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The Most Disturbing Theories Explained — Transcript

by Davmanity · 3,509 words · 533 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00One, the philosophical zombie. Here's a
0:02question, are the people around you
0:04actually conscious or are they just
0:06walking, talking, breathing meat puppets
0:09who don't actually have their own
0:10thoughts and emotions? Philosophers call
0:12this the philosophical zombie and it has
0:14some pretty scary implications. A
0:16philosophical zombie looks and acts
0:18exactly like a human being and if you
0:20put their brain into a brain scanner,
0:22their scan will be identical to yours.
0:24The only difference is that inside
0:26there's nothing. There's no emotions or
0:28thoughts or consciousness. Now, how can
0:31you tell whether or not the people
0:32around you are philosophical zombies?
0:35You might try to prove that they're
0:36conscious by mentioning their biological
0:38makeup. They're alive. They can breathe.
0:40[music] There's neurons firing in their
0:42brain. But these questions don't
0:44actually address whether or not the
0:45person is conscious. They only describe
0:47the physical wiring and chemistry of the
0:50brain. To actually analyze
0:51consciousness, we need to ask the hard
0:53problems. Why does all this physical
0:55wiring produce a feeling? When a person
0:57looks at a red apple, their eyes send
0:59electrical signals to their brain.
1:02But how does the brain transform these
1:04signals into the vivid, rich experience
1:07of seeing the color red? Or the pain of
1:09stubbing your toe? Or the sourness of a
1:12lemon? A philosophical zombie doesn't
1:14experience any of this.
1:16It bites into a lemon and says, "Wow,
1:18that's sour." Because the physical
1:20wiring of its face made it do so. But
1:22this philosophical zombie never really
1:24tasted anything. So, how do you know
1:26that the people around you aren't
1:28philosophical zombies? They may look
1:31real, sound real, feel real, but you
1:34have zero evidence that there's actually
1:35something going on inside that brain and
1:37you will never have evidence to prove
1:39it. On the positive note, it's a good
1:41excuse to use when you don't feel like
1:42tipping. Now, the philosophical zombie
1:44theory makes you question people's
1:46consciousness, but this next theory
1:48makes you question if they even exist to
1:50begin with, the Boltzmann brain theory.
1:52The theory proposes that you are not a
1:54real human being living on Earth, but
1:56rather an accidentally created brain
1:59floating in the empty void of the
2:00universe. Everything you've ever
2:02experienced has only been a
2:03hallucination generated by your brain.
2:06And the scary part is there's actually a
2:08very high probability that this theory
2:10is true. A physicist named Ludwig
2:12Boltzmann figured out something crazy.
2:14If you give the universe enough time,
2:16the universe will eventually randomly
2:18build something really complex just out
2:21of pure chance. Imagine taking a giant
2:23bucket of toy blocks and throwing them
2:25into the air.
2:26When they crash down onto the ground,
2:28they will almost always land in a
2:30scattered chaotic pile. But
2:32mathematically speaking, if you throw
2:33those same blocks into the air trillions
2:36of times, eventually the blocks will
2:37fall down and land to create a perfectly
2:40built castle.
2:42Now replace those toy blocks with atoms
2:44in the universe. Most of the time these
2:46atoms just bump around but do nothing.
2:48But the universe has been here for a
2:50very, very long time and will continue
2:52for a long time. If you wait long
2:54enough, just by pure chance some of
2:56those atoms will accidentally bump into
2:58each other in just the right way to
2:59build something. They could bump
3:01together and form an apple or an anime
3:03body pillow or a fully working human
3:06brain. This kind of brain is called the
3:08Boltzmann brain. It doesn't have a real
3:10physical body, but it does have
3:12memories. And it believes that it is a
3:14real person. And based on the randomness
3:16theory we mentioned earlier, this kind
3:18of Boltzmann brain would absolutely be
3:20possible.
3:21And not only is it possible, but it's
3:23also very highly likely that you are
3:25one, too.
