What is the simulation hypothesis? Is it just pseudoscience? How do we grapple with its implications? I discuss these questions and more in today’s Ask a Spaceman!

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION (AUTO-GENERATED)

this episode of Ask Us Spaceman is brought to you by the good people at better help. That's better. Help dot com I. I know a lot of you listen to this show as a form of therapy A as a way of, of escaping the world and and just going among the stars on this wonderful journey. Uh, I am a big advocate for therapy. I personally see a therapist, and you would be surprised if you don't currently see a therapist how much they can really help you Just navigate a difficult life just like you see a doctor to help you with physical conditions, you should see a therapist Better help dot com is a way to do that. That's convenient. It's affordable. Uh, these are professional counselors that you can connect to online a range of expertise worldwide. It really is an invaluable resource. Uh, as a listener, you can get 10% off your first month by visiting our sponsor at better help dot com slash spaceman.

You can join 1 million people who have taken charge of their mental health again. That's better. Help HE LP dot com slash spaceman. Let's assume for the sake of argument. And yes, we will revisit these assumptions later that as time progresses, computers get more and more advanced. That's not the craziest of assumptions. But let's say that at some time in the far, far, far, far future, it doesn't matter exactly how far away this future is for this argument to work, just as long as it eventually happens that computers become so dang powerful. And I'm talking like planet size computers using black holes as a battery. Real sci-fi stuff kind of powerful that these computers are so powerful, so capable, that they can simulate the entire universe. They can encode all the physical interactions, all the forces, all the particles.

They can recreate a universe in a box. And this universe is so sophisticated and so faithful to the original universe that we know and love that this universe ends up evolving life because you're doing all physics and life chemistry. Biology is all basically physics. Don't don't tell the biologist and chemist I said that, but for this argument, let's assume that's true and run with it. It's all just physics, and we can simulate all that physics, and we can recreate it and then there's gonna be little little unicellular creatures, and then they evolve to become multicellular creatures. And then they get legs, and then they start getting brains and they start asking questions. And they start to have a simulated version of consciousness, and they start to observe and study and argue about the simulated universe that they find themselves in. They they may even make simulated cheese. They just that there are no limits. Let's also assume that a simulated consciousness a consciousness that takes place inside of a computer simulation is identical to a real one and a real one.

I mean, an organic one. neurons and sodium ions and meat and potatoes. A meat based consciousness is identical to a chip based consciousness and that a consciousness a meat based one in our physical universe observing our universe could not tell the difference. Uh, or we can't tell the difference between a real meat based consciousness in the real universe and a simulated consciousness in a simulated universe. They would look the same. This 100% pure matrix style just consciousness is consciousness, period. It seems fair to say that once we develop the capabilities to create such simulations. We would do so with gusto, because that's what we tend to do. As an example, I'm gonna use Minecraft and Minecraft. For those of you who aren't aware, this is the game that's, uh, like virtual Legos. And you can build stuff. You can do whatever you make a virtual world, and you can craft it to your heart's content. And no, I I'm not using this metaphor because I've been playing it for three days straight and not getting work done.

Not not me. It's just it's a convenient metaphor. Think of all the Minecraft worlds like what a billion people play it or something. Some ridiculous number like that. Think of all the virtual worlds or any video game. Think of all the video games we've made all the times they've been started and stopped. How many players how many hours have gone into these virtual worlds now? Um, scale that up and imagine these video games were so realistic that they essentially copied our universe as we know it, and that when you interact with another character in that simulated universe, they they are conscious for all intents and purposes, and they think that their virtual world is the real world. Imagine if every character or creature you encountered in a video game in Minecraft or or whatever was conscious and think of the number of conscious entities that we have created since we've been playing video games. So as time goes on, the number of simulated brains becomes much, much larger than the number of organic brains.

