May it Please Descartes

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, may it please Descartes, Drea brings the case against her husband, Morgan.

Morgan believes we're all living in a simulation and he loves to talk about it.

Drea disagrees and does not want to talk about this any longer.

Who's right?

Who's wrong?

Only one can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

Oh, it's far deeper than any dream.

I wonder where he thinks he is.

Sitting on a throne, ruling the universe, all you human garbage fawning at his feet?

More honest, don't you think, than this pretense of being a selfless podcaster.

Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear the litigant's in.

Drea and Morgan, please rise and raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

So help you, God or whatever.

I do.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he has long lived in a simulation, specifically a game of sim ant in a middle school computer room?

Yes.

Yes.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

I have aged, but the sim ants remain the same age.

Dre and Morgan, you may be seated.

First, before we begin, let the record show, please, producer Jennifer Marmor, that we are about to discuss the theory that we are all living in a simulation, including the theory that that simulation may be being run by beings who are themselves part of an even larger simulation, so on and so forth.

And that this particular discussion is taking place on this hour day of God or whatever, the 20th of April, 420.

Good scheduling, Jennifer Marmor.

Yeah.

Welcome to our 420 episode, where we are but a planet that is an atom in the fingernail of an uncaring God.

Before me now sit Morgan Andrea for an immediate summary judgment in one of yours favors.

Can you guess the piece of culture that I referenced when I entered the courtroom?

I am now able to see you via the magic/slash curse of constant teleconferencing.

I am looking at Morgan's face and smile and concern that he is hiding a private glee, that he knew this one the moment he heard it, as he is a computer simulation theorist.

I will ask Drea first.

What is your guess?

I'm going to say

it's, and it's, it's really,

it's really based on the first part of what you were saying, and it kind of rapidly became clear that that could not be what you were talking about because this is a children's book, but the phantom toll booth.

The phantom toll booth.

My favorite book as a child.

No one knows what a toll booth is anymore.

Itself isn't a thing of fantasy.

All right, I shall enter that into the guess book, Drea.

I'm stumbling over my words as I'm desperately trying to remember the name of the author of The Phantom Toll Booth.

I cannot remember.

I will not go to Wikipedia and have Jennifer Marmor edit it to make it seem like I knew what I was talking about.

I do remember the book.

I do remember the movie.

Now, that is a good guess.

Morgan,

what is

your guess?

I mean, it sounds familiar.

I'm going to say Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a guess.

Jennifer Marmor, you want to guess?

2001, A Space Odyssey.

Ah, good guess.

And Jesse Thorne, you want to guess some kind of baseball trivia?

Yeah.

Is it Van Lingle Mungo?

Quite unexpectedly, given that Morgan is a true con noisieur of the simulation hypothesis, the simulated reality hypothesis.

All guesses are wrong.

See, because what I thought, Morgan, you were going to say was: well, there's obviously a quote

from the comic book story for The Man Who Has Everything, written by Alan Moran, illustrated by Dave Gibbons,

in which

the intergalactic villain Mongol

gives Superman a quote-unquote present, which is a plant called the Black Mercy, which puts him into a state of dreaming in which he dreams his heart's desire.

And he believes that he has never come to Earth and grew up on Krypton and has a wife and children.

And when he realizes that it's all an illusion, a simulation, as it were, it is one of the most heartbreaking moments in comics when he says goodbye to his son.

And then I would have said, you're wrong, Morgan.

That quote is actually from the adaptation of that story for Justice League Unlimited Season 1, Episode 2, written by J.M.

Dematis.

But I didn't get to shut you down as I thought I might have to.

So I guess we're going to have to shut you down or you, Drea, down by hearing this actual case.

Drea, you bring this case before this court.

State the nature of your complaint against your husband, correct?

Husband?

Yes, husband.

Legal husband.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

All right, good.

What is the nature of your complaint against him?

Originally, he became really interested in the idea of free will, specifically in the fact that we don't have free will as humans.

And this was before we had children, so we would go on vacations

with some dear friends of ours.

Sure.

And what else do you do on a vacation but just really get into free will as a topic?

Really just dig into it, all the different components of it.

And so, you know, especially once you're drinking, you know, then the conversation really gets heated.

So it became a very common topic of discussion on these vacations.

My initial complaint was that I would like for him to stop talking about free will, specifically on vacation.

However, we had kids, vacation ceased.

You don't go with your friends anymore.

