You are a Simulation & Physics Can Prove It: George Smoot at TEDxSalford

Transcriber: Robert Tucker Reviewer: Helena Bedalli Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here. They asked me if I wanted something to drink before going in and I asked for a pint but they gave me water. (Laughter) So, following the other speakers, I have a change of pace, a bit of a fun talk. And what I'm going to try to do is convince you that you are a stimulus and that

physics

can

prove

it, okay? (Laughter) So instead of the usual uplifting talk, this is a different kind of talk. Well, then there is one thing you know for sure, it is that you exist as a flesh and blood human being;

My goal is to convince you otherwise. Well? Then logic will not be enough, you will be

simulation

deniers, there is simply no way around it. So my real goal will be to create a hint of doubt in your minds, to get you to really think about this and what it could mean. Well? So, here's the first check on the

simulation

s. How many of you have ever played a computer game? Just raise your hands. Oh well. So did you do it against a simulated player or against simulated players? Or, in fact, was it you, several people plus simulated people?

Good. And what role did you take on? Was he a pawn or a hero? What role do you have in life? Is he a pawn or a hero? Good. Are you the king, for example? (Laughter) I don't see it here... but... Now, the other thing you might ask, if you were a social scientist, or another type of scientist like a cosmologist: would you like to run realistic simulations to test and develop your ideas? theories? The same goes for political candidates. Good? So, I'm just trying to see that there is a motivation for it. And so the question is: Are computing and simulation capabilities increasing over time?

So think about HetNOS, think about Moore's law, think about what computer you had when you were young and what you have now, not that you're not all young yet. Well, that just sets you up to have the doubt. Well, then we'll take a little trip into philosophy. Solipsism is the idea that one's own mind is the only thing that will surely exist. It turns out that people have been studying this for decades, and realize that it is irrefutable and indefensible at the same time, so this view, and that it is not a refutable hypothesis, there are people working on this topic.

So there doesn't seem to be any conceivable proof you can have, so even if you have a Solipsan, he dies, you can't falsify his belief, because he's not there to do it. This is a pragmatic dead end, it's kind of like what we see on TV now, which is, you know, zombie philosophy. But there is an opposite: philosophical zombies. Philosophical zombies have a slight utility. So what's the idea here? The philosophical zombie is a hypothetical being that in this what everyone thought was a normal human being, that is, everyone who believes they are, knows what they believe they are, except that they lack conscious experience, qualia or sentience.

So if you take a philosophical zombie and poke it with a sharp object, it doesn't feel any pain, yet it behaves exactly as if it did. He would say “ouch” and do all the usual things. So the purpose of the zombie is to support the idea that the world includes two types of things: mental and physical, or concepts and the physical world around you. And that's the idea. So, in cosmology we have many things. We have the anthropic principle, that is, a philosophical concept that the universe must be compatible with the conscious life that observes it.

And there is a strong version and a weak version. One of them says that the universe is fine-tuned for conscious life to arise, and the other says that the universe is fine-tuned so that life is necessary. And this is pretty much in line with a lot of even more specific ideas, from conservative Christianity and Islam, that there is intelligent design or that simulation could exist. I'm working on you... so... And we also have the idea of ​​multiverses, which there are many different types... there is a metauniverse and there are many possible universes within it. And there are different reasons for this, quantum mechanics, but also a way to explain if it is the physical constants that make this audience possible.

So, you know, one way is to have as many real universes, the other is to just do a lot of simulations. So, your choice. Okay, now we move on. Here's the gist of the arguments, and these arguments have been around for over 30 years, they were first published 30 years ago, and what people went to a lot of trouble to

prove

is that one of three things is very likely. be true. So, you can choose between No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3, just like the doors, see what is behind each door. The first is: human civilization is unlikely to reach a level of technological maturity capable of producing simulated realities, or it is physically impossible.

Well, we made some progress in 30 years and I'll mention it. The second is: Comparable civilizations throughout the universe that achieve that capability will choose not to run simulations on such a large scale that, in fact, the probability of being a simulated being is much greater than the probability of being a real being. So, those are your options, right? There are some other options, but they are extraordinarily unlikely and we can pretty much rule them out. And the third option is: Any entity with our general set of experiences will almost certainly live in a simulation. That would be us.

Good? Well? In case you guys aren't paying attention. (Laughs) Okay. So, let's talk about making human-made simulator realities. So will humans produce realistic simulations? And the answer is yes. I have to keep coming back because I just wrote this talk and I can't remember what I have to say. And so the answer is clearly yes, you have already demonstrated it, because you can make a lot of money creating computer games, simulated realities. And the better the reality of the simulator, the more people will participate in it. There is a lot of entertainment, we have a lot of animated movies.