As an overwhelmingly larger, I'm willing to bet good, solid money that there are orders of magnitude, more virtual characters that we have created that we have turned on and switched off and restarted and gone back to our safe point than there have been conscious human beings in the entire history of our species. And probably more virtual characters have been created and turned on and activated than there are conscious entities in the entire universe. I'm willing to make that bet, and in fact, that's that's the whole point of this argument. It the numbers just come become insane, especially when you have planet computers with black hole batteries. Think of how many games of Minecraft you can get going with that. So ask yourself, given these assumptions that the number of simulated brains vastly overwhelms the number of organic meat based brains. What are the chances that you Yes, you are a simulated brain, Not an organic brain, not a meat based brain.

What are the chances that you're living in the Matrix in a simulation? Well, if you're just a character in someone else's super Minecraft world, well, if we assume and this is the last assumption we're gonna make if we assume that there's no special difference between simulated and meat brains and no reason to prefer one over the other, then we have a trilemma, which is our new favorite word of the day. You've heard of Dilemma, right? Uh, when When you can't decide between two things, they're equally appetizing. Their equal number of valid arguments for both cases and you simply can't decide there is a dilemma. Now we have a trilemma. I'm going to say three statements, and if all of the above assumptions are correct and it's a big if, but we'll get back to that, then at least one of the three statements that I'm about to make must be true because logic statement number one.

For some reason, intelligent beings never become capable enough to develop simulations of consciousness. Statement number two. For some reason, intelligent beings can become capable enough, but choose not to statement. Number three. The vast majority of conscious beings are simulated entities, and then therefore you are likely to be in a simulation. This is what's called the simulation hypothesis. I don't really like to call it a hypothesis because it's not really hypothesizing anything. I like to call it the simulation argument, but that's just me being nitpicky, simulated or not, it's who I am. This was first put forward in 2003 by Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom. Before we talk more and dig into this argument, we need to talk about what it is and what it isn't, because it's very easy to misrepresent this argument in both directions. I've seen people just straight up say, Yeah, of course, we live in a simulation and this proves it, and then I've seen other people say, This is stupid.

Why are we even talking about it? And so I wanna I wanna clear the air because we really need to be clear about what this is. First, though, let's talk about what the simulation argument isn't what it is. It not. It is not a theory of physics. It's not a theory of physics. It offers no testable predictions. I mean, yes, in principle. Nick Bostrom argued that OK, if if the creators of the simulation that we're living in decided to message us and and give us the awareness that we're living in a simulation or or or arrange the a gal pattern of Galaxies is to say hello world or something like that. Um, yes, in principle, that could happen. But that's not that's That's not a testable prediction. In our usual sense of how we test the physics theories, it leans more on persuasive logic than mathematical logic. 11 of the most interesting things I found that struck me in this paper. I don't read a lot of philosophy papers, uh, in in physics papers, we label our equations. When equations appear, we label them equation number one equation number two. Equation number three equation number 57.

Sometimes there can be a lot in this paper. There were up like three equations, I think, and they were labeled with pound in star in symbols and I. I thought that was very jarring to me to just see them not labeled. There were so few equations that they could be labeled with special symbols instead of numbers anyway. But But my point is, this is not a physics paper. This is not a science paper. It's a philosophy paper. I don't usually talk about non physics in this show, but I get this question a lot because a lot of people think that this is a question of science, that this is a question of physics and astronomy and astrophysics, but it's not. But hey, I've also talked about dance on this show, So philosophy is going to be allowed here, folks, and I'm gonna talk about it. The simulation argument is also not pseudoscience. Uh, Sabine Hassen Felder, uh, a popular science communicator, has made this argument recently that that the simulation argument is pseudoscience, but it's not.

