors and we're the characters. We all. have our scripts and these roles we're. supposed to play, but we can change. those scripts. We have free will. We're. also the audience that's sitting there. watching us or you could say like a game. where you're sitting around tables. deciding what to do. And what does that. sound like? It sounds like a massively.

multiplayer online role playing game. >> It does. >> Yeah. >> Um speaking of uh Yogaanda, can you tell. us about the experience you had in. Anenitus? >> Oh yeah. So um I was asked to write this. book and I said, "Okay, I'll write this. book." And I started writing it and this. was during co uh and I was hitting a. little bit of a writer's block because. you know it's like this big. responsibility. You're writing about. this well-known and loved spiritual. figure and you know I just for those who. haven't read autobiography yoga it's. chalk full of stories of like uh saints.

that are like levitating in the air. billocation. You know this guy's over. here sitting and meditating and somebody. sees them in the park. Uh you've got. like you know the perfume saint who can. make any perfume odor appear on his. hand. You've got this mysterious guy in. the mountains who supposedly has been. living there for 800 years. You've got. this fat 300 lb swami that was 180 years. old when he died supposedly who's really. wellknown. So you got all these stories. and I kind of like these stories. You've.

got a guy with a gin who's controlling. what I rep what what I confirm what I. think is a jin. He's a Muslim faker. who's controlling an invisible entity. that's making you know like this cup. appear and disappear. And so I was like. this is all great you know but I gota I. gotta like write be serious and write. you know some serious lessons. And I. wanted to go visit the place where. yogaandanda wrote autobiography yogi and. that was in Ensenus. >> Uh he has a hermitage there and he. actually had a some some you read. autobiography of yogi and you think wow. man everything goes well for this guy.

He just says divine mother give me this. and it all happens. And if you read. about his life, you realize he had many. many challenges. And at one point, his. entire his entire organization fell. apart. And he's like, "Oh man, I just. want to go to India and meditate in a. cave.". >> Uh the message he got was, "No, you need. to stay in the west. [laughter]. You know, you're here in America for a. reason." Uh and so then he decided to go. to Encanus and write this book. Uh for. about 10 10 years or so it took him to. write the book. And so I wanted to go to. the Hermitage, which is beautiful. If. anyone's ever been there, it's like.

overlooking the Pacific Ocean. There's a. beach. He used to walk now it's. literally called Swami's beach that's. the formal name for it and so I wanted. to go there and check it out but it was. during COVID and it was you know closed. to the public and so through another. series of coincidences I I got to meet. some of the people at SRF told them I. was writing this book and they said okay. for you we'll open it up and so. literally I went down there and they had. you know some of the monks or monastics. who live there you know gave me a little. private tour we sat around and talked. and I got to go to yogaandanda's office.

where he wrote the book. >> Wow. >> Uh just by myself and they're like here. just you know relax do whatever you want. and I decided to meditate and I'm like. okay I need a you know so this is. inspiring me and it was and then. suddenly I got a vision of yoga nanda. now again it's one of these visions. where you're kind of present and you. still you're still sensing this vision. >> Is it like the man by the tree? >> Uh no it sort of lives similar to that. but this is a vision of yoga. >> Wow. >> Similar. And he's sitting there with a. stack of papers which is how they wrote. books back then. you know, it was typed.

out and he's kind of looking at me, but. with his mischievous grin. Um, and you. know, I always thought thought of him as. a very serious kind of guy, but if you. talked, you know, you you read some of. his other people wrote about him, he was. very mischievous. He would play. practical jokes on his students and. stuff. >> and he's like kind of a glint in his eye. and I was like, "Yeah, wow. That's. that's him writing autofy yogi. I'm. having a vision of it here." and he kind. of smiled at me and he took those papers. and he opened the French doors or. whatever that go out to the ocean and he. tossed them all out there and they flew.

everywhere AND I WAS LIKE stop what are. you doing like back then once you lost. the papers that's it you'd have to go. rewrite the book and he smiled and he. laughed and I was like okay what is he. trying to tell me he goes watch the. papers and each of the papers turned. into these little white doves and they. floated off to carried his words to. different parts of of the world and. somehow that like totally got me out of. my writer's block because he was also. saying have fun with it like don't don't. treat it so seriously and it's our words. that we leave behind but say what you.

