- If you're into paradoxes and some of the most incredible
and intriguing thoughts that the greatest minds on Earth
have ever come up with, keep watching.
The human mind is absolutely mind-blowing.
It's the greatest tool that we have.
And because of that, human beings have been able
to theorize some incredible things,
including paradoxes and various ideas
that are absolutely ingenious.
So in this video, I'm going to present you
with some concepts that are going to twist your mind.
So get ready, sit back, and here we go.
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Here are 10 mind-blowing thoughts
that will twist your brain.
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Number 10 is Theseus's Ship.
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Theseus's ship is a thought experiment
designed to make you question your identity.
Theseus was a great hero in ancient Greek mythology.
On his adventures, he sailed on a famous ship.
Traveling the high seas and battling monsters and gods
caused wear and tear on the ship.
So over time, Theseus replaced parts of his ship
which had worn out.
After many years, Theseus had replaced
every single part of the ship piece by piece.
So the question is, if every piece has been replaced,
is it still the same ship?
Now here's what's really gonna bake your noodle.
If we take it a step further,
imagine someone kept all of the discarded pieces
and put them back together.
Now you have two Theseus's ships,
so the question is which is the real one?
The idea here is that identity is continuous.
Each person alters over time piece by piece,
and so eventually you're a completely different person
as the one you started out as.
So because your body keeps replicating cells
and changing things, and your body sheds and whatnot,
are you still the same person that you were 10 years ago,
or are you someone completely different, mind blown.
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Number nine is the Boltzmann Brain.
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To understand what a Boltzmann brain is,
imagine the universe in a far-flung future.
Due to entropy and the expansion of the universe,
everything will one day no longer exist.
The universe will have unraveled from itself,
leaving nothing but an infinite amount of empty space.
Except it won't entirely be empty.
That space will experience random thermal fluctuations.
So if the universe is infinite,
then that means every possible configuration
of fluctuation happens.
And as bizarre as it seems, sometimes these fluctuations
will perfectly recreate a temporary version of ourselves.
Those are called Boltzmann brains.
If they exist, it's mathematically likely
that we are currently living
inside one of these fluctuations.
That means we're a strange temporary approximation
of people who once lived perhaps billions of years ago.
So you're you, but you're also someone else that was you,
but you're that person, but you're only you, oh God.
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Number eight is the Unexpected Hanging Paradox.
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Imagine a judge sentences a prisoner
to be executed on a weekday next week.
The exact day needs to be a surprise
so the prisoner relaxes and believes
that he will never be executed.
His reasoning is that it can't happen on Friday,
because if he hasn't been hanged by Thursday,
then there would only be one day left,
and that wouldn't be a surprise.
He also can't be hanged on a Thursday,
because if he hasn't been hanged by Wednesday,
then because Friday is already eliminated,
Thursday would be the only other available day,
and that wouldn't be a surprise.
He continues this line of logic
until he eliminates each day of the week.
Despite this, the prisoner is hanged on Friday.
The lesson here is that even using logic
and knowing the rules doesn't mean
that life will go to plan.
Besides, the prisoner was surprised like the judge ordered,
all because he assumed he couldn't be executed.
Get it, because he decided it couldn't happen
because there would be no surprise,
but there was a surprise
because he was expecting no surprise,
because the surprise couldn't happen, oh my God.
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Number seven is Wittgenstein's Beetle.
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Wittgenstein's beetle thought experiment goes like this.
Everyone in the world is given a small box.
No one is allowed to look into anyone else's box
to see what's there.
You can only look at what's in your own box.
You open up your box and see a beetle inside.
It turns out that everyone in the world
has a beetle in their box, although you only know this
because they tell you what's in it.
Remember, you can't look inside anyone else's box,
and they can't look inside yours.
So how do you know what's in your box
is the same as what's in everyone else's?
The answer is you can't.
Our minds are a private world which no one can look into,
just like the box.
When I point at something and say that's the color red,
you might agree with me.
But I have no way to know that what you are experiencing
is the same thing as I am.
Literally, in other words, what I consider red
may not be what you see as red.
We just assume that we're looking at the same thing.
Oh man, let that one twist your noodle.
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Number six is Quantum Immortality.
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Now this is a really weird thought experiment.
It turns out that each one of us may actually be immortal.
There are some physicists, albeit in the minority,
who genuinely believe this is a possibility,
all because of quantum immortality thought experiments.
In physics, there's a theory
called the many-worlds interpretation.