Pseudoscience is false science. It's literally the definition of the word pseudoscience. It's when you pretend to be a scientist, but you don't take your own work seriously, like UF oology or or cryptozoology, where you take some of the trappings of science like fancy gizmos and interesting jargon. But you don't do the real work of science, which is examining your own biases and critically evaluating other people's work in your own work. Uh, that that's the real the real stuff of science. And people who study UFO S or look for Sasquatch aren't taking their own work seriously. They're not taking it to their own logical conclusions that they need to. They're not putting submitting their work for criticism and evaluation by their peers. Uh, it's pseudoscience. It's false science. The simulation argument is not that this is not UF oology. This is not cryptozoology. I've also seen the simulation argument being presented as, uh or characterized as a religious argument for for or against the existence of a deity or a creator.

It just isn't It's not. It's not that it's different, different thing, you know. It's also not a new method of agriculture. There's a lot of things that it's not, but it's definitely not a religious argument. I've also seen claims or presentations of the simulation argument that in order for this to work that there needs to be an infinite chain of simulated universes where you have one universe that the original universe and then someone in that original universe makes a universe in a box, makes a simulated universe. That simulated universe then is so good that they make their own simulated universe and so on and so on and so on. You end up with an infinite chain of simulated universes. And so your chances of being simulated versus organic, uh, go essentially to one. That's not the case. That's not the argument here in this case. In Boru's original argument in 2003, it only needs one civilization, some alien species out there or our own descendants because we know we can't do it now.

We can't build a simulation of the universe right now. We are nowhere near that, but maybe 1000 of years from now we could, or some other alien species. All it takes is somebody somewhere to switch on the universal computer and let it run. And it makes lots and lots and lots of simulations and very quickly, just like with Minecraft or any video game once it happened. Once it happens once it happens all the time, and the number of simulated conscious entities vastly outnumbers the amount of organic meat based conscious entities. I've also seen that the simulation argument is presented as a conclusive argument that we do live in a simulation. But the actual argument, as presented by the philosopher Nick Bostrom, ends with the trilemma. That's where it stops. That's where the paper stops. That's where the argument that's as far as the argument can go. That trilemma where I listed those three statements. That's where it stops.

Bostrom has his own opinions. Of course, he thinks it is likely that we do live in a simulation of the Trilemma. He prefers the third statement that we that we live in a in a simulation. But those lie outside of the argumentation of his work, the strict philosophical argumentation. So if you encounter the simulation argument, it is not a conclusive done deal. Stamp of approval. Guess what, folks? We all live in a simulation. No, it ends with the trilemma of maybe we live in a simulation. Maybe it's impossible to make these kinds of simulations. Maybe it's possible, but nobody likes to do it. That is the the end of the simulation argument. So what is the simulation argument? It's philosophy, which is awesome. I see. So many physicists and scientists bash philosophy, which, uh, always makes me laugh when I'm not cringing because science is literally a branch of philosophy, folks, I have a PhD.

My name is Paul Sutter comma PH dot D dot that stands for doctor of philosophy. Science is philosophy. It's a particular branch of philosophy that, uh, focuses on certain kinds of questions in the natural universe is pretty awesome. I'm a big fan of science, but it's part and parcel of philosophy. I've I've seen, uh, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, uh, frequent frequently sneers at philosophy. There's a lot of juicy quotes online saying, uh, things like, Oh, it it just evolves into an argument about words Um, even even though he argues about the definition of the word planet. But that's that's another thing. Uh, but But he's taken. He's on record as, uh, taking the simulation argument at face value and believing there's a 50 50 chance we live in a simulation, as if those numbers mean anything and came out of anywhere. Uh, but then another philosophical argument ended up changing his mind. Um, again, that wouldn't be a big deal to have to encounter philosophical arguments and have them change the way you view the world.

That's kind of the point of philosophical arguments. That wouldn't be a big deal if he didn't publicly and routinely disparage philosophy. But anyway, philosophy is also important and useful folks asking questions that we don't have immediate answers for, and exploring the meaning of concepts that we use to understand the world around us among many, many, many other useful things that philosophy provides. I don't want any of you leaving this episode thinking philosophy is stupid or a waste of time. What is the simulation argument? What is it in philosophy? What does it represent? It represents the latest, and perhaps the most sophisticated version of what's called the skeptical argument. The skeptical argument is the most extreme form of skepticism. And hey, I'm a big fan of skepticism. It's is baked into the scientific method, and it takes the skeptical argument. Takes the skepticism that's normally wrapped into scientific conversation and saying, Well, how do you know you're right, You know, that's that's basically skepticism to me at least.

