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Paul Gude:
All right. So...

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Can you see me?

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Rodney Ascher: Hey!  Yeah, there you are. Hey, Paul.

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Paul: Hey! So I'm just now
starting the audio recorder.

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[Rodney indistinctly talking]

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All right, so that's set up.

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And I'm starting
the video recorder.

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[beeps]

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Paul: And I'm just making sure
that it's recording.

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Okay. So... Hello!

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Rodney:
One of the things that

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you wrote about was sort
of your first primitive idea

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- of simulation theory as a kid.
- Yeah.

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Rodney: Yeah, can you describe
what that was like?

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Can I do one thing before that?

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Rodney: Yeah.

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'Cause this is gonna set
the tenor for everything.

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Rodney: Please.

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Paul: Okay. I was in a class
when I was in college,

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I went to the University
of Missouri, Columbia.

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This was in the early '90s.

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And a teacher was
in front of the class

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and the teacher said,

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"Something interesting
about the brain

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is that we actually can map
what we think

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about the human nervous system

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by the highest level
of technology of the day."

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So for example,
when the aqueducts were big,

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people thought that
humors controlled the body.

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That different liquids
would come in and teach you--

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or make you feel
a different way.

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And then whenever
the telegraph came,

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then all of a sudden
we thought,

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"Well, these are nerve impulses

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that go down
sort of like wires."

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And then she said, "Now we know that the brain is a computer."

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And I raised my hand, I said,

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"Because that's our highest
level of technology."

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And she said, "No, the brain
is a computer."

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And I didn't do that well
in the class, but the thing is,

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so when we talk
about simulation theory...

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we, right now, are living
in a time where,

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you know, you have
the PS4, PSVR,

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you know,

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I'm a Sony brand whore,
so I apologize

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for not throwing out
other things.

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But the basic, you know,

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virtual reality level
of simulation

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is something
that we can use as a model.

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But it isn't necessarily
what is going on,

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and I think that's important.

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That we can use it
and we can understand

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that's what's going on,

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but we aren't necessarily
in a server room somewhere.

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It might be something different.

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You know, if you run into
a thing in the world

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that you don't understand,
your brain is gonna go,

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"Okay, maybe
this is what this is."

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And as technology
gets more advanced

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we'll have better ways
of describing it.

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So,  everything that I describe here

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keep in mind, you know,
I'm a 21st Century guy,

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that's how my brain works.

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If you're watching this  in the future, we aren't dumb,

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it's just that we don't have
the tools that you have

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to think of this stuff.

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[electronic music plays]

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Computer voice:
In September of 1977,

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the writer Philip K. Dick,
creator ofMinority Report,

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Blade Runner,
andTotal Recall,

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addressed an audience of fans
in Metz, France.

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They expected a talk
about science fiction but his

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lecture explored religion
and philosophy as well.

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To him, all three subjects
were deeply interconnected.

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[Indistinct conversations]

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The title of my address is...

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"If you find this world bad,

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you should see
some of the others."

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[translator speaks French]

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The subject of this speech...

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is a topic which has been
discovered recently,

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and which may not exist at all.

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I may be talking
about something

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that does not exist.

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Therefore, I am free to say
everything or nothing.

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[translator speaks French]

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We are living in
a computer programmed reality

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and the only clue
we have to it

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is when some variable
is changed.

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and some alteration
in our reality occurs.

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Computer voice:
Philip K. Dick's belief

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that we were living in
a digitally created,

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artificial world
sounded like madness in 1977.

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But then in 1999,
The Matrix introduced

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simulation theory
to the wider world.

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In the years since the film,
this idea has begun

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to be taken seriously
as more than science fiction.

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It is fiercely debated online
and in real life

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in classrooms, laboratories,  design studios and courtrooms.

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Audience member:
So the idea is right,

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any sufficiently
advanced civilization

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could create simulation
that's like our existence,

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and so the theory follows

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that maybe
we're in the simulation.

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-Have you thought about this?- A lot.

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- Audience member: And are we--
- [audience laughs]

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I am actually in a simulation,
and so are you.

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So, are we living
in a simulation?

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I find it hard to argue
against that possibility.

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If all of this is some kind
of informational process

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running in some machine.

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The machine is not
in this universe,

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it's somewhere else,

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and this universe is
a consequence of its running.

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This is kind of getting that
artifacting or whatever problem.

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Rodney: Brother Mystwood,
hey, how are you?

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Hello. I am sorry about
the strange lighting.

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[chuckles]

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All I have is Christmas lights.

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You talked about, you know,
sort of this journey

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starting after a spade
of synchronicities.

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- What were those like?
- Yes.

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There's a number of rather
small examples.

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You know, the kind of everyday
things that you would,

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you know...
I'm thinking of someone,

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and I turn the corner
and there they are.

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I would start giving myself
sort of tests.

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I'm thinking of an orange fish.

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I would like to see an orange
fish in the next 10 minutes.

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And 10 minutes later
in the walk,

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I turn down a street

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and there's a restaurant
with an orange fish on it

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that I'd never seen before.

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So, small things like that
occur with enough regularity.

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I began to sort of track
my days numerically.

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And if you'll allow me to go

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on a tangent a little bit here,
Rodney.

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I don't enjoy the average
five-day week.

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I like to work in weeks
of 12 days.

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I would notice that sort
of on every 12th day

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I would see a certain
type of thing pop up

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and I tracked this over the
course of about a year.

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And long story short,
started to notice

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you know, things that would pop
up with a certain regularity.

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You know, on every third day,
for instance, I would kind of--

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that would be when something
would happen

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sort of related to my career.

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Or every fifth day
I would notice an interesting

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synchronicity related
to my family,

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so on and so forth.

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And at a certain point
of course,

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what becomes hard to delineate,
is this regularity

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something that I'm noticing
or something that I'm making?

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You know, is it a Schrodinger
type of situation,

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where just by virtue
of staring at this thing,

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it becomes something
that it's not.

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One of the big things was

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that I would go to a lot
of places with my parents

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and they would be empty.

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Or very few people.

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Like a shopping mall with not
a lot of people in there.

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Driving down the road
and never seeing another car.

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Things like that.

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This is because I moved
from Pontiac, Illinois,

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which had more people,

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to Dorsey, Illinois,
which had like 500 people.

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Our nearest neighbor was
a quarter of a mile

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down the road
and all that.

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So I didn't interact
with a lot of people.

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And one of the things
that I thought,

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again, this is in my little,
you know,

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I moved there when I was in
like second grade...

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In my little brain
I was like, "A-ha!

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This is a great way
of saving time and money

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because they won't need
to have as many people."

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Occasionally, I would
go to St. Louis...

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which was about 50 miles away.

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But whenever we did,  my Dad had a very tight control

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over our schedule
and our itinerary, you know.

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- Once I saw...
- [clamoring, gunshots]

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...the idea of a facade,

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you know, this is
on a western movie thing.

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Once I saw the idea of it,

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I was like, "Oh, well,
that's what's happening."

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All this time that
we're spending in the car,

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this 50 minutes
that it takes us,

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we're inside this car

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they're playing, you know,
this film of us driving

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while they're changing all the sets into the St. Louis set.

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[construction sounds]

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But I'm not gonna get to go
and see everything

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because my dad is gonna
be there to make sure

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that we hit the points
we're supposed to hit

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and then we get back in the car and we go.

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Can you see me? There!

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I am an East Coaster
who lives in Los Angeles.

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I have an electrical
engineering degree from Harvard.

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I'm an entrepreneur.

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And I've also--

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I've got Crohn's disease.

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And it all plays in
to the simulation.

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I think the sort of
basic idea is that

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if you believed it enough...

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incredibly high-power
computing devices

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are gonna be distributed
in society

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and that the computers
will get stronger and stronger

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like our cell phones--

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- [dogs barking]
- Hey, you guys! Hey! No! Quiet!

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So, you know, if there are
in fact...

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enough machines that are running

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video game-style
world simulations

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the question is, you know, if
there's that many fake realities

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and only one base reality,

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what are the chances that you
happen to be in base reality?

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The odds that we're
in base reality

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is one in billions.

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Computer voice: The most
influential statistics-based

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look at simulation theory
was a 2003 article

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by Oxford professor
Nick Bostrom.

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It was titled "Are You Living
in a Computer Simulation?"

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[Skype ringing]

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Well, I was at the time a...

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kind of post-doctoral fellow
at Yale University.

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The ideas in some vague form

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have been with me
for quite some time

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that amounted to something more
than just idle speculation.

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And so I wrote that up

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and published that in
Philosophical Quarterly.

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And it immediately evoked
a huge amount of interest.

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And has continued to be
a huge amount of interest.

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It seems to come in waves
every year or two.

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Some new set of people  discover it for the first time.

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So I make a distinction between
the simulation hypothesis

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which is the hypothesis
that we are literally

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in a computer simulation
engineered

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by some advanced civilization.

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And the simulation argument.

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And it uses some simple
probability theory,

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but the basic idea can be
quite easily grasped.

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Which is that at least one
of three propositions is true.

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The first alternative is that
most all civilizations

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at our current stage
of technological development

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00:13:02,303 --> 00:13:05,523
go extinct before they reach
technological maturity.

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The second alternative is
that there is

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a very strong convergence

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00:13:14,576 --> 00:13:17,622
in virtually all technologically
mature civilizations

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in that they all lose interest

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in creating simulations
of this kind.

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They all lose interest

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00:13:25,021 --> 00:13:26,240
in creating
ancestor simulations.

251
00:13:26,806 --> 00:13:28,590
And the third alternative
is the simulation hypothesis

252
00:13:28,764 --> 00:13:31,288
that we are almost certainly
in a computer simulation.

253
00:13:33,595 --> 00:13:37,294
So if you reject these first two
propositions, it follows that

254
00:13:38,556 --> 00:13:42,778
almost all people with our kinds
of experience are simulated.

255
00:13:43,083 --> 00:13:45,912
And then, conditional on that
being the case, I argue

256
00:13:46,129 --> 00:13:48,436
we should think we are probably one of the simulated ones

257
00:13:49,002 --> 00:13:51,004
rather than one
of the non-simulated,

258
00:13:51,221 --> 00:13:52,744
exceptional, original ones.

259
00:13:53,397 --> 00:13:55,617
Personally, for me,
it's all about probabilities.

260
00:13:55,791 --> 00:14:01,057
I'm someone who thinks in terms
of probabilities, anyway.

261
00:14:01,971 --> 00:14:04,887
And I've just found in my life

262
00:14:05,061 --> 00:14:08,108
that there's lots
of low probability outcomes

263
00:14:08,673 --> 00:14:10,806
happen again and again
and again, and again.

264
00:14:18,379 --> 00:14:19,597
Bam.

265
00:14:19,815 --> 00:14:21,251
If I keep glancing off
to the side,

266
00:14:21,425 --> 00:14:23,123
it's 'cause my screen's
over there.

267
00:14:23,297 --> 00:14:24,211
Rodney: Oh, okay.

268
00:14:24,646 --> 00:14:26,039
You're actually
at my drawing table.

269
00:14:26,213 --> 00:14:27,214
So, if I keep
glancing over there,

270
00:14:27,388 --> 00:14:28,432
I'm just looking at you.

271
00:14:29,607 --> 00:14:30,913
And I'll look back to camera.

272
00:14:31,087 --> 00:14:32,306
Rodney:  What kind of drawing do you do?

273
00:14:34,612 --> 00:14:37,833
- It depends. You know Moebius?
- Sure.

274
00:14:38,225 --> 00:14:40,923
Yeah, I re-drew one
of his entire books

275
00:14:41,750 --> 00:14:45,493
with characters fromPeanuts instead of characters from him.

276
00:14:46,146 --> 00:14:48,670
And then I just do
painting and stuff like...

277
00:14:49,540 --> 00:14:52,717
just doodling like
fake Mignola stuff.

278
00:14:53,153 --> 00:14:54,067
Rodney: Uh-huh.

279
00:14:54,806 --> 00:14:56,983
Nothing that wonderful, but...

280
00:14:58,201 --> 00:14:59,463
I'm working more
on the Moebius-style

281
00:14:59,637 --> 00:15:01,422
for an entire new book
right now.

282
00:15:01,596 --> 00:15:03,815
Rodney: That's cool.
So, are you a full-time...

283
00:15:04,468 --> 00:15:06,253
- professional comic artist?
- No, no.

284
00:15:07,036 --> 00:15:10,083
I wish. No, I do
Special Ed teaching.

285
00:15:11,214 --> 00:15:12,824
Rodney: When did you start
thinking that there's more

286
00:15:12,999 --> 00:15:15,523
to simulation theory
than Science Fiction can see?

287
00:15:16,132 --> 00:15:19,005
Well, we know Musk. When he
started talking about it

288
00:15:20,223 --> 00:15:21,790
I really started
thinking about it more.

289
00:15:22,312 --> 00:15:25,663
The strongest argument
for us being in a simulation--

290
00:15:25,837 --> 00:15:27,839
probably being in a simulation,
I think is the following.

291
00:15:29,754 --> 00:15:33,889
That 40 years ago, we had Pong.

292
00:15:34,107 --> 00:15:35,717
Like two rectangles and a dot.

293
00:15:36,152 --> 00:15:37,806
That was what games were.

294
00:15:39,025 --> 00:15:40,504
Now, 40 years later,

295
00:15:40,678 --> 00:15:43,464
we have photo-realistic
3D simulations

296
00:15:43,638 --> 00:15:45,509
with millions of people
playing simultaneously.

297
00:15:45,901 --> 00:15:47,337
And it's getting better
every year.

298
00:15:47,511 --> 00:15:50,819
If you assume any rate
of improvement at all

299
00:15:52,299 --> 00:15:55,389
then the games will become  indistinguishable from reality.

300
00:16:00,785 --> 00:16:04,920
I think that triggered me
to really think hard about it.

301
00:16:12,493 --> 00:16:15,409
Does any one of us remember
in any dim fashion

302
00:16:15,887 --> 00:16:19,413
a worse Earth, circa 1977,
than this?

303
00:16:20,022 --> 00:16:23,330
Have our young men seen visions
and our old men dreamed dreams?

304
00:16:23,547 --> 00:16:24,548
I have.

305
00:16:25,419 --> 00:16:28,509
Nightmare dreams, specifically, of prisons and jailers

306
00:16:29,031 --> 00:16:30,685
and ubiquitous police.

307
00:16:33,601 --> 00:16:37,257
I wrote out these dreams
in novel after novel,

308
00:16:37,605 --> 00:16:38,954
story after story.

309
00:16:39,389 --> 00:16:41,870
To name two in which
this prior ugly present

310
00:16:42,044 --> 00:16:43,176
obtained most clearly,

311
00:16:43,480 --> 00:16:45,439
I cite
The Man in the High Castle

312
00:16:45,830 --> 00:16:49,443
and my 1974 novel about
the US as a police state

313
00:16:49,791 --> 00:16:52,011
calledFlow My Tears,
The Policeman Said.

314
00:16:52,881 --> 00:16:55,101
I'm going to be very candid
with you.

315
00:16:55,492 --> 00:16:59,322
I wrote both novels based on
fragmentary residual memories

316
00:16:59,540 --> 00:17:01,672
of such a horrid
slave state world.

317
00:17:02,282 --> 00:17:04,327
Or perhaps the term "world"
is the wrong one

318
00:17:04,501 --> 00:17:05,981
and I should say
"United States",

319
00:17:06,416 --> 00:17:07,678
since in both novels,

320
00:17:07,852 --> 00:17:09,419
I was writing
about my own country.

321
00:17:10,855 --> 00:17:12,944
Some people claim
to remember past lives.

322
00:17:13,119 --> 00:17:16,383
I claim to remember
a very different present life.

323
00:17:17,210 --> 00:17:20,213
I know of no one who has ever
made this claim before,

324
00:17:20,430 --> 00:17:21,605
but I rather suspect

325
00:17:21,779 --> 00:17:23,564
that my experience
is not unique.

326
00:17:24,260 --> 00:17:26,741
I can even tell you
what caused me to remember.

327
00:17:27,611 --> 00:17:31,398
In late February of 1974,
I was given sodium pentothal

328
00:17:31,572 --> 00:17:33,704
for the extraction
of impacted wisdom teeth.

329
00:17:34,270 --> 00:17:36,794
Later that day, back home again but still

330
00:17:36,968 --> 00:17:39,580
deeply under the influence
of the sodium pentothal,

331
00:17:39,928 --> 00:17:42,844
I had a short, acute flash
of recovered memory.

332
00:17:43,540 --> 00:17:45,455
In one instance,
I caught it all.

333
00:17:46,021 --> 00:17:48,980
You are free to believe me
or to disbelieve,

334
00:17:49,372 --> 00:17:51,809
but please take my word on it
that I am not joking.

335
00:17:51,983 --> 00:17:54,856
This is very serious,
a matter of importance.

336
00:17:55,335 --> 00:17:57,728
I am sure that,
at the very least, you'll agree

337
00:17:57,989 --> 00:18:01,297
that for me even to claim this
is in itself amazing.

338
00:18:04,909 --> 00:18:07,608
Computer voice: Philip K. Dick
wrote over 8,000 pages

339
00:18:07,782 --> 00:18:09,914
trying to understand
the recovered memories

340
00:18:10,089 --> 00:18:13,875
he experienced in February
and March of 1974,

341
00:18:14,049 --> 00:18:17,052
an experience he called
"2-3-7-4".

342
00:18:18,053 --> 00:18:20,534
This writing is known as
"The Exegesis".

343
00:18:21,230 --> 00:18:22,579
Erik Davis,

344
00:18:23,058 --> 00:18:24,842
working with Pamela Davis
and Jonathan Lethem,

345
00:18:25,234 --> 00:18:27,845
wrestled with this text  to edit a single book from it.

346
00:18:30,021 --> 00:18:31,327
It was a great experience,

347
00:18:31,806 --> 00:18:35,505
although a kind of
crazy-making one in a way.

348
00:18:35,679 --> 00:18:40,815
And you're in the antechamber
of the guy's problems

349
00:18:41,032 --> 00:18:44,471
and his trauma,
and his despair.

350
00:18:44,775 --> 00:18:47,213
It was so-- such a vast text

351
00:18:47,387 --> 00:18:50,651
that you kinda had to do it
by attrition, really.

352
00:18:50,825 --> 00:18:52,653
There were a number of things
that really worked.

353
00:18:52,827 --> 00:18:54,742
One is that
when he was really engaged

354
00:18:54,916 --> 00:18:56,135
in his own writing...

355
00:18:56,352 --> 00:18:57,614
- [typing]
- ...we included that.

356
00:18:57,832 --> 00:18:59,529
When he was
describing experiences,

357
00:18:59,703 --> 00:19:00,922
we included that.

358
00:19:01,227 --> 00:19:02,489
- [scribbling]
- There's a part where

359
00:19:02,967 --> 00:19:05,622
Dick describes the writing in "Exegesis" as a "hell chore".

360
00:19:05,840 --> 00:19:08,538
I think it really shows
the challenges

361
00:19:08,712 --> 00:19:11,541
of wrestling with
an extraordinary experience,

362
00:19:11,715 --> 00:19:13,326
and particularly experiences

363
00:19:13,543 --> 00:19:16,459
which we can find throughout
religious history

364
00:19:16,633 --> 00:19:20,333
of seeming insights
into reality that,

365
00:19:20,550 --> 00:19:22,465
for whatever positive vision
they give you

366
00:19:22,639 --> 00:19:24,032
about the true
nature of things,

367
00:19:24,772 --> 00:19:26,295
do manage to undermine

368
00:19:26,600 --> 00:19:28,471
your sense
that the everyday world

369
00:19:28,645 --> 00:19:33,476
is at all a coherent,
realistic operation.

370
00:19:33,737 --> 00:19:37,045
And that's quite
a harrowing ride.

371
00:19:38,525 --> 00:19:41,310
[wall crashes away]

372
00:19:44,966 --> 00:19:46,315
I could probably put together
a list

373
00:19:46,489 --> 00:19:49,797
of all the various
small synchronicities

374
00:19:49,971 --> 00:19:51,277
that kept popping up,

375
00:19:51,929 --> 00:19:53,540
but they were just so mundane,
but there was so many of them

376
00:19:53,714 --> 00:19:56,934
that eventually
I took one of these,

377
00:19:57,587 --> 00:19:59,720
you know, a particularly
auspicious day,

378
00:19:59,894 --> 00:20:01,417
I guess, for myself.

379
00:20:01,983 --> 00:20:04,725
And decided I was going to do
a sensory deprivation tank.

380
00:20:06,466 --> 00:20:08,207
Which is not something
I had done before.

381
00:20:08,859 --> 00:20:09,991
But it was just...

382
00:20:11,558 --> 00:20:15,083
something that felt like it'd be an interesting experience.

383
00:20:15,649 --> 00:20:16,954
And so, I did that.

384
00:20:17,259 --> 00:20:19,479
And there's a guy
in New York here,

385
00:20:19,653 --> 00:20:21,045
on 23rd Street

386
00:20:21,220 --> 00:20:22,221
who has
a sensory deprivation tank

387
00:20:22,395 --> 00:20:23,744
in his apartment,

388
00:20:24,005 --> 00:20:25,136
which is a strange thing,
but you go in,

389
00:20:25,311 --> 00:20:27,269
he gives you the spiel.