want to say and just have fun and so I. just started writing about all these. yogis with these superpowers right and. the book just flowed from there and it. went on and it did quite well uh in. India as well um. let's say everything that you've talked. about is right and we really are in a. simulation what does that mean for us as. regarding free will does anything matter. Yeah. Well, sometimes people say if I'm. in a simulation, nothing matters. And. I'm say, well, that depends on the.

nature of the simulation. You know, if. we are here to learn lessons and have. certain quests and achievements, then if. you don't make the quest, what do you. do? You're going to have to do it again, right? >> That's right. >> Uh it's not like you just give up. And. then, you know, you you you may have. more difficult quests afterwards. And so. when we have difficult situations in our. lives, whether it's financial, health. related, relationship related, war, suffering, you know, we can view it as a. more difficult quest that is part of our.

storyline. And perhaps, you know, we can. give meaning to these problems to say, okay, this is a terrible thing that's. happened. But if I view it as a higher. difficulty quest and in fact maybe the. people whose lives are easy are the. early players and the ones who are. having you know the the the more. difficult lives maybe they're the. advanced players. >> I believe that. >> you know along with I mean you've. probably heard of the telepathy tapes. >> of course. >> uh with Dr. Diane Hennessy and you know.

she was uh working with these autistic. kids who were telepathic. So she called. me up a few years before the telepathy. tapes came out and she said, "Oh, you. know, this is my work. I've been working. with these autistic soant children and. you know like Rainman type where they. can, you know, calculate these numbers.". And she goes, "I don't think they're. calculating. I think they're looking it. up in a database." And I think this is. an information-based reality. Uh, and so. one of the the the best explanations she. could come up with at the time was that.

this is some kind of a simulation. And. so she actually sponsored a conference. on autistic sants and simulation theory. And you know now these autistic kids are. showing us abilities that the rest of us. don't have. But maybe and we view them. as having a physical handicap because. they're non-verbal one meaning most of. them can't speak but they can you know. point to things. They also don't have. fine motor controls right? They have. gross they can move their arm. they can. put their finger here, but many of them, you know, don't have the fine motor.

controls to be able to write like by. hand. Of course, today you don't have to. as much, but um and so I began to think. about that in this context and realized, well, what if the rest of us are in the. full body suit of the video game or like. Ready Player One. >> and we have the headset on and all we. see is this first person perspective. But because like with a go with a glove, I've got like full control. I can, you. know, do every little thing that I want, but if I was half in or half out, or if.

I was sitting there with a mouse, okay, I I could move my character around. I. could point at things, but it's going to. be really hard, right? >> But I can see stuff from a third person. point of view that you can't see. >> That's right. >> I can put the virtual camera over here. I can message my friends. I can use, you. know, me private messaging. And then, you know, one of one of the autistic. children, her name is Leu, uh, and she's. been at some of these conferences with. her mother, Dalia, who's also. demonstrating a lot of amazing. capabilities like mindsight and stuff.

But Dalia came up to me and she said, "Leu wants to tell you something." Oh, what does Leo want to tell me? She goes, "When she's communicating with her. friends, it's like they're in a video. game is what she said. And they can help. her and she can see what they're doing. and she can help them. So, it's like. they're all in a video game together.". And so for me, this was a way a. different way to think about many of. these things. >> Like they're closer to the source code. than we are. >> Yeah. They're closer to the source code. and they have control of the virtual. camera. Yes. >> Which we they're not locked in. And that. there's some disadvantages to that, but.

they're actually perhaps the more. advanced players who are trying to get. the rest of us to to wake up that. there's more to this reality than we. know. >> That's right. I I can get behind that. Last thing for you. What. questions or answers do you need to be. sure this is simulation or be sure it's. not? What are those? What are those. things? >> Well, it's a good question. Uh, and. again, I think. it depends on where you are on this. access, right? So, uh, I mentioned the.

access from the NPC to RPG version. That's one access that's important. The. other axis is do you view this as a. literal computer simulation or do you. view it as a metaphor for something very. advanced? And I like to say that it's. really four propositions that I'm. proposing or asserting in these set of. books. The first is that the world. consists of information and not physical. matter. Now I I met I just uh last year or the. year before in fact when I was writing.