Now you get drunk with your kids and talk about whether we live in computer simulations.

they're four and two so they're up for it they're they're pretty smart and so i had updated my request to say i don't really want to talk about the world of the simulation because it gives me kind of existential anxiety to even consider it

however there's one more iteration i promise this is where it stops so uh it feels mean to ask him not to talk about something.

And that was my original complaint was that I don't want him to talk about it anymore.

But I do love him and I love love talking to him.

And so I think what

I'm really asking at the end of the day is I would like for you to rule that the world itself is not a simulation.

We'll consider what you're requesting of this court in due course.

But I do need to understand.

Morgan, do you have free will?

I don't think so.

Okay.

So there's no way you can stop talking about it.

Judge Hodgman, let their record reflect that I made him say that.

Perfect.

You are truly the Cartesian evil demon that is controlling all of Morgan's perceptions of the world and his will as well.

Where would you go on vacation?

For this vacation, we were in Italy.

Wasn't it Italy?

Yeah, I think it was Italy.

Yep, so we were, I don't know, is that good enough?

Florence, I think we're in Florence.

We started off in Florence.

Is that good enough?

I'm concerned you're going to foreign countries to have philosophical conversations you could have in any college dorm room and not even remembering that you were in Florence, Italy.

That is of a concern to me.

Well, we were traveling around, so I don't remember exactly.

I remember there was a pool involved, but we're

these friends, Bill and Ted?

What are their names?

Jeff and Catherine.

Jeff and Catherine.

Yeah.

And you were wandering around and you were talking about free will.

What's your position on free will?

Well, I didn't really have one at the time, but I was listening to a bunch of podcasts that were talking about it.

And I thought it was an interesting thing to kind of talk about.

And everyone on the vacation,

everyone else said that they had free will.

So I was like, well, let me just kind of argue that we don't.

And over the course of

10 days, I think I argued myself into not believing that there's any free will.

Right.

Yeah.

Let the record show to all within the sound of my ears, the devil needs no advocate.

The devil's the devil.

The devil can possess you, make your bed shake, make your head twist around, does not need an attorney, does not need anyone to argue the devil's case.

And you see what happened?

You argued the devil's case, and you robbed yourself of free will.

You believe in some sort of determinism that all of the choices that you make are written in fate or there is no control over your own thought and action?

What?

Well, I don't know if I go that far.

I just, I don't don't think that

at the end of the day, there's like a little person in my head, like or in anyone's head calling the shots.

Like a lot of our decisions that we make are just kind of a product of our environment and the people we're with and what's going on.

I don't wish to paraphrase this particular popular thinker.

You are the product of your reactive mind.

Judge Hodgman, I went to a public university.

Can I ask a point of clarification of you?

Yes, please.

Free will, that's short for free willy.

Yes, it is.

Short for free willy willy.

Yeah.

Some believe that that movie doesn't exist.

Got it.

Some believe that their experience of watching that movie was simply a hallucination induced by some outside being.

Wow.

What Descartes considered theoretically as the evil genius or the evil demon.

Rene Descartes, I think, therefore I am,

is what he said.

I guess I got to believe him.

He was one of the early positors of the simulated universe theory, right, Morgan?

You back me up on that?

Yeah, so I'm not claiming to be an expert on this.

This is strictly kitchen and poolside conversation.

You are pure freestyling this.

All right.

I love it.

Yeah.

You're probably speaking to the least informed person on this actual topic.

Well, maybe this devil does need an advocate then.

Maybe you should have hired an attorney to make, to argue the case that you have no free will.

But then again, I guess you had no choice.

So understandably, the idea of whether or not we have a consciousness that can actually

control and make decisions independent of our surroundings, I can feel that leading into the idea that we may be living in a simulation.

Now, state the nature of the simulation as you understand it.

Is it a computer simulation?

Allah, the matrix.

Is it the dreaming argument?

Allah, René Descartes and several Chinese philosophers?

Is it some other kind of simulation, a Plato's cave?

Are you currently strapped down looking at a projection on a wall of the back of a cave, maybe even the caviest cave?

And if so, blink twice if you need help.

What is the nature of the simulation that you are describing?

What's interesting about the idea is that if you think about the utility of simulating a universe, right?

So if you actually could do that at some point,

that could create a lot of value for society, right?

Because you could go forward in time and you could bring back different

technologies, art, all kinds of things, and enjoy them today, right?

So, you could go forward in time and see what the cure to cancer is and then save lives.

So, there's a lot of reasons why if you could do it, if a society could do it, they would choose to do it.

Explain to me how a simulation

would allow you to go forward in time.

Okay, so if you're just simulating, let's say

you're able to simulate a world, right?