390
00:20:27,748 --> 00:20:29,576
You ask him any questions,
and then you go into it.

391
00:20:30,794 --> 00:20:32,753
And I, never having
had done this before,

392
00:20:32,927 --> 00:20:34,842
I kind of went into it

393
00:20:35,016 --> 00:20:36,670
not really knowing
what to expect.

394
00:20:36,887 --> 00:20:38,541
But he said, just sort of
ask for what you want

395
00:20:38,715 --> 00:20:40,804
or ask for, you know,
what you'd like to know.

396
00:20:40,978 --> 00:20:43,154
And the sense I got was like,

397
00:20:43,329 --> 00:20:44,852
"Yes, I'm asking the universe, or whatever

398
00:20:45,026 --> 00:20:46,593
but I'm also really
asking myself."

399
00:20:46,767 --> 00:20:49,683
And maybe those aren't
different things, right?

400
00:20:59,083 --> 00:21:00,476
The first few minutes
were very...

401
00:21:01,695 --> 00:21:03,349
I was very aware
of where I was.

402
00:21:03,523 --> 00:21:04,915
But after a few more minutes,

403
00:21:05,699 --> 00:21:08,049
I sort of stopped
sensing my body.

404
00:21:08,354 --> 00:21:10,921
I could now hear my eyelids.

405
00:21:11,182 --> 00:21:12,662
I could actually hear
what I thought might be

406
00:21:12,836 --> 00:21:14,360
my nervous system.

407
00:21:14,751 --> 00:21:17,145
I kinda, in that state,
had to come out, and said,

408
00:21:17,667 --> 00:21:19,147
"Listen, I get the sense

409
00:21:19,321 --> 00:21:20,888
that you're trying
to tell me something."

410
00:21:21,628 --> 00:21:24,108
I'm not sure I even knew who the "you" was I was talking to.

411
00:21:24,283 --> 00:21:26,328
I don't know if it was
the universe or...

412
00:21:26,763 --> 00:21:29,549
I'm also an ordained minister, so I was raised with that.

413
00:21:30,289 --> 00:21:31,594
So there's, you know,

414
00:21:31,768 --> 00:21:33,161
there's a
God part of it for me.

415
00:21:34,597 --> 00:21:36,599
[machine whirring]

416
00:21:36,773 --> 00:21:37,948
Brother Mystwood:
Just sort of asking it,

417
00:21:38,122 --> 00:21:39,559
come out, just come out

418
00:21:39,733 --> 00:21:40,951
and do what it is
you'd like to say.

419
00:21:41,212 --> 00:21:42,562
[machine whirring]

420
00:21:43,171 --> 00:21:45,260
[dramatic music playing]

421
00:21:54,313 --> 00:21:57,272
Yeah, and I'm not
a New Age guy at all.

422
00:21:57,446 --> 00:21:59,056
Or at least I wasn't
before I did this.

423
00:21:59,230 --> 00:22:01,972
But my head started to buzz.

424
00:22:02,321 --> 00:22:05,454
My forehead just started
to violent pounding.

425
00:22:05,715 --> 00:22:08,675
A swirling buzz that I--

426
00:22:09,110 --> 00:22:10,764
I felt like I opened up,

427
00:22:10,938 --> 00:22:12,592
and I just
became aware like, "Okay

428
00:22:13,201 --> 00:22:15,595
I am not a body at all,
I am a code.

429
00:22:15,856 --> 00:22:18,032
I am a string of letters
and numbers

430
00:22:18,206 --> 00:22:19,686
and acids, and so forth.

431
00:22:19,860 --> 00:22:21,340
And I knew this, of course,
from DNA,

432
00:22:21,514 --> 00:22:24,212
but more than that,
it means, you know,

433
00:22:24,952 --> 00:22:28,303
- nothing on me is real."
- [shattering]

434
00:22:29,304 --> 00:22:31,045
Brother Mystwood:  And nothing on anyone is real.

435
00:22:31,219 --> 00:22:33,656
I'm pattern, I'm a code  constantly replicating itself.

436
00:22:33,830 --> 00:22:36,137
I'm a vibration,
and that's what it is.

437
00:22:36,355 --> 00:22:37,660
Got out of the tank

438
00:22:37,921 --> 00:22:39,183
and I started talking
to the guy.

439
00:22:41,272 --> 00:22:42,535
And he was talking about,

440
00:22:42,709 --> 00:22:43,666
"Oh, it's your
third eye opening

441
00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:45,451
and sometimes that happens"

442
00:22:45,625 --> 00:22:47,104
And I asked him,  "Well, what do I do with that?"

443
00:22:47,278 --> 00:22:48,236
And he's like, "I don't know.
Enjoy it."

444
00:22:50,978 --> 00:22:53,937
I've always had a little bit
of a sense of this,

445
00:22:54,111 --> 00:22:55,461
but this is the big event.

446
00:23:00,248 --> 00:23:01,771
I was about 11 or 12...

447
00:23:02,859 --> 00:23:04,948
and I'm adopted.

448
00:23:05,471 --> 00:23:07,429
- I'm a pastor's son.
- [pipe organ playing]

449
00:23:08,038 --> 00:23:09,605
Paul: My adopted dad
is a pastor,

450
00:23:09,779 --> 00:23:11,302
so I go to church every Sunday.

451
00:23:11,912 --> 00:23:14,001
And I believe at this point
in time, though,

452
00:23:14,175 --> 00:23:15,655
it wasn't a Sunday service.

453
00:23:15,829 --> 00:23:16,786
I think it was like
an Advent service.

454
00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:18,048
It was at nighttime.

455
00:23:18,788 --> 00:23:23,140
And most people have
some reference for church,

456
00:23:23,314 --> 00:23:24,359
but in case you don't,

457
00:23:25,316 --> 00:23:27,144
there are people,
they're dressed up

458
00:23:28,494 --> 00:23:30,844
and they're sitting in--
this is in the early 80s,

459
00:23:31,018 --> 00:23:33,368
so people dressed up more
than they maybe do now.

460
00:23:33,803 --> 00:23:37,198
And they're seating in pews.
Pews are like long benches.

461
00:23:38,286 --> 00:23:39,374
And they have
their hymnals open,

462
00:23:39,548 --> 00:23:40,419
and they're singing.

463
00:23:40,593 --> 00:23:42,029
[people singing in church]

464
00:23:42,290 --> 00:23:45,075
Paul: And I look around
at everyone singing

465
00:23:46,076 --> 00:23:50,429
and I think to myself, "The way we're making these noises,

466
00:23:51,125 --> 00:23:55,303
is that we have these meat
flaps and we're forcing air

467
00:23:55,477 --> 00:23:57,871
through these meat flaps
and we're making noise.

468
00:23:58,393 --> 00:23:59,960
And we're animals, basically,

469
00:24:00,134 --> 00:24:02,266
yet we put on all these clothes

470
00:24:02,484 --> 00:24:05,748
and we sit in this place,
and we're making these noises

471
00:24:05,922 --> 00:24:07,489
by forcing air
through our meat flaps,"

472
00:24:07,881 --> 00:24:10,449
and I start thinking about
how bodies move

473
00:24:10,797 --> 00:24:12,799
and how weird it is
that they move that way.

474
00:24:13,147 --> 00:24:14,975
And just the absurdity
of the situation

475
00:24:15,410 --> 00:24:17,064
keeps on going around,
around in my head.

476
00:24:17,499 --> 00:24:20,023
And I'm like,
"Oh, none of this is real.

477
00:24:20,197 --> 00:24:21,590
That's what's going on."

478
00:24:21,851 --> 00:24:23,418
And as soon as I had
that realization,

479
00:24:23,766 --> 00:24:25,551
the only way
I can describe it is,

480
00:24:25,899 --> 00:24:28,597
I was nowhere, I was nothing.

481
00:24:30,077 --> 00:24:33,559
I felt sort of like
loneliness was a thing.

482
00:24:33,733 --> 00:24:35,952
I was the
personification of it.

483
00:24:36,257 --> 00:24:39,129
I was cut off from everything. It was only me.

484
00:24:40,174 --> 00:24:43,960
And it was soul-crushing
and claustrophobic.

485
00:24:44,787 --> 00:24:48,008
But I didn't see anything.  It wasn't that I saw blackness.

486
00:24:48,182 --> 00:24:50,750
I wasn't seeing
and I wasn't feeling.

487
00:24:50,967 --> 00:24:54,275
It was this
almost negation of self

488
00:24:54,449 --> 00:24:55,885
except that I was there

489
00:24:56,364 --> 00:25:00,368
feeling this weird emptiness,
this gone-ness.

490
00:25:08,811 --> 00:25:11,466
My entire life,
I'm living with family,

491
00:25:11,640 --> 00:25:14,034
and I'm real used to it.
Specifically, my brother.

492
00:25:15,644 --> 00:25:17,254
And then I go off.

493
00:25:17,864 --> 00:25:19,996
You know, the parents
are always like, "You're 18.

494
00:25:20,170 --> 00:25:21,258
We're kicking you out."

495
00:25:21,781 --> 00:25:23,304
But I kinda beat them
to the punch

496
00:25:23,478 --> 00:25:25,262
because, like,
the day after graduation,

497
00:25:25,436 --> 00:25:26,481
I was out of town.

498
00:25:26,742 --> 00:25:27,917
I had moved away.

499
00:25:28,091 --> 00:25:28,788
And I didn't come back
for years.

500
00:25:30,398 --> 00:25:32,922
But during that time,
I was just alone, you know.

501
00:25:33,096 --> 00:25:34,315
I lived with a friend,

502
00:25:34,576 --> 00:25:35,490
but I didn't have
my brother with me.

503
00:25:36,709 --> 00:25:39,538
And all we would do
for like two straight years

504
00:25:39,712 --> 00:25:40,582
is just play video games.

505
00:25:40,756 --> 00:25:42,366
I worked at a Chili's,

506
00:25:43,411 --> 00:25:45,282
and I would always come home,
we would do stupid things

507
00:25:45,456 --> 00:25:50,026
like playGuitar Hero
for two straight days,

508
00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:54,422
or we would get a game
and do it from front to back,

509
00:25:54,596 --> 00:25:56,380
and then just go back in
and just beat it again.

510
00:25:57,251 --> 00:25:59,732
All the time, video games,
for years and years,

511
00:26:00,863 --> 00:26:02,125
that's literally all I did.

512
00:26:03,431 --> 00:26:05,172
Didn't draw,
didn't do anything.

513
00:26:12,658 --> 00:26:14,921
And so I got into
a dark place there.

514
00:26:15,095 --> 00:26:17,837
It's like, "Maybe I'm stuck
in this rut on purpose.

515
00:26:18,011 --> 00:26:20,100
Maybe it's not my design.
It's whatever."

516
00:26:20,317 --> 00:26:22,015
I'm not religious at all,

517
00:26:22,406 --> 00:26:25,758
but how do I reconcile feeling
like I'm in a rut, though?

518
00:26:26,497 --> 00:26:28,412
Like a preprogrammed rut.

519
00:26:28,935 --> 00:26:30,153
I have to go the science route.

520
00:26:31,154 --> 00:26:35,463
And the only really blending
of religion in science there is

521
00:26:35,768 --> 00:26:38,161
would probably be
a simulation theory,

522
00:26:38,988 --> 00:26:40,076
to be honest with you.

523
00:26:43,123 --> 00:26:44,603
Paul: When I had that
first experience

524
00:26:44,777 --> 00:26:46,866
in the church,  the analogy that I use is like,

525
00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:50,173
let's say that your grandpa
has a favorite radio.

526
00:26:50,870 --> 00:26:52,611
And he listens to it
all the time, and all that.

527
00:26:52,785 --> 00:26:55,614
And one day, you decide
to take that radio apart.

528
00:26:56,179 --> 00:26:57,572
And you're looking
at all the pieces

529
00:26:58,138 --> 00:26:59,966
and "Hey, hey,
I took this apart."

530
00:27:00,227 --> 00:27:02,533
And then you realize you can't
put it back together again.

531
00:27:03,447 --> 00:27:05,058
That's the feeling that I had

532
00:27:05,319 --> 00:27:07,843
when I was in that sort
of null state, if you will.

533
00:27:08,496 --> 00:27:10,019
And in my mind...

534
00:27:11,194 --> 00:27:14,981
that is what's outside
of the simulation.

535
00:27:24,991 --> 00:27:26,557
Contemplating this possibility

536
00:27:26,732 --> 00:27:28,559
of a lateral arrangement
of worlds,

537
00:27:29,735 --> 00:27:31,519
a plurality
of overlapping Earths

538
00:27:31,693 --> 00:27:34,696
along whose linking axis
a person can somehow move

539
00:27:35,044 --> 00:27:36,742
and travel in a mysterious way

540
00:27:36,916 --> 00:27:38,961
from worst to fair
to good to excellent.

541
00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:41,660
Contemplating this
in theological terms,

542
00:27:42,138 --> 00:27:45,272
perhaps we could say that  here with we suddenly decipher

543
00:27:45,576 --> 00:27:48,057
the elliptical utterances
which Christ expressed

544
00:27:48,231 --> 00:27:49,798
regarding the kingdom of God.

545
00:27:50,190 --> 00:27:51,931
Specifically,
where it is located.

546
00:27:52,714 --> 00:27:54,760
He seems to have given
contradictory

547
00:27:54,934 --> 00:27:55,978
and puzzling answers.

548
00:27:56,544 --> 00:27:58,981
But suppose, just suppose
for an instant

549
00:27:59,678 --> 00:28:01,331
that the cause of the perplexity

550
00:28:01,549 --> 00:28:02,768
lay not in any desire

551
00:28:02,942 --> 00:28:04,813
on his part
to baffle or to hide,

552
00:28:05,118 --> 00:28:07,033
but in the inadequacy
of the question.

553
00:28:08,121 --> 00:28:09,688
"My kingdom is not
of this world,"

554
00:28:09,862 --> 00:28:11,298
he is reported to have said.

555
00:28:11,994 --> 00:28:14,823
"The kingdom is within you,
or possibly it is among you."

556
00:28:16,216 --> 00:28:18,653
It was his mission
to teach his disciples

557
00:28:19,045 --> 00:28:22,396
the secret of crossing along
this orthogonal path.

558
00:28:23,005 --> 00:28:25,399
He did not merely report
what lay there.

559
00:28:25,834 --> 00:28:27,488
He taught the method
of getting there.

560
00:28:28,097 --> 00:28:30,099
But, tragically,
the secret was lost.

561
00:28:30,709 --> 00:28:32,841
The enemy, the Roman authority, crushed it.

562
00:28:34,582 --> 00:28:36,715
When I sawStar Wars
this morning

563
00:28:37,803 --> 00:28:38,804
I thought to myself...

564
00:28:40,501 --> 00:28:41,328
déjà vu.

565
00:28:46,637 --> 00:28:49,162
Paul: The simulation idea
has been around way before

566
00:28:49,336 --> 00:28:52,034
all of us started thinking
about computers.

567
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:55,646
The concept of people standing at the Pearly Gates

568
00:28:55,821 --> 00:28:57,779
and looking at their lives,
right?

569
00:28:58,171 --> 00:29:02,828
What is that if not
a debrief, if you will,

570
00:29:03,002 --> 00:29:05,265
after you get out
of a simulation?

571
00:29:05,961 --> 00:29:08,050
Hey, Miller, look what I found.

572
00:29:08,311 --> 00:29:09,138
Wow.

573
00:29:10,183 --> 00:29:12,141
Realistic, isn't it, Mr. Miller?

574
00:29:12,751 --> 00:29:15,666
Nick Bostrom: René Descartes  tried to build an epistemology

575
00:29:16,102 --> 00:29:19,148
from a foundation of skepticism
and radical doubt.

576
00:29:19,627 --> 00:29:21,760
Narrator: I will suppose
that some malicious demon

577
00:29:21,977 --> 00:29:24,110
has employed his energies
to deceive me.

578
00:29:25,024 --> 00:29:27,809
I shall think that the sky,
the air, the earth

579
00:29:28,027 --> 00:29:30,333
and all external things
are merely the delusions

580
00:29:30,507 --> 00:29:32,727
which he has devised
to ensnare my judgement.

581
00:29:33,989 --> 00:29:37,776
I shall consider myself as not having hands or flesh or senses

582
00:29:38,167 --> 00:29:40,604
but his falsely believing
that I have all these things.

583
00:29:41,431 --> 00:29:43,912
A slightly more modern version
of the same idea

584
00:29:44,086 --> 00:29:45,958
is the brain in a vat.
Where, again,

585
00:29:46,567 --> 00:29:49,570
you try to challenge
the philosopher

586
00:29:49,875 --> 00:29:51,485
to prove that
the external world exists

587
00:29:51,659 --> 00:29:54,749
and that he or she
is not a brain in a vat

588
00:29:55,141 --> 00:29:56,838
in some
mad scientist's laboratory

589
00:29:57,012 --> 00:29:58,840
being kind of fed inputs

590
00:29:59,406 --> 00:30:01,190
that mimic what
the external world

591
00:30:01,364 --> 00:30:02,583
would have done.

592
00:30:13,594 --> 00:30:14,987
It didn't really matter
how realistic

593
00:30:15,161 --> 00:30:16,423
these thought experiments were.

594
00:30:16,597 --> 00:30:18,077
They were just
logical possibilities,

595
00:30:18,294 --> 00:30:20,166
and the challenge was,
how can you disprove them?

596
00:30:24,213 --> 00:30:25,388
Computer voice:
One thousand years

597
00:30:25,562 --> 00:30:27,434
before
Descartes' Evil Demon

598
00:30:27,695 --> 00:30:31,177
a similar idea was put forth
in Ancient Greece by Plato.

599
00:30:32,004 --> 00:30:34,310
He describes, "Imagine,
the situation.

600
00:30:34,833 --> 00:30:39,054
There are figures chained
inside of a cave from birth.

601
00:30:39,228 --> 00:30:41,187
They have no experience
of what's outside of it.

602
00:30:41,404 --> 00:30:42,753
They're looking at a wall,

603
00:30:43,232 --> 00:30:44,581
and on the wall they kind
of see this projection."

604
00:30:45,191 --> 00:30:46,801
Orson Welles: You see men
passing along the wall,

605
00:30:47,106 --> 00:30:49,064
carrying all sorts of articles

606
00:30:49,238 --> 00:30:51,284
which they hold projected
above the wall.

607
00:30:51,675 --> 00:30:53,764
Statues of men and animals

608
00:30:53,939 --> 00:30:56,376
made of wood and stone
and various materials.

609
00:31:00,859 --> 00:31:03,905
Of the objects, which are
being carried in like manner,

610
00:31:04,601 --> 00:31:06,734
they would only see
the shadows.

611
00:31:07,387 --> 00:31:08,736
Computer voice:
Emily Pothast wrote about

612
00:31:08,910 --> 00:31:10,433
this parable's relevance

613
00:31:10,651 --> 00:31:12,827
to both simulation theory
and other aspects

614
00:31:13,088 --> 00:31:15,830
of digital communications
and miscommunications.

615
00:31:18,572 --> 00:31:20,400
Emily Pothast:  It's a very cinematic metaphor,

616
00:31:20,574 --> 00:31:21,923
and I just love that,

617
00:31:22,532 --> 00:31:25,013
how that sort of imagination
of how film affects us.

618
00:31:25,971 --> 00:31:29,235
And just like there's
like that lossiness between

619
00:31:29,409 --> 00:31:32,238
what is really happening
and what perception shows us,

620
00:31:32,455 --> 00:31:35,415
there's sort of lossiness
between what media

621
00:31:35,589 --> 00:31:37,634
shows us and what
the real world outside

622
00:31:37,808 --> 00:31:39,506
of that media
representation is.

623
00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:41,116
So now,

624
00:31:41,595 --> 00:31:43,118
it's not just what their senses decide to show them,

625
00:31:43,292 --> 00:31:44,859
it's what the media
decides to show them.

626
00:31:45,077 --> 00:31:47,601
All: And this is extremely
dangerous to our democracy.

627
00:31:48,341 --> 00:31:50,604
Erik Davis:
Let's go back to Hindu myths.

628
00:31:54,869 --> 00:31:57,654
You find these incredible myths of like, you know,

629
00:31:57,916 --> 00:32:01,136
the king's going along and  stops for a well and he drinks

630
00:32:01,310 --> 00:32:03,486
and then he goes and has
a whole other existence,

631
00:32:03,660 --> 00:32:04,923
a whole other life.

632
00:32:05,271 --> 00:32:07,055
And then pop! He comes back in.

633
00:32:07,273 --> 00:32:09,536
And they'll even have worlds
within worlds within worlds.

634
00:32:09,710 --> 00:32:12,147
So, you have the structure
of worlds within worlds,

635
00:32:12,321 --> 00:32:13,496
and once you have that

636
00:32:13,888 --> 00:32:16,412
it undermines the primary world.

637
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:18,284
It really kind of
crystalized for me

638
00:32:18,458 --> 00:32:20,025
when I started observing

639
00:32:20,199 --> 00:32:22,418
the experience
of the villager in Minecraft.

640
00:32:24,116 --> 00:32:26,118
He's a massively simplified
version of us.

641
00:32:26,422 --> 00:32:30,035
He has free will. He moves  about the space as he sees fit.

