Was 2020 A Simulation? (Science & Math of the Simulation Theory)

[Music] scientists are testing to see if we are living in a simulation elon musk is even funding work in this field and he believes that there is a one in billions of a chance that we live in reality but we are in a simulation this video breaks down the science and math behind the simulation hypothesis we also take a look at how much computer power is needed to simulate a universe would we need to build a structure around the sun to capture all of its energy to power such a computer is humanity being simulated as 2d beings to save on computer power that then gets projected in 3d and could we create a simulation for humanity that allows us to travel further into outer space if you think that simulations are possible then it is almost certain that we are in one people have been questioning for centuries what is the truth and what is an illusion from plato's allegory of the cave in the western world to zhuangzhu's butterfly dream in the east plato who lived between 428 and 348 bc tells the tale of people kept in a cave they grow up only seeing the shadows of other people on a wall for them the shadows are the real world one day one of the cave people is taken outside he sees how the outside world is much more real than the one in the cave he comes back to the cave to free the others but is now unable to see in the dark the people inside the cave think it is dangerous outside and refuse to go the cave represents people who believe that knowledge comes from what we see and hear in the world plato said that true knowledge comes from philosophical reasoning zhuangzhu a chinese philosopher who lived in the 4th century bc dreamed that he was a butterfly the butterfly did not know he was zhengzhu suddenly he woke up and he was zhuangzi but how can he be sure he is not a butterfly dreaming that he is a person as both dreaming and waking feel real how can we tell which one is true moving forward to 1977 philip kindred who created the stories for blade runner and minority report argued that we are living in a computer-programmed reality and the only clues we have to it is when some variable is changed and some alteration in reality occurs such as when we have an overwhelming impression that we are living in the present like deja vu elon musk is another person who questions our reality using the development of video games as an example of why we are living in a simulation elon says that we are clearly on a trajectory to soon have video games that are indistinguishable from reality and those games will be played on any console or pc and there would probably be billions of such computers elon musk wonders what the levels above us look like saying that the simulation is probably running in a boring world since when you take a video game or a movie it is a condensed version of what is most interesting about life most likely if we are in a simulation it's very boring outside of the simulation and the further down the number of simulations you go the more interesting it becomes [Music] so what is the likelihood that we are living in a simulation let's take a look at the science and math behind the theories working at the university of oxford on existential risk dr nick bostrom whose work is helped funded by elon musk created the foundational theory of the simulation argument he presents three scenarios one the human species will go extinct before creating a simulation of another universe two advanced civilizations that are capable of creating simulations are not interested in creating simulations of their evolutionary history or a variation of it three the probability that we are living in a simulation is close to one as we are almost certainly living in a simulation dr bustrum says that since little is known we must assume for now that each one has an equal likelihood the book super intelligence paths dangers and strategies by dr nick bostrom is one that elon musk highly recommends people to read the link is in the description [Music] if we are able to create a simulation then the chances that we are in one greatly increases let's explore why when would it be possible for us to create a simulation to figure this out we just need to take a look at video games and predict how soon in the future we could be playing and living in virtual worlds that people can't tell the difference from the real one elon musk says that we have gone from playing pong which is two blocks and a dot to today's hyper-realistic games with millions of players and all of this took place in just the last 50 years he adds that even if the rate of video game advancement drops by 1 000 from what it is today then imagine it is 10 000 years in the future when we will have simulations which is nothing on the evolutionary scale but humanity will reach a point sooner than that when the growth of technology becomes uncontrollable and then human civilization will change in ways that we cannot predict we will be able to create powerful video game simulations that even the artificial intelligence living within them will feel like the simulation is their reality and the artificial intelligence would also create games and virtual worlds designing multiple layers of simulations there could be hundreds thousands or a million simulated universes and if only one of the million universes is the real world the base reality then the probability that we are in the base reality is one in a million so if we as humans are able to create a simulation then the likelihood that we are in one increases elon musk says that the odds that we are in the base reality is more like one in billions [Music] dr david kipping an astronomer has broken it down into two possibilities either there are no simulations or there are many simulated realities and one base reality in mathematics when there is no information to decide the likelihood of something being true each is considered equally likely this is known as the principle of indifference so in this case there is a fifty percent chance that there are no simulations and a fifty percent chance there are but even if number two is true that there are many simulations and one base reality there is still the possibility that we are in the base reality and are the first civilization to create a simulation this means that the probability of us living in the real world the base reality is now slightly higher people like elon musk believe and predict based on the development of video games that we will one day be capable of creating simulations if we do create a simulation containing conscious beings then the statistics will flip and most of the arguments against the possibility of us living in a simulation will fail and we will most certainly be living in a simulation ourselves coming up next the scientists working on proving whether we are in a simulation the arguments for why we are not in the simulation and the costs to create a computer