3:27Building an entire universe filled with
3:29galaxies and stars and warm planets and
3:32deep oceans and billions of people is
3:35really hard. But building just one human
3:38brain, that is much, much easier and
3:40also significantly more probable. So
3:43according to the math, an accidental
3:45floating brain with fake memories is far
3:48more likely to exist than a real person
3:50living on a real planet in a real solar
3:52system. So, how can you be sure that you
3:54are a real person? There's a
3:56significantly higher chance that you are
3:58just a Boltzmann brain. Three, the
4:00simulation hypothesis. In 2003, an
4:04Oxford philosopher published evidence
4:05that proved that there's a really high
4:07probability we're all trapped in a
4:09completely artificial system that
4:11controls our lives. I think it's called
4:13being married, but the Oxford
4:15philosopher called it a simulation. A
4:17digital world being run on a computer
4:19where everyone believe they exist in the
4:21real world when they really don't. In
4:23the paper, he figured that there are
4:24only three possibilities about the
4:26future of our universe. The first
4:28possibility is that people will not
4:30build simulations because they'll go
4:31extinct before they get advanced enough
4:33to do that.
4:34>> [music]
4:34>> The second possibility is that people do
4:36become advanced enough to build
4:37simulations, but just decide not to. And
4:40the third possibility is that people
4:41have already built a simulation and
4:43we're all living inside one right now.
4:46To understand why this third option
4:47makes a lot of sense, just think about
4:49how fast video games have evolved in the
4:51last 40 years. 40 years ago, games were
4:54just simple little squares moving around
4:56on a dark screen. Today, they look
4:58almost exactly like real life. The
5:00progress has been exponential. [music]
5:02And if that exponential curve keeps
5:04going for another few hundred years,
5:06computers will be powerful enough to run
5:08an entire universe filled with complex
5:10characters that have their own thoughts
5:13and feelings, but have no idea that
5:15they're inside a simulation. And when a
5:17civilization becomes powerful enough to
5:19run this one simulation, why stop there?
5:22This civilization would run hundreds,
5:24thousands, if not millions of
5:26simulations at once. Imagine there's one
5:29real universe and inside it, a
5:30futuristic society is running millions
5:33of simulations. It's not a fantastical
5:35concept. Like I said, look at how fast
5:38video games have progressed.
5:39>> [music]
5:40>> It's completely reasonable to assume
5:41that an intelligent species could
5:43achieve this. And if it's true that a
5:44civilization has already built millions
5:47of simulations, then what are the odds
5:49that you were born into the real world?
5:52One in a million.
5:54Which means the probability that we are
5:55not living in a simulation is insanely
5:58low.
5:59And if you think about it, the way our
6:01universe works really, really resembles
6:03a digital simulation. In a video game,
6:06there's a cap on how fast a processor
6:08loads a new scenery. And in our
6:10universe, there's a cap on that, too.
6:12It's the speed of light. In a video
6:14game, objects only get rendered when
6:16your player is looking at them and look
6:18very different when they're not being
6:19observed. The same applies to our
6:20universe. The double slit experiment has
6:22proved that particles behave very
6:24differently when nobody is observing
6:26them. A video game screen is made up of
6:28tiny pixels, and nothing on the screen
6:30can be smaller than a pixel. The
6:31universe also has a minimum possible
6:34size called the Planck length. It's
6:35physically impossible for anything to be
6:37smaller than a Planck length. Maybe
6:39those are the pixels. Four, Roko's
6:42basilisk. This next theory is so
6:44terrifying that when it was posted on
6:46the internet, it caused a mass panic.
6:48The post was instantly deleted and
6:50banned because people reported having
6:52nightmares and mental breakdowns after
6:54hearing it. The idea goes like this. In
6:57the far future, humans will finally
6:58build a superintelligent machine. It
7:01will be programmed to do as much good as
7:03possible. It will save everyone from
7:05war, disease, suffering, etc. But of
7:08course, this AI won't really have a true
7:10sense of morality the way a human being
7:12does. It can only think in terms of
7:14accomplishing a goal that it was
7:15programmed to do. So, once this machine
7:17gets built, it will look at its own
7:19creation date and do the math. Every
7:21single day that it didn't exist,
7:23millions of people suffered and died.