There's nothing that says you can't simulate, you have to simulate that world at the same rate of time that you're currently progressing, right?

So you could start that simulation and then clocks just move 10 times as fast.

So over time, it would actually, it would start off in a place where, you know, the universe is just forming and then you know eventually it it fast forwards and now it's whatever that simulated universe is it's progressed more in time than you are in your current your current universe

you could run your simulated universe at like 1.5 times speed or two times speed like a podcast yeah yeah but it's not my probably have to be it would probably have to be a lot much higher multiple i guess my concern is just that the

simulation might ruin the comedic timing yeah exactly.

Although, you know, if you run the simulation at half speed, then everyone sounds drunk and it's a lot of fun.

Yeah, that is pretty funny.

Try it out on Pod Save America.

It's really funny.

Yeah, Pod Save America chopped and screwed.

I think that you are gesturing towards Nick Bostrom's.

And I apologize if I'm mispronouncing it.

I'm sure that I am.

It is B-O-S-T-R-O-M.

It is a Swedish name for a Swedish man who's a philosopher

at Oxford University.

That's one of the bigs, Jesse Thorne.

It's one of the bigs.

Yeah, it's Yale, Oxford,

UC Santa Cruz.

That's the big three.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, to give you a sense of how advanced they are in the Oxford philosophy department, they propose that there might even be a free willy two,

that there might even be a second free willy, if you can imagine it.

Yeah.

At UC Santa Cruz, I took a class on whether free willy existed, and it sort of all hinges on whether the world actually has been healed and made a better place.

Sure, that makes sense.

So Nick Bostrom, let's say that's how you pronounce his name, he did a big, big philosophical paper that explored whether or not there could be a, we could be living in a simulation.

And specifically, he had the idea that we are a simulation of the ancestors of a future post-human society that is able to run a simulation.

Do you see what I'm saying?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so from the point of view of those evil demons who are running, to use the Cartesian term, those evil demons, those post-humans who are running the simulation of what it was like in the old timey times of 420, 2021, yes, our future has been determined already.

If the simulation is running, they could at any point pick the a future part of the simulation and run the cure for cancer back to us.

Is that the point you're making?

I think that if the technology exists to do it, there would be a reason to do it.

And then you look at how vast our universe is, and it just seems like it's possible that at some point in time,

some society will be able to simulate the universe.

And in that case, there's probably gonna be more simulated universes than there are actual universes.

And so,

you know, it's possible that we live in a simulated universe.

That's the basic thing that we talk about.

Probably, but not certainly, roller coaster tycoon.

That was a good game, Jesse Thorne.

Rollercoaster tycoon.

I loved it because you get to ride the roller coasters that you build.

And it doesn't, obviously, you can't simulate the sudden stops and starts.

You don't feel your stomach dropping out from under you as you go down those steep inclines, but it's cool because you build a roller coaster and you get to ride it.

And you're not only that, but you're having fun because you're riding in a simulated alternate universe where someone who builds roller coasters could be a total tycoon.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Like a real

Bill Gates.

Yeah, right.

Like Elon Musk.

Like, I've just, I've decided, I've decided to use my roller coaster earnings to fund malaria nets for the third world.

Exactly.

That's a, that's that's a great alternate universe

drea i promise you we're going to come back to uh human earth as we know it in a moment but i need to probe morgan's mind

a little bit more because here's the thing morgan i asked a simple question

what is the nature of the simulation in which you think we are living

and you answered a very different question which was A, what is the likelihood that this is possible?

Right.

And B, how can I, Morgan, do it?

Do you know what I mean?

Like,

how can, like, it seems like you're really thinking of this not as someone who might be subject to a simulation, but from the outside.

If you're running a simulation, you can give people the cure for cancer.

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Earlier than they normally would have had it.

You're not thinking of yourself, it seems, as like Neo in a tank with stuff stuck into your head and surrounded by goo.

You are thinking of yourself like a god, like an evil being who is running a simulation.

Is that part more interesting to you or what?

Well, being God?

No.

I don't really know what the nature of the simulation is.

I don't know that it matters.

I mean, it could just be this whole, everything could just be an illusion.

But I mean, it doesn't negate the fact that, like, you know, I still love Drea and my family and the people I work with and all that.

What is it that interests you about the idea that everything is an illusion?

I wouldn't say it's an illusion because it doesn't mean it feels any less real.

I think fundamentally, when you think about like things like free will or we're living in a simulation, it's just trying to understand like what, you know, where we sit in the universe.

And it's fun to like play around and talk about those

ideas.

And you have not read even the Wikipedia page for Nick Bostrom?

