“First, have you ever questioned the nature of your reality?”
Yes, Bernard, yes I have.
I make it a point to always question my reality.
As my good friend Christoff once said
“We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented.
It is as simple as that.”
Except that, it is not that simple
We are humans.
It is said that Humans share a common ancestors with some prime mates.
But some of us feel that we are unique and special, even.
We have a lot of character traits and attributes that makes us different from an animal.
But there are some other attributes that make us not so unique.
We sleep, we wake up, we brush, we use the washroom, we eat, we go to work, we talk,
we come back, we eat, we sleep, we wake up, we brush, we use the washroom, we eat, we
go to work, we talk, we come back, we eat, we sleep, we wake up, we brush, we use the
washroom, we eat, we go to work, we talk, we come back, we eat, we sleep, we wake up,
we brush, we use the washroom, we eat, we go to work, we talk, we come back, we eat;
repetitions and patterns.
Well yeah, sometimes we mate, we travel for recreation, we watch movies, we read books,
we learn.
But most humans do that, if not all.
It is estimated that there are Seven billion, Four hundred, Four million, Nine hundred seventy-six
thousand seven hundred eighty-three people in the world today.
That’s how many of us are here right now and we all essentially do the same thing.
Doesn’t that sound incredible and creepy all at the same time?
Some of us may argue, not exactly, we are not all doing the same thing?
But that’s exactly why sleep fascinates me so much.
I often stop to consider the fact that we all sleep.
All of the Seven Billion and odd people in the world go to sleep.
They all close their eyes, and pass out.
They are gone for a certain number of hours.
Then they resume their lives from where they left off previously.
It is like a time out.
You can fight your sleep for two days?
Three days?
But eventually you are going to fall asleep.
Even people with insomnia fall asleep.
What does this sound like?
A machine cannot run indefinitely, a perpetual motion machine is impossible, as it would
violate both the first and second law of thermodynamics.
I feel like we even have an in built character system.
Every one of us have traits that we use effectively in the society we live in.
Our character traits carve our place in our society.
It is the way we handle a situation, how we behave in certain scenarios and it is who
we are essentially
For example, my mom worries constantly.
Even if she is spending a happy day at the beach, she worries about the crowded bus ride
back home.
I, for another example, think about existence, purpose, why we are here and that sort of thing
I approach even the most mundane of situations with this mindset.
My friend suspects everything; the man in the elevator, a letter from the government,
the waiter at the Sushi restaurant, her suspicion knows no bounds.
I know many humans with a specific set of character traits and they respond to the situations
they face through their character traits.
I often think that we have sort of a permutational reality.
I feel like we are a product of rearrangement or a recombination of already existing elements.
The result, no matter how complex it seems and how random it seems, is always pre determined.
You know what I mean?
There can only exist a certain versions of the outcome.
Freedom of choice exists within that boundary.
In simple words, I feel like we are a dog with our necks tied to a chain, and we can
go wherever we want and do anything within the tensile permissiveness of that chain.
So, freedom exists within that couple of feet.
It is like those books, where you get to choose your own story and endings.
But there are only three or four conclusions with only few scenarios leading up to them.
The book was small, we get to access all the endings and scenarios and conclude that it
is in fact a pre-determined fiction, but the combinations in our lives are too huge in
number and seem unverifiable.
Let me try to explain one more time about what exactly that was in my mind when I said
‘Permutational Reality’.
Let’s take an example of a movie theater, which only sells pizza and popcorn in the
concession stand.
So I can buy a pizza and watch the movie, I can buy a pop corn and watch the movie,
I can buy both pizza and a pop corn and watch the movie, I can buy pizza and not watch the
movie, I can buy pop corn and not watch the movie, or I can buy pizza and pop corn and
not watch the movie.
These are the 6 possible combinations between the elements of pizza, popcorn and the movie
theater. Right?
So consider the universe and all the elements and the conscious observers in it.
Stone, cheese, mars, John etc. etc.
It seems ike universe has infinite elements for us.
But for a future supercomputer maybe it is not infinite and even for us, we can agree
that it is at some point quantifiable.
So with all the conscious observers and all the elements of the universe, we can deduce
all the possibilities and I think that’s where the boundary of this universe lies.
Have you ever watched that movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray?
In that movie he gets stuck in the same day and lives that day repeatedly to the point
where he knows every moment, every slip and every laugh.
Some times it feels like that, but only on a grandeur scale with millions of
additional combinations.
When I express this as a legitimate concern, usually I get this response,
"Well, then become a billionaire, then nothing would be an object.”
But except that it will.
It is not about money being an object, because it is simply buying extra combination of things
with your money.
Eventually both money and the combinations would run out.
That’s how many ways you can play this simulation game.
It feels like the universe is following some kind of mathematical law that is in its core, rigid
If you had ever watched the 1999 movie The Thirteenth Floor, you would know what exactly
I am talking about.
Initially I thought of going into The Thirteenth Floor or The Matrix, but I decided to dwell
deep into something different.
Professor James Gates, an American theoretical physicist who is known for his work on superstring
theory, supersymmetery and supergravity.
His attempt to learn the fundamentals of the universe led him to a form of error correcting
computer code that is embedded in very fabric of the cosmos
Yeah, that just happened!
and there is also Nick Bostrum and his Simulation Hypothesis.
In 2003, Nick Bostrum, a philosopher at the University of Oxford presented the ‘simulation
argument’ where he proposed that one of the following arguments must be true.
1.
"The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage (that is, one
capable of running high-fidelity ancestor simulations) is very close to zero", meaning
that we would go extinct before reaching an advanced state
2.
"The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations
is very close to zero", meaning the chance of “posthumans”, running a simulation
at all, on their ancestors is zero.
3.
"The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation
is very close to one", meaning we are in a computer simulation.
He argues that one of the above must be true and if it is the third one, then we are most
certainly in a simulation.
It is not particularly a new concept.
In ancient Indian Vedic scriptures there is a term called ‘Maya’.
Nowadays it is a common but of course, a beautiful name for girl children in India.
But it actually means illusion, but not just illusion, an illusion with appearance, a magic show
also on a connotation that any appearance must be an illusion.
The very purpose of Maya is to conceal the true character of the spiritual reality.
Ancient Vedas and Upanishads go really deep into this rabbit hole that we call existence.
Upanishads describe the universe, and the human experience as an interplay between Purusha
(the eternal, unchanging and the absolute consciousness) and Prakrithi (the temporary changing
material world).
It explains that Purusha (the absolute), manifests itself as an individual soul and Prakrthi manifests
itself as Maya.
So, we play with our individuality and the illusion known as separation.
Normally I won’t swear, but ancient Indian literature is a mind fuck.
So what can we do exactly if we ever feel like we are stuck in a loop?
Well, lately I am realizing that chances of me knowing the secrets of the universe are
almost a zero.
Almost!
But I can come to peace with that fact that I won’t ever know the secrets of the universe
and let go of the questions.
But questions and curiosity are my character trait.
So where to start?
Maybe I should start from learning to let go of myself.
That’s it for today’s episode.
Thank you so much for watching.
But before leaving I want to ask you a question.
What would you do differently from tomorrow if you come to know that you are indeed, living
in a simulation?
Leave your answers in the comments below and like and subscribe if you really liked the
video and want to see more videos like this.
Also I’ve included a playlist of my previous videos for you to check out.
Thank you so much and see you soon!