It suggests that at every moment, the universe splits off
into other universes, and every possibility is played out.
That means there's a universe
where you moved left instead of right,
or you stayed up instead of going to bed.
Now some physicists believe that each time this happens,
your consciousness must survive in the process.
In other words, each one of us always ends up
in a new universe where we continue living,
and not in one that we died in.
That is immortality, kinda like Rick and Morty,
and if you haven't seen Rick and Morty yet,
what are you doing with your life?
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Number Five is Laplace's Demon.
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Imagine a creature which is so intelligent
that it can observe every single particle
in the entire cosmos.
It also has a complete knowledge of physics.
The question is could this creature,
called the demon, be able to perfectly predict the future
and describe the past?
Laplace's demon is designed to make us think
about whether the universe works like a clock,
determined from the very beginning.
Some actually argue this to be the case,
and so it's possible to predict the future.
But others claim that there's a limit
on how much computational power the universe has,
so the demon would have to be
outside of our universe observing everything.
And then there are those who believe the universe
is unpredictable and only appears to work like a clock,
but doesn't actually.
No one really knows the truth,
or if the demon is watching, or if there is a demon.
Is there a demon, Mama?
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Number four is the Chinese Room.
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Imagine being in a room separated from another person
by a wall with a small letter box in it.
You need to communicate with the other person
using pieces of paper, but they only know Chinese.
The problem is you don't speak any language of Chinese.
Instead, you have a book filled with Chinese words,
and another book with instructions in English.
You receive a piece of paper
from the other person written in Chinese.
So you follow the instructions you have in English
and copy the corresponding characters from Chinese,
even though you have no idea what they mean.
When the other person reads your note,
they think you know Chinese.
But the fact is you're just following a simple set of rules.
The crazy thing is that this is what a computer does.
This experiment shows
that even if a computer appears to be intelligent,
it's probably just following a simple set of rules.
So when artificial intelligence comes around,
are they simply following a set of rules
created by the creator, i.e. us,
or they actually able to think for themselves?
And for that matter, are we just following a set rules, oh.
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Number three is the Swamp Man.
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David Donaldson's Swampman thought experiment
cuts to the core of who we are
and the existence of the soul.
The experiment describes a man walking in a swamp.
Suddenly a flash of lightning comes down from the sky
and strikes the man, killing him instantly.
The body sinks into the swamp.
At the same precise moment,
another lightning strike happens nearby.
The lightning rearranges the atoms nearby
into the exact replica of the man.
He brushes himself off and leaves the swamp,
believing that he's the same person.
But he question is, is he the same person?
Is the original person gone?
And does the new version have a soul?
It's similar in some ways to the ship of Theseus paradox,
and questions whether we're actually the same person
when we wake up every day,
or just a new piece of consciousness
which has the same memories.
What you think is you may not have been you yesterday
or the day before.
You may be changing bodies, oh, I don't know.
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Number two is the Simulation Theory.
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Imagine we run a virtual reality simulation
which is indistinguishable from the real thing.
We create an exact replica of Earth,
and we populate it with computer-generated people.
Now ask yourself this.
What are the odds of you being in a real world right now,
or being one of the simulated people in a virtual one?
It's one out of two, right?
Now we run two simulations.
What's the odds that you're a biological human?
It's about one in three.
Now imagine that there are thousands
of these simulations running, and that there are millions
of alien civilizations running simulations as well.
The chances that you are in a real world
as opposed to one of the billions
of simulations is actually tiny.
Mathematically it's likely that you are living
in a simulated world right now,
and that you're not even a biological being.
This is the simulation theory, and it's kinda terrifying.
Seriously, look up the simulation theory on YouTube
or just look up simulation theory Elon Musk.
Your life will never be the same.
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And number one is Schrodinger's Cat.
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One debated theory in quantum physics
is that the universe hangs around
in what's called superposition until someone looks at it.
Superposition simply means that every possibility
is happening at once.
Once a conscious observer looks at it,
the universe collapses into one solid outcome.
Schrodinger's cat involves a cat in a box
with a vial containing a radioactive substance.
The substance has a 50% chance of decaying in one hour.
If the substance decays, a mechanism
releases poison gas into the box.
Now without looking in the box, you have no idea
if the cat is dead or alive.
In fact, because a conscious observer isn't looking,
the radioactive substance is in superposition.
It's both decayed and not decayed.
The poison has both been released and not been released.
And that means that the cat is both dead
and alive at the same time.
Oh, I need to lie down, bye.
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