the second edition I spent a semester. over at the University of Cambridge in. one of their AI groups. In fact the guy. that I work with Henry Chevlin was just. uh he was just hired as a philosopher. goo for Google deep mind and the story. went viral that Google deep mind is. looking at consciousness by hiring a. philosopher that specializes. It's. >> very interesting. >> in that it's really interesting. Um, but. while I was there, I met a Nobel. Prize-winning physicist from the 70s and. I was telling him these propositions. >> You can't name him. >> Oh, yeah. Brian Joseph. Oh, okay. He's. actually fairly wellknown. Uh, something.

to do with quantum telling. I forget. what he won the Nobel Prize for back. then, but he's also very into different. uh models of consciousness. >> Um, he also says that, you know, his. colleagues didn't want to talk about. this stuff and he had a lot of stigma. from his colleagues just just for. investigating it. Um but when I told him. that first proposition he goes you know. what that's not controversial anymore. that that the world consists of. information. >> It's not 30 years ago phys physicists. would have said yeah that's. controversial because there's a whole. branch of digital physics there's amount.

instead of just talking about. conservation of energy and conservation. of momentum. We're talking about. conservation of information like does. information get lost? Does it get. destroyed? Uh so I mean sure some people. might disagree but for the most part the. idea that that we live in in. information-based reality. Now John. Wheeler his other favorite phrase was it. from bit. >> right. >> uh and that's why that's when he became. my favorite physicist from the 20th. century and what he was saying was he. was looking for this thing called a. particle and we think of a particle as.

hard right it's a physical object but he. couldn't find it it's it's like those. Russian dolls you know I think they're. called the matroka dolls. >> or the babushka dolls if they're male or. female there's different versions but He. kept opening up this thing and looking. for this thing at the bottom and it was. just empty at the bottom level. And so. he said what he the conclusion he came. to at the end of his life was that the. only thing that distinguishes one. particle from another is an answer to a.

series of yes no questions. And what is. that? That's a bit I mean the basis of. information theory is a one or a zero. Y. >> and so he came up with this phrase that. said anything that's physical like this. coffee cup or mug actually consists of. bits of information and so I think. that's a perspective that's gaining. traction let's put it that way you can. argue with it but you know I think it's. not you know that that hard but then. that information is getting computed. over time we see evidence of algorithms.

in nature for it the second proposition. is kind of obvious but really hard to. prove and it is that the world seems. physical so it gets rendered for us. The. bits are rendered in a way that looks. real and feels real. Right? When we. think we're touching the wall, we're not. really touching the wall. Like there's. like electrical signals like the basis. of the universe is electromagnetic, >> right? It's mostly empty. >> It's 99.9% empty space. You got on the. molecules, it's 99.9% empty. You look at.

the atoms, >> it's 99.9% empty space. You look at you. know you go down to the subatomic. particles and in the end what you have. is a set of information and that is just. like a video game. Now there I'm making. argument by analogy that's not. necessarily. a formal argument but it's an informal. one just like the Copenhagen. interpretation. Nobody knows how the. Copenhagen interpretation works. Nobody. knows how the collapse works. And I'm. saying that basically like a video game. there's no castle there. There's no. dragon. Those are just bits of. information coming to your machine and.

they're rendering it for you. >> The third gets into the metaphysical. side, you know, >> which is that this universe is a big. hoax, [laughter]. >> a big hoax, >> a purposeful hoax, >> Maya. >> like Maya, an illusion. So this is what. gets into the religious and the Maya. I. I was u reading about uh Roger Eert, you. know, the film credit. >> Yeah. So, he died not that long ago, unfortunately, from throat cancer, but. his wife was with him when he died. naturally. >> And she talked about his death. And she.

said the last thing he said. >> just before he died was, "Oh my god, it's all a big hoax.". >> Wow. >> And she said that meant that the. physical universe that we think is real. is all a big hoax. And other people, you. know, that get close to that boundary, you start to hear similar things and. start to talk to people. So that the. physical world is not just information. And it it's it's like a big hoax. Like. Maya means illusion, but it also means. kind of an illusion that you agree to.