Now we are going to have movies, animated interactive videos and pornography. So you can't rule out pornography, in the early days of the Internet, pornography was the number one commerce, it was about half of the commerce on the Internet in the early days. And even today, 50% of the bits transmitted on the Internet are for pornography. Then you will ask yourself: Why is this like this? Well, originally stories and then there had to be images, and then there had to be videos, very soon there will be interactive videos. So, it's clear that there is a tremendous financial motivation, and especially here in Media City, where people make a living doing this kind of thing.

So how... I'm not sure which of the three, but okay. How detailed and accurate will the simulations be? And the answer turns out that, as we know from experience, computing power is the first issue, you have to have tremendously good computing power to make a simulation of very good quality, and good programming, that is, good software, to explain what is happening. that's the second one. But we are clearly making progress, just look at the games, look at PONG and look at the type of video games we have now. So, we'll see. What about simulations of other civilizations?

We know much more about this now than we did 30 years ago. We have made tremendous progress. We have discovered more than 2,000 more stars that have planetary systems around them. And we know that there are at least on the order of a billion or more habitable planets in our galaxy, and there are about 100 billion galaxies for about 10^20 to 10^22, depending on what your range of possible sites for them is. life and then advanced civilizations in the universe. So what are the chances of Earth being the most advanced and the most computationally powerful? Well, the odds, you have to really be thinking that you're special, to think that the odds are that we're the best.

So the question is: will advanced beings run simulations? And, indeed, will simulated beings run simulations? If we are simulated, are we running simulations in our simulations, simulations all the way? If you know things. So even the people running our simulation don't know if it's a simulation or not. It's interesting because it creates ethics and a lot of things because there may be someone watching you. So are ethical considerations likely to prevent all civilizations from running simulations and running large numbers of simulations? Well, I think the answer is "no." What if by doing simulations we could tell what we believe to be real lives?

Good? We are willing to do the simulations even if they are included in that simulation, right? Conscious beings. And the other thing you might consider is how human beings treat those who they believe are real human beings. What is ethical treatment like on our Earth? And how much further is society likely to advance before we make very advanced simulations of civilizations and beings? So we'll probably all be in a simulation. The lights aren't on enough here, but look left and right, if there's anyone here who you think is a real person, this is a random sample, then you probably aren't. (Laughter) But, you know, if you think you're a social scientist or an anthropologist or something, and you want to run around and watch civilizations rise and fall, you'll run simulations with up to billions of people.

And you will run many of those simulations, so it is not that difficult to imagine that you will reach the level of 10^12:1 of simulated beings to non-simulated beings, so the probability becomes quite likely that any being that has a behavior or Activities and experiences like ours are simulated. Sorry, I have sunscreen on my eye. Put on sunscreen this morning in case it's an unusual day in England. (Laughs) And here a little bit got into my eye. So let's talk about how we're going to do the simulations on Earth. This is part of going back to convince you that we will have realistic simulations and we will have artificial reality to go with them.

So can we take a real brain and turn it into a virtual mind? And the answer is: So, here's the real purple brain, and the neurons behind it, it's this neural network, it's the regional neural network, as far as we're concerned. And then on the left, yes, on your left, is the beginning of a mapping of a brain, so I can take and map that brain, and just put it into a computer. So how is that going to work? The answer is that it will work just fine, because we've gotten to the point where we can do it now.

Here is a high-resolution 45-minute brain scan that was performed in February. And 45 minutes, that's how long you have to keep the person's head still to be able to make a map at this level. And what you can see here are the main ones. Let's see if the laser pointer works. No. So, you can see the main highways of your brain here. They're mapped by this, and this is basically an MRI. I had a scan of my brain and I was really impressed, to prove that I had a brain, but one of my friends had an fMRI to prove that his brain worked. . (Laughter) What's impressive about this is that MRIs are getting so good now that they can be mapped at the individual neuron level.

The problem is that there are a lot of neurons, so you have to keep your head still for a long time, and that is an advance in the ability to do the mapping, and also in the software to do that mapping. And that is where we find ourselves today. If we can keep the person still long enough, if we can find a volunteer who can put, you know, the little plastic thing on their head, to keep them still for a few days, which is a bit of a problem, we could probably go ahead and map their entire brain, and then just transform that map into a computer model, and we would download that person's mind into a computer.

