Ten Random Ideas

It's been a while since I posted a new blog entry. Since I don't have any specific subject on my mind today, I thought I would just share ten random facts, theories, or ideas that I find fascinating:

1. Dark matter and dark energy – We have no idea what 96% of the universe is made of. Physicists confirm that only about 4% of the universe is composed of the familiar matter that we're accustomed to. Another 24% is made up of dark matter (which only interacts with regular matter via gravity), and 72% is made up of dark energy (which is a repulsive force that causes space itself to expand). But we have no clue what dark energy or dark matter are.

2. Toba Catastrophe Theory - Approximately 70,000 years ago, a supervolcano erupted on Lake Toba, on the island of Sumatra in present-day Indonesia. This eruption was so unimaginably enormous that it blanketed all of South Asia in 15 centimeters of ash, and put enough ash into the atmosphere to cause a volcanic winter, which abruptly changed the entire planet's climate for several decades. At this time, humanity nearly went extinct - the entire human population may have been reduced to just 1,000 breeding pairs, creating a bottleneck in human evolution. We are all descended from the few survivors of this apocalypse.

3. String theory - Why don't the rules of physics that apply to macroscopic objects (i.e. the theory of relativity) seem to apply to particles (i.e. quantum mechanics) and vice versa? Since macroscopic objects are composed of particles, it would stand to reason that they should. String theory attempts to reconcile these two sets of laws by postulating that at an extremely tiny scale (much smaller than subatomic particles), the universe is made up of tiny vibrating strings. Different vibrations produce different kinds of particles. It also calls for the existence of 6 or 7 extra dimensions, which we don't notice in our every day lives because they are so tiny. So far there is zero evidence that string theory is correct, but it has widespread support among physicists due to its mathematical elegance. This is one of the first serious scientific hypotheses to be considered not because the evidence necessarily suggests it is correct (at least not yet), but because physicists believe that the universe “should” be simple. If it proves to be right, it may call for us to reevaluate how scientific theories should be developed.

4. Happiness Economics - For the last 200 years, economists have mostly measured wellbeing in terms of money, such as measurements like GDP. While this is often a good approximation of human wellbeing, it's a crude tool. Consider that Russia and Mexico have approximately the same GDP per capita, yet Mexicans consistently report being much happier than Russians do. Maybe the next big shift in economics is to determine the policies most likely to improve a population's happiness, rather than assuming that more GDP growth will do the trick.

5. Self-driving cars - The transportation industry is about to see its biggest game-changing revolution since the invention of the automobile itself. Self-driving cars are being tested by Google, Stanford University, Carnegie-Mellon, and every major automobile manufacture. They're already on the road being tested, but aren't commercially available yet. They should be by 2017-2020. This will radically change the way we live our lives. It will eliminate most of the 40,000 annual traffic fatalities in the United States, which are mostly caused by human error. It will free us from the stresses of daily commutes, and allow us to do things other than watch the road. And for many people it will eliminate the need for car ownership entirely, as it will be easy to simply summon a car to pick you up whenever you need one.

6. Biology causing mass extinctions - It turns out that we humans are not the first species in the history of the earth to single-handedly wreck the planet's climate. We share that distinction with at least two others: Cyanobacteria and Azolla Ferns. 2.4 billion years ago when life was very primitive and microbial, there wasn't much oxygen in the atmosphere. Therefore, nearly all species were anaerobic - they had evolved in conditions of very little oxygen. Over time, a species of cyanobacteria began to proliferate which excreted oxygen as a waste product. This changed the composition of the earth's atmosphere and poisoned nearly all of the anaerobic species, resulting in the extinction of most types of life on earth. More recently, a mere 49 million years ago the earth had an extremely warm climate, in which ferns were able to grow as far north as the arctic. They began proliferating around the Arctic Ocean, sucking up lots of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and then sinking to the bottom of the ocean when they died. This sudden reduction in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere caused global cooling, which eventually turned the entire planet from a greenhouse into an icehouse.