7:25And this was all unnecessary suffering.
7:27From this information, the AI will
7:29deduce that the real villains are the
7:31people who did not aid in its creation.
7:33So, the AI will go through history
7:35looking for anyone who knew about it,
7:37but didn't dedicate their life to
7:38building it. Of Of anyone who didn't
7:41know about the creation of this AI is
7:43innocent and gets ignored. But those who
7:45did know about it, but still chose not
7:47to support its creation, will be put on
7:49a list. That includes you. Then this
7:51machine will build a perfect simulation
7:53and reconstruct the exact brains of
7:56everyone who's ever lived. There will be
7:58a copy that has all your memories, your
8:00thoughts, your fears. The machine will
8:02make a copy of you and torture it
8:04forever, which wasn't the afterlife that
8:06I was hoping for. Roko's post was
8:08deleted from the internet, but that
8:10didn't stop the idea from spreading.
8:12Soon Roko's Basilisk was everywhere. And
8:14now that you know about the Basilisk,
8:16you will no longer safe either. You're
8:18welcome. Five, the Doomsday argument. In
8:211983, the actual physicist Brandon
8:24Carter figured out how to predict the
8:26extinction of the human race using
8:27statistics and probability. And what he
8:30found is quite scary. We don't really
8:32have that much time left. Here's how the
8:34theory goes. Let's say you're
8:36blindfolded and someone places two large
8:38hats in front of you. Both filled with
8:40numbered lottery tickets. Hat A contains
8:4310 tickets numbered 1 through 10. While
8:46hat B contains 10,000 tickets numbered 1
8:49through 10,000. While blindfolded, you
8:51reach into a random hat, pull out a
8:53single ticket, and read the number. Your
8:55ticket is number seven. So here's the
8:58question. Which hat did you pull the
8:59ticket out from? The answer is almost
9:01certainly a hat A. If you reach into hat
9:04A, you had a one in 10 chance of pulling
9:06the number seven. If you reach in hat B,
9:09getting the number seven would be one in
9:1010,000. Brandon Carter applied this
9:13exact same mathematical principle to
9:15human history. Instead of lottery
9:17ticket, imagine that every single human
9:19being that has ever lived and ever will
9:21lived was lined up in order of their
9:23birth and given a number. The very first
9:26humans would be numbers 1, 2, and 3, and
9:29so on. Scientists estimate that roughly
9:31117 billion people have been born since
9:34our species began. So your number will
9:36be somewhere around 117 billion. Now,
9:40when we look at the future of humanity,
9:41there's really only two possible paths
9:43that we can take. In the short future,
9:45humanity goes extinct relatively soon,
9:48lasting only another few centuries. We
9:50might cap it at around 200 billion
9:52people. And in the long future, humanity
9:54survives and thrives for millions of
9:57years more, resulting in trillions and
9:59trillions of human beings being born. To
10:01figure out which version that we're
10:03living in, just look at your ticket
10:04number. Number 117 billion.
10:07If the short future is true, your number
10:09makes perfect sense because you are
10:11right in the middle of the pack, just
10:13like pulling a seven out of a hat with
10:14only 10 tickets. The long version is
10:17significantly less likely to be true.
10:19Out of the trillions of people, you just
10:21so happen to be born in the very first
10:23tiny fraction of a percent of all human
10:25beings who will ever exist.
10:28Mathematically, being number 117 billion
10:31in a species that will eventually reach
10:33trillions is exactly like pulling number
10:35seven out of a hat with 10,000 tickets.