walk into and to fool yourself. Right? We're here in Vegas. There's like, you. know, the magic shows with I don't know. who the latest David Copperfield, Chris. Angel, whoever the latest. >> musician is. You go to a uh and and. that's the best analogy I've heard from. Maya. They said you go to a magic show. and you know that guy is not really. sawing the woman in half but that's what. makes it exciting is it's like magic. right you don't know how it's done but. it's an illusion it's a slight of hand. >> you know and the Buddha you know. eventually came to this conclusion uh. you know where he talked about uh.

everything is like a reflection in a. very clear mirror devoid of inherent. existence. So you can buy that or not. buy that proposition but certainly the. spiritual traditions buy that. And then. the fourth one which is similar is that. you agreed to be here and play a. character which is the video game. proposition. Uh you know pure. materialists don't like that at all. because they'll say well there's nothing. beyond this physical world anyway. >> right? >> But to me if you take all of those. together that encompasses why I wrote. this book was so that I can talk to.

physicists at MIT about now they may not. agree with that it's a simulation or a. computer simulation but they're willing. to talk to me about these ideas. I can't. go in there and say I want to talk to. you about uh you know guys leaving their. body floating around and seeing. apparitions uh and haunted tours or UFOs. or be like ah we're just going to. dismiss this out of hand. But they're. willing to talk about the world being a. a simulated reality or and if it is well. then maybe there are entities that exist. outside of our visibility that exist.

outside of the simulation that would. seem supernatural to us. >> like UFOs. >> like UFOs or angels you know. >> or angels could UFOs that we are seeing. be part of the simulation somehow. >> I think so. So there's two different. ways. So one way is u. even if they're extraterrestrial which I. think many many of those of us who have. studied it realize that there's much. more going on in order to explain the. data like if you want to really be. scientific about it you want your. observations and data to match your.

explanation. Yes. >> Uh but on the on the one hand when you. have a multiplayer game you're not just. going to have one planet. You're. probably going to have multiple planets. So in fact, part of the purpose of the. simulation could be do you get off the. planet, do you destroy yourself, >> what's called a great filter, or when. maybe we're we're all trying to get to. the point where these civilizations. meet. But then it gets weirder, >> right? And on your show, I'm sure you've. covered some of these weird phenomena, but when I met with Jacques Valet, he. started telling me about these cases. where like one person would see the UFO,

the other person would. >> all the time. I began to think about that and I. thought, "Huh, that's interesting." And. he said, "There was another case where. this UFO came down at a 45 degree angle. and it landed in a clearing and. supposedly it left a mark." So everybody. went muon went and they're looking at. the clearing and he said, "Well, wait a. minute. If it came down at a 45 degree. angle," and this was in like Pacific. Northwest where they have these big. trees.

>> He's like, "It would have had to have. cut through the trees, but the trees. aren't cut. I mean, they're still. there." They said, "Yeah, I did. It went. right through the trees, but we don't. want to say that cuz we sound crazy, right? So, they're they're they're. censoring their observations. I thought. about that, too. And then then you see. these observations where these things. move around like from here to here. It's. almost like they're projected into our. reality like a light or a holographic. projection. And so, when you res inside. a a game or you know, you're resing, you. can kind of move through walls because. everything's not fully rendered yet. But.

once it's rendered, they're physical. And so is it possible that UFOs. represent a projection into our reality. in a way that makes sense to us in that. we are a technological civilization. Aliens make at least some sense to us, right? More than the jin like the nuts. andbolts aspect. So in this paper that I. mentioned at the very beginning of of. the show about stigma in academia uh the. stigma is getting less because of the.

government and the New York Times. article uh it's still there but it's. getting less but only for part of the. UFO. >> phenomenon. >> and that is the nuts and bolts part of. the phenomenon. >> not the consciousness part. >> not the consciousness not even the alien. abductions. >> No. >> because that would require acknowledging. beings and beings that are more powerful. than us. Uh and it gets into all of. that. uh and you know there's this kind. of boundary there but we can at least we. can accept that okay maybe there could. be aliens because we know now there are.