This is coming and it will come soon, just as it is now possible for £1,000 to map your DNA, it will cost you something, in about 30 years it will be possible to download your brain onto a computer. for about £1,000, plus inflation. (Laughs) It could go up, it could go down. Good? But there are tremendous advances in technology that are making it possible to do things we didn't have before. So I have a quote from a Google expert: we will upload entire minds to computers in 2045. He also says we will also make bodies, I'm thinking we won't make bodies, what we will do is We will take that mind and stop it from going crazy, we will put it in an artificial reality, you're on the computer, you're going to get bored, you're going to want entertainment, you're going to want social interactions, so we're going to create something artificial. realities.

Now, in the old days, we did something like that, if you remember the matrix. Good? Ones and zeros, now we can actually use quantum computers, so we will have entangled states, but it will actually be a kind of complicated environment where we can interact socially, because people want to be social. , so there will have to be thousands of people to interact with, and there will have to be all kinds of other things to make that artificial environmentsomething realistic and allows you to move forward. And remember, when you unload your brain, you will think a million times faster, you will experience life a million times faster.

It's going to be a very different situation. Know? The idea of ​​going back to the machines and going out into the real world where things are still slow, you'll get tired of doing that. And the size of simulated porn is not so good in the real world. Well, now the other thing I have to do is attack your certainty. So, I have to point out to you that human beings are not good at determining whether they are real. So your mind is really not equipped to address this and many other important questions. So the first question I'm going to ask you is to count the number of black dots. (Laughs) It's a still image and there is no video.

Here we go. Do you see this photo? How many of you see the horse in the picture? How many of you can't see the horse in the picture? Once you see the horse, it's hard to miss. And I want to show you a picture of an object and ask you: Can it be real? And then I'm going to tell you, it's a photograph, the clock is real, the paper is real, the desk is real, is that object real? Well, it's a photograph, so it's real in a sense, just like this, and to me, this object moves back and forth.

Here's the real version of that, made of 2x4s, focused at different angles, and you see that it's an optical illusion where your eye puts them together. And here's another example, and this is another example, just for fun, because you know it's just rotated, but the first response is: Ugh, that's weird. So, here is one for which you will get the answer. Which of these is longer? So, they are equal. As? It doesn't really seem that way to you. You knew he was cheating on you, so you understand, well, you still look at him and think, well, but I better check it now. because I know I'm going to make mistakes.

Okay, one more then. I'll skip the lilac hunter on the other side and just ask you about the things on the right. Are those lines straight or not? Well, they're straight, but in your eyes, it's very hard to convince you that they're straight. Your brain is ready to do other things. Here's another Bayesian reading test: In Bayesland we do it. There are many examples you can give, but a taxi was involved in a hit and run, and there are two taxi companies in the city, green taxis and blue taxis. And they work: 85% of taxis are green, 15% are blue.

The witness says the taxi was blue. When they test him, he gets it right 80% of the time, or she gets it right 80% of the time. What is the probability that it really was a blue taxi? You have to do the calculation carefully, this is the only equation, normally when I put equations people say... but... there is almost a 60% chance that the taxi is green, even if this person is 80% right. . And this is relevant, but there are other types of tests like that. Then, you can have tests that are even more powerful, like the breast cancer test that is 99% accurate; gets the answer wrong 1% of the time.

But about a thousand times more people, than... you know, 1,000 of the people who get tested actually have breast cancer, so when you get the first response that you have breast cancer, there's only 10%. chances of you having cancer. I really do, it's not for you to take the next test. But the 10%, you know, the 10 people are scared. Humans are not equipped to deal with that kind of thing. Well, then it's because we lack computing power. So, we have tradeoffs in our algorithms, right? Human beings are therefore susceptible to optical illusions, systematic errors of judgment - I am running out of time - I should have gone faster - I am confident - difficulties with complex decisions - and keeping time - and the ability to function in a prehistoric world, which was the important thing, you know.

Only a small percentage of humans were wiped out before they could reproduce, okay? The simulations will then make approximations of the same or similar types. So, we have many contradictions. We could see if our

physics

is inconsistent then we are likely to be in a simulation, if the physics is self-consistent we are more likely to be real, because it simply takes more to do that. So one of the implications is, if we're in a simulated environment, what are we going to do? Well, we are going to be discretized, that is fuzzy on a small scale, we are going to have entangled states, that is, quantum mechanics.

We have the holographic principle that everything within each environment is enclosed on the surface. So, here is an example. The hand and the apple are encoded on a geometric sheet but projected in three dimensions, that is one way to follow everything, and the large scale in space and time may not match the small scale. So let me finish. Human beings are not well prepared to determine reality. Physics, so this is really something that sells, is fundamental proof of our reality. Currently we have contradictions. Is it because we're not good at figuring things out or is it because we're in a simulation?

And what would that mean? Thank you. (Applause)