I have not read the Wikipedia page for Nick.

I think it's Bostrom.

Oh, maybe in your universe.

Here across the timeline portal, we say Bostrom.

But you are familiar with him.

Yeah, I'm familiar with him.

Yeah.

Just if I may.

The idea tickles you.

The argument that the universe is so vast that it is possible that at least one one species has reached presumably physical computational power.

We're not talking about magic spells, right?

Right.

You're talking about the physical computational power to create a completely quantum computing simulation of a whole reality in which they are applying to physical beings or now what beings of just pure AI, which is your guess.

I'm not sure I understand the question.

Are you a Neo in a tube surrounded by goo,

or are you a non-player character in some some computer simulation on a computer oh okay so so yeah i guess i'd be the the latter right so just like a non-that's your dream player character that's that's my dream that's the dream yeah it removes a lot of responsibility doesn't it okay now i understand

Now I understand the nature of the simulation that I was asking you to describe.

And I apologize for accusing you of not reading the appropriate Wikipedia page.

You obviously have done some research.

Morgan,

if we're all just non-player characters in a vast computer simulation, would it be possible for me to be one of those Koroks with the little nuts in Zelda Breath of the Wild where they go, hee, and then they give you a little nut?

They're like a little kind of leaf man.

Yeah.

Can I be Tom Nook and own the mortgage of every house on this island?

Dead Tom Nook's a real roller coaster tycoon.

Can I be Tom Nook who gives everyone a tent and a cot the minute they arrive on the island, then charges them 49,000 bells for them and convinces them that digging weeds to pay off your mortgage is a game?

A fun game to play?

All right, Morgan, the idea tickles you.

You like to think about it.

You like to think about the idea that you're just a non-player character in a vast computer simulation being run by some unknowable other future, perhaps future human race.

And you love thinking about the idea that your wife is also a free will-less non-player character who is just designed by a computer correct yeah when you put it like that sounds really cool doesn't it

there we go

drea

yes how do you feel when you are described by morgan as a non-player character in a computer simulation

He would think everybody was that way, right?

So I don't take any personal offense to it.

Well, I mean, at least, may I just say, at least Morgan isn't saying what I believed as an only child, which is I am the only real human being and everyone else is an android programmed to trick me,

including my own mom and dad.

Yes, I'm glad.

I'm glad he's not saying that.

That's a good thing.

Yeah.

I like that those androids were so tricky, John.

I mean, no one knew what Truman Show was at the time.

Yeah, Truman Show.

I was being raised in a dome by androids claiming to be my mom and dad and friends.

Does it feel, I dare say, dehumanizing?

It's not that I find it dehumanizing because I don't believe in it.

So, where it gives, I think it gives Morgan comfort, would you say?

Or like a sense of like comforting detachment, it gives me anxiety.

It gives me anxiety because I feel like a loss of control.

Let the record show that I observed the litigants who are standing together in their home.

I'm sorry, where do you live again?

Orlando.

Orlando, Florida.

Oh, oh, I'm sorry.

You live in a simulation.

Yeah, 100%.

I didn't know that

we were getting beamed information directly from the Orlando Simudome.

This has been going on for thousands of years, you understand?

Dang it.

Orlando has been a strange experiment for a long time.

I didn't realize that.

Okay.

Yeah.

No, I can see you there.

And you said, what I think gives Morgan comfort when he thinks about this, I'm paraphrasing, and I saw you looking to him.

you know what I mean?

And looking at his face, which seems real to me, and looking for him as feedback as you speculated as to what he might feel, right?

What I'd like you to do, just as a experiment, you have no free will in this situation, so you have to do it.

I want you to say what you think gives him comfort without looking at him.

Just look at me.

Don't take any feedback from him.

Okay.

Oh, he's even leaving the...

boy.

He's a very compliant non-player character.

Truly non-player.

I'm very appreciative of you for understanding that there is some comfort that he is taking from it.

And I don't want you to hold back.

He's got a very cute face and he's and he has this very pleading look in his eyes.

And I'd almost be like, please don't tell the terrible secret of how I feel.

So tell me about the comfort he feels in being detached.

He's very smart, very smart person.

And so I think that this

concept

of a world

where you really don't have control, the decisions that you make on a day-to-day basis don't necessarily rely on

your intelligence or, you know, your experience.

You don't have any control.

And there can be some type of release in that and just kind of being like, well, you know, that didn't go the way I planned, but it's not that big of a deal because it's outside of my control.

Right.

And I understand that.

I can see how that would be comforting.