other planets around other solar systems. and so maybe the they're presenting. themselves to us as aliens because that. is a technology that would make sense to. us at this point in time uh whereas in. the 50s all these contactes are like. they told us they're from Venus right. >> okay we know they're probably not from. Venus okay assuming they exist First of. all, we know they're probably not from. Venus. They're probably not from Mars. But that was what they told them. Why? They were lying to them. Why? Because. they could wrap their minds around it. Imagine if you had said we're from Zeta. Reticuli. No. A thousand years ago. They.

would be like, "What are you talking. about?". >> Couldn't understand it. >> They couldn't understand it. And angels, they could understand. >> Yes. Thousands of years they could. >> Jin they could understand. >> Yes, they could. >> The Fay they could understand. And is it. possible that that So there's what's. called the Avatar theory of UFOs or the. Avatar hypothesis. There's two different. versions of it. Gary Nolan talks about. one version. I talk about the other. version. >> This is a good time to say that you're. on the board of the Galileo project with. Avi. >> Yeah. I'm I'm on the advisory board.

Yeah. >> And and you work with Gary Nolan as. well. >> Yeah. I've worked with the Soul. Foundation. I wrote a white paper on. venture capital investment [laughter]. in UFO. So, I'm deep in the topic. >> So, you're in the topic. In fact, in the. academic world, because I I went back to. get my PhD after, you know, I have about. 15 years between my bachelors and my. masters and another 15 years between. that and the PhD. And they're like, I. you know, I don't wouldn't talk about. this UFO stuff too much if I were you. I'm like, I already wrote a book saying. the world isn't even real. Like, >> yeah, you're fine. >> You know, UFOs, you know, it's not even. that weird to me. Like, like, at least.

the alien explanation is not that weird. the other stuff maybe. But so one of the. uh the Avatar interpretation I think as. Gary talked about it and uh you know. what had to do like with the film Avatar. in the film he was controlling his. avatar the the the alien but he was. controlling it and so are these beings. controlling the ships and even the. beings that we see remotely. My. interpretation of the avatar of is an. avatar inside a video game is your. character in the game and you can change. that character's characteristics if you.

want but you are projecting into a. physical real into a virtual reality. from outside. So it's not just from. another planet or it's being projected. into and supposedly you know people have. been seeing these these different beings. for thousands of years like the jin art. is it they were just presented. themselves a certain way uh because that. would make sense to the people at the. time today aliens is is an. interpretation that would make sense to. us. Um, and so that is it like in a.

video game you render the avatar and in. some games you can change your avatar. >> Sure. >> Is it possible that they have unlocked. that feature where they can change what. it how it appears to us. >> or could you take DMT and see kind of. behind the curtain a little bit? >> Right. Yeah. And people who've taken DMT. start to talk about things like, you. know, a waiting room, right? Or they. talk about different types of beings. like the the different I don't I'm not a. DMT person. the machine elves or. >> machine elves. You've got like the.

insectoids. Yes. You've got like all. these different versions of beings that. are there. Uh you know, and there's the. work of Danny Gooler who was a a guy who. projected the laser on the wall and he. he saw the code what looked like code. kind of like matrix code but he said. it's not exactly that and other people. took it and many other people can see it. as well. Uh I started hearing about this. right after I wrote the first edition of. the book in 2019. people are like, "Oh, yeah. I've seen the grid lines of the. simulation on DMT." And so, it's very. interesting to me how that kind of lines.

up because perhaps it's suppressing. whatever mechanisms we have in our brain. uh to be able to perceive this other. reality. Um, so yeah, so there's there's. a lot of relationships there, but you. know, my favorite explanation for the. simul for UFOs is that they're they're. being projected into this world in some. way to get us and and this came from, you know, my conversations with Jacques. Valet where he talks about how maybe. they're not extraterrestrial at all. Him. and John Keel, I think, were among the.

first, saying they've been here all. along. And then the materialist version. of they've been here all along is, you. know, lost civilization in the bottom of. the earth or but a nonmaterialist. explanation would be like they're still. here and but they're projecting in they. can see us but we can't see them. And. that sounds a lot like uh you know these. stories that we've been hearing for. thousands of years about the fay and the. Celtic traditions. They can take you. into their world. uh in in the Middle. East um there there's uh there's even.