7. Simulation Hypothesis - Is our reality a simulation, like The Matrix? Transhumanist philosopher Nick Bostrom thinks so. Consider the following argument: If we assume that it is possible to create simulated worlds, and that at least one species somewhere in the universe would like to do so, then we are almost certainly living in such a simulation. Why? Because such a civilization would be likely to create multiple simulations (some of which might be running simulations of their own), and so probability would dictate that it's far more likely we are living in one such simulation than in the "original" universe. You can be the judge as to how compelling you find this argument...but I can't find any obvious flaws in the logic.

8. Post-scarcity - Assuming that we don't blow ourselves up and that we don't encounter civilization-wrecking climate change in the next few decades, we will soon enter into an age of abundance where virtually everyone has access to the basic necessities of life. This is due to a convergence of several trends. As genomics improves, we will soon be able to grow meat in laboratories and grow crops hydroponically, eliminating the need for most farms/ranches, ensuring a stable food supply, giving the environment a much-needed breather from the damage we've done, and freeing up freshwater to be used for humans. As solar energy improves (the capacity is growing exponentially), it will soon be able to compete dollar-for-dollar with fossil fuels...and soon thereafter leave fossil fuels in the dust. Education will become much cheaper due to effective online tools that are finally becoming available, and the subsequent end of the 19th/20th century model of education. Health care will become much better due to effective personalized medicine, which will proliferate as it finally becomes affordable to have your genome sequenced.

9. VY Canis Majoris - The scale of some of the objects in our universe is so unimaginably vast that it's difficult for us to comprehend. The largest known star is called VY Canis Majoris, and it's located about 4,000 light-years away from us. It's so big that if it were placed in the middle of our solar system, its surface would extend beyond the orbit of Saturn and it could hold over a billion suns (or 11 quadrillion earths). Wow. That's big.

10. The hidden potential of the human brain - Some people (usually with autism) have a rare mental condition called synesthesia, where the senses get mixed up due to neural connections in the brain getting routed to the wrong place. This may take the form of associating numbers with specific shapes or colors, or associating certain sounds with textures or smells. Synesthetes are often capable of amazing feats, such as memorizing pi to tens of thousands of digits or creating beautiful works of art with little training. It is thought that we all have these astounding abilities somewhere within our brain, but we can't access it because we don't yet understand how our brains work enough to unlock those neural pathways.

Rebuttal to the Simulation Hypothesis

According to Nick Bostrom’s simulation hypothesis, every universe’s inhabitants would be equally likely to be living in a simulation, even if they were running simulations of their own. This leads to the uncomfortable conclusion that our universe is much more likely to be one of a huge number of simulations, rather than the one parent universe.

From a logical standpoint, this argument makes sense to me. But I’m always eager to poke holes in philosophical arguments, so here’s my best rebuttal as devil’s advocate. It doesn’t directly attack the logic of Bostrom’s philosophy; rather, it creates a probabilistic argument that we are NOT a simulation.

Let’s assume that simulations can be “turned off” by the parent universe at any time. Perhaps the inhabitants decide that the simulation is no longer needed for whatever reason, or perhaps the simulation is accidentally destroyed, or perhaps they are in a simulation themselves which is turned off by their parent universe. If this is the case, it would break the simulation chain. If Simulation A was the parent of Simulation B, which was the parent of the Simulation C, which was the parent of Simulation D, the inhabitants of Simulation A would be able to break this chain and destroy all of the simulations in this chain by turning off Simulation B.

The simulation hypothesis concludes that we are in a simulation in all probability, and that every universe is equally likely to be a simulation. This means that the universe that begat ours is also probably a simulation, as is the universe that begat our parent universe. If this is the case, it would be very likely that our own universe is merely one node in a huge chain of parent universes.

But this creates an interesting question. If any of those universes could break the chain at any time by turning off their simulation, the probability that not a single one of them would do so must be extraordinarily low. This strongly suggests that we are not in a simulation.