How do you know you're right? Why should I believe you? Why should I buy that? That's natural, Normal healthy skepticism. It takes it to the next level by questioning the very nature of empirical reality. I say someone comes up and say, This is how supernova work. OK, great. How do you know it works? How do you know what you know? How do you think you're right to say? Well, we have these observations and we we we perform these experiments and the the ratio of elements in in nuclear art processing, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So great. How do you know that reality is real? What an awesome question. What an awesome comeback. But you know what? I reject your reality and replace it with mine. This is the skep. The extreme skeptical argument. These kinds of arguments and ideas go back to antiquity and probably prehistory. Before we started writing things down, you bet there was someone on the Savannah saying, Hey, what if this isn't real?

Anyway, I'm also starving. Let's go catch that antelope. There have been arguments about demons like what if what if a a magical being concocted a universe that we think we're living in or or what if What if this is a dream, you know? Yes, you can tell the difference between reality and dream, but only when you're out of the dream. Only when the dream is over. When you're in the dream it is, it feels real, even though it's weird, but it still feels real M. Maybe the entire universe was created five minutes ago with our memories intact, with light rays already on the way over, with physical reactions happening right in the middle of the act. Maybe it all came about five minutes ago. This is an extreme form of skepticism, and like many deep philosophical questions, it's meant to get the juices flowing. It's meant to get you thinking it's meant to get you wondering and questioning, which is a beautiful thing to do.

Indeed, when I first encountered the simulation argument, my first reaction was, I've heard this before because it's another version. It's the latest version. Is the 21st century version of the skeptical argument these kinds of arguments are not or thought processes or questions are not useless or frivolous. If you're going to argue that philosophy is a waste of time, then you also have to accept that my entire profession is a waste of time, which, OK, some people do willing to have that discussion. That is not a waste of time. It brings beauty and understanding and clarity and joy into our universe. It is a philosophical argument. This is not pseudoscience. This is not religion. This is philosophy. So let's take the simulation argument seriously. Which means arguing against it on philosophical grounds, not religious grounds, not scientific grounds. I'm not gonna pull out my observations of the large scale structure of the universe and the cosmic microwave background and the weak nuclear force to to to bear against it.

No, no, no, no. It's a philosophical argument. So we're gonna talk about it on philosophical grounds. We're gonna take our knowledge of physics and the usual arguments and methods and math we use to justify our beliefs in science and put it over here. I'm I'm reaching at arm's length, by the way. I know you can't see that right now, but it's over here and let's talk about it philosophically. There are three ways to tackle the Sim simulation argument to examine it, to poke at it. And like any philosophical argument, it's meant to be poked at. That's the point number one. Accept it and stop thinking about it and just live with the Trilemma. Say OK, there are three possibilities. Either we are a simulation or these simulations don't happen and the simulations don't happen because we can't or because we won't. That's the three. The three options and you can just sit there and you could just walk away and be done and say, OK, it's one of those three. I don't know. I have no evidence. I have no line of reasoning. I have no argument of a reason to believe one over the other.

So OK, that's fine. You know, sometimes you go to the grocery store and they've got a sale on mangoes and a sale on Cherries, and you just can't decide and you decide not to decide. You just walk away and you go right to the dairy aisle. You just can't pick. OK, so that's that's option. Number one option Number two is to accept the argument, the assumptions that went into the argument and argue that one of the options of the trilemma is more likely than the other. You might argue that it is more likely that we are in a simulation, or it is more likely that we never achieve the capability to run these kinds of simulations or that we choose not to. That's fine. You know what? I had mangoes last week. Let's go for Cherries or attack the assumptions that go into the argument itself. Let's start with Door number one. Let's just accept the trilemma knowing that we can't decide among the options and move on with our life. Does this change anything well in physics? No, Our study of the universe doesn't care if it's simulated or not.