642
00:32:30,383 --> 00:32:31,775
But the interesting thing,
though,

643
00:32:31,993 --> 00:32:33,212
is for me what it was
with the villager is,

644
00:32:33,777 --> 00:32:36,476
you know, what does he do
when you, the avatar

645
00:32:37,390 --> 00:32:39,479
come down into the game
ofMinecraft?

646
00:32:39,740 --> 00:32:41,829
When you inhabit your avatar
inMinecraft

647
00:32:42,003 --> 00:32:43,613
and you descend to Earth,

648
00:32:44,310 --> 00:32:46,834
what does the villager do
when you encounter him?

649
00:32:47,487 --> 00:32:49,358
He looks at you, you know?

650
00:32:49,968 --> 00:32:52,492
He looks at you as if
you are the same as him.

651
00:32:52,666 --> 00:32:54,668
Of course, you're not.
Because you are being controlled

652
00:32:55,147 --> 00:32:56,539
by an intelligence,
a higher power.

653
00:32:57,323 --> 00:32:59,107
Alex Levine:  It'd be hilarious if Elon Musk

654
00:32:59,281 --> 00:33:00,326
was a player character.

655
00:33:01,457 --> 00:33:03,024
And he just comes
into the game, like,

656
00:33:03,198 --> 00:33:05,940
"Hey, you guys know...
[chuckles] ...we're simulated."

657
00:33:07,246 --> 00:33:08,682
This could be some simulation.

658
00:33:08,856 --> 00:33:10,597
It could.
Do you entertain that?

659
00:33:11,032 --> 00:33:12,773
Alex: But then he gets
to log off, go back to...

660
00:33:13,904 --> 00:33:15,602
Artificer, heaven or whatever,

661
00:33:15,776 --> 00:33:19,345
and laugh with his weird
extra-dimensional friends

662
00:33:19,823 --> 00:33:21,695
"Hey, I was just playing around

663
00:33:21,869 --> 00:33:23,305
with that simulation
again today.

664
00:33:23,653 --> 00:33:25,525
And I keep dropping them hints, but no one's picking it up."

665
00:33:27,092 --> 00:33:28,397
Brother Mystwood:
But it's interesting because,

666
00:33:28,745 --> 00:33:30,878
for me, the villager speaks to,

667
00:33:31,052 --> 00:33:33,489
there are a few different
levels of what, you know

668
00:33:33,794 --> 00:33:34,969
being raised in
the Christian faith,

669
00:33:35,143 --> 00:33:36,275
I would call God.

670
00:33:37,145 --> 00:33:38,929
There's the God
who made the world,

671
00:33:39,147 --> 00:33:40,931
and then there's the avatar

672
00:33:41,149 --> 00:33:42,498
who's descending in front
of you, and they're different

673
00:33:42,672 --> 00:33:44,109
because the God
who made the world

674
00:33:44,283 --> 00:33:45,893
is not the person
who's in front of you.

675
00:33:46,067 --> 00:33:47,329
We don't get to see that.
We don't get to see

676
00:33:47,503 --> 00:33:49,114
the creator of the game.

677
00:33:49,679 --> 00:33:53,422
To extend this metaphor
to perhaps ridiculous lengths.

678
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:55,946
You know, one minute,
a pixel on your screen

679
00:33:56,512 --> 00:33:58,036
will be representing a flower.

680
00:33:59,037 --> 00:34:00,212
And it is that flower.

681
00:34:00,995 --> 00:34:02,518
And then the next minute,
a villager will walk in,

682
00:34:02,692 --> 00:34:04,868
and that pixel represents him.

683
00:34:05,391 --> 00:34:06,696
That pixel is part of him.

684
00:34:06,914 --> 00:34:08,568
It doesn't take much
to think about like,

685
00:34:08,742 --> 00:34:10,352
"Well, if I just extrapolate
that to three dimensions,

686
00:34:11,484 --> 00:34:14,878
it's the same as atom
is in cells. You know, one year

687
00:34:15,401 --> 00:34:16,576
this cell's part of me,

688
00:34:16,750 --> 00:34:18,012
and then tomorrow
it'll flake off

689
00:34:18,186 --> 00:34:19,100
and it'll be part
of something else.

690
00:34:19,274 --> 00:34:20,536
And every seven years,

691
00:34:20,754 --> 00:34:22,495
our cells
replace themselves, anyway."

692
00:34:24,366 --> 00:34:25,715
Computer voice:
Artist Chris Ware

693
00:34:25,889 --> 00:34:27,848
was so struck
by the implications

694
00:34:28,022 --> 00:34:30,242
ofMinecraft that he created
this cover illustration

695
00:34:30,416 --> 00:34:31,460
forThe New Yorker.

696
00:34:33,810 --> 00:34:34,985
Chris Ware: Video game itself...

697
00:34:36,291 --> 00:34:37,814
catches this
sort of sense of...

698
00:34:38,859 --> 00:34:40,643
I don't know, more than
anything just like death.

699
00:34:40,861 --> 00:34:42,428
Whenever I play it
with my daughter,

700
00:34:42,602 --> 00:34:44,691
I feel like we're dead
and we're flying around

701
00:34:44,865 --> 00:34:46,432
looking at the world
or something.

702
00:34:46,606 --> 00:34:49,478
It's the only experience
I've had that kind of

703
00:34:49,739 --> 00:34:51,785
closely approximates
what I imagine

704
00:34:52,916 --> 00:34:55,832
a disembodied consciousness
might experience, or something.

705
00:34:56,006 --> 00:34:57,443
I don't know how else
to really put it.

706
00:34:58,835 --> 00:35:01,229
We build these peculiar
sculptures.

707
00:35:01,403 --> 00:35:04,189
She built giant-- Well,
"giant" is a relative term

708
00:35:04,363 --> 00:35:06,016
when you're talking
digitally being reality.

709
00:35:06,191 --> 00:35:08,976
But giant sculptures
of myself and my wife

710
00:35:09,498 --> 00:35:12,936
amidst kind of
golden farmhouses

711
00:35:13,111 --> 00:35:16,114
that then would go underground,

712
00:35:16,766 --> 00:35:18,942
and train lines
or mine cart lines

713
00:35:19,117 --> 00:35:22,076
that would go underground
and connect between...

714
00:35:24,774 --> 00:35:26,733
the landscape
that kind of pre-existed.

715
00:35:28,561 --> 00:35:32,130
But now she's 14, so she's
kind of passed beyond.

716
00:35:32,304 --> 00:35:34,654
But now she's in this
sort of baroque phase

717
00:35:34,828 --> 00:35:36,699
where she
and some of her friends

718
00:35:36,873 --> 00:35:38,614
now have gone back to Minecraft

719
00:35:38,788 --> 00:35:41,530
and are now looking at
their worlds that they made

720
00:35:41,791 --> 00:35:44,490
in their preadolescence
and kind of revisiting them,

721
00:35:44,664 --> 00:35:47,710
and listening to the music again
and getting all tearful.

722
00:35:47,884 --> 00:35:49,930
So it's a 14-year-old nostalgia

723
00:35:50,104 --> 00:35:52,062
for a lost world of innocence,
or something.

724
00:35:52,976 --> 00:35:56,806
I guess when she's 40
and I'm 85, or whatever

725
00:35:56,980 --> 00:36:01,159
and downloaded onto
a flash drive

726
00:36:01,333 --> 00:36:03,161
we can continue to visit.

727
00:36:18,524 --> 00:36:20,700
Philip K. Dick: My relationship
with the United States

728
00:36:20,917 --> 00:36:22,180
has always been a very bad one.

729
00:36:24,356 --> 00:36:26,096
It has always seemed to me

730
00:36:27,446 --> 00:36:30,405
that I was about to be arrested by the American police

731
00:36:30,927 --> 00:36:33,191
for some obscure reason.

732
00:36:33,365 --> 00:36:36,237
Perhaps that's because
of reading Kafka'sThe Trial.

733
00:36:36,629 --> 00:36:38,805
That book influenced me
very much.

734
00:36:39,066 --> 00:36:41,808
You know, where someone
is arrested for a crime,

735
00:36:41,982 --> 00:36:44,289
and he's never told
what crime he's committed.

736
00:36:48,031 --> 00:36:51,078
When I was a kid, and one of
the things I really keyed into

737
00:36:52,079 --> 00:36:55,256
was adults at the time
would repeat things

738
00:36:55,952 --> 00:36:56,997
over and over again.

739
00:36:57,215 --> 00:36:58,346
For instance, Newsweekmagazine,

740
00:36:58,607 --> 00:37:00,087
my dad used to get it
all the time.

741
00:37:00,957 --> 00:37:02,481
And we'd be sitting around
the dinner table

742
00:37:03,743 --> 00:37:05,440
and he'd say,
"Well, you know..."

743
00:37:05,614 --> 00:37:07,790
and then he'd say word for word

744
00:37:08,530 --> 00:37:11,794
a sentence that was read
from theNewsweek magazine.

745
00:37:14,667 --> 00:37:16,451
So, it was like the magazine

746
00:37:17,060 --> 00:37:19,237
programmed him to say
that thing.

747
00:37:19,411 --> 00:37:21,326
This wasn't an original thought that he had.

748
00:37:22,240 --> 00:37:24,503
And that's really where
it started, I guess.

749
00:37:24,720 --> 00:37:29,725
You know, in my, like...
early childhood,

750
00:37:29,899 --> 00:37:34,861
the concept that the people
that I was dealing with were,

751
00:37:35,035 --> 00:37:38,256
I used the term
"chemical robots" at the time,

752
00:37:38,908 --> 00:37:42,477
but the concept that
they weren't actually conscious.

753
00:37:43,130 --> 00:37:44,914
They had these
repeated behaviors

754
00:37:45,088 --> 00:37:46,699
that they would do
over and over again.

755
00:37:50,833 --> 00:37:52,182
Computer voice:
In his paper,

756
00:37:52,357 --> 00:37:53,793
Nick Bostrom defined
a simulation

757
00:37:53,967 --> 00:37:56,143
of the entire mental history
of mankind

758
00:37:56,317 --> 00:37:58,145
as an "ancestor simulation"

759
00:37:58,319 --> 00:38:01,670
when estimating the amount of computing power one might need.

760
00:38:03,672 --> 00:38:06,022
Rodney: Does the idea
of ancestor simulations

761
00:38:06,196 --> 00:38:08,242
suggest that we are
retracing the steps

762
00:38:08,416 --> 00:38:13,291
of the genuine society
that created the simulation?

763
00:38:14,204 --> 00:38:16,598
Well, that's one possibility.

764
00:38:16,772 --> 00:38:18,557
There could also be
all kinds of variations

765
00:38:19,775 --> 00:38:21,429
ranging from
complete fantasy worlds

766
00:38:21,603 --> 00:38:23,126
that bear no resemblance

767
00:38:23,388 --> 00:38:26,347
to anything that existed
in physical reality

768
00:38:26,565 --> 00:38:28,393
to variations of history.

769
00:38:30,917 --> 00:38:34,050
All of that
is conceptually possible.

770
00:38:35,269 --> 00:38:38,490
But an ancestor simulation
that I talk about in the paper

771
00:38:38,664 --> 00:38:41,406
which is to consider
the type of simulation

772
00:38:41,580 --> 00:38:44,757
where the simulators
would be creating

773
00:38:45,627 --> 00:38:47,934
very detailed simulations
of people like

774
00:38:48,413 --> 00:38:50,676
their historical predecessors.

775
00:38:51,067 --> 00:38:53,287
Maybe not exactly
the same people,

776
00:38:54,070 --> 00:38:55,594
but the same kind of people.

777
00:38:56,290 --> 00:38:59,946
Back when I was 9?
Nine or 10,

778
00:39:00,425 --> 00:39:02,601
I used to joke about
with my brothers and sister

779
00:39:03,166 --> 00:39:05,691
that people would just go home, and just like sit down

780
00:39:05,865 --> 00:39:07,345
and stare at walls
while no one was watching.

781
00:39:07,780 --> 00:39:08,955
You know, they would
just like...

782
00:39:10,478 --> 00:39:12,567
you know, go home
and T-pose, effectively,

783
00:39:13,916 --> 00:39:15,527
in their private spaces
when they weren't seen

784
00:39:15,701 --> 00:39:16,702
'cause they would just...

785
00:39:17,833 --> 00:39:19,618
deactivate their programming,
I guess.

786
00:39:20,706 --> 00:39:23,056
I used to joke about that,
but that idea ran with me

787
00:39:23,230 --> 00:39:24,536
a lot when I was older.

788
00:39:26,929 --> 00:39:28,235
It kind of became
a little horrifying

789
00:39:28,844 --> 00:39:30,411
that these people
I would talk to,

790
00:39:30,846 --> 00:39:33,327
since nobody was watching,  the program would stop working.

791
00:39:44,164 --> 00:39:45,600
Does not assume that

792
00:39:46,732 --> 00:39:49,604
all the details of our world
would be simulated

793
00:39:50,649 --> 00:39:53,042
to perfect subatomic precision
all the time.

794
00:39:53,565 --> 00:39:55,349
And indeed,
that kind of simulation

795
00:39:55,523 --> 00:39:57,830
might well be
completely intractable.

796
00:39:58,657 --> 00:40:00,789
Obviously, it depends on
the kind of computer power

797
00:40:00,963 --> 00:40:02,312
available in
the basement simulators.

798
00:40:02,487 --> 00:40:04,358
If you have
infinitely fast computers, sure.

799
00:40:04,793 --> 00:40:06,360
But, no, the idea rather

800
00:40:06,534 --> 00:40:07,927
is that you would
be able to create

801
00:40:08,101 --> 00:40:11,365
a simulation capturing
only enough that,

802
00:40:12,584 --> 00:40:13,976
to the simulated creatures,

803
00:40:14,150 --> 00:40:15,674
they couldn't tell
the difference.

804
00:40:15,978 --> 00:40:18,633
And that would involve
some pretty clever footwork

805
00:40:18,807 --> 00:40:20,243
on behalf of the simulators

806
00:40:20,418 --> 00:40:22,071
that they would be able,
for example,

807
00:40:22,245 --> 00:40:24,117
to leave more detail  in a particular part of reality

808
00:40:24,291 --> 00:40:25,901
when we are paying attention.

809
00:40:26,380 --> 00:40:29,252
But then not simulating all
of those details all the time.

810
00:40:31,211 --> 00:40:35,389
I'm occupying maybe
20 square feet?

811
00:40:36,477 --> 00:40:38,914
And yet there's a whole
world that exists

812
00:40:39,175 --> 00:40:40,394
because I know about it.

813
00:40:41,003 --> 00:40:42,135
It is here in my brain.

814
00:40:43,136 --> 00:40:45,834
I worked with a company
for a little while

815
00:40:46,008 --> 00:40:51,187
that launched what is now
a very popular app

816
00:40:51,666 --> 00:40:54,843
that is
an interactive fiction app.

817
00:40:55,191 --> 00:40:56,889
You know, there's an element of,
"Well, it's just like writing

818
00:40:57,063 --> 00:40:59,848
a choose-your-own-adventure.
But what became swiftly...

819
00:41:02,155 --> 00:41:03,112
obvious to me...

820
00:41:05,593 --> 00:41:08,248
how simple some of our
own decision-making is,

821
00:41:08,466 --> 00:41:09,902
from a coding perspective.

822
00:41:11,381 --> 00:41:13,514
Computer voice:
A popular recent Reddit AMA

823
00:41:13,688 --> 00:41:14,994
was with a user who wrote

824
00:41:15,734 --> 00:41:18,214
"I am a real life
non-player character."

825
00:41:19,215 --> 00:41:21,740
And... all right,
we're all good.

826
00:41:22,088 --> 00:41:24,351
So, a NPC

827
00:41:24,525 --> 00:41:27,963
is a non-player character
that you will normally see

828
00:41:28,137 --> 00:41:29,312
in a video game.

829
00:41:30,052 --> 00:41:33,360
They're usually the people
thataren't controlled

830
00:41:33,665 --> 00:41:36,581
by the player
of the video game.

831
00:41:36,929 --> 00:41:40,367
They are the characters  that were programmed in there.

832
00:41:41,847 --> 00:41:44,327
It's kind of like talking
to a person in real life,

833
00:41:44,632 --> 00:41:48,375
but they only have a set amount
of things that they can say.

834
00:41:48,723 --> 00:41:51,770
Hey, buddy, got a dead cat
in there or what?

835
00:41:52,205 --> 00:41:53,815
And you only have
specific lines

836
00:41:53,989 --> 00:41:55,730
that you can say back to it
in response.

837
00:41:59,342 --> 00:42:01,562
I can only imagine
if I was really a gamer,

838
00:42:01,997 --> 00:42:04,043
how I would experience
social interaction.

839
00:42:04,260 --> 00:42:07,481
But even as a non-game player, I sometimes find myself

840
00:42:07,699 --> 00:42:10,310
you know, dealing with
non-player characters.

841
00:42:11,093 --> 00:42:16,490
I work at a grocery store,
and I have a specific...

842
00:42:17,752 --> 00:42:19,711
list of things
that I need to accomplish

843
00:42:19,928 --> 00:42:22,801
when greeting a customer
and checking out their items.

844
00:42:24,498 --> 00:42:27,893
And because of that,
it just made logical sense

845
00:42:28,067 --> 00:42:30,330
that I create kind of
a mental script

846
00:42:30,504 --> 00:42:32,027
that I go through
with each customer.

847
00:42:32,201 --> 00:42:33,420
Brother Mystwood:
When this stimuli happens

848
00:42:33,594 --> 00:42:35,291
to him, generally speaking,

849
00:42:35,553 --> 00:42:36,989
he reacts in this way.

850
00:42:37,206 --> 00:42:39,078
It's not terribly
different from

851
00:42:39,600 --> 00:42:41,515
the code that tells
the chickens

852
00:42:41,689 --> 00:42:43,038
ofMinecraft what to do

853
00:42:43,212 --> 00:42:44,823
or the turtles
inMario Brothers,

854
00:42:44,997 --> 00:42:47,695
or the mosquitoes of me.

855
00:42:47,956 --> 00:42:49,349
You know, they're all kind of

856
00:42:49,523 --> 00:42:50,480
operating on the same
principles.

857
00:42:51,133 --> 00:42:53,005
If this then that,
if not then don't.

858
00:42:53,222 --> 00:42:54,746
It's not too much of a leap
to think that

859
00:42:55,094 --> 00:42:56,748
consciousness may mean...

860
00:42:58,793 --> 00:43:00,099
we are being inhabited

861
00:43:00,273 --> 00:43:03,189
by some sort of
player-type intelligence.

862
00:43:03,537 --> 00:43:05,757
The reason everyone loves
to be like,

863
00:43:05,931 --> 00:43:08,455
"Oh, small world,"
is because it is, actually.

864
00:43:08,629 --> 00:43:10,326
There just isn't enough
processing power

865
00:43:10,500 --> 00:43:13,155
to render seven billion
consciousnesses.

866
00:43:14,026 --> 00:43:16,332
There are not seven billion
consciousnesses.

867
00:43:16,506 --> 00:43:18,073
Yeah, there might be
seven billion

868
00:43:18,291 --> 00:43:20,902
in the general algorithm
of how many people are on Earth.

869
00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:22,643
But when you start talking
to people,

870
00:43:22,861 --> 00:43:25,559
there's probably like
a couple hundred thousand AI's,

871
00:43:25,994 --> 00:43:30,912
that are serving as
the substream for the, you know,

872
00:43:31,565 --> 00:43:34,176
"people you know" experience
that everyone's having on Earth.

873
00:43:34,350 --> 00:43:37,049
So, when you find that
you know the same people,

874
00:43:37,223 --> 00:43:40,182
or six degrees of separation,
it's just not a surprise at all.

875
00:43:40,356 --> 00:43:42,358
In fact, it's a flaw
in the system.

876
00:43:42,620 --> 00:43:44,883
And that's just the limit of
the actual processing power

877
00:43:45,057 --> 00:43:46,841
of the machine
that the sims running on.

878
00:43:48,147 --> 00:43:49,061
Rodney:  Well, have you ever encountered

879
00:43:49,757 --> 00:43:51,150
a non-player characters?

880
00:43:51,933 --> 00:43:53,500
Alex: I mean,  you encounter them all the time

881
00:43:53,674 --> 00:43:54,936
when you're walking down
the street

882
00:43:55,110 --> 00:43:56,546
and you don't interact
with people.

883
00:43:56,721 --> 00:43:58,548
Like, it's just like
in a video game.

884
00:43:58,766 --> 00:44:00,725
It's just, there's much less
processing power

885
00:44:00,899 --> 00:44:03,031
being attributed
to the automatons.

886
00:44:03,989 --> 00:44:05,425
But once you start interacting,

887
00:44:05,599 --> 00:44:07,732
then something has to
actually serve

888
00:44:07,906 --> 00:44:13,041
as the intelligence behind
that so-called human.

889
00:44:15,261 --> 00:44:18,003
Society is rapidly secularizing.

890
00:44:18,177 --> 00:44:20,440
You know, religion is
completely falling apart.

891
00:44:22,007 --> 00:44:24,357
And there's elements of that
that are wonderful.

892
00:44:25,010 --> 00:44:26,228
You know, I think religion plays

893
00:44:27,752 --> 00:44:30,842
an overly restrictive role
in people's lives too often.

894
00:44:32,147 --> 00:44:33,671
Certainly, the religion
I was raised in does.