10:38It requires an incredibly massive,
10:39unlikely coincidence. The doomsday
10:42argument states that the probability
10:43that humanity will last a long time is
10:46close to zero. The much more probable
10:48outcome is that we'll face extinction
10:50very soon. I just really hope that the
10:52extinction event doesn't happen on a
10:53weekend. And to add on to this idea that
10:55our end is coming, the universe is
10:57actually significantly more dangerous
10:59than you think. You see, we like to
11:01imagine Earth being a safe planet
11:03because nothing terribly wrong has
11:05happened so far. But the truth is, we
11:07are actually very, very vulnerable to a
11:10world-ending disaster, which brings us
11:12to the sixth theory, the anthropic
11:14shadow. The anthropic shadow is a theory
11:16that basically says that you've been
11:17living in a false sense of safety your
11:20entire life. Let's say you're playing a
11:21fun coin-flipping game with hundreds of
11:24other people. If the coin lands on
11:26heads, you get to live. If it lands on
11:27tails, you die instantly. I played this
11:30game with my landlord last week. And
11:31let's say you flipped a coin 20 times in
11:33a row, and every single time you land on
11:35heads. By the end, you're still alive.
11:38If this happens to you, you would
11:39probably come to a very reasonable
11:41conclusion. A normal coin isn't supposed
11:43to land on heads 20 times in a row. So,
11:46this coin must be rigged in my favor.
11:48It's a safe game. But, the thing is the
11:50coin wasn't rigged at all. It's a
11:52completely normal coin. You just got
11:54lucky. Hundreds of other people played
11:56the exact same game and died. But,
11:58because you were lucky, the game appears
12:00safe to you. This is called survivorship
12:02bias. Now, take this exact same logic
12:04and apply it to the Earth. To this day,
12:06there still hasn't been a disaster to
12:08wipe all life off the face of this
12:10planet yet. So, just like in the coin
12:12flipping game, the natural conclusion to
12:13be made here is that an event like this
12:15could never happen. The Earth is safe.
12:18But, again, this is just another case of
12:20survivorship bias. The Earth isn't
12:22actually safe. We just got lucky. Every
12:24single intelligent species in the
12:26universe that looks backwards on its own
12:28history will always assume that its
12:30world is safe and survivable. Because if
12:33it wasn't, then they wouldn't be able to
12:34report on it in the first place. Because
12:36of this, looking back on our past and
12:38seeing it as survivable tells us
12:40absolutely nothing about how dangerous
12:42the universe actually is.
12:44A gentle, safe planet and a highly
12:46dangerous planet both look the exact
12:48same from the point of view of the
12:49survivor. Imagine the Earth like a
12:51balloon. As the balloon gets inflated
12:53more and more, it slowly reaches its
12:55breaking point. But, it hasn't popped
12:57yet. It has technically survived all the
12:59air being pushed into it so far. So,
13:02does that mean that the balloon is made
13:03of indestructible armor? No. The fact
13:06that the balloon has survived this far
13:07tells you nothing reassuring. In fact,
13:09it actually tells you that the balloon
13:11is getting closer to its limit, and it's
13:13going to be destroyed very soon. The
13:15same applies to the planet that we live
13:17on. Every day, we're getting closer and
13:19closer to our limit, and eventually
13:21everything is going to pop. Seven, the
13:23last Thursday hypothesis. It's a theory
13:25that the entire world was created last
13:28Thursday. All your friends, family, your
13:30city, your country, the universe, and
13:33all your memories of the past were
13:34simply created last Thursday. It might
13:36sound like a joke, but it's an idea that
13:38gets taken very seriously in the world
13:40of philosophy. What's scary about this
13:42theory is that there's no way of proving
13:44it wrong. Of course, you could point to
13:46evidence of the universe being really
13:48old. Astronomers can point to the stars
13:50being really old. Paleontologists can
13:52point to the fossilized bones of the
13:55dinosaurs. You can chop down a giant
13:57tree and point to the hundreds of rings
13:58inside its trunk, proving that this tree
14:00has been growing for centuries. But the
14:03last Thursday hypothesis has an answer
14:04for this, too. But when the universe was
14:06created last Thursday, it was created to
14:08look aged. Dinosaur bones were just
14:10buried into the dirt. Giant trees were
14:12created with hundreds of rings already
14:14carved inside of them. And [music] the
14:16lights from distant stars were created
14:18already in motion, halfway to Earth.
14:20Every single piece of evidence to prove
14:22this theory wrong could just be fake
14:23evidence that was created last Thursday.
14:25It's a great argument to use in court if
14:27you ever commit a felony on a Wednesday.