Who cares if this is the Matrix? We're here to discover and understand the underlying patterns in nature. Large parts of my daily life and probably your daily life will go on unaffected. I still need to eat, because if this is a simulation, then in this simulation, if I don't eat, I experience a simulated death, which is probably just as unpleasant as the real one. If you just accept the trilemma, unable to decide most of your life will be unaffected. But it might change some things we might desire to know. We might want to go back and use our knowledge of science and physics and astronomy and geology and archaeology to discover if we're in a simulation or not, we might hope, uh, that the simulation doesn't get shut off. And so we might wonder. OK, if if it is a simulation, then whoever is running the show are they doing it for their entertainment? Are they doing it to study it? Us or themselves?

What do we do to keep this party going? We might have some panic attacks about the nature of reality. If you sit alone at 2 a.m. staring up at the ceiling, wondering if this is real or just a simulation, it can drive you a little crazy. It might raise some questions about your faith or your lack of faith or not. It might or might not be hard to simply live with the ambiguity of the Trilemma. Depending on your personal outlook on life, you might be OK with the ignorance and the inability to decide you can be fine without any fruits today, but, you know, and then when you go to see your doctor, they say you need some more vitamin C here. OK, OK, OK, I'll, I'll go pick I. I do have to pick between mangoes and Cherries, and I'm having a really, really hard time with this. Maybe the ambiguity is OK with you. Maybe it's not. So that's door number one available to you. That and it. And it is a door a a legitimate door. You can just take the simulation argument end at the trilemma, which is where the argument ends and just walk away and not say one way or the other.

You're allowed to do that. You have my my physics based blessing option number two. Door number two available to you when confronted with the simulation argument is to accept all the arguments and end up at the trilemma. But argue against this being a simulation or for this being a simulation, Maybe maybe nobody ever becomes capable enough to build a computer powerful enough to simulate the entire universe. Maybe every civilization that is about to build that planet sized computer with the black hole battery and really get this thing going. They destroy themselves because that's what advanced civilizations tend to do. This meshes potentially with some of our knowledge of extraterrestrial intelligence, or should I say, lack thereof. That's kind of a bummer, but it's an option. Or you can say 00, yeah, Advanced civilizations can. But you know, if if we wait 10,000 years, we'll we'll definitely have the capability to simulate the universe.

We just don't want to, uh, for moral or ethical reasons we've got we've got better things to do. You know, we'd rather play play super Minecraft with unintelligent beings in it because then it gets just way too hard and complicated, or it happens once and then as a society, every society that civilization that reaches this capability says, No, no, no, no, no, no, We're not gonna do that. This weird and creepy stop doing that. This is not the most persuasive ar argument, because even if Minecraft were illegal or morally discouraged, enough people would definitely play Minecraft. But it is an option available so you can just look at the trilemma and say, You know what? I think nobody becomes powerful enough or you know what they do. But every civilization that is capable of reaching this pinnacle chooses not to, because it's gross or you can say, Yeah, yeah, I. I think we do live in a simulation because civilizations can become powerful enough, computers can become powerful enough.

And once you do something, once you're gonna do it, there's gonna be some secret lab somewhere where they're starting to stop in 100 of these simulations. And then before you know it, the number of simulated brains is greater than the number of organic brains. And I'm likely to be in a simulation. You're allowed to do that? You're allowed to do that. This is why, uh, Nick Bostrom. He he personally, as far as my reading is, uh, can tell he he thinks there's a solid chance we're in a simulation. But that's that's past the argument of the paper. And just based on his own opinions. So to recap door number one, because it's about to get really crazy here. Um, door number one is you accept the ambiguity of the trilemma. You don't have an answer for it. You move on with your life. Door number two is you accept one of the options in the trilemma. And then you move on with your life, and those choices might influence how you live your life. Door number three door number three is to attack the argument to poke holes in it, the needle at it to question it.