895
00:44:34,062 --> 00:44:35,542
But I do know people

896
00:44:36,761 --> 00:44:38,284
from my childhood

897
00:44:38,458 --> 00:44:40,503
in a fairly
Evangelical Christian world

898
00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:45,030
who, you know, wanted to...

899
00:44:45,247 --> 00:44:47,075
would've committed
violent acts,

900
00:44:47,423 --> 00:44:50,122
if only God...

901
00:44:51,384 --> 00:44:53,255
if only God
wouldn't punish them for it.

902
00:44:53,516 --> 00:44:54,909
Now, why it takes God
to do that,

903
00:44:55,083 --> 00:44:57,259
as opposed to one's own honor

904
00:44:57,433 --> 00:44:59,261
and self-worth and love  for thy neighbor, I don't know.

905
00:44:59,435 --> 00:45:00,610
But that was case for me.

906
00:45:01,350 --> 00:45:02,700
I believe that this thought,

907
00:45:02,917 --> 00:45:04,397
that we are living
in a simulation,

908
00:45:04,614 --> 00:45:06,921
I think that is going
to just increase in popularity.

909
00:45:07,792 --> 00:45:10,708
And for people who are
content to see

910
00:45:10,882 --> 00:45:12,100
both sides of an argument

911
00:45:12,318 --> 00:45:14,015
and that doesn't
split our heads in two,

912
00:45:14,842 --> 00:45:17,584
you know, for people who are
content to see shades of grey,

913
00:45:17,802 --> 00:45:20,587
I think that's a fine...
it's a fine idea.

914
00:45:20,761 --> 00:45:23,155
Because we don't... you know,
it doesn't change anything

915
00:45:23,329 --> 00:45:25,026
about my daily life,
necessarily.

916
00:45:25,200 --> 00:45:28,203
And it shouldn't.
So I find the simulation okay.

917
00:45:28,726 --> 00:45:31,206
So, if I was created
by a creator God, okay.

918
00:45:31,380 --> 00:45:33,731
So, if I'm a random sparking
of cells, okay, fine.

919
00:45:33,905 --> 00:45:36,037
It doesn't change much about
how I am living day to day.

920
00:45:37,256 --> 00:45:40,215
But there's a lot of people
with very absolutist mindsets,

921
00:45:40,563 --> 00:45:44,350
and I think once you tell them,
"Hey, you're a simulation,"

922
00:45:45,743 --> 00:45:47,614
the nihilistic
side of humanity,

923
00:45:47,788 --> 00:45:49,311
their first reaction would be

924
00:45:49,703 --> 00:45:51,009
"Well, it doesn't matter what
they do to anyone else,

925
00:45:51,923 --> 00:45:54,186
because I know that I'm real,
and I feel it."

926
00:45:54,360 --> 00:45:55,753
But if there's no proof
that they're real,

927
00:45:57,058 --> 00:45:59,278
you know,  then what's the point of laws?

928
00:45:59,452 --> 00:46:00,932
What's the point of all this,
you know?

929
00:46:05,675 --> 00:46:09,592
I do honestly think there is
a certain degree of...

930
00:46:11,333 --> 00:46:12,987
inability to separate
real world

931
00:46:13,161 --> 00:46:14,162
from digital realities

932
00:46:14,467 --> 00:46:16,121
when you have something like

933
00:46:16,425 --> 00:46:19,559
the shooter in New Zealand  live-streaming what he's doing

934
00:46:19,777 --> 00:46:22,518
and going after people like  he's in a first-person shooter.

935
00:46:22,736 --> 00:46:25,826
And going after the people who were like Muslims or, you know,

936
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:27,349
people shoot up synagogues.

937
00:46:27,959 --> 00:46:30,091
Going after someone who is
constructed as an "other"

938
00:46:30,265 --> 00:46:32,354
by the media that they consume.

939
00:46:34,052 --> 00:46:37,446
We must meet the threat
with our valor, our blood,

940
00:46:37,707 --> 00:46:39,535
indeed, with our very lives

941
00:46:40,014 --> 00:46:42,712
to ensure
that human civilization,

942
00:46:42,974 --> 00:46:44,192
not insect,

943
00:46:44,802 --> 00:46:48,631
dominates this galaxy
now and always!

944
00:46:49,458 --> 00:46:52,331
Emily: However, you end up
sort of in that place

945
00:46:52,940 --> 00:46:55,987
where everyone you shoot at
just kind of disappears

946
00:46:56,161 --> 00:46:57,640
and they were all pod people,
you know,

947
00:46:57,815 --> 00:46:59,642
and they weren't real,
or the NPC meme,

948
00:46:59,904 --> 00:47:02,558
you get into a place where
you kind of treat reality

949
00:47:02,863 --> 00:47:05,213
like these are digital,
disposable bodies.

950
00:47:17,312 --> 00:47:18,748
Jesse: And so one guy might plug in,

951
00:47:18,923 --> 00:47:20,228
he's Kanye West.

952
00:47:20,707 --> 00:47:22,491
One person might plug in,
instead of doing that,

953
00:47:22,665 --> 00:47:25,712
he's Michael Phelps.

954
00:47:26,234 --> 00:47:29,672
They plug in and they play
and they stay at the top level

955
00:47:29,847 --> 00:47:32,371
in some way that they can,
doing different exploits.

956
00:47:33,328 --> 00:47:35,809
But then you have people
who log in,

957
00:47:35,983 --> 00:47:37,985
they used to play a lot
and they were really good,

958
00:47:38,159 --> 00:47:40,248
but then they unplugged
and didn't come back.

959
00:47:40,422 --> 00:47:42,294
Years and years since
they were plugged in our reality

960
00:47:42,468 --> 00:47:45,384
would be a celebrity
who was really good,

961
00:47:45,863 --> 00:47:47,995
and then just fell from grace
and never really came back.

962
00:47:48,169 --> 00:47:51,303
I can't name a specific
celebrity here,

963
00:47:51,477 --> 00:47:54,175
plus I don't want to throw
that into your film.

964
00:47:54,915 --> 00:47:58,310
Anyway, so they would
go totally like,

965
00:47:58,527 --> 00:47:59,964
they'd be going straight

966
00:48:00,181 --> 00:48:01,443
and all of a sudden
they'll be doing something

967
00:48:01,617 --> 00:48:02,749
that's totally perpendicular

968
00:48:02,923 --> 00:48:04,229
to their normal
behavior patterns.

969
00:48:04,707 --> 00:48:07,754
'Cause in a video game,
you're doing it well...

970
00:48:09,060 --> 00:48:10,452
then all of a sudden,
you just get bored

971
00:48:10,844 --> 00:48:12,846
and you start doing something
totally different.

972
00:48:13,020 --> 00:48:14,413
I've done that myself, you know.

973
00:48:14,587 --> 00:48:15,980
I'm playing Grand Theft Auto
and...

974
00:48:16,545 --> 00:48:19,200
you know, you have millions
and millions of dollars

975
00:48:19,374 --> 00:48:21,115
and all of a sudden it's like,
"Yeah, okay...

976
00:48:21,376 --> 00:48:23,248
I think I'm gonna hole up
in this apartment building...

977
00:48:23,422 --> 00:48:25,859
and just see how many police
I can get to try to kill me."

978
00:48:26,599 --> 00:48:29,428
You know, then you kind of
just go for something crazy.

979
00:48:36,304 --> 00:48:38,263
Paul:
I once said to my uncle...

980
00:48:39,438 --> 00:48:41,222
"What if this is all fake?

981
00:48:41,483 --> 00:48:42,963
You know, what if
none of this is real?"

982
00:48:43,137 --> 00:48:45,009
And he said, "Well, then what's to keep me

983
00:48:45,183 --> 00:48:47,968
from going door to door just
shooting people in the head?"

984
00:48:48,751 --> 00:48:51,754
"Or what's to keep me from,
you know, shooting you?"

985
00:48:51,972 --> 00:48:56,324
And it always struck me as,
"Is that what you want to do?"

986
00:48:56,934 --> 00:49:00,285
"Is the only thing
keeping you from doing that

987
00:49:00,981 --> 00:49:04,289
the fact that the world is real and there are consequences?"

988
00:49:07,161 --> 00:49:09,033
Did you see that video
of the gentleman

989
00:49:09,207 --> 00:49:10,251
on the East Coast...

990
00:49:10,991 --> 00:49:11,992
West Coast, I'm sorry,

991
00:49:12,558 --> 00:49:14,299
who, he hijacked...

992
00:49:16,214 --> 00:49:18,520
a commercial air flight
that was empty?

993
00:49:19,130 --> 00:49:20,261
It was just him onboard,

994
00:49:20,783 --> 00:49:22,437
and he had no training
whatsoever.

995
00:49:23,699 --> 00:49:25,658
And he started just flying
around the coast.

996
00:49:28,966 --> 00:49:30,271
Woman: What the hell?

997
00:49:31,969 --> 00:49:34,232
Oh, my God.
What is happening right now?

998
00:49:34,449 --> 00:49:35,276
Did you ever see that?

999
00:49:49,073 --> 00:49:51,075
He's flying and he's
talking about things.

1000
00:49:52,032 --> 00:49:53,164
Hijacker: [over radio]
This is probably like

1001
00:49:53,338 --> 00:49:54,730
jail time for life, huh?

1002
00:49:54,948 --> 00:49:57,124
I would hope it is
for a guy like me.

1003
00:50:03,435 --> 00:50:04,958
Jesse:  One of the things he's doing is

1004
00:50:06,003 --> 00:50:07,569
he's kind of breaking
people's perceptions

1005
00:50:07,743 --> 00:50:11,486
'cause he's doing stuff like, he's doing loops and what not.

1006
00:50:12,052 --> 00:50:13,662
He's getting remarkably close
to the ground.

1007
00:50:13,836 --> 00:50:15,534
He's over the ocean,
over the land.

1008
00:50:16,187 --> 00:50:17,362
He's doing tricks.

1009
00:50:20,974 --> 00:50:22,845
Control: [over radio]
Just flying the plane around,

1010
00:50:23,063 --> 00:50:24,586
do you seem
comfortable with that?

1011
00:50:24,760 --> 00:50:26,284
Hijacker: [over radio]
Oh, hell yeah. It's a blast.

1012
00:50:26,501 --> 00:50:28,460
I've played video games
before, so...

1013
00:50:28,764 --> 00:50:31,289
I... I know what I'm doing
a little bit.

1014
00:50:37,121 --> 00:50:40,385
And this is shortly before
he crashes purposefully

1015
00:50:40,602 --> 00:50:43,431
into a, I believe an island.

1016
00:50:45,042 --> 00:50:46,217
Just offshore.

1017
00:50:47,914 --> 00:50:50,612
But yeah, it's nuts,
that one of his last thoughts

1018
00:50:50,786 --> 00:50:53,659
is how much it's like
a video game to him.

1019
00:50:54,747 --> 00:50:55,617
Then he crashes.

1020
00:51:03,843 --> 00:51:07,325
But yeah, there is a dark side.

1021
00:51:07,499 --> 00:51:08,804
There's people out there

1022
00:51:08,978 --> 00:51:10,241
who are gonna be
chaotic about it.

1023
00:51:26,387 --> 00:51:28,085
Philip: ...very pronounced
impression

1024
00:51:28,259 --> 00:51:32,611
would probably occur to us,
to many of us, again and again

1025
00:51:32,872 --> 00:51:35,092
and always without explanation.

1026
00:51:35,440 --> 00:51:40,227
The acute, absolute sensation
that we had done once before

1027
00:51:40,836 --> 00:51:42,838
what we were
just about to do now.

1028
00:51:43,100 --> 00:51:45,450
We would have
the overwhelming impression

1029
00:51:46,320 --> 00:51:50,063
that we were reliving
the present. Déjà vu.

1030
00:51:52,239 --> 00:51:53,110
Déjà vu.

1031
00:51:56,243 --> 00:51:58,637
- Switch. Apoc.
- What is it?

1032
00:51:58,854 --> 00:52:00,639
A déjà vu is usually
a glitch in the matrix.

1033
00:52:01,030 --> 00:52:02,380
It happens when
they change something.

1034
00:52:03,076 --> 00:52:05,296
What we need at this point
is to locate,

1035
00:52:05,470 --> 00:52:06,819
to bring forth as evidence

1036
00:52:07,254 --> 00:52:09,300
someone who has managed
somehow,

1037
00:52:09,648 --> 00:52:10,823
it doesn't matter how,

1038
00:52:11,606 --> 00:52:14,043
to retain memories
of a different present.

1039
00:52:14,435 --> 00:52:16,524
Latent, alternate
world impressions,

1040
00:52:16,698 --> 00:52:18,657
different in some
significant way from this.

1041
00:52:19,092 --> 00:52:20,441
Computer voice:  Philip K. Dick might have been

1042
00:52:20,615 --> 00:52:21,964
surprised to learn

1043
00:52:22,269 --> 00:52:24,010
how common memories
of a different present

1044
00:52:24,184 --> 00:52:26,360
would become
in the 21st Century.

1045
00:52:26,839 --> 00:52:29,015
If you remember a Kit-Kat
looking like this...

1046
00:52:29,450 --> 00:52:31,713
then you could be living
in an alternate reality.

1047
00:52:32,671 --> 00:52:34,542
Welcome to
"Conspiracy Chat N'That."

1048
00:52:34,847 --> 00:52:36,414
Today's topic is the
mind-warping,

1049
00:52:36,588 --> 00:52:38,329
reality-bending Mandela Effect.

1050
00:52:38,546 --> 00:52:40,069
It's called the Mandela Effect

1051
00:52:40,244 --> 00:52:42,246
because hundreds and hundreds
of thousands of people

1052
00:52:42,420 --> 00:52:45,771
remember Nelson Mandela
dying in prison,

1053
00:52:45,945 --> 00:52:47,642
and that actually
never happened.

1054
00:52:47,816 --> 00:52:49,557
But hundreds and hundreds
of thousands of people are like

1055
00:52:49,731 --> 00:52:51,342
"No, I remember Nelson Mandela
dying in prison."

1056
00:52:51,559 --> 00:52:52,865
But like that never happened.

1057
00:52:53,257 --> 00:52:54,693
Lauren Clarke: [over video]
So, when reports

1058
00:52:55,041 --> 00:52:55,868
of the former South African
president's death

1059
00:52:56,042 --> 00:52:57,435
became news in 2013,

1060
00:52:57,609 --> 00:52:58,827
it re-sparked
the previous debate

1061
00:52:59,001 --> 00:52:59,959
of whether or not
we've somehow slid

1062
00:53:00,133 --> 00:53:02,048
into an alternate timeline.

1063
00:53:02,222 --> 00:53:04,137
Narrator: The Berenstein Bears
children books have changed.

1064
00:53:04,398 --> 00:53:06,183
They used to be called
"Berenstein Bears,"

1065
00:53:06,357 --> 00:53:07,706
and now they've always
been known as

1066
00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:08,924
"The Berenstain Bears".

1067
00:53:09,403 --> 00:53:11,971
Over 10 thousand
Mandela effects

1068
00:53:12,145 --> 00:53:14,408
have been logged and confirmed.

1069
00:53:14,669 --> 00:53:15,801
Tana Mongeau: If you go back

1070
00:53:15,975 --> 00:53:17,716
and literally find
like a VHS tape

1071
00:53:17,890 --> 00:53:20,545
of like Snow White from 1998

1072
00:53:20,719 --> 00:53:22,460
and you put it in a VHS player,

1073
00:53:22,634 --> 00:53:25,245
they say,
"Magic mirror on the wall".

1074
00:53:25,680 --> 00:53:30,337
Tell me! Tell me, bitch, that
you do not fucking remember

1075
00:53:30,511 --> 00:53:32,034
"Mirror, mirror on the wall."

1076
00:53:32,209 --> 00:53:33,906
Well, that doesn't exist.
Mandela Effect?

1077
00:53:34,080 --> 00:53:35,951
Alternate reality?
I think yes!

1078
00:53:51,924 --> 00:53:53,534
Alex: When I was young,
I lived in Mexico.

1079
00:53:54,883 --> 00:53:56,145
Very young, like 10 years old.

1080
00:53:56,320 --> 00:53:57,756
And then I returned there

1081
00:53:58,322 --> 00:54:00,715
for the summer
with my mother once.

1082
00:54:01,803 --> 00:54:03,457
I was 18 years old,

1083
00:54:03,675 --> 00:54:05,154
and I really didn't
know anybody.

1084
00:54:05,503 --> 00:54:07,418
I finally get a call
from some friends,

1085
00:54:07,983 --> 00:54:09,028
friends of friends.

1086
00:54:09,202 --> 00:54:10,508
These guys pick me up,

1087
00:54:10,725 --> 00:54:14,033
and they're in
a 1970 Jeep Wagoneer.

1088
00:54:15,121 --> 00:54:16,731
Big old machine.

1089
00:54:17,166 --> 00:54:19,473
It immediately becomes clear
that they have been drinking

1090
00:54:19,647 --> 00:54:22,824
because they say, "Hey,
help yourself to a beer."

1091
00:54:23,042 --> 00:54:24,652
And I look in the back
of the Wagoneer,

1092
00:54:24,826 --> 00:54:26,437
and there's all
these empties rolling around

1093
00:54:26,611 --> 00:54:28,830
and couldn't find a seat belt, and I just said,

1094
00:54:29,004 --> 00:54:30,310
"All right, fuck it,"
I opened a beer.

1095
00:54:31,093 --> 00:54:33,182
Then, we were driving
down a major street

1096
00:54:33,357 --> 00:54:34,880
in a city called Cuernavaca.

1097
00:54:35,402 --> 00:54:38,057
It had a cement divider
between the two sides...

1098
00:54:38,231 --> 00:54:40,146
- [car revving]
- ...and the driver

1099
00:54:40,755 --> 00:54:44,672
for shits and giggles
decided to pop--

1100
00:54:45,107 --> 00:54:47,806
in an opening,
pop onto the wrong direction

1101
00:54:48,459 --> 00:54:50,591
and drive until
there was another opening.

1102
00:54:51,200 --> 00:54:52,898
So we were driving
against traffic

1103
00:54:53,202 --> 00:54:54,639
in the wrong side

1104
00:54:55,640 --> 00:54:59,252
and no cars came, you know,
we didn't get in an accident.

1105
00:54:59,426 --> 00:55:02,690
So that was the first near miss but I don't count that.

1106
00:55:02,995 --> 00:55:04,344
And so we headed off.

1107
00:55:04,518 --> 00:55:06,041
They--
We went to a liquor store.

1108
00:55:06,215 --> 00:55:08,217
They bought some more liquor.

1109
00:55:09,436 --> 00:55:12,483
They said, "What should we do? Let's go to the pyramids."

1110
00:55:12,657 --> 00:55:16,574
So there was a pyramid in town, and so we head over...

1111
00:55:16,748 --> 00:55:19,054
we climb a fence, we're
walking on a Mexican pyramid.

1112
00:55:19,838 --> 00:55:21,579
It's, you know, it's...

1113
00:55:22,884 --> 00:55:24,756
kind of an awesome experience
in and of itself.

1114
00:55:26,671 --> 00:55:28,281
And they're getting bored.

1115
00:55:28,455 --> 00:55:30,936
They say, "All right,
that's it. Let's go home."

1116
00:55:31,153 --> 00:55:32,590
[bottle shatters]

1117
00:55:33,025 --> 00:55:34,505
And we get back in
the Wagoneer, and in Mexico

1118
00:55:34,679 --> 00:55:36,115
at that time of year,
this was summer,

1119
00:55:36,289 --> 00:55:39,205
they have monsoons
that last five minutes.

1120
00:55:40,075 --> 00:55:43,818
Now the road's completely wet, and these guys are drunk

1121
00:55:43,992 --> 00:55:46,081
and I'm sitting
in the back seat.

1122
00:55:47,735 --> 00:55:50,608
The driver says
to the passenger,

1123
00:55:50,782 --> 00:55:54,699
"Hey, man, why don't you take
the wheel for a sec?"

1124
00:55:55,395 --> 00:55:57,136
And I'm sitting in the back
and I'm like...

1125
00:55:57,789 --> 00:55:59,573
"That's the worst idea
I've ever heard!"

1126
00:55:59,747 --> 00:56:02,228
But it's too late, right?
It's too late.

1127
00:56:03,011 --> 00:56:05,884
- And he grabs the wheel...
- [tires screeching]

1128
00:56:06,058 --> 00:56:09,061
...and the car hits the side
of the road right away,

1129
00:56:09,409 --> 00:56:11,455
but hits the curve and slides--

1130
00:56:12,020 --> 00:56:13,326
So it hits one side
of the street

1131
00:56:13,500 --> 00:56:15,459
and slides in
the other direction,

1132
00:56:15,676 --> 00:56:17,809
hits another curb
and flies through the air...

1133
00:56:17,983 --> 00:56:19,332
[crash]

1134
00:56:19,854 --> 00:56:23,075
...probably about  a thousand feet through the air

1135
00:56:23,249 --> 00:56:24,990
and lands on the roof.

1136
00:56:28,080 --> 00:56:30,082
[crashes]

1137
00:56:30,343 --> 00:56:34,173
All the windows shattered,
and I broke ribs...

1138
00:56:34,565 --> 00:56:37,481
'cause I took the impact
of the roof.

1139
00:56:38,351 --> 00:56:40,962
And gasoline  started pouring out of the car,

1140
00:56:41,136 --> 00:56:43,095
and I got the wind
knocked out of me.