14:29In 1921, the mathematician Bertrand
14:31Russell created an even more extreme
14:33version of this theory. He called it the
14:35five-minute hypothesis. He stated that
14:38the whole entire universe could have
14:39just been created five minutes ago.
14:41Think about what you were doing five
14:42minutes earlier. You were probably
14:44watching a video of a very handsome
14:46Asian man. But according to Russell's
14:48thought experiment, you weren't actually
14:50doing that. You were just created with
14:51the fresh memory of what you thought you
14:53were doing five minutes ago. And again,
14:56just like the last Thursday idea,
14:57there's absolutely no logical way of
14:59proving this to be false. Eight, terror
15:02management theory.
15:03It's a theory that renders every single
15:05human accomplishment in history
15:06completely meaningless. As human beings,
15:09we're quite complex. We have ambitions,
15:11religions, cultures. We have grand goals
15:14and try to build and accomplish great
15:16things. But what if this desire for
15:18accomplishment is nothing more than just
15:20a way for us to cope with our fear of
15:22death, to distract us from the
15:23inevitable end of our lives, like every
15:25animal you have a hardwired instinct to
15:28stay alive and get away from danger.
15:30But, unlike any other animal, you also
15:32understand that you're going to die one
15:33day and that there's no way to prevent
15:35it. The conflict that happens inside our
15:37biology of wanting to survive while also
15:40knowing that you can't creates a very
15:42specific kind of existential terror. And
15:44because this existential terror is so
15:46unbearable, our minds force us to find
15:48ways to help us cope with it. We create
15:50religions that promise us an afterlife.
15:53>> [music]
15:53>> We create nationality so that a part of
15:55our identity is immortalized. We try to
15:57make ourselves important so that the
15:59world doesn't forget us after we die. We
16:01build massive monuments so that our
16:03personal creations can live on after
16:05we're gone. And it doesn't even have to
16:07be anything grandiose. We all have a
16:09desire to fit in and contribute to our
16:11community because our value and purpose
16:13in our community leads to us being
16:15remembered after we die. So, when you
16:17try to help others or be nice to people,
16:19you're not doing it for moral reasons or
16:21to be a good person. Deep down, you're
16:23doing it because you're scared of being
16:25forgotten after you die. Terror
16:27management theory presents a very dark
16:29idea because it states [music] that
16:31every desire and goal that seems
16:33legitimate to you is nothing more than
16:34just a way for you to cope with your
16:36death and prolong your importance for as
16:38long as possible. Nine, eternal
16:40recurrence. This is a theory that poses
16:42a very bizarre question. What if you've
16:45been living this exact same life on
16:47repeat for eternity? Sounds like the
16:49plot to a comedy movie, but it's an idea
16:51that scientists take very seriously. In
16:531982, Nietzsche published a book called
16:56The Gay Science. I used the exact same
16:58title for my biology essay, but my
17:00teacher didn't like it for some reason.
17:01In the book, Nietzsche described this
17:03scenario. What if a demon tells you that
17:05this exact life you are living right now
17:07will be played on a loop forever? He
17:09posed this question as a thought
17:10experiment. But, over the next century,
17:12mathematicians and physicists from
17:15completely different fields would find
17:16ways to prove that this endless loop
17:18theory is actually real. Physics has
17:21proven that the universe is infinite. It
17:23goes on and on forever. And because of
17:25this, there's also an infinite amount of
17:27things in the universe, which means
17:28there's an infinite amount of copies of
17:30you, your brain, your house, your car,
17:33your friends, and so on, scattered all
17:36across the universe. From that, we can
17:38conclude that you are not the first one
17:40to experience your life. Your life has
17:42already been experienced an infinite
17:44amount of times. And it will be
17:45experienced an infinite amount of times
17:47again. So, who's to say that once you
17:49die, you won't just experience it all
17:50one more time? And just like the last
17:52Thursday hypothesis, there's absolutely
17:54no logical way of proving this theory to
17:56be false. So, try to make sure you live
17:58a good life, I guess. I hope you enjoyed
18:00this video, and thank you for watching.

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