At the beginning of the show, I listed a lot of assumptions. It takes a lot of assumptions to get this argument to work. All those assumptions sound good on the surface, but maybe don't hold up under closer scrutiny. So let's see what happens. Maybe computers can never be powerful enough. Maybe computers can never be powerful enough to simulate the universe. Even with a planet sized computer with a black hole battery sci-fi dream come true. It just can't simulate a universe. There are too many calculations. There are too many physics. There are too many things that happen in our universe, potentially for a simulation to actually get going. Bostrom addressed this in his paper, which is a relatively short paper and relatively easy to read that. OK, OK, you don't need to simulate the quantum processes happening throughout the entire expanse of the cosmos.

Uh, because we're not paying attention to most of the quantum processes that are happening throughout the cosmos. You you can, uh, you can just have, like, a fuzzy low resolution star. And then when we point our telescope at it. It's now into focus and gives us more information. Or we can just have a table and it's just a table and not a collection of electrons. But then, when we when we stare at it through a super powerful microscope, we see all the weird chemical reactions, and then we look at another level, and then it switches on all the quantum interactions. O. OK, I personally don't find that argument that set up to be persuasive, that you can have this zoomed nature of the universe, uh, where you could actually fit it, even on a planet sized computer. Because there are many macroscopic processes that only come about from a combination of countless quantum operations like thermodynamics, heat pressure, temperature. These come about through countless microscopic interactions, and you have to account for all the microscopic interactions in order to get heat and pressure and entropy to work.

If you have a a magnet, it's not a simple thing. It's a combination of many underlying quantum things operating in unison to get magnetism to work, the the role of radiation and cosmic rays in the evolution of Galaxies. You have to keep track of all that of all that, and this is coming from someone who's who's built simulations of the universe. It is hard in short I. I don't see how it's possible to not encode the micro physics that we know into every quarter of the cosmos in order to make it tick in order to make it work, you might say. And this is the way philosophical arguments go back and forth, back and forth. Uh, that Well, OK, as complex as the universe is, you can just build a bigger computer. But here's another way to put it. If you want to make a simulation that faithfully reproduces this universe, let's say you and me go into a garage. We've got our screwdrivers and our chips, and we're gonna make a universe 2.0 in a box.

That computer, that universe simulator needs to be powerful enough to allow for the simulated universe to also have me and you in a simulated garage building a simulated computer inside of which makes its own simulated universe. If I'm going to have a fully faithfully accurate universe in a box in simulation, then that simulation does need to be able to have a simulated universe inside of it, because either I encode all the physics or I don't. If I want to encode all of the physics, then a simulated universe inside of my simulated universe must be allowed, including a simulated patreon that's patreon dot com slash PM Sutter. Whether this is a simulation or not, your contributions do help. Thank you for all of your support. Simulated or not, I'm pretty sure it's impossible to have a computer that can contain a computer inside of it that is just as powerful or capable or efficient as the original computer itself.

So the simulated universe Sim universe must be less detailed, complex, interesting. Awesome. However, you want to describe it as the parent universe. And so the conscious entities inside the simulation are not identical to conscious entities outside of the simulation, and the argument falls apart or at least has to be modified because the simulation argument assumes that our experience inside the simulation is the same as the experience outside the simulation. And it's not the way around. This is to say, OK, you're not simulating the whole entire universe. You're just putting a simulated brain in a jar, but that simulated brain in the jar encounters a universe around it. Let's say I'm I I'll be the brain in the jar. This time I'm a simulated brain, and this is all just a simulated universe. But I can discover the laws of physics. I can do things and I can build inside of my simulated universe, even though it's just me. Just one brain hanging out here with a simulated universe got matrix all to myself.