1141
00:56:43,312 --> 00:56:48,753
I crawled out of the window  and got as far away as I could,

1142
00:56:48,927 --> 00:56:51,756
and then a truck pulls up.

1143
00:56:54,323 --> 00:56:57,109
And they say,
"Oh, great. Banditos."

1144
00:56:57,283 --> 00:56:58,850
[police siren]

1145
00:56:59,241 --> 00:57:01,896
And then another car pulls up, and it's the Federales,

1146
00:57:02,244 --> 00:57:03,724
the Mexican police.

1147
00:57:03,985 --> 00:57:05,683
You know, thebanditos
just leave.

1148
00:57:05,857 --> 00:57:07,380
And I'm like, "Oh, great,
the police are here."

1149
00:57:07,598 --> 00:57:09,208
And they're like,
"No, actually, it's worse.

1150
00:57:09,382 --> 00:57:10,514
It's worse that they're here."

1151
00:57:11,210 --> 00:57:13,908
"Once they learn
that we've been drinking,

1152
00:57:14,082 --> 00:57:15,780
they're gonna arrest us all,

1153
00:57:15,997 --> 00:57:18,435
and then they're gonna ask
for a big bribe for you,

1154
00:57:18,609 --> 00:57:19,523
because you're American."

1155
00:57:20,872 --> 00:57:22,526
So I was standing
in the darkness,

1156
00:57:23,048 --> 00:57:25,050
and then another car pulls up.

1157
00:57:25,703 --> 00:57:28,053
A guy gets out, and he says...

1158
00:57:29,489 --> 00:57:32,318
"Excuse me.
I am the chief accountant

1159
00:57:32,579 --> 00:57:34,625
of the Cuernavaca
Police Department",

1160
00:57:34,973 --> 00:57:36,627
so the local city police.

1161
00:57:37,932 --> 00:57:40,892
And he knows about the
corruption of the Federales.

1162
00:57:41,501 --> 00:57:47,246
And my hosts managed
to get the information to him

1163
00:57:47,420 --> 00:57:50,684
that they had hidden
an American in the darkness.

1164
00:57:51,816 --> 00:57:54,209
And they got me out of there.

1165
00:57:55,080 --> 00:57:57,561
But the whole thing,
it seemed so...

1166
00:57:57,952 --> 00:58:01,956
so implausible
that I had survived.

1167
00:58:02,479 --> 00:58:06,091
The likelihood of all of that
was just so low.

1168
00:58:06,831 --> 00:58:09,442
Somebody's gotta be  putting their hand on the scale

1169
00:58:09,660 --> 00:58:11,531
'cause I kinda just
looked at it in terms of

1170
00:58:11,705 --> 00:58:14,795
the algorithm tweaking
probabilities,

1171
00:58:15,100 --> 00:58:17,885
so that things are essentially more interesting

1172
00:58:19,017 --> 00:58:20,235
'cause it's a game.

1173
00:58:24,762 --> 00:58:28,069
Okay, so I think the first
like "public" place where

1174
00:58:28,243 --> 00:58:31,246
I actually was able
to put a name to an idea,

1175
00:58:32,073 --> 00:58:34,772
probably the Matrixmovies,
you know?

1176
00:58:36,904 --> 00:58:40,778
You can't mention simulation
without mentioning that.

1177
00:58:42,083 --> 00:58:44,564
The book he keeps
all of his stuff in is...

1178
00:58:45,434 --> 00:58:47,349
what is it called,
Simulation & Simulacra?

1179
00:58:49,177 --> 00:58:50,614
It's right there,
beginning of the movie,

1180
00:58:50,788 --> 00:58:52,311
just throws it
right in your face.

1181
00:58:52,790 --> 00:58:56,010
After the trilogy was over,
they released that animation

1182
00:58:56,837 --> 00:58:58,056
The Animatrix.

1183
00:58:58,404 --> 00:59:01,015
Yeah, I think that one
really hit it home.

1184
00:59:01,189 --> 00:59:02,364
Like, the idea was planted

1185
00:59:02,539 --> 00:59:04,497
and that thing really
pressed on it.

1186
00:59:05,454 --> 00:59:08,849
InRenaissance, Part I
and II, it's kinda hosted by

1187
00:59:09,197 --> 00:59:11,069
almost like this
technology demigod.

1188
00:59:11,983 --> 00:59:13,811
Just kind of bringing you
in and out of reality.

1189
00:59:14,333 --> 00:59:16,901
You know, as far as like what's going on inside the Matrix,

1190
00:59:17,075 --> 00:59:18,685
what's going on outside
the Matrix,

1191
00:59:18,859 --> 00:59:21,427
the history of
how the simulation was built.

1192
00:59:25,779 --> 00:59:27,346
Paul:
I moved to Canada,

1193
00:59:27,520 --> 00:59:29,043
I lived in Canada
for a couple of months.

1194
00:59:29,348 --> 00:59:35,006
And so my friend from Illinois drives up to Canada,

1195
00:59:35,354 --> 00:59:36,703
we're hanging out.

1196
00:59:36,877 --> 00:59:38,400
"What do you want to see?"
"I don't know.

1197
00:59:38,618 --> 00:59:40,577
Let's go and see this dumb
Keanu Reeves action film."

1198
00:59:43,057 --> 00:59:45,146
So we go and see this movie

1199
00:59:45,320 --> 00:59:46,713
and it's pretty good,
pretty good, pretty good.

1200
00:59:46,887 --> 00:59:48,410
And then he gets out
of the tank,

1201
00:59:50,021 --> 00:59:51,457
and we're like, "Whoa!"

1202
00:59:57,985 --> 00:59:59,291
Computer voice:
Joshua Cooke

1203
00:59:59,465 --> 01:00:00,858
was a Virginia
high school student

1204
01:00:01,032 --> 01:00:02,294
when he heard about the film.

1205
01:00:05,253 --> 01:00:07,038
Joshua Cooke: [over phone]
So, I was riding in a car

1206
01:00:07,429 --> 01:00:10,476
on the way home,
and a friend of mine

1207
01:00:10,737 --> 01:00:12,391
- was in the car.
-Get in.

1208
01:00:12,696 --> 01:00:14,393
Joshua: [over phone]
She mentioned this movie

1209
01:00:14,567 --> 01:00:16,917
Matrix that people
were going crazy over.

1210
01:00:17,091 --> 01:00:18,571
People were going
to the movie theaters

1211
01:00:18,745 --> 01:00:20,399
15 times in a row to see it.

1212
01:00:21,226 --> 01:00:23,489
And that people were getting
obsessed about it,

1213
01:00:23,663 --> 01:00:24,664
raving about it.

1214
01:00:24,838 --> 01:00:26,405
"Oh, man, you gotta see it!

1215
01:00:26,797 --> 01:00:28,146
You've never seen anything
like it. And the graphics.

1216
01:00:28,320 --> 01:00:29,321
Oh yeah!"

1217
01:00:29,887 --> 01:00:31,279
And then I heard him
say something

1218
01:00:31,453 --> 01:00:33,020
about a black trench coat
and stuff.

1219
01:00:33,194 --> 01:00:35,849
And that really hit me
for a few reasons.

1220
01:00:36,154 --> 01:00:38,330
One is, I had already had
a fascination,

1221
01:00:38,547 --> 01:00:40,419
an obsession really,
with the black trench coat

1222
01:00:40,898 --> 01:00:43,030
because of the movie
The Crow,

1223
01:00:43,640 --> 01:00:45,990
which was my first
movie obsession.

1224
01:00:46,207 --> 01:00:48,470
So I went to the
Blockbuster Video store.

1225
01:00:48,949 --> 01:00:51,996
And, from the very beginning
of the movie,

1226
01:00:53,171 --> 01:00:54,520
it had my attention.

1227
01:00:54,868 --> 01:00:58,480
And it had kind of like
a rough, aggressive,

1228
01:00:59,394 --> 01:01:00,874
you know, Rob Zombie,

1229
01:01:01,048 --> 01:01:02,876
heavy metal theme to it.

1230
01:01:03,050 --> 01:01:04,269
Narrator: The Matrix.

1231
01:01:04,530 --> 01:01:05,487
The soundtrack
that makes you go...

1232
01:01:05,705 --> 01:01:06,924
Whoa.

1233
01:01:07,098 --> 01:01:08,099
See, I thought about
the structure

1234
01:01:08,273 --> 01:01:09,535
of the whole thing,

1235
01:01:09,709 --> 01:01:11,232
like, what would it be
structurally?

1236
01:01:11,537 --> 01:01:13,713
And an idea came to my mind
of what it would look like.

1237
01:01:16,020 --> 01:01:19,153
I don't think it's just people in pods somewhere else.

1238
01:01:19,327 --> 01:01:21,547
I think it's something  completely different than that.

1239
01:01:22,722 --> 01:01:25,029
I don't know. When I think
about it, I think of like

1240
01:01:25,246 --> 01:01:28,162
a giant white, brilliant white marble hallway, right?

1241
01:01:28,336 --> 01:01:29,903
And then there's like a
pedestal in the center,

1242
01:01:30,077 --> 01:01:32,514
and this giant black sphere.

1243
01:01:33,211 --> 01:01:36,214
And that black sphere, to
these people in this reality,

1244
01:01:37,389 --> 01:01:39,608
that's effectively a computer, you know?

1245
01:01:40,566 --> 01:01:42,176
No, and that
computer's running--

1246
01:01:42,524 --> 01:01:44,265
There could be
a little art museum card

1247
01:01:44,439 --> 01:01:46,615
next to it that says
"Universe... whatever".

1248
01:01:47,442 --> 01:01:50,271
And they just see what happens out of that black mass

1249
01:01:50,881 --> 01:01:53,797
of stars and clouds, and deep, deep, deep down,

1250
01:01:54,493 --> 01:01:55,537
people, like us.

1251
01:01:57,583 --> 01:01:59,019
And then you go on
from that model,

1252
01:01:59,193 --> 01:02:02,153
you wonder, "Okay
is it important to them?"

1253
01:02:02,544 --> 01:02:04,459
"Are we a very special case

1254
01:02:04,633 --> 01:02:07,593
that the entire reality
is focused on?"

1255
01:02:07,941 --> 01:02:08,899
'Cause they're trying
to figure out

1256
01:02:09,073 --> 01:02:10,465
what the point of life is,

1257
01:02:10,814 --> 01:02:12,119
and so they just keep
rerunning the universe.

1258
01:02:14,643 --> 01:02:18,299
I think what they want us
to do is improve upon

1259
01:02:19,561 --> 01:02:21,476
the simulation that
they've already made.

1260
01:02:22,260 --> 01:02:25,437
And this was where
we get into GANS.

1261
01:02:26,525 --> 01:02:29,093
I don't know if that's how you
pronounce it, but G-A-N-S.

1262
01:02:30,790 --> 01:02:33,924
Generative Adversarial Networks.

1263
01:02:34,794 --> 01:02:37,144
Basically, the idea is
that you have two AIs...

1264
01:02:38,493 --> 01:02:39,930
and they're competing
with each other.

1265
01:02:40,626 --> 01:02:42,497
AI number one is the Forger.

1266
01:02:43,411 --> 01:02:46,893
It wants to make pictures
of human beings...

1267
01:02:47,676 --> 01:02:51,463
that look like human beings,
enough to fool someone.

1268
01:02:51,985 --> 01:02:54,248
And then you have another one
that's the Inspector.

1269
01:02:54,596 --> 01:02:56,381
The Inspector's job
is to tell the difference

1270
01:02:56,555 --> 01:02:58,252
between fake pictures
of people

1271
01:02:58,426 --> 01:02:59,819
and actual pictures of people.

1272
01:03:00,472 --> 01:03:02,866
And the two of them just run
at each other,

1273
01:03:03,040 --> 01:03:04,041
boom, boom, boom...
Trying to fail,

1274
01:03:04,215 --> 01:03:06,043
trying to win, all that...

1275
01:03:06,391 --> 01:03:09,307
until, eventually, you and I
look at the pictures,

1276
01:03:09,786 --> 01:03:11,004
and they look real to us

1277
01:03:11,831 --> 01:03:14,051
because they've gone through
all these iterations.

1278
01:03:17,706 --> 01:03:21,580
But what are people if not...

1279
01:03:22,537 --> 01:03:24,017
generative
adversarial networks?

1280
01:03:28,195 --> 01:03:30,328
Cop tries to solve crime.

1281
01:03:30,589 --> 01:03:32,069
Criminal tries to beat cop.

1282
01:03:32,939 --> 01:03:34,158
I'm gonna kill you.

1283
01:03:35,289 --> 01:03:38,423
You idiot! You made me!

1284
01:03:42,340 --> 01:03:44,081
Hacker tries to hack a system.

1285
01:03:44,429 --> 01:03:46,387
A programmer tries
to fix the system.

1286
01:03:46,910 --> 01:03:50,522
Audience gets jaded
with this type of media.

1287
01:03:50,696 --> 01:03:52,176
So somebody new comes along

1288
01:03:52,350 --> 01:03:53,830
and tries to make
something better.

1289
01:03:54,221 --> 01:03:56,528
We are constantly getting back and forth at each other.

1290
01:03:56,702 --> 01:03:57,964
If you look at social media,

1291
01:03:58,182 --> 01:04:00,010
maybe this is why we're
always arguing

1292
01:04:00,184 --> 01:04:05,102
because we exist specifically
to refine and hone things.

1293
01:04:06,016 --> 01:04:09,933
In the end,
what do we want to create

1294
01:04:10,237 --> 01:04:12,065
if not another simulation?

1295
01:04:17,462 --> 01:04:18,855
Joshua: [over phone]
Yeah, I mean,

1296
01:04:19,290 --> 01:04:20,378
there were a few lines in there that were pretty deep.

1297
01:04:21,814 --> 01:04:24,034
Neo asked Morpheus,
"Why do my eyes hurt?"

1298
01:04:25,122 --> 01:04:28,299
And Morpheus looks at Neo
and says...

1299
01:04:28,516 --> 01:04:30,344
"Because you've never
used them before."

1300
01:04:31,302 --> 01:04:33,173
Well, I felt the same way.
And I felt like,

1301
01:04:33,391 --> 01:04:34,871
"Man, there's gotta be
more than this."

1302
01:04:35,436 --> 01:04:36,960
Emily:
Okay, "You've never used

1303
01:04:37,134 --> 01:04:39,571
your eyes before"
when he gets out of the Matrix

1304
01:04:39,745 --> 01:04:41,703
and everything's blurry,

1305
01:04:41,921 --> 01:04:44,750
that's very, very similar
to sort of what happens

1306
01:04:44,924 --> 01:04:48,449
in Plato's Cave,when he goes...

1307
01:04:48,972 --> 01:04:50,538
When you're taken
outside the cave,

1308
01:04:50,712 --> 01:04:52,714
it takes a while
for your eyes to adjust

1309
01:04:53,019 --> 01:04:54,716
to what you're seeing
outside the cave.

1310
01:04:55,108 --> 01:04:57,371
And then, when he comes back
inside the cave

1311
01:04:57,589 --> 01:04:59,808
he can't see either

1312
01:04:59,983 --> 01:05:02,028
because he's used to seeing
things as they really are.

1313
01:05:02,202 --> 01:05:03,943
And so, you know, it says,

1314
01:05:04,117 --> 01:05:05,684
"Oh, and your friends
are sort of watching

1315
01:05:05,858 --> 01:05:08,730
on the projection screen,
things.

1316
01:05:08,905 --> 01:05:12,125
And they give themselves awards for being the fastest

1317
01:05:12,299 --> 01:05:14,258
and best at spotting
what's going on.

1318
01:05:14,432 --> 01:05:16,782
And you just aren't
interested in this anymore

1319
01:05:16,956 --> 01:05:18,523
because you've seen
so much more."

1320
01:05:19,176 --> 01:05:21,656
It's funny how this
just sort of like

1321
01:05:22,309 --> 01:05:26,096
value system
that allows us to believe

1322
01:05:26,270 --> 01:05:29,055
that we know something
that everyone else doesn't.

1323
01:05:29,577 --> 01:05:31,362
Like also contributes
to that othering,

1324
01:05:31,536 --> 01:05:32,885
when he's walking
down the street

1325
01:05:33,059 --> 01:05:34,626
and everyone is fake,
you know?

1326
01:05:34,800 --> 01:05:36,454
And then, yeah,
the person in the red dress,

1327
01:05:36,628 --> 01:05:39,152
and later the guy's like,
"Oh, I engineered her."

1328
01:05:40,545 --> 01:05:42,242
Yeah, that seems like--

1329
01:05:42,416 --> 01:05:44,766
that is such
a school shooter fantasy.

1330
01:05:48,118 --> 01:05:51,425
You have these unique eyes to see what no one else can see.

1331
01:05:51,686 --> 01:05:53,601
and everyone else
is just like...

1332
01:05:54,646 --> 01:05:57,214
they're just asleep.

1333
01:05:57,431 --> 01:06:01,044
Man: Sleep. Sleep.

1334
01:06:02,567 --> 01:06:04,308
Paul:
Having told you my story

1335
01:06:04,482 --> 01:06:07,876
about when I was a kid,  when he got out of the tank...

1336
01:06:11,097 --> 01:06:14,274
the immediate thing that  flashed in my mind was, "Okay,

1337
01:06:15,014 --> 01:06:18,278
this is kind of like what
happened to me at that point,

1338
01:06:18,975 --> 01:06:20,411
but there was no tank
to get out of."

1339
01:06:21,281 --> 01:06:24,893
And I maybe didn't even
have a body, per se.

1340
01:06:29,159 --> 01:06:30,595
Joshua: [over phone]
I went to a store

1341
01:06:30,899 --> 01:06:32,771
in the mall near my house,
it's called Hot Topic.

1342
01:06:32,945 --> 01:06:34,338
I don't know
if you've ever heard of it.

1343
01:06:35,034 --> 01:06:37,341
And they had all kind of
goth wear,

1344
01:06:37,515 --> 01:06:39,125
black clothes,
black everything.

1345
01:06:39,952 --> 01:06:43,956
There was a line of  trench coats hanging on a rack

1346
01:06:44,304 --> 01:06:45,653
in the corner of the store.

1347
01:06:45,871 --> 01:06:47,655
And I was with my sister,
Tiffany.

1348
01:06:47,960 --> 01:06:51,964
And I made a beeline straight for the trench coats, you know.

1349
01:06:52,617 --> 01:06:55,359
I ran. I ran to them
and I grabbed one,

1350
01:06:55,576 --> 01:06:57,448
and I held it to my chest
real tight...

1351
01:06:57,752 --> 01:06:59,406
like it was like
my girlfriend or something.

1352
01:06:59,580 --> 01:07:00,973
It was, you know--

1353
01:07:01,452 --> 01:07:02,366
My sister's looking at me like, "What are you doing?

1354
01:07:03,628 --> 01:07:05,499
Whenever I would be going
through something really bad,

1355
01:07:05,673 --> 01:07:07,980
whether it was
being bullied at school

1356
01:07:08,154 --> 01:07:10,026
or whether it was
being abused at home

1357
01:07:10,504 --> 01:07:12,245
I could escape.
I could leave the room.

1358
01:07:12,419 --> 01:07:14,943
I could escape  with the black trench coat on.

1359
01:07:15,901 --> 01:07:17,511
It was like the trench coat

1360
01:07:17,685 --> 01:07:19,339
was like a living,
breathing organism to me.

1361
01:07:20,384 --> 01:07:22,560
You know. It made me feel...

1362
01:07:24,431 --> 01:07:26,303
when I put it on,
it made me feel strong

1363
01:07:27,304 --> 01:07:30,481
it made me feel powerful,
unassailable.

1364
01:07:30,698 --> 01:07:33,005
It made me feel closer
to Neo than I ever been.

1365
01:07:33,484 --> 01:07:37,053
I would wear the trench coat
to the mall mainly.

1366
01:07:37,227 --> 01:07:39,316
I would walk around the mall
just all day

1367
01:07:40,578 --> 01:07:43,233
with theMatrix music
on my headphones.

1368
01:07:43,407 --> 01:07:45,539
I had the soundtrack--
it was in my CD player,

1369
01:07:46,758 --> 01:07:48,412
and people would
see me come in,

1370
01:07:48,629 --> 01:07:50,414
and they would just kind of
back away, you know.

1371
01:07:50,588 --> 01:07:53,069
And I had this sick thrill
of wearing it.

1372
01:07:53,808 --> 01:07:55,897
So being Neo, being Neo was...

1373
01:07:56,637 --> 01:07:58,770
I felt for a long time
it actually saved me,

1374
01:07:58,944 --> 01:08:00,641
but 'til a certain point.

1375
01:08:01,599 --> 01:08:03,340
You know, everything
that's really happened

1376
01:08:03,514 --> 01:08:05,081
with me
has kind of dichotomy,

1377
01:08:05,385 --> 01:08:06,430
sometimes a paradox.

1378
01:08:08,475 --> 01:08:10,608
I've probably watched
The Matrix movie...

1379
01:08:11,696 --> 01:08:13,089
I don't know exact,

1380
01:08:13,306 --> 01:08:14,699
but I know
it was hundreds of times.

1381
01:08:15,178 --> 01:08:17,005
After I saw it the first time, I had to watch it again.