powerful enough to run a simulation of the universe [Music] is it possible to test whether we are living in a simulation work is being done to test if the simulation theory is true here are three ways that scientists are testing to see if we are living in a simulation the tests come from the idea that the simulation we are living in is run on a computer with a limited amount of computational power just like a normal computer and that there could be some subtle bugs in the simulation just like in a video game if we could detect these this could point towards the fact that we are living in a simulation nasa engineer thomas campbell and his colleagues are trying to test if the simulation is only rendering what we can see as the simulation would not simulate everything at once as a way to save computing resources much like in video games today it is the technological version of the philosophical idea called solipsism thomas campbell and his colleagues have designed a quantum physics experiment one that uses a sequence of mirrors lasers and slits they believe that if the universe is a simulation that only simulates what we are looking at then the light should behave abnormally and clearly show if we are in a simulation another test comes from the fact that as the simulation is running it may accumulate errors over time the simulators would correct the errors by modifying the laws of nature however no drift has been observed in the physical constants over many decades maybe our measurements are not accurate enough or the modifications happen over extended periods of time beyond humanity's history another scientific experiment being set up to test if we are in a simulation comes from silas bean a nuclear physicist from the university of washington he proposes that we could find the limited resolution at which the universe is rendered spacetime is the mathematical model which combines the three dimensions of space length width and depth with the dimension of time when physicists simulate small parts of space-time they break up the universe into a grid-like lattice and simulate small chunks at a time silas bean and his team look at cosmic rays as visible light he argues that if the simulation is broken down into a grid then these high-energy cosmic rays will have energies that vary in different directions so if we can observe this then we can prove that we are in a simulation the next step is to see what happens when real-world cosmic rays hit their instrument but cosmic rays only hit a square kilometer of earth once every 100 years so this will take some time to prove [Music] while some people believe that we are in a simulation others argue that this is not true william poundstone who wrote the book called the doomsday calculation the link is in the description points out a potential hole in the simulation argument when we make books movies or video games they are usually made within a few hundred years of our current day william argues that a simulation would be close in time to that of the simulator's world in this case our simulation should have widespread simulation technology and be in a futuristic era as we do not have this technology we would be more of an ancient civilization and be an unlikely choice for a simulation but others argue that this is making assumptions about what an advanced civilization would do with simulation technology they may have completely different preferences to our own and there is no indication that this universe was created for us we could just be artifacts and byproducts in a simulation that was made to test some hypothetical scenario another argument comes from cosmologist sean carroll if simulations are possible then civilizations living in them will be able to create more simulations there could be thousands of layers and the deeper you go the more simulations there are so statistically the largest number of simulations and simulated people are in the deepest layer but each simulation has to be less complex than the universe above it because the computer power will decrease every time a new layer is created since the level above has to compute it along with the simulations below the simulations therefore there is a limit a floor to how deep you can go the civilization at the lowest stage will not be able to create simulations because there are no more resources available if the simulation hypothesis is correct and there are multiple levels then we are certainly at the lowest level and we may not be able to create simulations if we can't create a simulated universe how do we know if a universe could ever be simulated this is called the carol's contradiction many say that this is not a contradiction and that we can in fact be both in a simulation and unable to simulate a universe ourselves let's take a look into the future silas bean the nuclear physicist trying to test if we are in a simulation believes that we will be able to simulate the entire universe within 500 years in reality we will likely continue to do what we do with video games which is to only simulate the parts of the universe that the players are currently looking at this would mean that we could simulate an entire universe much sooner depending on the number of simulated people within the universe nick bolstrom says that scientists consider the number of operations per second to replicate a human brain to be between 10 to the power of 14 and 10 to the power of 17 with additional computing power added to simulate the environment computers today can do over 10 to the power of 9 operations per second to save computing power it is possible that everything is simulated in 2d making you a 2d person and everything is then projected in 3d just like 3d movie screens or holograms bostrom adds that we can evaluate the cost to create a realistic simulation of all of human history to be between 10 to the power of 33 and 10 to the power of 36 operations per second rj bradbury in his paper matryoshka brains estimates that a computer with a mass of a large planet could process 10 to the power of 42 operations per second to power such a computer a dyson sphere would be required which is a structure that is built around a star such as our sun to capture all of its energy would such a powerful computer allow humanity to transfer its consciousness into a simulation letting us travel further into space this is something that we talk more about in our time lapse of future tech video the link is in the description on the next episode of venture city we take a look at the robots working at tesla hit the subscribe and thumbs up buttons to not miss a video you

Channel: Venture City

Views: 1,428,839

Rating: 4.8294773 out of 5

Keywords: Are we living in a simulation, Elon Musk, Documentary, Short film, Simulation Theory, Simulation Argument, Digital World, Future Science, Future Technology

Id: c9p9NE4Pji0

Length: 15min 1sec (901 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 26 2020