Is that comforting to you, Morgan?

The feeling that you are not responsible for your own actions, not.

not accountable.

I mean, unaccountability is fun.

No, I feel accountable and responsible for my own actions.

And

I think that's important.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was my misstatement, I think.

In your own words, and looking only at me,

I'll even turn off, you know what?

I'll turn off my video so you can just speak into the endless void that you have no, that controls your thoughts, but you cannot control yourself.

I mean, why does it tickle you?

What comfort do you get from it?

I just think it's an, I think it's an interesting idea and what like the implications of

if it is if everything is a simulation, like what are the implications of that because

i don't know there's a lot that we just don't know about like the world and like how we exist and everything and

it it's it's just i think it's fun to like think and talk about

everything through that lens

to kind of get at like the root of like what is existence like how you know

what is our consciousness

where do like we now that i think about it what i think that you just use it to comfort me.

Oh, so now that I'm thinking about it, it's more like when I come to him with a problem or I'm upset about something, he'll say, Well, it's all just a simulation.

Ah, that is, well, it is a nice, I mean, it is really nice like when something doesn't go your way.

Like, well, it's a simulation.

It's going to happen that way.

I just assumed it comforted you, but now I see that it's just a,

you can see some, I'm not, I'm not religious.

So, like, when you start talking about things through this kind of lens,

it's a way of understand, you know, it's it almost becomes like a pseudo-religion kind of thing.

But it's not that it's not something that like guides my day-to-day life.

I just

think it's an interesting, it's an interesting concept and what it means.

I noticed that you chose not to articulate how it made you feel emotionally.

Oh.

In other words, you said, I think it's interesting.

You did not say, it makes me feel relieved, or it makes me feel less anxious, or it makes me feel

more anxious

because, you know, I have no control over my

life to a certain degree.

This is a joke, but do you have emotions?

Were you programmed with them?

Yeah, no, I have emotions.

It can be comforting to think of things like that.

Think of the world as a simulation.

That can be like a source of comfort.

I won't think that's why I want to, I really would want to talk about it, though.

It's more just a kind of

you just like the thought, you like the thought experiment.

The thought experiment, the thought experiment that we are all a thought experiment.

Yeah.

Well, look, I didn't, I didn't want to bully you into admitting that you had emotions.

I apologize, Morgan.

And I want to acknowledge that,

you know,

we all have an inner life, but that inner life is accessed in different ways by different people.

And so I don't, you know, didn't mean to put you on the spot there.

Just wanted to try to get to the bottom of some of this stuff.

Okay.

Now, Drea.

Yes.

You went through a number of rulings that you would like me to offer.

A whole thought process,

a whole philosophical system of its own.

Apologies.

No, no, don't apologize.

Help me remember that.

The first was he should stop talking about it.

Yes, the first was that he should stop talking about it on vacation specifically.

Does it dominate the whole vacation?

I mean, obviously, you don't even remember where you were because you were thinking so much about how you have no real existence.

Right.

No, it doesn't dominate.

Is it uncomfortable?

It is uncomfortable for me because it gives me anxiety.

I don't like to think.

I'm all for a philosophical conversation, but this specific topic gives me anxiety.

Have you tried explaining that to him before?

We've kind of talked.

Yeah, we've talked about it a little bit, mostly in jest.

I'm sure

if I was more firm about it, a lot of times what would happen is I would just focus my conversation with Catherine, you know, and we would keep talking.

We would talk about something else entirely.

And he and Jeff would keep being able to get into it.

He and Jeff would just keep getting into it and into it.

Yeah, exactly.

exactly.

Deeper and deeper into the quantum realm.

Yeah, pretty much.

But, you know, that's obviously, I mean, hopefully we'll go on vacation with them one day.

And you will.

There is a difference, obviously, between, you know, when you're on vacation and a couple of people want to talk about sports all the time, a couple of people don't.

Unless you're me, sports conversations do not spark existential crises.

It sounds like for you, you feel a kind of existential anxiety.

Yes.

Yes.

I would agree with that.

Because the idea of a simulated universe or that this is all a dream or an illusion makes you feel...

It makes me feel icky.

I don't like the idea that I don't have

control over day-to-day goings on in my own life and that we're not real or that we're controlled by something all-knowing.

I think a lot of people would have.

you know feel maybe feel the same way sure okay now then you said i don't have to ban the conversation.

You don't want to rob him of his fun.

Exactly.

And I also don't think it's fair to say, to put anything on kind of like a ban in terms of conversation.

Well, I mean, you know, with limits.

But

we've never had to ban anything else.