stories of uh of like hybrids, human gin. hybrids, a man marrying a gin woman and. then having children and then taking. that that child gets taken. >> The Bible has the same stories or or. Uriel taking someone up above the clouds. and seeing seeing the whole thing. >> Right. Right. And so so I think that. that some of that could be going on, you. know, with the UFO phenomen. person I. believe there's something there as. opposed to many of my academic. colleagues who are like h that's all you.

know it's all flat earth stuff right. they kind of and then they kind of put. it all together flat earth UFOs. it's not the same thing yeah especially. in fact I wrote an article for NBC News. years ago. >> uh saying you know uh the government is. taking UFOs seriously why aren't isn't. Silicon Valley in academia uh and. academia still isn't although more are. um that's why I wrote that specific. article all about stigma and. >> very important work. Uh RZ, thanks so. much for coming in. This has been s so.

much fun. I can keep you here another. couple of hours, but I I know you you. got to get out of here. I appreciate it. >> Yeah. Thanks so much for having me on. This has been a fun conversation. You're. right. We could go on for a few more. hours, I'm sure. >> Okay. Bye, everybody. Bye. >> So, that was Rizwan Verk, Dr. RZwan. Simulation theory, quantum physics, the. Mandela effect, [music] UFOs as avatars, whether we picked our character before. we logged into this life. Let's try to. untangle [music] some of this. Well, first, Philip K. Dick's 1977 speech in. Mets, France, that's documented. You can.

find it online. I talk about it all the. time. He stood in front of a room of. science fiction fans and said, "We are. living in a computer programmed. reality." He said a lot of great stuff. during that speech. [music] Definitely. watch it. John Wheeler's delayed choice. experiment. That's real physics. In. 2017, a team took it to space. A. satellite [music] about 1,000 km from. the slits. peer-reviewed journal the. whole thing and the result held up. The. particle was in superp position until it. was measured. So that means at the.

quantum scale the past genuinely doesn't. appear to be fixed until somebody. observes it. Think about that for a. second. [music] At the quantum scale. there is no time. But here's what I keep. coming back to. [music] The idea that. only rendering what's observed isn't. just a video game trick. It might be the. underlying logic of physics [music]. itself. Quantum mechanics already works. exactly the way a game engine does. What. RZ is actually doing isn't selling.

simulation theory as a certainty. It's. something quieter. It's more. interesting. He's showing that quantum. mechanics, ancient mysticism, and video. game design all [music] point at the. same strange logic that reality might be. rendered, not [music] built. And you. don't have to buy the conclusion, but. it's a fact that three completely. unrelated fields [music] approached by. serious people keep landing in the same. uncomfortable neighborhood. His book is. The Simulation Hypothesis, second. edition on Amazon. He's also written The.

Simulated Multiverse if you want to go. deeper on the multiple timeline stuff. [music]. Also find him on X at RZ Stanford, R I Z. S T A N F O R D. And I covered [music]. simulation theory in episode 186. Links. down below. Until next time, be safe, be. kind, and know that you are appreciated. [music].

I play in [music] 51. A secret code. inside the Bible said I would. [music] I love my UFOs and paranormal. fun as well as music [music] singing. like I should. But then another conspiracy theory. becomes the truth my friends.

and it never ends. No, it [music] never ends. I feel the crap. [music]. I got stuck inside M's home with MKL. truck being only true. [music]. Did Stanley Cubrick fake the moon. landing [singing] alone on a film set? I. would shadow [music] people there.

The Roswell just fought the smiling. [music] man. I'm told. and his name was cold. But I can't. agree. I'm dancing with the and. your fish on Thursday [music] night, Wednesday, day two, and. all through the night. All I ever wanted [music] was to hear. the truth. to the world of your feet. through the night.

[music]. The Mman sidings and the solar storm. still [music] come to gather the secret. city underground. Mysterious. number stations, planet circle, [music].

project star gate, and what the dark. watches [singing] found. within a simulation. Don't you worry. though [music]. the black night. Oh, I can't believe I'm dancing with the. fish. on Thursday nights when they chase you. and laughing all through the night.

All I ever wanted was to just [music]. hear the truth. all through the night. fish on Thursday nights when they change. you and me all through the night. All I [music] ever wanted was to hear. the truth. One of the. night.

loves [music] to dance. to dance on the dance floor because she. is [music and singing] a camel and. camels love to dance when the feeling is. Right. Always in time.

>> [music].