I can build if that simulation with just me in it is a faithful reproduction of the original organic universe. Then I can sit here in my garage with you, but you're not real. I'm I'm a simulated brain. You're just an input into my neurons. But we can build a simulated universe and watch the outputs and watch all the the evolution unfold. And so, even if I am a just a brain in a jar being Fed inputs, my simulation still needs to be sophisticated enough to allow for simulations inside of it. I don't see personally, I don't see any way around it. And so, no matter what, the simulated universes are always going to be less authentic than the original universe. Now we still don't know. This could be our universe around us could be a simulation, and it could be less awesome than the original universe from which we came from. OK, but that weakens the simulation argument because the whole simulation argument rests on the fact the assumption that a conscious observer in the simulated universe has the identical experience to a conscious observer in the organic original universe.

And if they're different, it's still possible. You can still make a case, but it's a much weaker case. There's another assumption that we can attack here what I consider to be the biggest assumption. And it's the first criticism that I thought of when I heard the simulation argument. We must assume like, let's say, let's OK computers can become powerful enough to simulate the entire universe. There is a way to encode all of the micro physics. You can have a planet sized computer with your black hole battery and you switch it on, and it encodes all the physics of our universe. Even the theory of everything. Unified physics stuff we haven't even figured out yet. It does all that, and it does allow for an infinite chain of universes. You know, let let just take al allow that. What? What is next? In order for the simulation argument to work, it must assume that the chances of being simulated versus being organic are the same that way as the number of simulated brains grows, the chances of you or me personally being simulated also grows in proportion.

If there are 1 billion organic brains in the universe in 99 billion simulated brains, then you have a 99% chance of being simulated. That's that's the simulation argument. But this isn't necessarily true. The chances may not be equally divided between organic and simulated. Maybe the simulations are overall junk or bad or wrong. Maybe simulated brains are actually exceedingly rare, even with godlike resources. Let's put this another way. Let's say that there's one organic brain in one simulated brain in the entire history of the universe. You have a brain in your conscious. Which one are you? Are you simulated or are you meat? Is it a straight 50 50 50 50 coin toss? Chances of you being meat based or simulated based? Yes, that's the default assumption, but it's still an assumption. You have to walk into this argument holding that assumption in your possibly simulated hand in order to calculate the odds.

What if there is some hidden bias one way or the other? What if simulated consciousness isn't equal to organic consciousness like we saw before? Maybe the simulations don't faithfully represent the original universe, so there is a difference. And that difference makes simulated brains much more rare or qualitatively different so that it's not a 50 50 shot. What if it's impossible to hide this simulation from conscious observers? What if we took the wallpaper off our walls and there were serial numbers version numbers of this universe? We don't know if I gave you a die. You can usually assume that each side is fair. It's It's 166 sides on the die equal chances that any side might come up. I give you a coin, Equal chances, 50 50. But that's an assumption. You don't know if the dye is loaded. You don't know if the coin is weighted to have one side favored over the other. Yes, without any additional evidence, it's fair to assume that everything is equal.

That If I hand you a coin, it's a fair coin. 50 50 shot. If I hand you a die fair, die one thick shot. If I hand you a deck of cards, any card has a chance of 1/52 of being pulled out. That is an assumption, though you can only discover it through experimentation. You have to roll the die a bunch of times. You have to flip the coin a bunch of times. You have to pull a bunch of cards out of the deck and shuffle it a bunch of times. It is an assumption, and we can't perform experiments on the simulation itself, because if there was a way to to know if there was a we were in a simulation or not, then we don't need the simulation argument anymore. We just have our observations. So in the absence of experiments that tell us if this is a simulation or not, we don't know if the odds are equal between simulated and organic brains. I'll say it again. It's fair to assume that the odds of being simulated versus organic are fair and proportional to the number of brains.