I don't feel like that's necessarily nice of me to ask him to just never talk about it again.

And so I thought.

I should declare that his worldview is incorrect and that this is reality.

Yeah.

That I know something that even Nick Bostrom doesn't know.

Bostrom.

Yes, exactly.

So my thought is that if

perhaps if it's ruled that it is not a simulation, then we can talk about it because it is truly just a philosophical conversation.

And we all know, because you have said it's...

it's so, that this could never actually be the case.

And then I feel like that would actually free me up.

I have just a couple of quick questions before I get to my verdict, Morgan.

One, have you seen or experienced evidence that you are in a simulation as opposed to what you might call reality?

No, but that just means it's a really good simulation, right?

I agree.

I agree with you.

Except here's a question.

Within the simulation, what would be the purpose of having a Morgan in the simulation who openly questions the reality of the simulation?

Oh, fidelity, you know, just makes it seem more believable, right?

Okay.

Why would the simulation have to have fidelity?

If a Morgan and also a Jeff and also a Bostrom

and also a Rene Descartes and also the Wachowskis are in this simulation.

speculating that this might be a simulation, that that is somehow an aspect of fidelity about how real human minds often often philosophically question the nature of their reality.

Is the purpose of the simulation then to faithfully replicate human existence or harvest body electricity to run space blenders?

I think it would be, I think, I think the purpose would be.

I thought you thought this was interesting to talk about.

No, it is.

No, I think the purpose would be to understand, get the benefit of all the, everything that the culture creates, right?

So

the matrix.

Sure.

Technology.

If you were the evil demon, what would you learn from making a simulation of reality that was so faithful to reality that you would have to know everything about that reality in order to simulate it?

Hmm?

Hmm?

I'll see you in Florence with Jeff.

Think it over.

Last question.

Because I don't think we're going to get the definitive answer now.

What would you have me rule if I were to rule in your favor?

Oh, I would just like to

just keep talking about it, although I don't, if it creates anxiety, I mean,

we don't have to, but

it's a really,

you know, the free will thing and the simulation thing, it's a good departure point to talk about things that will never, ever come up in a normal conversation.

It's not something you would ever talk about, you know, when you're talking about sports or a movie you just saw or work.

And so

it's a good departure point and it's fun to use that as a way to explore different ideas.

So I would just like to keep talking about it in a way that does not create anxiety for Drea.

You said that this all started, Drea,

that we moved from free will

with Jeff and Catherine, which is a great title for an indie movie, to

The universe is a simulation, kind of when your kids were born and you stopped going on vacation.

Yes.

Right.

Yes.

And how old are your kids?

Four and two.

So four years, right?

This ongoing conversation about life being a simulation has been happening.

I would say so.

I would say so.

Morgan, are your own children real human beings?

Oh, yeah, they're real.

Interesting.

They're real to me.

Yeah.

I think I've heard enough to go into my VAT of goo and plug in to my Mind Palace, aka my simulated chambers.

I'll be back in a moment with my decision.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Drea, how are you feeling about your chances in this case?

I feel pretty good.

I feel like the judge is confident in his ability to be an all-knowing God and make this decision and,

you know,

kind of lay it down, maybe etch it into some stone so that we can move forward with this knowledge for the rest of our lives.

I like that you have taken the opportunity for this pre-verdict interview to elevate the judge to a deity and elevate the three of us into Moses-like figures.

This is pretty extraordinary

coming down the mountain in just a minute, I guess.

Yeah, exactly.

Morgan, how are you feeling?

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know.

I felt kind of confident coming in here.

Not so much now.

I mean, you'd already talked it through.

I mean, I guess the question, Morgan, is, are you even really feeling that way?

Oh, I am.

Who knows?

Who knows?

Yeah.

Well,

we'll see what Simu Judge John Hodgman has to say when we come back in just a moment.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict.

Morgan, Drea, I am not your God, but I am your whatever.

And as your whatever, I do control your thoughts and actions there in Orlando.

And I am here to reveal.

Yes, it is all a simulation.

Oh, no.

Well, now wait a minute.

Let's have some fun and think about whether that were true.

Morgan is thinking about the simulation, and the idea, obviously, of determinism and predestination and lack of free will is not one that was originally discussed in the context of a Cartesian evil being slash advanced robots in the Matrix who created a simulation, created a world for humans to exist in for some reason, right?

It originally discussed in the idea that there's an evil demon who is named God.

and what our relationship is with that patriarchal figure, that daddy figure in the sky who is making us do stuff.

It also, by the way, is very common, as you pointed out, to many, many different faith pathways.