1382
01:08:17,571 --> 01:08:19,051
And then I had
to watch it again,

1383
01:08:19,225 --> 01:08:21,053
and I watched it again
and again and again.

1384
01:08:21,271 --> 01:08:22,750
There were days
when I would watch it

1385
01:08:22,924 --> 01:08:24,448
two or three times in a row.

1386
01:08:25,623 --> 01:08:27,799
And like the world
that they are in,

1387
01:08:28,452 --> 01:08:31,977
this boring, you know,
trite, mundane...

1388
01:08:33,021 --> 01:08:36,329
you know, just sickening world, I felt the same way.

1389
01:08:36,938 --> 01:08:38,592
I just felt like
nothing was going right.

1390
01:08:38,766 --> 01:08:40,028
What the hell am I doing here?

1391
01:08:40,333 --> 01:08:41,117
And I felt like, "Man,
there's gotta be

1392
01:08:41,291 --> 01:08:42,596
more than this."

1393
01:08:43,119 --> 01:08:44,207
Maybe there's something
with thisMatrix thing.

1394
01:08:44,729 --> 01:08:46,296
Maybe it's real.

1395
01:08:46,557 --> 01:08:48,820
Maybe it's not so fake  after all. You know, who knows?

1396
01:08:58,960 --> 01:09:01,180
Philip: One thing I really
want you to know,

1397
01:09:01,485 --> 01:09:03,617
these claims
can neither be proved

1398
01:09:04,270 --> 01:09:07,012
nor can they be even
made to sound rational

1399
01:09:07,186 --> 01:09:08,709
in the usual sense of the word.

1400
01:09:10,320 --> 01:09:13,105
It has taken me over  three years to reach the point

1401
01:09:13,279 --> 01:09:15,020
where I am willing
to tell anyone

1402
01:09:15,194 --> 01:09:17,675
but my closest friends
about my experience

1403
01:09:18,023 --> 01:09:21,331
beginning back  at the vernal equinox of 1974.

1404
01:09:22,158 --> 01:09:25,987
[translator speaks French]

1405
01:09:26,640 --> 01:09:28,338
Philip: One of the reasons
motivating me

1406
01:09:28,512 --> 01:09:30,340
to speak about it publicly
at last

1407
01:09:30,862 --> 01:09:32,516
to openly make this claim

1408
01:09:32,690 --> 01:09:34,996
is a recent encounter
I have undergone

1409
01:09:35,954 --> 01:09:39,697
which, by the way,
bears a strange resemblance

1410
01:09:40,437 --> 01:09:42,961
to Hawthorne Abendsen's
experience in my novel

1411
01:09:43,135 --> 01:09:45,877
The Man in the High Castle
with the woman Juliana Crain.

1412
01:09:48,445 --> 01:09:51,274
[translator speaks French]

1413
01:09:51,839 --> 01:09:54,364
Juliana read Abendsen's book
about a world

1414
01:09:54,538 --> 01:09:56,670
in which Germany and Japan
and Italy...

1415
01:09:59,020 --> 01:10:01,849
Now this is a little difficult
if you haven't read the book,

1416
01:10:02,415 --> 01:10:05,766
but he wrote a novel
in which Germany,

1417
01:10:06,419 --> 01:10:09,814
Italy and Japan
lost World War II.

1418
01:10:10,684 --> 01:10:12,033
And he was living in a world

1419
01:10:12,251 --> 01:10:13,861
in which
they had won World War II.

1420
01:10:17,082 --> 01:10:18,301
She felt she should tell him

1421
01:10:18,475 --> 01:10:20,128
what she comprehended
about the book.

1422
01:10:21,652 --> 01:10:24,045
In other words,
that his novel was true.

1423
01:10:25,830 --> 01:10:27,571
Chris: When I was working
onJimmy Corrigan,

1424
01:10:27,745 --> 01:10:29,747
the main character meets  his dad, and then his dad dies.

1425
01:10:33,229 --> 01:10:35,405
And as I was working
on the story itself,

1426
01:10:35,579 --> 01:10:38,103
I met my dad for the first time and then he died.

1427
01:10:40,061 --> 01:10:41,976
John Updike said something
once about...

1428
01:10:42,499 --> 01:10:45,110
about the strange predictability
of fiction.

1429
01:10:45,632 --> 01:10:47,155
And he just kinda
let it go at that,

1430
01:10:47,330 --> 01:10:48,635
and didn't really
follow up on that.

1431
01:10:48,896 --> 01:10:50,202
But there is something
when you get into this...

1432
01:10:50,550 --> 01:10:52,248
imaginary world

1433
01:10:52,422 --> 01:10:54,728
of writing stories,
or reimagining memories

1434
01:10:54,902 --> 01:10:57,035
where you can kind of
start to feel like you're...

1435
01:10:57,992 --> 01:11:01,996
not necessarily predicting  the world, but having some play

1436
01:11:02,170 --> 01:11:03,607
in the stream of it,
or something.

1437
01:11:06,000 --> 01:11:09,743
For several years, I've had
the feeling, a growing feeling,

1438
01:11:10,178 --> 01:11:13,443
that one day a woman, who would be a complete stranger to me,

1439
01:11:13,921 --> 01:11:16,576
would contact me and tell me

1440
01:11:16,924 --> 01:11:19,536
that she had some information
to impart to me.

1441
01:11:20,406 --> 01:11:22,321
And then she would appear
at my door

1442
01:11:22,756 --> 01:11:25,933
just as Juliana appeared
at Hawthorne Abendsen's door.

1443
01:11:26,325 --> 01:11:29,720
She would tell me exactly
what Juliana told Abendsen,

1444
01:11:30,198 --> 01:11:33,898
and that is that my book,
like his, was in a certain,

1445
01:11:34,072 --> 01:11:36,422
real, literal
and physical sense,

1446
01:11:36,596 --> 01:11:38,032
not fiction but the truth.

1447
01:11:40,383 --> 01:11:42,123
Well, this did
finally happen to me.

1448
01:11:43,734 --> 01:11:45,649
I even knew
that her hair would be black.

1449
01:11:48,042 --> 01:11:49,609
One of the first things
that a lot

1450
01:11:49,783 --> 01:11:51,176
of science fiction critics
remind you

1451
01:11:51,350 --> 01:11:52,699
when you're talking
about science fiction,

1452
01:11:52,873 --> 01:11:54,484
"Science fiction is
not about prediction."

1453
01:11:54,658 --> 01:11:56,224
But of course people
think about it anyway.

1454
01:11:56,486 --> 01:11:59,445
And Dick has quite a few.
Like he's no slacker

1455
01:11:59,619 --> 01:12:03,971
in the actually anticipating
the future department,

1456
01:12:04,189 --> 01:12:06,278
especially around
consumer gadgets

1457
01:12:06,452 --> 01:12:08,280
and ideas about
consumer gadgets.

1458
01:12:08,498 --> 01:12:10,891
But I think
what's more prophetic

1459
01:12:11,065 --> 01:12:12,023
is just...

1460
01:12:12,937 --> 01:12:16,593
what if feels like
to be alive right now.

1461
01:12:17,028 --> 01:12:21,946
You know, to be confused...
ontologically confused.

1462
01:12:22,120 --> 01:12:25,341
Like, I'm not really sure
where reality is exactly.

1463
01:12:25,950 --> 01:12:28,779
I'm certainly convinced
that there's a lot of

1464
01:12:28,953 --> 01:12:31,521
very dark forces on the rise,

1465
01:12:31,695 --> 01:12:33,871
and there are things that
are trying to manipulate me

1466
01:12:34,175 --> 01:12:36,003
using information
or using my...

1467
01:12:36,221 --> 01:12:38,789
the fact that I'm still
a subject of capitalism,

1468
01:12:38,963 --> 01:12:41,226
and they're kind of
manipulating that.

1469
01:12:41,487 --> 01:12:42,836
And, at the same time,
there's sort of like

1470
01:12:43,010 --> 01:12:44,795
deeper rumblings

1471
01:12:44,969 --> 01:12:47,928
in the nature of the world
that seem really unclear.

1472
01:12:48,276 --> 01:12:52,150
And at the same time,
people seem potentially drawn

1473
01:12:52,324 --> 01:12:55,545
into their own sort of
solipsistic world

1474
01:12:55,719 --> 01:12:58,156
of like manipulating
with the world

1475
01:12:58,330 --> 01:12:59,592
through all these interfaces

1476
01:12:59,766 --> 01:13:01,725
and kind of detaching in a way,

1477
01:13:02,073 --> 01:13:04,292
even at the same time
you're completely bound up.

1478
01:13:04,510 --> 01:13:06,512
And that's a primal theme
in Dick,

1479
01:13:06,686 --> 01:13:08,949
is the tension between
our social reality,

1480
01:13:09,123 --> 01:13:10,951
the reality as
a social construction

1481
01:13:11,517 --> 01:13:14,520
that we are always able
to kind of fragment away from

1482
01:13:14,738 --> 01:13:17,393
in generally harrowing ways.

1483
01:13:17,567 --> 01:13:20,787
We go into solipsism,
we go into psychosis,

1484
01:13:21,092 --> 01:13:22,615
we go into paranoia.

1485
01:13:22,789 --> 01:13:24,400
Hey, guys, I used
to be one of you!

1486
01:13:24,878 --> 01:13:26,227
- Stop selling...
- Erik: And so,

1487
01:13:26,663 --> 01:13:30,101
I think he captures
the texture of our life.

1488
01:13:30,275 --> 01:13:32,408
I mean, especially, like,
just as a trivial example...

1489
01:13:32,582 --> 01:13:36,368
the texture of like lots  of little alerts all the time.

1490
01:13:36,542 --> 01:13:40,198
You know, pings on the phone
and here's your e-mail, ding!

1491
01:13:40,372 --> 01:13:41,547
And then,
"Oh, don't forget this."

1492
01:13:42,330 --> 01:13:45,377
That kind of mind
that's constantly distracted

1493
01:13:45,551 --> 01:13:48,380
by these little bits
of information tugging at us.

1494
01:13:48,554 --> 01:13:50,382
Some of which are  advertisements trying to like--

1495
01:13:50,774 --> 01:13:52,602
Or you start thinking
about a trip

1496
01:13:52,776 --> 01:13:54,734
and then you write
somebody an e-mail,

1497
01:13:54,908 --> 01:13:56,301
and Goggle reads your e-mail
and then suddenly

1498
01:13:56,475 --> 01:13:58,172
all the adds are like,
"Trips! Trips! Trips!"

1499
01:13:58,477 --> 01:14:03,003
It's just like, "Whoa," that
fabric of consciousness

1500
01:14:03,264 --> 01:14:06,703
is just straight out of this--

1501
01:14:07,312 --> 01:14:08,835
[liquid static]

1502
01:14:09,053 --> 01:14:10,184
Joshua: [over phone]
I remember typing

1503
01:14:10,358 --> 01:14:11,664
"guns for sale"

1504
01:14:11,838 --> 01:14:13,057
on like Google.

1505
01:14:14,014 --> 01:14:16,190
And-- In Fairfax, Virginia.

1506
01:14:16,364 --> 01:14:18,976
And I saw this place called
Galyan's Sporting Goods Store.

1507
01:14:19,411 --> 01:14:21,108
And I remember...

1508
01:14:23,197 --> 01:14:25,809
like a few days after
I looked that up, my father.

1509
01:14:25,983 --> 01:14:27,637
I was in the basement
with my father.

1510
01:14:29,116 --> 01:14:31,031
And he said,
"I've seen your searches

1511
01:14:31,205 --> 01:14:32,293
for guns for sale."

1512
01:14:34,034 --> 01:14:35,383
And looked at me,

1513
01:14:35,906 --> 01:14:38,865
he had like this  worried/angry look on his face.

1514
01:14:40,127 --> 01:14:41,564
And I didn't say anything,
and I--

1515
01:14:42,303 --> 01:14:43,783
We looked at each other
for a good minute,

1516
01:14:44,654 --> 01:14:46,264
almost like a standoff.

1517
01:14:46,656 --> 01:14:48,571
And then I just walked up
the basement steps and left.

1518
01:14:48,745 --> 01:14:50,660
So we never had another
conversation about it.

1519
01:14:53,271 --> 01:14:55,447
Erik: He had this great line
about, that he thought

1520
01:14:55,621 --> 01:14:57,014
that the contemporary world

1521
01:14:57,188 --> 01:14:59,756
was sort of recreating
the animist world

1522
01:14:59,930 --> 01:15:02,454
that people,
pre-modern people saw.

1523
01:15:04,108 --> 01:15:06,197
And his work captures
that sense

1524
01:15:06,371 --> 01:15:10,418
of a kind of  profane technological animism,

1525
01:15:10,636 --> 01:15:11,855
and aliveness

1526
01:15:12,333 --> 01:15:14,205
that is not very trustworthy.

1527
01:15:14,727 --> 01:15:15,772
I love you, daddy.

1528
01:15:16,468 --> 01:15:19,210
Erik: Dick was
always aware of the broken.

1529
01:15:19,384 --> 01:15:22,430
People are broken.
Technologies are broken.

1530
01:15:22,605 --> 01:15:25,564
Cosmologies are broken.
Gods are broken.

1531
01:15:28,306 --> 01:15:29,916
Even though it seems like
other people

1532
01:15:30,090 --> 01:15:31,831
are just always paying
attention to like the new

1533
01:15:32,005 --> 01:15:33,790
and how the new technologies
can solve this thing...

1534
01:15:33,964 --> 01:15:37,358
Narrator: Your plastic pal
who's fun to be with!

1535
01:15:37,533 --> 01:15:40,666
Erik: ...what I experience
my technological life is like

1536
01:15:40,840 --> 01:15:42,755
is just a lot of broken things.

1537
01:15:47,673 --> 01:15:49,414
Jesse: So, you have
your giant developers.

1538
01:15:49,588 --> 01:15:51,198
You have Activision Blizzard,

1539
01:15:52,156 --> 01:15:54,506
they doWorld of Warcraft
andOverwatch.

1540
01:15:55,202 --> 01:15:57,553
You have EA, which is...

1541
01:15:59,990 --> 01:16:02,775
I think I've seen EA
related to the Nazis

1542
01:16:02,949 --> 01:16:04,864
more than I've seen them
related to video games.

1543
01:16:05,561 --> 01:16:07,040
They're pushing out
these things now

1544
01:16:07,214 --> 01:16:08,955
where you're paying full price
for a video game,

1545
01:16:09,129 --> 01:16:12,219
but you're only getting like
40% of a video game.

1546
01:16:12,829 --> 01:16:17,355
And the portion you get
is broken and buggy.

1547
01:16:17,660 --> 01:16:20,924
And sometimes like literally,
in the case of some games,

1548
01:16:21,228 --> 01:16:24,928
like I think the latest one
wasAtlas, it's unplayable.

1549
01:16:25,102 --> 01:16:27,104
Like it's literally dead
on arrival.

1550
01:16:27,278 --> 01:16:28,975
People were still paying
full price for it

1551
01:16:29,193 --> 01:16:31,064
and getting tricked into it.
You can't get refunds.

1552
01:16:31,587 --> 01:16:33,066
They get patches
that don't work.

1553
01:16:34,111 --> 01:16:35,242
You're stuck
in these digital worlds

1554
01:16:35,416 --> 01:16:36,766
that aren't going so well.

1555
01:16:37,027 --> 01:16:37,897
And then,
when you get out of them,

1556
01:16:38,115 --> 01:16:39,464
you're stuck in a reality

1557
01:16:39,638 --> 01:16:40,596
that's not going so well
either.

1558
01:16:42,206 --> 01:16:44,164
And you can't help
draw parallels.

1559
01:16:44,904 --> 01:16:47,428
The grass is dead
on both sides of this thing.

1560
01:16:49,213 --> 01:16:50,823
Perhaps right now,
maybe our artifices

1561
01:16:51,215 --> 01:16:53,652
are a little bit more active
than we thought.

1562
01:16:53,913 --> 01:16:55,915
And they're just like really
hot-fixing a lot of things,

1563
01:16:56,089 --> 01:16:58,004
and they're quick-patching
reality right now,

1564
01:16:58,178 --> 01:16:59,397
and it's just like,

1565
01:16:59,615 --> 01:17:00,224
shit's hitting
the fan right now.

1566
01:17:01,573 --> 01:17:03,053
Emily:
That's what's happening

1567
01:17:03,227 --> 01:17:05,621
outside the Matrix
in Neo's world, too.

1568
01:17:05,795 --> 01:17:07,144
It's like the real reality,

1569
01:17:07,318 --> 01:17:08,885
if you get outside
of the Matrix

1570
01:17:09,494 --> 01:17:11,191
is terrible.

1571
01:17:11,409 --> 01:17:14,194
The real reality is like war,
and you can't breathe.

1572
01:17:14,368 --> 01:17:17,067
To me, the subtext of that
is maybe there was

1573
01:17:17,545 --> 01:17:19,765
a taboo that we transgressed,

1574
01:17:19,939 --> 01:17:22,246
that we went past
the point of no return.

1575
01:17:23,377 --> 01:17:27,643
Joshua: [over phone]
February 17th, 2003.

1576
01:17:27,947 --> 01:17:28,905
It was a Monday.

1577
01:17:31,342 --> 01:17:33,692
I woke up. There was
a whole lot of snow outside

1578
01:17:33,866 --> 01:17:36,347
from a recent blizzard
we had just had.

1579
01:17:36,956 --> 01:17:41,091
And I walked downstairs,  I saw my father shoveling snow.

1580
01:17:41,265 --> 01:17:44,224
So I got my clothes on  and helped him shovel the snow.

1581
01:17:44,877 --> 01:17:48,838
And in the middle of doing that I remember my mother came out

1582
01:17:49,099 --> 01:17:51,841
and she looked up and she said,
"There's so much snow.

1583
01:17:52,015 --> 01:17:53,930
We're gonna remember this
for a long time."

1584
01:17:55,714 --> 01:17:57,977
I spent the rest of the day
in my room

1585
01:17:58,151 --> 01:18:00,197
playing violent video games

1586
01:18:00,371 --> 01:18:03,461
and watchingThe Matrix movie
with my black trench coat on

1587
01:18:03,940 --> 01:18:05,463
and my gun in my hand.

1588
01:18:07,552 --> 01:18:09,162
As evening time continued...

1589
01:18:11,512 --> 01:18:14,428
paranoia sunk in even further.

1590
01:18:15,255 --> 01:18:16,692
Lightning struck my brain.

1591
01:18:18,650 --> 01:18:19,695
And this is what hit me.

1592
01:18:20,608 --> 01:18:24,612
I said to myself, the only way I could find out for sure,

1593
01:18:24,830 --> 01:18:27,006
I could find out for sure

1594
01:18:27,572 --> 01:18:29,226
if the Matrix was real

1595
01:18:29,574 --> 01:18:30,967
and I wasn't losing my mind

1596
01:18:31,924 --> 01:18:34,971
was to simply pick up
the phone and call them.

1597
01:18:36,624 --> 01:18:40,759
I left my room
and I walked precariously

1598
01:18:41,804 --> 01:18:44,023
over to the house phone
in my parents' bedroom.

1599
01:18:58,342 --> 01:19:00,648
I slowly picked the phone
up off the hook

1600
01:19:01,432 --> 01:19:04,696
and then, taking a deep,
nervous breath

1601
01:19:05,349 --> 01:19:07,743
I spoke those powerful words,
his words,

1602
01:19:08,700 --> 01:19:09,919
the final words of Neo,

1603
01:19:10,876 --> 01:19:13,879
"I know you're out there.
I can feel you now.

1604
01:19:14,619 --> 01:19:15,794
I know that you're afraid.

1605
01:19:17,274 --> 01:19:20,059
You're afraid of us.
You're afraid of change.

1606
01:19:21,713 --> 01:19:23,236
I don't know the future.

1607
01:19:23,671 --> 01:19:26,065
I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end.

1608
01:19:26,544 --> 01:19:29,503
I came here to tell you how
it's going to begin.

1609
01:19:30,591 --> 01:19:31,897
You're gonna hang up
this phone,

1610
01:19:32,419 --> 01:19:33,769
and then I'm going to show
these people

1611
01:19:33,943 --> 01:19:35,118
what you don't want them
to see.

1612
01:19:35,814 --> 01:19:37,207
A world without you.

1613
01:19:38,121 --> 01:19:40,210
A world without rules
and controls,

1614
01:19:40,384 --> 01:19:41,646
without borders or boundaries.

1615
01:19:41,951 --> 01:19:44,692
A world where
anything's possible.

1616
01:19:48,305 --> 01:19:50,786
Where we go from there
is a choice up to you."

1617
01:19:51,134 --> 01:19:52,613
And I hung up the phone

1618
01:19:52,918 --> 01:19:56,052
and I walked calmly back
to the TV in my room

1619
01:19:56,530 --> 01:19:58,750
and began watchingThe Matrix
all over again.

1620
01:19:59,272 --> 01:20:00,491
[static]

1621
01:20:01,013 --> 01:20:03,363
Joshua: And I remember
sitting there on my bed

1622
01:20:03,537 --> 01:20:05,104
looking up at
The Matrix poster,

1623
01:20:05,322 --> 01:20:09,195
just saying basically,
"Fuck my life," you know?

1624
01:20:09,805 --> 01:20:12,068
I got my shotgun out and I...

1625
01:20:14,722 --> 01:20:17,290
I put some slugs in there,
in the chamber...