If the 90 if there are 99% of the brains in the universe are simulated. It is fair to assume that you have a 99% chance of being a simulated brain. But it is still an assumption which may not be true. And there is no way to determine if it's true. You just don't know. In order to make the case for the simulation argument, you have to assume that's true. If you're comfortable with that assumption, more power to you. If you're not here you are. Here's a more sophisticated version of that argument. This is courtesy Brian Eggleston at Stanford. Bostrom Argument supposes that our descendants will someday be capable enough to build a supercomputer that simulates the universe and have conscious brains inside of it. We know we can't do it now, but he assumes we'll we'll do it at some point in the future. Doesn't matter how long it takes 1000 years. 10,000 years. As soon as we're able to do it, we turn it on, and the number of simulated brains goes up skyrockets, vastly overwhelming the meat, the meat based brains and sheer numbers.

So if everything is equal, then you're likely to be in a simulation. But in order to have this argument work, we need to make a tally. We need to count up all the organic brains, all the meat brains, and we need to count up all the computer brains. All the simulated consciousness is is, but in that accounting we can't use the simulations that our descendants make because we know that the brains inside of those computers are simulated and so everything isn't equal. It's another case of like there. There's not equal spread chance proportion odds going all over the place because, let's say next year we build a computer that can simulate the universe can and can have conscious entities inside of it, with ex experiences identical to our own. Because, remember, if the experiences are not identical to our own, then the argument gets a lot weaker. But let's say it is identical to our own. Well, you know that those brains inside of that computer are simulated, so you don't get to count them.

For Boru's argument, knowing that those brains are simulated doesn't tell you if you are simulated or not. It only tells you about those brains you point in that box. Look at all those simulated brains. It's so funny. It doesn't tell you about you, so you can't count those. We can't rely on simulations that we or our descendants will make in the future, because we'll be able to know to definitely know who's simulated. It doesn't tell us about whether we are simulated or not, which is what we actually care about. We have to rely on past people to make a simulation that includes us. Either are forbearers in the history of the universe, not our universe, as we understand. But, you know, just Universe universe. At some point in the past, there was someone who looked vaguely human, who turned on the computer. Or there's some alien civilization. They're cooking up a bunch of random, weird looking, hairless monkeys. But here's the thing. We have no clue how common life is.

We have no clue how common intelligent life is. Bostrom argument in his paper, relies on our descendants being able to build a computer powerful enough, and then once they turn on, there's gonna be 11 bajillion simulated brains way more than there are organic brains. But we'll know all those 11 billion Simulated brains aren't simulated. They don't count. It doesn't tell us. It doesn't tell you or me if you or me are simulated. We have to rely on aliens or previous versions of humanity to do this. We have no clue how common those are or if they've happened. We have no idea. And I mean no idea. So we actually have no idea how common simulated brains are compared to meat brains. It's not a guarantee that simulated brains outnumber meat brains. It's not a guarantee we actually have no information. Boru's argument is very, very convincing. But there are weaknesses. There are weaknesses.

My takeaway. Do we live in a simulation? We don't know. The simulation argument is fascinating, interesting, thought provoking but not conclusive. There is no ironclad argument to suggest that we do. There is no way to calculate the odds that we might or might not. It relies to me, relies on too many assumptions that do not hold up to scrutiny, although I do wonder if simulated cheese tastes as good as the real thing. Thank you to Stephan H on Facebook at S Matty wod on Twitter Mt. On email, nimbler on YouTube and John J on email for the questions that led to today's episode and thank you to all my patreon contributors, both real and simulated. Although what is real, your support is real, and my gratitude is also real. That's patreon dot com slash PM Sutter thanks to Justin G, Chris L, Barbara K Duncan M Coy D, Justin Z, Nate H, Andrew F, NAIA Aaron Scott M, Rob H Loyalty, Justin Lewis, M, Paul G and John W.

That's my top contributors this month. You can join them. Patreon dot com slash PM Sutter Keep sending the questions to hashtag. Ask us Spaceman. Ask us spaceman at gmail dot com or the website. Ask apace man dot com. Leave a review on iTunes. Real or simulated? Doesn't matter. It's always a big help, and I'll see you next time for more complete knowledge of time and space

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