I mean, obviously,

you know, I'm not an expert in Buddhism, either big vehicle or small vehicle, but the idea that this life that we experience is an illusion and how that should impact the way we lead our lives is a big part of faith, right?

This is a faith discussion because there is no God or whatever except for me, the one and only God or whatever, who can tell you for certainty that this is a simulation or not.

It is an unanswerable question.

It is a ponderable.

And since it is an unanswerable question, it is one that does produce anxiety.

It produces more questions.

For Morgan, that is fun.

For Drea, it is a nuisance at best and an existential crisis at worst.

Particularly because the idea of this life being an illusion can be a relief in the sense that

the material world that we experience has no intrinsic value, that it in fact is an illusion that we can transcend, right?

Either through meditation or in other faith pathways, good work and get to heaven or whatever, right?

Or this is an illusion in which we have no free will and it is punitive, you know.

Both of those are big ideas that I could understand why a Morgan and a Jeff might want to sit around and jaw about in Italy.

However, I am, strangely for a God or whatever, personally an agnostic.

I believe in unanswerable questions, including, is there something beyond our perception, including possibly an afterlife?

That is where my faith system lies, that there are questions that we do not know the answers to.

And that therefore,

whether you define our existence here on earth as being an illusion made for us by a God

or our far future trans-human evil genius descendants

or machines or an AI or whatever it is, That is necessarily beyond our perception.

And whether the truth, quote unquote, will ever be revealed to us itself is an unanswerable question until, you know, Lawrence Fishman comes and kidnaps us and offers us a metaphor for horrible behavior online.

Very, very oblique reference there.

So I take an existentialist position, which is we presume that the material world is real and that we presume that our lives here come to an end and that the illusion that we experience was not created by one or many consciousnesses, but by the material world itself organizing itself through the principle of evolution and the chaos of change.

I'm right, I think.

But the point is,

whether it's a projection, an act of God, an act of AI, or whatever, this world that we experience, it is indistinguishable from a simulation.

And therefore, you conduct yourself as though

your wife were a real person.

Obviously, you do, Morgan.

Yes, he does.

Who does?

Obviously, you do.

The thing that makes me suspicious of the idea that we are living in a simulation is: A,

it seems like a real extra step to explain existence.

Because, as I alluded to early on, the people running the simulation themselves might be a simulation who are being run by a different simulation.

It just goes on and on and on and on and on.

It's like a lot of extra work to justify a simple reality that I am a thing of bone and meat that somehow got this kind kind of brain and I somehow am able to use this kind of communication and to somehow have been able to hug and kiss people that I care about and that I trust those emotions are real and create other, it's just like, this is just what's happening is happening.

It's the Occam's razor.

It's real.

I think, therefore, I am.

Right?

I lost my own train of thought.

I talk, therefore I get lost.

That's my own personal mantra.

The other reason that I am distrustful of the simulation argument argument is, boy, that would be a consolation, especially after this last year to imagine, as many people have, you know, in popular culture, that this is all part of a simulation.

It's not the real thing, that at some point, depending on your point of view in the world, you accidentally fell down the stairs and entered into a bizarre dream.

It's natural that we question our sense of reality.

We are tested every evening as we fall asleep if we're lucky enough to be able to sleep.

Reality can be very,

very easily simulated, such that you don't even realize that it's happening by one brain, not a million robots, one brain.

This is natural.

Just as the world is a natural process, a material process, a real process, not a highly sophisticated hologram, I also think that it is absolutely natural to think about this stuff and think about its consequences.

So,

Drea, the world is real.

You're right.

I'm just telling you it.

But I'm not ruling in your favor.

I'm sorry.

Okay.

Thank you.

Morgan is using a part of his brain that was,

you can't say designed by evolution, because evolution is not designed.

It is a product of evolution, of self-referentiality, and self- and provocative questioning of reality.

This is totally natural to our species.

Okay.

It's part of our imagination, and it's part of why we are, in some ways, the most constructive and equally the most destructive species on earth.

That makes sense.

You married a real human, is what I'm telling you.

Thank you.

I'm glad you can extend him the courtesy of believing in his whole human dome, and I hope that he

offers you the same courtesy.

He does.

Morgan, it's fine for you to talk about these things with your friend Jeff.

You should try to read the room and not get into it with Drea because she doesn't care.

She's not as interested as you are.

If you wanted to, you could try to be more interesting about it.

I mean, that's the only other thing I can say.

First of all, I mean, you're talking to your God or whatever.

For a long time, I had accidentally turned my camera off and you were just talking to an empty void.