1626
01:20:18,509 --> 01:20:22,992
and I slid the action forward, and I left my room.

1627
01:20:23,166 --> 01:20:28,258
But before I did,
I put a CD player on my head,

1628
01:20:28,824 --> 01:20:30,216
headphones on my head.

1629
01:20:30,390 --> 01:20:31,609
And this one was
a little different

1630
01:20:31,783 --> 01:20:33,002
thanThe Matrix.

1631
01:20:33,393 --> 01:20:35,308
This one was by a band
called Drowning Pool.

1632
01:20:36,440 --> 01:20:38,572
The words to the song were,

1633
01:20:39,269 --> 01:20:42,446
"Beaten why for
Can't take much more

1634
01:20:42,881 --> 01:20:45,710
Something's got to give
Let the bodies hit the floor"

1635
01:20:46,058 --> 01:20:52,804
♪ ["Bodies"
by Drowning Pool plays] ♪

1636
01:20:53,152 --> 01:20:55,807
That's what I was listening to as I left my room

1637
01:20:56,416 --> 01:20:59,942
and I went downstairs to get
to the basement.

1638
01:21:00,943 --> 01:21:07,036
♪ [song continues] ♪

1639
01:21:20,919 --> 01:21:22,616
And I remember

1640
01:21:22,790 --> 01:21:24,967
when I got to the
bottom of the basement stairs

1641
01:21:25,315 --> 01:21:27,578
I saw my mother was sitting
there at the computer

1642
01:21:27,795 --> 01:21:28,884
with a smile on her face.

1643
01:21:29,754 --> 01:21:33,192
And she turned, she swiveled
in her chair to face me

1644
01:21:33,366 --> 01:21:35,803
and when she saw the gun
in my hand,

1645
01:21:35,978 --> 01:21:38,806
which she's seeing
for the first time ever,

1646
01:21:39,633 --> 01:21:42,854
her smile disappeared,
and I shot her.

1647
01:21:43,637 --> 01:21:44,856
I shot her in the chest.

1648
01:21:45,944 --> 01:21:47,815
And I turned my attention
to my father,

1649
01:21:47,990 --> 01:21:49,513
who was on the other side
of the basement

1650
01:21:49,861 --> 01:21:53,212
and he dove.
He was at his computer, too.

1651
01:21:53,473 --> 01:21:55,084
And he dove under the table,

1652
01:21:55,432 --> 01:21:57,521
and he was looking at me

1653
01:21:57,695 --> 01:22:01,003
with a look I've never seen
on him before.

1654
01:22:01,568 --> 01:22:04,310
And just that look of shock
and disbelief.

1655
01:22:05,311 --> 01:22:08,488
And I remember I crouched down to be level with him

1656
01:22:08,662 --> 01:22:10,577
and I shot him about
three times.

1657
01:22:26,071 --> 01:22:28,726
I went upstairs to reload

1658
01:22:29,292 --> 01:22:30,815
and when I came back down--

1659
01:22:31,729 --> 01:22:34,732
Oh, I still had
my headphones on.

1660
01:22:35,385 --> 01:22:37,735
The words that were forced
into my ears were,

1661
01:22:38,736 --> 01:22:41,391
"Skin against skin
Blood and bone

1662
01:22:42,000 --> 01:22:44,220
You're all by yourself
But you're not alone

1663
01:22:44,829 --> 01:22:46,831
You wanted in
Now you're here

1664
01:22:47,310 --> 01:22:49,399
Driven by hate
Consumed by fear

1665
01:22:49,921 --> 01:22:51,270
Let the bodies hit the floor"

1666
01:22:52,489 --> 01:22:53,969
That's what I was listening to

1667
01:22:54,186 --> 01:22:55,927
when I went down
for the second time

1668
01:22:56,101 --> 01:22:57,059
to the basement.

1669
01:23:04,936 --> 01:23:07,243
I was standing at the top
of the basement staircase,

1670
01:23:07,417 --> 01:23:09,897
and my mother was standing  at the bottom of the staircase,

1671
01:23:10,811 --> 01:23:12,378
holding her chest
as she bled out.

1672
01:23:13,118 --> 01:23:18,123
And I lifted the gun up
and I aimed it at her face.

1673
01:23:18,384 --> 01:23:19,864
She looked up at me
and she said...

1674
01:23:20,821 --> 01:23:23,172
she said, "Joshua."

1675
01:23:24,042 --> 01:23:25,304
She said, "What did you do?"

1676
01:23:26,523 --> 01:23:30,266
And she kept looking at me
for a minute, and she said...

1677
01:23:31,963 --> 01:23:32,964
she said, "You wouldn't."

1678
01:23:33,878 --> 01:23:35,010
And I pulled the trigger.

1679
01:23:37,447 --> 01:23:39,275
When I pulled the
trigger and...

1680
01:23:40,798 --> 01:23:41,886
her face exploded.

1681
01:23:43,888 --> 01:23:46,412
Half her face, her eye
and her face exploded out

1682
01:23:46,586 --> 01:23:47,500
through the back of her head...

1683
01:23:48,501 --> 01:23:52,244
and her flesh was just
turned into like ripplets,

1684
01:23:52,418 --> 01:23:53,724
a bloody mess.

1685
01:23:53,898 --> 01:23:55,987
And it messed me up
really bad

1686
01:23:56,161 --> 01:24:00,122
because it wasn't anything like I had seen onThe Matrix.

1687
01:24:01,036 --> 01:24:04,343
You know? Real life
was so much more horrific.

1688
01:24:04,778 --> 01:24:07,303
It kind of jarred me.
I was still pretty numb,

1689
01:24:07,999 --> 01:24:09,870
but I remember it jarring me

1690
01:24:10,175 --> 01:24:12,438
'cause it was different than
what I thought ofThe Matrix.

1691
01:24:15,963 --> 01:24:17,965
So I turned around
and I went upstairs

1692
01:24:18,357 --> 01:24:21,143
into the dining room.

1693
01:24:21,447 --> 01:24:23,145
I picked up the phone
in the kitchen,

1694
01:24:23,884 --> 01:24:25,669
and my sister was on the phone.

1695
01:24:25,843 --> 01:24:27,323
I didn't realize at the time

1696
01:24:27,497 --> 01:24:29,629
that my sister  was on the phone with my father

1697
01:24:30,239 --> 01:24:32,893
at the exact moment that
I killed him and my mother.

1698
01:24:33,372 --> 01:24:35,722
She heard the whole thing,
and I didn't realize it.

1699
01:24:35,896 --> 01:24:37,289
So here I am,

1700
01:24:37,811 --> 01:24:39,552
I'm at the phone in the kitchen and I said, "Hello?"

1701
01:24:40,466 --> 01:24:43,295
And my sister said, "Josh?"
And I said, "Tiffany?"

1702
01:24:43,687 --> 01:24:45,036
I said,
"What are you doing here?"

1703
01:24:45,297 --> 01:24:46,733
And she said,
"Josh, where's Daddy?

1704
01:24:46,907 --> 01:24:48,039
I wanna talk to Daddy."

1705
01:24:48,735 --> 01:24:50,346
And I told her, I said,

1706
01:24:50,563 --> 01:24:52,348
"Hang up the phone, Tiffany.
I gotta call someone."

1707
01:24:53,349 --> 01:24:55,655
And she didn't hang up,
so I let the phone hang

1708
01:24:55,829 --> 01:24:59,224
and I went to,
my father had a cell phone.

1709
01:24:59,398 --> 01:25:01,357
I went to his cell phone.
I went outside.

1710
01:25:02,619 --> 01:25:06,362
I took a Coca-Cola
out of the refrigerator

1711
01:25:07,145 --> 01:25:08,625
and I started to drink--

1712
01:25:08,886 --> 01:25:09,930
I popped the top
and I started drinking it,

1713
01:25:10,105 --> 01:25:11,367
and I called 911.

1714
01:25:12,759 --> 01:25:14,021
When I hung the phone up...

1715
01:25:15,458 --> 01:25:18,939
I got a call on my dad's phone from a friend of his.

1716
01:25:19,331 --> 01:25:23,814
And my dad's friend said,  "Hey, Josh, is your dad there?"

1717
01:25:24,510 --> 01:25:26,599
And I said, "He can't come
to the phone right now."

1718
01:25:27,557 --> 01:25:28,993
And he said, "Oh, okay.

1719
01:25:29,167 --> 01:25:30,560
Will you give him
a message for me?

1720
01:25:30,734 --> 01:25:31,735
Just tell him I called."

1721
01:25:32,562 --> 01:25:34,477
Said, "Will you give him that
message for me?"

1722
01:25:35,260 --> 01:25:36,348
And I said, "Sure."

1723
01:25:37,349 --> 01:25:39,830
And he hung up the phone,
I hung up the phone.

1724
01:25:40,047 --> 01:25:41,745
And moments later,

1725
01:25:41,919 --> 01:25:44,400
the police arrived
at the driveway of my house

1726
01:25:44,617 --> 01:25:46,141
with their guns drawn.

1727
01:25:46,576 --> 01:25:49,361
About five or six of them  with their guns drawn on me...

1728
01:25:50,667 --> 01:25:52,321
told me to get
down on my knees,

1729
01:25:52,495 --> 01:25:54,540
and of course they arrested me.

1730
01:25:54,714 --> 01:25:56,455
[tinkling]

1731
01:26:07,553 --> 01:26:09,251
Philip: I, in my stories
and novels,

1732
01:26:09,425 --> 01:26:11,340
often write about
counterfeit worlds

1733
01:26:11,992 --> 01:26:15,518
semi-real worlds, as well as
deranged private worlds

1734
01:26:15,822 --> 01:26:18,129
inhabited often
by just one person,

1735
01:26:18,521 --> 01:26:20,479
while meantime
the other characters

1736
01:26:20,653 --> 01:26:22,612
either remain  in their own worlds throughout

1737
01:26:23,090 --> 01:26:25,963
or are somehow drawn into
one of the peculiar ones.

1738
01:26:26,790 --> 01:26:30,097
This theme occurs in the corpus of my 27 years of writing.

1739
01:26:30,750 --> 01:26:32,926
At no time did I have
a theoretical

1740
01:26:33,100 --> 01:26:35,755
or conscious explanation
for my preoccupation

1741
01:26:36,060 --> 01:26:38,236
with these pluriform
pseudo-worlds.

1742
01:26:38,628 --> 01:26:40,369
But now I think I understand.

1743
01:26:40,760 --> 01:26:42,849
What I was sensing
was the manifold

1744
01:26:43,023 --> 01:26:46,592
of partially actualized reality lying tangent

1745
01:26:46,766 --> 01:26:49,508
to what evidently
is the most actualized one.

1746
01:26:49,943 --> 01:26:54,252
The one which the majority of us
by consensus gentium agree on.

1747
01:26:56,385 --> 01:26:57,821
The real nub of it,

1748
01:26:58,430 --> 01:27:01,999
morally, ethically,
even kind of cosmologically...

1749
01:27:02,173 --> 01:27:04,088
is how we deal with each other.

1750
01:27:04,610 --> 01:27:07,047
Like, okay I'm in a simulation.

1751
01:27:07,222 --> 01:27:08,919
Okay, I'm in a false,
phenomenal world.

1752
01:27:09,093 --> 01:27:12,009
How do I deal with this person
I'm in love with?

1753
01:27:12,183 --> 01:27:14,751
How do I deal with this person
who is my enemy?

1754
01:27:15,055 --> 01:27:17,580
How do I deal
with a dying parent?

1755
01:27:17,928 --> 01:27:21,105
But if I have the hunch
that this is a simulation

1756
01:27:21,453 --> 01:27:23,890
and there are other people
like me there

1757
01:27:24,064 --> 01:27:26,328
who aren't just simulations,

1758
01:27:26,502 --> 01:27:29,069
it puts weird pressure
on my ethics.

1759
01:27:29,809 --> 01:27:32,769
How do I deal with somebody
else who's in a false world

1760
01:27:32,986 --> 01:27:36,990
but who's actually behind  that avatar is someone like me,

1761
01:27:37,164 --> 01:27:38,905
that I really want
to communicate with,

1762
01:27:39,123 --> 01:27:41,386
fall in love with,
bond together with.

1763
01:27:41,560 --> 01:27:43,693
And that's really key
to Phil Dick.

1764
01:27:43,867 --> 01:27:45,521
Like yeah, Phil Dick
was kinda crazy.

1765
01:27:45,869 --> 01:27:48,350
He had visions

1766
01:27:48,524 --> 01:27:49,873
he could never decide
what they meant,

1767
01:27:50,090 --> 01:27:52,658
he's neurotic and pathological
and paranoid

1768
01:27:52,832 --> 01:27:53,964
and all those things,

1769
01:27:54,269 --> 01:27:56,923
but at the same time,
constantly,

1770
01:27:57,228 --> 01:27:58,882
throughout all of the texts,

1771
01:27:59,361 --> 01:28:03,626
there's this
very grounded empathy

1772
01:28:03,887 --> 01:28:07,934
with people suffering
under these false conditions.

1773
01:28:09,980 --> 01:28:12,591
This very real portrayal,

1774
01:28:12,765 --> 01:28:15,594
very sobering portrayals of
human beings that are still--

1775
01:28:16,116 --> 01:28:17,422
they have a heart.

1776
01:28:17,857 --> 01:28:19,990
And that heart is what
kind of keeps you going

1777
01:28:20,164 --> 01:28:24,081
as you suffer these various
nightmare scenarios

1778
01:28:24,299 --> 01:28:26,475
that he throws your way,
including the ultimate one

1779
01:28:26,649 --> 01:28:27,954
of just not knowing.

1780
01:28:28,651 --> 01:28:30,827
And I think that that's
one of the ways that people

1781
01:28:31,001 --> 01:28:33,220
get attracted
to simulation hypothesis

1782
01:28:33,482 --> 01:28:36,659
is because it seems
to maybe solve problems.

1783
01:28:37,486 --> 01:28:40,619
But I think it just makes
the problems even more...

1784
01:28:41,620 --> 01:28:44,014
you know, kind of poignant
and in your face.

1785
01:28:47,713 --> 01:28:49,759
Joshua: [over phone]
So when I met my lawyers

1786
01:28:49,933 --> 01:28:52,544
for the first time
in Fairfax jail

1787
01:28:52,718 --> 01:28:55,852
they asked me about
my crime and...

1788
01:28:56,069 --> 01:28:57,593
and I told them I said,

1789
01:28:57,941 --> 01:28:59,421
"I did my thing
just like Neo inThe Matrix.

1790
01:29:00,378 --> 01:29:02,119
Like I was in virtual reality."

1791
01:29:03,555 --> 01:29:06,863
And that really took them
by surprise.

1792
01:29:07,037 --> 01:29:08,255
They weren't expecting that.

1793
01:29:08,821 --> 01:29:10,823
I also told them
that the moment of my crime,

1794
01:29:11,868 --> 01:29:13,826
I had also felt
a tinge of remorse,

1795
01:29:14,349 --> 01:29:16,829
because it was
two strong things

1796
01:29:17,003 --> 01:29:18,527
at the same time,

1797
01:29:18,831 --> 01:29:20,920
that I was entering the world, or exiting the world

1798
01:29:21,094 --> 01:29:22,400
of the Matrix.

1799
01:29:22,966 --> 01:29:24,837
And then real life,  with what I did to my parents.

1800
01:29:26,186 --> 01:29:28,450
My lawyers later
went to my house,

1801
01:29:28,711 --> 01:29:30,408
and they went upstairs
to my room

1802
01:29:30,582 --> 01:29:36,066
and they saw my enormous
Matrix movie poster on my wall.

1803
01:29:36,632 --> 01:29:38,373
And they saw
my black trench coat

1804
01:29:38,547 --> 01:29:40,549
laying out on my bed,
smoothed out on my bed.

1805
01:29:40,723 --> 01:29:41,898
They saw my black boots.

1806
01:29:43,073 --> 01:29:44,379
The ones like Neo wore.

1807
01:29:45,510 --> 01:29:46,990
And they began to think

1808
01:29:47,469 --> 01:29:50,123
that they may have
an insanity defense.

1809
01:29:53,431 --> 01:29:56,913
They said that I, quote,
"Harbored a bona fide belief

1810
01:29:57,087 --> 01:29:59,829
that I was living in  the virtual world ofThe Matrix

1811
01:30:00,395 --> 01:30:01,483
at the time of the murders."

1812
01:30:02,527 --> 01:30:04,050
That was part of my defense.

1813
01:30:05,530 --> 01:30:07,489
- This isn't real?
- What is real?

1814
01:30:07,793 --> 01:30:09,447
Joshua:
Which was later dubbed

1815
01:30:09,621 --> 01:30:10,709
The Matrix Defense.

1816
01:30:11,014 --> 01:30:12,450
Computer voice:
The Matrix Defense

1817
01:30:12,624 --> 01:30:14,278
is a version of
the insanity defense

1818
01:30:14,496 --> 01:30:16,672
and is a descendant
of The Taxi Driver Defense

1819
01:30:16,846 --> 01:30:17,890
of John Hinckley.

1820
01:30:19,109 --> 01:30:22,199
It has been used multiple times since Joshua's trial,

1821
01:30:22,504 --> 01:30:26,421
most notably by Lee Malvo,
aka The D.C. Sniper.

1822
01:30:27,509 --> 01:30:29,032
Joshua: [over phone] The doctor, the psychologist,

1823
01:30:29,989 --> 01:30:31,861
Dr. Shostak, he diagnosed me

1824
01:30:32,035 --> 01:30:34,516
with a form of schizophrenia
called simple schizophrenia,

1825
01:30:34,777 --> 01:30:36,866
and that's when he made
the declaration

1826
01:30:37,040 --> 01:30:39,782
that people are scarcely real
to me and things like that.

1827
01:30:41,000 --> 01:30:43,960
There were different events
that happened in my life,

1828
01:30:44,700 --> 01:30:47,616
different things I was feeling that were in a combination

1829
01:30:48,094 --> 01:30:49,444
led up to me exploding.

1830
01:30:50,488 --> 01:30:52,055
The abuse I had been suffering

1831
01:30:52,229 --> 01:30:54,405
from my parents at home
for many, many years.

1832
01:30:54,666 --> 01:30:56,363
And then I had the bullying
at school

1833
01:30:56,886 --> 01:31:00,367
and the undiagnosed  mental illness I had for years.

1834
01:31:00,542 --> 01:31:02,021
And all of that together

1835
01:31:02,195 --> 01:31:03,762
kind of formed
a ticking time bomb.

1836
01:31:04,807 --> 01:31:06,635
I call it the perfect storm.

1837
01:31:06,809 --> 01:31:12,118
But I, myself, I never made
any excuses for my crime.

1838
01:31:12,597 --> 01:31:14,773
And I just wanted to die,
you know?

1839
01:31:14,947 --> 01:31:17,559
It was like, just forget about all of this stuff, you know.

1840
01:31:18,429 --> 01:31:19,691
And as a matter of fact,

1841
01:31:19,865 --> 01:31:21,214
at the end
of my sentence hearing

1842
01:31:21,388 --> 01:31:23,521
I got to say
a written statement

1843
01:31:23,695 --> 01:31:25,305
to the judge out loud there.

1844
01:31:25,480 --> 01:31:28,134
And there I just,
I told him that

1845
01:31:28,700 --> 01:31:29,962
I wasn't making any excuses,

1846
01:31:30,136 --> 01:31:31,355
and I deserved
the death penalty,

1847
01:31:31,529 --> 01:31:32,399
I deserved to die.

1848
01:31:33,226 --> 01:31:35,577
And I think about
what I did every day.

1849
01:31:35,838 --> 01:31:37,579
I wish I could take it back.
You know?

1850
01:31:38,493 --> 01:31:40,625
Computer voice:  Ultimately, Joshua decided not

1851
01:31:40,799 --> 01:31:43,149
to pursue The Matrix Defense
and pled guilty.

1852
01:31:43,889 --> 01:31:46,109
He was 19 years old
when convicted.

1853
01:31:46,979 --> 01:31:50,461
He is not due to be released
until 2043.

1854
01:31:52,202 --> 01:31:53,899
Joshua: [over phone] The movie,
The Matrix movie

1855
01:31:54,073 --> 01:31:56,206
has affected people  in all sorts of different ways.

1856
01:31:56,467 --> 01:31:58,034
It all depends
on where you're coming from

1857
01:31:58,208 --> 01:31:59,383
and the psychology of it.

1858
01:32:00,079 --> 01:32:01,994
Mine is just kind of
an extreme case.

1859
01:32:02,952 --> 01:32:04,693
There are people
out there today

1860
01:32:05,258 --> 01:32:06,912
who may be listening to this

1861
01:32:07,086 --> 01:32:09,219
that are going through
the same things that I was.

1862
01:32:10,133 --> 01:32:11,656
And this is
the whole reason why

1863
01:32:11,830 --> 01:32:13,789
I'm even talking
about this today

1864
01:32:14,616 --> 01:32:17,270
because I know
I have a purpose,

1865
01:32:17,444 --> 01:32:19,229
a calling in my life
to try to reach them.

1866
01:32:20,535 --> 01:32:23,015
Computer voice: Joshua wrote
a book about his experience

1867
01:32:23,189 --> 01:32:25,191
in hopes of reaching
other troubled kids

1868
01:32:25,365 --> 01:32:27,890
and stopping them
from repeating his mistakes.