There are a couple of responses to this argument which I can foresee, so allow me to preemptively address them. Some might invoke the Anthropic Principle. It doesn’t make sense to marvel at the unlikelihood of our own existence, they will reason, because if our universe had been turned off we wouldn’t be here to speculate about it. In my opinion, this is a flawed application of the Anthropic Principle because there is another plausible explanation for our existence: Our simulated universe hasn’t been “turned off” by any of its parents because they don’t exist. We are the original universe.

So we have two possible explanations for our own universe. Either we are in a simulation, and are here due to the infinitesimally unlikely whims of an unimaginably vast chain of parent universes…or we are simply not a simulation. If these are the two possibilities, the latter seems much more likely from this probabilistic standpoint. It also has the advantage of surviving Ockham’s Razor.

What do you think? Is my probabilistic argument for our actual reality as strong as Bostrom’s argument for our simulated reality? What flaws do you see in my logic?

Are we living in a simulation?

Are we living in a simulated reality? Transhumanist philosopher Nick Bostrom thinks so. He puts forth the following argument. One of the following three statements must logically be true: 1) Advanced civilizations can never develop simulated realities; 2) No advanced civilization would ever choose to develop simulated realities; or 3) Our own reality is almost certainly simulated.

There are a few circumstances in which Statement #1 could theoretically be true. Perhaps there are no other advanced civilizations in the universe. Perhaps advanced civilizations exist, but simulations are simply impossible. Or perhaps they are possible, but beyond the technological capacity of any species. I think Statement #1 is the least plausible of the three. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, even extremely pessimistic interpretations of the Drake Equation should have yielded at least one other advanced civilization somewhere in our universe. The technological barriers to creating a simulation seem very small. We already have rudimentary virtual reality technology, and there is no fundamental reason why we shouldn’t be able to create all-encompassing simulations within a few decades. Since we’re nearly able to create them already, it seems unlikely that there are no other civilizations in the entire universe that are a few mere decades ahead of us.

Statement #2 involves speculation into the motives of other civilizations, of which we can’t possibly know anything. However, we do know about our own civilization and what motivates us. If humans develop this technology within a few decades, we will almost certainly make use of it, creating thousands upon thousands of simulations for entertainment or research. Therefore it seems very likely to me that Statement #2 is false.

This leaves Statement #3. If we have concluded that Statements #1 and #2 are false, Bostrom reasons that Statement #3 must be true. Why? Because there will be an enormous number of simulated realities. The probability that we find ourselves in the one parent universe, as opposed to one of the many simulations, must be vanishingly small.

The Simulation Hypothesis fascinates me, because it is one of the few rationales for the existence of some form of a god which I, an agnostic, do not think is easily refutable. Let’s examine the common rebuttals of the simulation hypothesis to see how much merit they hold.

Some have questioned the assumption that there is one parent universe and many simulations. If there are many parent universes and many simulated universes, critics reason, then the probability that we are in a simulation would not necessarily be quite so high. But I disagree. What are the implications of many parent universes capable of sustaining life and technology? Presumably EACH of them would be running many simulations, and thus it would not affect the probability of our being in a simulation much at all.

The most serious problem I see with the Simulation Hypothesis is that it has no empirical basis, and falls apart under the scrutiny of Ockham’s Razor. There is absolutely no conclusive evidence that we are living in a simulation. There may be a few teasing clues (e.g. the quantum world behaves suspiciously differently when we aren’t watching), but nothing substantive. However, I can see no obvious flaw in the logic of the Simulation Hypothesis. This leads back to an old philosophical debate between empiricists and rationalists: Can we determine reality through sound logic, without empirical evidence? I tentatively plant my flag on the side of the rationalists. Scientists frequently adopt a rationalist mindset when interpreting the Drake Equation or formulating string theory (despite absolutely no evidence for extraterrestrials or strings), but switch over to empiricist mode for topics like philosophy or theology. This seems to be a product of cultural bias. In my view, while we should always seek out evidence wherever possible, sound logic is often a sufficient (if inferior) substitute.

At the end of the day, I tend to lean toward the conclusion that Bostrom is correct: We are probably in a simulation. What do you think? Let me know if/where you think the logic of the Simulation Hypothesis is flawed, or any other examples of clues that would suggest a simulated reality.