You know,

I might as well have been a masked oracle in Delphi.

Very, very, it's intimidating to come onto a podcast and put your inner lives up for my judgment, and I appreciate that.

So are you really going to get into it with me the way you can get into it with Jeff at midnight in Florence?

No.

I bet you and Jeff have some great conversations.

But if I'm out here, if I'm doing some Wikipedia research, looking at some Nick Bostrom,

you know, let's get into it.

You know what I mean?

Like, don't be like, I just like thinking about it.

Tell me what the consequences are, what the ramifications might be.

why you think it's happening why would it even exist in the first place get into it with me man let's grock each other we'll do it another time when we can see each other in person you will see one day that your god or whatever is not a figment of some computer program no i am a flesh and blood human being at max fun con should it happen again and you attend let's you and i really dig into whether this is a simulation or not and what it means Because I think that if you're able to articulate those things in a little bit more of a provocative and interesting way and have some arguments, maybe Dre would be interested in hearing more about it.

And, you know, instead of just like, you're not real.

No, this is real.

Where's the milk?

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules, that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Morgan, how do you feel?

I guess relieved.

I do wish I was able to get into it a little bit more, but

no, I feel good.

Admit it, morgan you always feel like

you wish you could get into it a little bit more

it's my mantra

you're getting into it is never satiated

drea how are you feeling

i feel good i feel good i do you know morgan his discussion about it is always interesting i have to say i would say that it's probably sometime tempered by the fact that I have had a glass of wine.

So,

And so I would say that Jeff would also be a good person to give

his opinion on whether or not it's interesting.

And y'all always do have long conversations about it.

So

I will make an effort to get educated on it as well.

Drea Morgan, thanks for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

We just want to take this opportunity to thank everybody who has gone out of their way to become a member of Maximum Fund during the Max Fund Drive.

We salute each and every one of you who's gone to maximumfund.org/slash join.

You're the reason we can do this.

Yep.

And look, I'll say again,

if all you can offer is moral support, that is an incredible gift to us.

Hashtag MaxFundDrive, spread it around, send an email to your weird dad,

even tell your Dracula friends, you know?

We'll take memberships from Draculas.

I'm not that prejudiced.

Well, Draculas can have any job.

It's the way it is.

But if you are able to go out of your way, and I appreciate that it is going out of your way in a small way or maybe even a large way, to support us this year

at any of the levels, we really are very, very grateful.

It's called maximumfun.org/slash join.

That's the link, maximumfun.org slash join.

You know, in years past, when thinking about joining and

you know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, for 15 years.

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while.

Maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years.

I know where this has ended up.

But no, no, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah.

You don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on My Brother, My Brother, and Me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So, how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined!

No, no, no, it's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lum.

I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

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I've often said, don't, don't do it.

Do, do do it.

Go to maximumfun.org slash join.

Another Judge John Hodgman case in the books.

In a moment, we'll have Swift Justice.

But first, our thanks to Sean Flaherty for naming this week's episode, May It Please Descartes.

If you would like to name a future episode of our program, like Judge John Hodgman on Facebook, that's where we ask for your submissions.

You can also follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

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And check out the maximum fund subreddit at maximumfund.reddit.com to discuss this episode, one of the most pleasant places on Reddit, the maximum fund subreddit.

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That might be our most popular venue for social media.

Those things always generate a lot of cool chat.

Our producer, the ever-capable Ms.

Jennifer Marmer.

Now let's get to Swift Justice, where we answer your small disputes with a quick judgment.

Alex says, I don't like the bathroom mats I purchased, but they've been in my bathroom for a week.

Is it too gross to return them?

Yes.

I would say.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes, it is.

If you don't like them because you took them out of the bag and you saw them, you're like, oh, this is not what I wanted.

Then you could probably return them if there's online returns.

But if they're in your bathroom for the week, I can only presume that you've decided you don't like the way they feel on your wet bare feet.

Yeah, if they're not defective, I mean, if they're defective.

Yeah, if they've got big holes in them or portals to other universes, yes.

But if you've just been using these bath mats for a week, you can't return them.

You could call, I guess you could call the company and see, depending on what they're made out of, if there's some sort of recycling opportunity that you should take advantage of.

But, you know, if it's just a regular towel, don't return them.

Cut them up and use them as

rags.

Monster costume.

Yeah, monster costume.

And the monster is named Rags.

Yeah.

That's about it for this week's episode.

Submit your cases at maximumfun.org/slash JJ Ho or email Hodgman at maximumfun.org.

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