1869
01:32:29,718 --> 01:32:31,937
Now that I'm in my mid-40's...

1870
01:32:32,938 --> 01:32:36,246
I am actually finally able
to deal with people

1871
01:32:36,420 --> 01:32:37,334
as human beings.

1872
01:32:38,422 --> 01:32:39,989
And you could
think of it one way,

1873
01:32:40,250 --> 01:32:42,469
if people are simulated,
they're getting better

1874
01:32:42,644 --> 01:32:44,080
and they're easier to relate to,

1875
01:32:44,254 --> 01:32:47,692
but is it possible
that I saw everyone

1876
01:32:47,866 --> 01:32:50,565
as these sort of robotic
humans walking around

1877
01:32:50,913 --> 01:32:53,393
because I couldn't
figure them out

1878
01:32:53,611 --> 01:32:55,091
because of a problem
with my brain?

1879
01:32:55,657 --> 01:32:56,919
And that's the thing,

1880
01:32:57,136 --> 01:32:59,225
I never wanna get locked
into the idea

1881
01:32:59,399 --> 01:33:00,662
that this is all fake

1882
01:33:01,010 --> 01:33:02,577
if in fact the reason
I thought it was fake

1883
01:33:02,751 --> 01:33:05,405
is because it was an easier
way for me to deal

1884
01:33:05,580 --> 01:33:07,973
with the complexity
of human existence.

1885
01:33:09,671 --> 01:33:15,894
I feel like being fully
in the body with another

1886
01:33:16,678 --> 01:33:19,594
is like sort of maybe
like seeing the light, you know?

1887
01:33:19,768 --> 01:33:22,858
It's the "petite mort"
of orgasm.

1888
01:33:23,032 --> 01:33:26,035
Or just like the fusing
of consciousness with an other.

1889
01:33:26,209 --> 01:33:27,776
Audre Lorde talks about
the erotic.

1890
01:33:27,950 --> 01:33:33,129
And I think the erotic
as a dynamic in reality

1891
01:33:33,303 --> 01:33:35,653
is an antidote to solipsism.

1892
01:33:35,827 --> 01:33:37,568
It's an antidote
to a lack of empathy.

1893
01:33:37,786 --> 01:33:39,396
Because it allows us to sort of

1894
01:33:39,570 --> 01:33:42,094
have a playful relationship
to the other.

1895
01:33:42,442 --> 01:33:44,749
There's that scene
inThe Matrix Reloaded

1896
01:33:44,923 --> 01:33:48,274
where Morpheus gives a speech
and tells everyone

1897
01:33:48,448 --> 01:33:49,972
that they're about
to be attacked

1898
01:33:50,146 --> 01:33:51,408
by the machines.

1899
01:33:51,713 --> 01:33:53,584
This might be
their last night alive.

1900
01:33:54,063 --> 01:33:57,588
The machines have gathered
an army, and as I speak

1901
01:33:58,197 --> 01:34:00,722
that army is drawing nearer
to our home.

1902
01:34:01,244 --> 01:34:02,898
[crowd murmuring]

1903
01:34:04,160 --> 01:34:05,291
Emily:
So, what do they do?

1904
01:34:05,814 --> 01:34:07,859
They play music. They dance.

1905
01:34:08,120 --> 01:34:11,123
And in the midst
of this stew of flesh...

1906
01:34:11,776 --> 01:34:15,432
Trinity and Neo sneak off  to this catacomb and make love.

1907
01:34:16,433 --> 01:34:18,653
This is a scene
that gets parodied a lot.

1908
01:34:18,870 --> 01:34:20,698
I think it's easy
to not take it seriously

1909
01:34:20,872 --> 01:34:21,917
because it's so earnest.

1910
01:34:22,831 --> 01:34:24,397
But it's also very tender.

1911
01:34:24,702 --> 01:34:26,486
It shows the characters
at their most vulnerable

1912
01:34:26,661 --> 01:34:27,662
with each other.

1913
01:34:28,488 --> 01:34:31,840
Neo tells Trinity  that he's afraid of losing her.

1914
01:34:32,362 --> 01:34:36,061
And she says,
"You're not gonna lose me."

1915
01:34:36,540 --> 01:34:38,542
She holds his hand,
"You feel this?"

1916
01:34:40,370 --> 01:34:41,719
"I'm never letting go."

1917
01:34:42,589 --> 01:34:43,634
That's love.

1918
01:34:44,504 --> 01:34:46,681
You have to be
very vulnerable to feel it.

1919
01:34:48,030 --> 01:34:51,294
I think loneliness
and isolation and trauma

1920
01:34:51,468 --> 01:34:53,862
play very heavily
in the kinds of realities

1921
01:34:54,036 --> 01:34:55,820
that people construct
for themselves.

1922
01:35:01,043 --> 01:35:02,653
Brother Mystwood:
And if there's a player

1923
01:35:02,827 --> 01:35:05,134
that is responsible for me
and is playing me...

1924
01:35:06,831 --> 01:35:09,921
then, you know,
maybe he's a genius,

1925
01:35:10,182 --> 01:35:11,706
but maybe he's like
a 12-year-old kid.

1926
01:35:13,925 --> 01:35:17,015
So the thing I've gotta do  is I've gotta keep leveling up

1927
01:35:17,363 --> 01:35:19,539
and I've gotta stay interesting
for him.

1928
01:35:20,497 --> 01:35:22,934
Rodney: Do you make different
choices than you might

1929
01:35:23,108 --> 01:35:25,589
otherwise in order to keep
your player interested?

1930
01:35:25,981 --> 01:35:27,330
The way I think about is,
you know,

1931
01:35:27,504 --> 01:35:28,810
if you're playing a video game

1932
01:35:29,245 --> 01:35:31,334
and sometimes you see
like a giant blinking cursor

1933
01:35:31,508 --> 01:35:32,727
telling you to go
to a certain place.

1934
01:35:32,901 --> 01:35:34,685
I keep looking for those.

1935
01:35:34,859 --> 01:35:37,427
And when I see one, I'll stop
and I'll pause and I'll say...

1936
01:35:38,123 --> 01:35:40,386
"Thank you for that,"
and I'll, you know--

1937
01:35:40,604 --> 01:35:42,040
And then every once in a while,

1938
01:35:42,214 --> 01:35:43,389
I'll just make a completely
batshit decision

1939
01:35:43,563 --> 01:35:45,217
that no one seems to understand.
[laughs]

1940
01:35:45,435 --> 01:35:47,219
Including myself!
Like, "Well, well, well!"

1941
01:35:47,393 --> 01:35:48,525
I hope you're interested.

1942
01:35:48,699 --> 01:35:50,048
Just like
all the other theories,

1943
01:35:50,222 --> 01:35:52,659
no one's gonna know
until they're dead.

1944
01:35:54,923 --> 01:35:57,447
And I don't believe
that it's flawed enough

1945
01:35:57,621 --> 01:35:59,275
that it could somehow tear...

1946
01:36:00,102 --> 01:36:04,062
and we'd find ourselves exposed out ofThe Matrix.

1947
01:36:04,671 --> 01:36:05,934
I don't think
that's how it works.

1948
01:36:06,108 --> 01:36:08,414
I think that
it's a solid system.

1949
01:36:08,588 --> 01:36:11,069
And whatever it is,
ends when you die.

1950
01:36:11,896 --> 01:36:14,681
But it's totally plausible
that you then wake up

1951
01:36:15,160 --> 01:36:18,642
in an arcade in the year 3000
and put another quarter in

1952
01:36:18,816 --> 01:36:21,558
and do another life on Earth
in the year 2019, you know?

1953
01:36:21,863 --> 01:36:24,256
There are these kind of
fundamental metaphors

1954
01:36:24,430 --> 01:36:28,870
about reality that we develop
through being humans

1955
01:36:29,044 --> 01:36:31,873
moving through time and space
on a planet.

1956
01:36:32,134 --> 01:36:35,877
So the metaphor of the journey,
"Life is like a journey."

1957
01:36:36,181 --> 01:36:38,880
Well, another one we have,
and we all have it is,

1958
01:36:39,228 --> 01:36:41,447
- waking up from a dream.
- [screaming]

1959
01:36:44,320 --> 01:36:47,671
"What? Oh, I'm in this world!"

1960
01:36:47,932 --> 01:36:51,762
And just that. Not what
the nature of this world was,

1961
01:36:51,936 --> 01:36:53,416
or the nature of that world is.

1962
01:36:53,720 --> 01:36:56,506
We have this fundamental
cognitive experience

1963
01:36:57,463 --> 01:36:59,814
of shifting between
ontological frames,

1964
01:36:59,988 --> 01:37:01,598
sometimes quite abruptly.

1965
01:37:01,816 --> 01:37:03,469
Sometimes with
intense emotions.

1966
01:37:03,818 --> 01:37:05,341
And this is just
stitched into us.

1967
01:37:06,037 --> 01:37:09,649
So it's a fundamental hunch
that we all have

1968
01:37:10,302 --> 01:37:12,609
that the world
is not what it seems.

1969
01:37:12,827 --> 01:37:14,306
There's another world
behind this world,

1970
01:37:14,480 --> 01:37:16,047
or at the very least,

1971
01:37:16,482 --> 01:37:19,268
this world is capable
of falling apart.

1972
01:37:19,442 --> 01:37:20,791
- Truman: What's happening?
- Security guard: Nothing.

1973
01:37:21,661 --> 01:37:23,054
Rodney: I don't know,
does thinking about

1974
01:37:23,228 --> 01:37:24,751
the simulation,
does that excite you?

1975
01:37:24,926 --> 01:37:28,233
Or does it sometimes
fill you with unease?

1976
01:37:33,064 --> 01:37:33,978
Well, I guess...

1977
01:37:36,067 --> 01:37:39,941
I've had
this simulation argument

1978
01:37:40,115 --> 01:37:43,161
for so long now
that it's hard to sort of

1979
01:37:43,814 --> 01:37:45,163
consider the counter faction.

1980
01:37:45,468 --> 01:37:47,165
'Cause it's kind of become
so much a part of

1981
01:37:47,818 --> 01:37:49,907
the way I view the world,

1982
01:37:50,081 --> 01:37:50,908
the simulation argument.

1983
01:37:53,824 --> 01:37:54,781
I do think that...

1984
01:37:57,436 --> 01:38:00,700
it makes it quite...

1985
01:38:04,226 --> 01:38:05,575
compelling that

1986
01:38:06,097 --> 01:38:09,231
this very general notion,
that there are more things...

1987
01:38:12,016 --> 01:38:13,191
in heaven and on earth

1988
01:38:14,018 --> 01:38:16,151
than are dreamt of
in our philosophy.

1989
01:38:16,368 --> 01:38:20,329
This sense that we are
plausibly very, very limited

1990
01:38:21,330 --> 01:38:23,506
in our understanding
of what the heck is going on.

1991
01:38:25,464 --> 01:38:28,424
We have made progress in that
maybe we have figured out,

1992
01:38:29,381 --> 01:38:31,775
you know, six of the 10 things
you need to have figured out

1993
01:38:31,949 --> 01:38:33,255
to really know what's going on.

1994
01:38:33,733 --> 01:38:36,171
But the thing is that each
of the remaining four things

1995
01:38:36,911 --> 01:38:38,782
might so radically
change the conclusions

1996
01:38:40,131 --> 01:38:41,524
that,
until we get them all right,

1997
01:38:41,698 --> 01:38:43,265
maybe we are as lost

1998
01:38:43,439 --> 01:38:45,963
as you would be if you only knew
one or zero.

1999
01:38:50,359 --> 01:38:51,316
[wheezes]

2000
01:38:55,842 --> 01:38:57,322
Jesse: I was lying in bed,
I was thinking about it.

2001
01:38:57,496 --> 01:38:58,933
So hypothetically,

2002
01:38:59,107 --> 01:39:01,500
what if tomorrow
I dress in all white

2003
01:39:01,674 --> 01:39:03,546
I slick my hair back,
and I'm like, "Hey,"

2004
01:39:03,763 --> 01:39:05,287
I tell the local media,

2005
01:39:06,114 --> 01:39:08,551
"Here's the message that we
should be good to each other,

2006
01:39:08,725 --> 01:39:10,292
I'm starting a new thing."

2007
01:39:11,075 --> 01:39:12,903
Building up almost
like a religion,

2008
01:39:13,077 --> 01:39:14,470
or just more of
a philosophy of,

2009
01:39:14,644 --> 01:39:16,080
"Hey, we are in a simulation,

2010
01:39:16,428 --> 01:39:19,562
so let's, let's try and gain the attention of those people."

2011
01:39:20,693 --> 01:39:22,434
Now, those entities
are running the thing.

2012
01:39:23,218 --> 01:39:25,437
So going forth here,
we could do things like,

2013
01:39:26,134 --> 01:39:28,571
you know, gigantic light,
like...

2014
01:39:30,138 --> 01:39:31,835
simultaneous light displays,

2015
01:39:33,880 --> 01:39:37,188
giant monuments,  just a giant tablet that says,

2016
01:39:37,362 --> 01:39:40,539
"Hey, we know-- "
or something profound.

2017
01:39:41,540 --> 01:39:44,630
And then in unison
just flashing lights out.

2018
01:39:44,804 --> 01:39:47,459
So, one person walks
by this black sphere

2019
01:39:47,633 --> 01:39:50,985
in their great
artificer hallway

2020
01:39:51,246 --> 01:39:53,030
and all of a sudden there's
a red light blinking

2021
01:39:53,204 --> 01:39:54,858
that was never there before.
They'd be like, "Oh, hey.

2022
01:39:56,555 --> 01:39:59,428
Experiment whatever
is talking to us."

2023
01:40:00,211 --> 01:40:02,648
I mean, who knows,
if we just keep going with it

2024
01:40:02,822 --> 01:40:04,476
and going with it
and going with it.

2025
01:40:04,694 --> 01:40:09,960
Do things like organize Earth
in a more watchful pattern

2026
01:40:10,134 --> 01:40:11,701
to get ourselves
spread over the universe.

2027
01:40:11,875 --> 01:40:14,269
'Cause the larger screen
we have to display our message,

2028
01:40:14,443 --> 01:40:16,010
the more attention we'll get.

2029
01:40:20,971 --> 01:40:21,798
Lori:
You're dreaming.

2030
01:40:23,147 --> 01:40:25,584
Doug, was it about Mars?

2031
01:40:30,589 --> 01:40:32,026
Elon Musk:  Becoming a multi-planet species

2032
01:40:32,983 --> 01:40:35,290
beats the hell out of being
a single-planet species.

2033
01:40:36,465 --> 01:40:37,640
Jesse:
Then we get to, like...

2034
01:40:38,380 --> 01:40:41,035
Star Wars levels
of spread across the galaxy.

2035
01:40:41,383 --> 01:40:42,949
Perhaps our science
will progress enough

2036
01:40:43,167 --> 01:40:44,125
where we can actually

2037
01:40:44,560 --> 01:40:46,649
tap on the membrane between...

2038
01:40:47,519 --> 01:40:50,305
the universe
and what's beyond it

2039
01:40:50,566 --> 01:40:52,002
and perhaps get a message out,

2040
01:40:52,176 --> 01:40:54,831
an active message
to an active listener.

2041
01:40:55,310 --> 01:40:56,963
Man: I don't like to fuss or moan,

2042
01:40:57,138 --> 01:40:58,835
but if it weren't for you,

2043
01:40:59,444 --> 01:41:00,706
I'd be all, all alone.

2044
01:41:02,056 --> 01:41:03,753
It would be hilarious
if we were something stupid,

2045
01:41:03,927 --> 01:41:05,450
like, you know how computers
are in everything.

2046
01:41:07,626 --> 01:41:11,108
I mean, there's a computer--
this is a vape tank.

2047
01:41:11,456 --> 01:41:13,893
There's a computer in here.
There's a microchip in here.

2048
01:41:14,459 --> 01:41:15,765
But if we're something like...

2049
01:41:17,158 --> 01:41:18,463
one of the numerous
computer devices

2050
01:41:18,637 --> 01:41:21,466
that's been thrown
into a basket somewhere

2051
01:41:21,771 --> 01:41:22,946
'cause you have too much crap.

2052
01:41:23,729 --> 01:41:25,209
That would suck, 'cause then
we would never be found.

2053
01:41:26,210 --> 01:41:29,431
Maybe this whole project
that you're doing, right,

2054
01:41:29,953 --> 01:41:33,739
is the simulation sort of
flirting with you, if you will.

2055
01:41:33,913 --> 01:41:36,133
Like it's going,
"Hey, I'm gonna go ahead

2056
01:41:36,307 --> 01:41:37,482
and let you see a little bit

2057
01:41:38,657 --> 01:41:40,311
what I've got going on
under here.

2058
01:41:40,572 --> 01:41:44,185
And I'm okay with it
as long as you respect me."

2059
01:41:47,101 --> 01:41:50,626
What if the simulation
is like anesthesia?

2060
01:41:51,540 --> 01:41:53,063
Imagine, if you will,

2061
01:41:53,716 --> 01:41:55,935
that you're going
through surgery...

2062
01:41:57,372 --> 01:41:58,895
and all of a sudden somebody

2063
01:41:59,069 --> 01:41:59,852
introduces something
in your bloodstream

2064
01:42:00,026 --> 01:42:01,767
that totally makes

2065
01:42:01,941 --> 01:42:04,161
- the anesthetic go away.
- [heart beating rapidly]

2066
01:42:04,335 --> 01:42:05,815
Paul: Your chest cavity's open,

2067
01:42:05,989 --> 01:42:07,425
there's somebody
with their hand in it

2068
01:42:07,599 --> 01:42:09,079
and they're trying
to massage your heart.

2069
01:42:09,253 --> 01:42:10,950
And all of a sudden
you're back, lucid,

2070
01:42:11,255 --> 01:42:13,257
all the pain in the world,
and everything like that.

2071
01:42:13,475 --> 01:42:14,780
You're gonna mess up
that surgery

2072
01:42:14,954 --> 01:42:15,912
by freaking out
and flipping around

2073
01:42:16,086 --> 01:42:17,348
and all that.

2074
01:42:17,522 --> 01:42:19,089
Maybe that's what
the simulation is.

2075
01:42:19,263 --> 01:42:21,570
And by putting
this project out there,

2076
01:42:22,136 --> 01:42:23,963
we're messing up big time

2077
01:42:24,442 --> 01:42:25,835
and you're gonna cause
a lot of damage.

2078
01:42:26,357 --> 01:42:28,359
[screaming]

2079
01:42:28,751 --> 01:42:29,665
[beeping]

2080
01:42:30,318 --> 01:42:31,667
Paul: The other option, though,

2081
01:42:31,884 --> 01:42:36,106
maybe this is the--
the key, if you will.

2082
01:42:36,976 --> 01:42:40,893
Maybe this is a situation
where the simulation is bad,

2083
01:42:41,590 --> 01:42:45,071
we shouldn't be in it,
and this is a failsafe.

2084
01:42:45,246 --> 01:42:48,945
[echoes]

2085
01:42:49,511 --> 01:42:51,295
Paul: So the person watching
this goes,

2086
01:42:51,600 --> 01:42:53,776
"Oh, maybe that's
what's happening with me."

2087
01:42:55,821 --> 01:42:57,562
And maybe, who knows,
you know,

2088
01:42:57,736 --> 01:43:01,262
they're in  suspended animation somewhere.

2089
01:43:02,654 --> 01:43:03,829
They're the ones
who are supposed

2090
01:43:04,047 --> 01:43:05,483
to pilot the ship.

2091
01:43:05,744 --> 01:43:07,833
They're knocked out.
They're not responsive.

2092
01:43:08,356 --> 01:43:12,534
And so they create this movie
for them to watch

2093
01:43:12,708 --> 01:43:14,753
so that they start
questioning reality,

2094
01:43:17,452 --> 01:43:18,975
and therefore get out of it.

2095
01:43:19,671 --> 01:43:21,847
[dramatic music playing]

2096
01:43:23,501 --> 01:43:26,504
[alarms blaring]

2097
01:43:26,896 --> 01:43:29,464
[spaceship rumbling]

2098
01:43:30,465 --> 01:43:32,336
[alarms blaring]

2099
01:43:58,057 --> 01:44:01,104
Paul: I have,
through dreaming and waking up,

2100
01:44:01,539 --> 01:44:03,541
lived thousands
of different lifetimes.

2101
01:44:04,194 --> 01:44:07,458
And so I'm not afraid
of what happens

2102
01:44:07,632 --> 01:44:08,981
when the simulation ends.

2103
01:44:09,460 --> 01:44:14,465
I am certain that when I die,

2104
01:44:14,639 --> 01:44:16,206
I will simply wake up
somewhere else.

2105
01:44:16,380 --> 01:44:18,469
How do I know?
Because I remember doing it

2106
01:44:18,643 --> 01:44:19,731
over and over and over again.

2107
01:44:20,036 --> 01:44:21,298
[gunshot]

2108
01:44:28,784 --> 01:44:30,307
Alarm: Good morning.

2109
01:44:30,612 --> 01:44:31,874
This is your wake-up call.

2110
01:44:32,527 --> 01:44:34,572
Thank you for staying
at the New Darwin Inn.

2111
01:44:35,051 --> 01:44:37,140
- The time is 10:30 A.M.
- [clicks]

2112
01:44:40,883 --> 01:44:42,711
[fire crackling]