PART TWO: How Quantum Physics, Religion, & NDEs are Linked By A Theory That’s Growing in Popularity. MIT Scientist Explains Simulation Theory.

Summary

Podcast Summary: Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown Episode: PART TWO: How Quantum Physics, Religion, & NDEs are Linked By A Theory That’s Growing in Popularity. MIT Scientist Explains Simulation Theory. Date: September 3, 2025 Guest: Dr. Rizwan Virk

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Episode Overview

In this thought-provoking episode, Mayim Bialik and Jonathan Cohen continue their discussion with Dr. Rizwan Virk, MIT- and Stanford-educated entrepreneur, game designer, and author of The Simulation Hypothesis. The conversation delves deep into the intersection of simulation theory, consciousness, quantum physics, spiritual traditions, and the unexplained—from near-death experiences (NDEs) to UAPs and mystical phenomena. They explore whether reality itself is a simulation, what might exist outside it, and the implications for humanity’s evolution, ethics, and technology.

Nothing is off-limits in this rigorous yet curious breakdown of the boundaries between science and spirituality.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What’s Outside the Simulation—Stacked Realities & NDEs

• Stacked Simulations: Dr. Virk explains that, similar to “The 13th Floor” and “The Matrix,” one simulation could exist inside another. NDEs (Near Death Experiences) may represent glimpses into adjoining levels of reality.
  • “People ask me what’s outside the simulation. I don’t take a strong position on it, but I can go through the possibilities.” (Dr. Virk, 01:36)
• Tailored NDEs: Reports from NDEs often feel hyper-real and tailored to the experiencer, just like VR games—aligning with the idea that each “life review” is customized.
  • “Everyone’s NDE would be tailored to them... sourced from your own data bank.” (Mayim, 04:10)
  • “In NDEs...they also report seeing more colors than they can see...it reminds me of when we had 8-bit games and you’d hear about games with 16 million colors...” (Dr. Virk, 03:39)

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2. The Role of Love, Emotions, and Moral Experience

• Love as Universal Language: Even atheists’ NDEs report overwhelming love, suggesting emotional reality persists or intensifies “outside.”
  • “People have reported is love as the universal, overarching language of whatever comes next...” (Mayim, 04:55)
• Game Design Analogy: Our emotional lives are a core “feature”—just as players choose to experience the full spectrum of events (good, bad, dramatic) in video games or digital metaverses.
  • “Why do we play video games?...to have experiences we can’t have outside that game...we have emotions. That’s a key part of our character in this life.” (Dr. Virk, 06:08)
• Life Review, Golden Rule: NDEs and simulation theory echo moral traditions—the key metric is how we treat others.
  • “When you replay the game, the scoring...is how did you treat other people? That’s something we can learn from the NDE about the nature of the game, and it ties back to scriptures, to the Golden Rule.” (Dr. Virk, 07:42)

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3. Glitches, Clues, and the Evolution of Consciousness

• Glitches as Clues: Rather than being bugs, glitches are possible “cues” to broaden perspective, serving as moments of awakening.
  • “A glitch almost sounds like it’s a mistake versus...an opportunity for you to realize...the limit of materialism is only a small fraction of what’s possible.” (Jonathan, 11:10)
  • “It’s almost a way to encourage the awakening process.” (Dr. Virk, 11:21)
• Expansion Through Limitations: Mystical traditions and consciousness studies point to awakening from “forgetfulness” in the simulation, remembering our deeper capacity.
  • “It’s about expanding our awareness and learning that there are mechanisms and capabilities that we all have that can supersede the limits that we were programmed with.” (Jonathan, 10:01)

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4. Who (or What) Is Running the Simulation?

• Aliens, AI, Future Humans, or God?: The hosts survey possibilities—advanced aliens, AI, future humans (ancestor simulations), or a divine intelligence.
  • “You can have a God entity...or you can have aliens...possibly some form of artificial intelligence already...we would then have this possibility that is what’s behind this kind of simulation.” (Mayim, 12:05)
• Zoo Hypothesis and Domestication: Echoing theories from guests like Robin Hanson and Avi Loeb: Are we being “domesticated” and prevented from disrupting the larger cosmic order?
  • “They’re sitting on the edge of our solar system making sure we don’t get too technologically advanced...” (Jonathan, 13:51)
  • “The zoo hypothesis. We’re being, you know, kept to a certain point.” (Dr. Virk, 14:14)

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5. UFOs, Angels, Jinn: Interpreting the Unknown

• Cultural Interpretation of Encounters: Whether UFOs, angels, or jinn, encounters with “the other” are filtered through prevailing myths and the limits of contemporary understanding.
  • “Jacques Vallée...there have been stories of encounters with nonhuman beings for thousands of years...is it possible they’re seeing entities from outside the simulation that are projecting in, but being presented in a way that fits the observer?” (Dr. Virk, 18:12)

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6. Choosing to Enter/Replay the Game—Free Will and Life’s Preview

• Life Preview, Choice to Return: Accounts from regression hypnosis and NDEs (inc. Michael Newton’s work) describe previews of probable life events, echoing “choose your own adventure” or flowchart-style game design.
  • “They described it in technological terms—a big computer screen with lines and milestones...you have some choices.” (Dr. Virk, 26:10)
• The ‘Quarter’ Analogy: Choosing another life or returning after an NDE is likened to “putting another quarter in the machine.”
  • “That choice to pull the next quarter out of your pocket...when you’d be playing a video game, I’d be given a bunch of quarters…” (Mayim, 24:33)
• Care Packages & Divine Nudges: Experiences may involve external interventions, echoing both mystical traditions and game “writer’s rooms.”
  • “It’s like a care package in the Hunger Games...sending something in to try to affect the outcome of the game.” (Dr. Virk, 26:16)
• Non-Physical ‘You’: Mystical practices aim for remembering the part of self that exists outside the simulation (Atman, soul, etc.)

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7. AI, Technological Singularity, and Human Evolution

• Stages Toward Simulated Reality: Dr. Virk outlines technological milestones—VR/AR, AI indistinguishable from humans, etc.—mapping to when simulations become “indistinguishable from physical reality.”
  • “I define the simulation point as a point where we can build virtual worlds that are indistinguishable from physical worlds, and have AI characters indistinguishable from humans.” (Dr. Virk, 33:32)
• Impact on Cognition and Society: Tech’s rapid adoption affects mental health, memory, attention, and even what it means to be human.
  • “It isn’t that kids are distracted on their phones. It’s that when you take their phones away, they are empty vessels inside because they cannot focus.” (Mayim quoting an observation, 32:20)
• Tech Business & Side Effects: Dr. Virk stresses the problem of profit-driven tech rollouts (Collingridge’s Dilemma), and how unanticipated side effects (e.g. social media polarization) echo “dystopian” sci-fi like Black Mirror.
  • “You don’t know the side effects of a technology until after...sometimes you don’t know until it’s rolled out.” (Dr. Virk, 38:07)
  • “We tend to ignore the dystopian aspects and tend to look at technology as the solution to everything.” (Dr. Virk, 41:38)

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8. Prompt Theory, Generative AI, and the “Creation of Worlds”

• Speech as Creation: With generative AI, Dr. Virk draws parallels between prompt-based world creation and religious myth (“God speaks and the world is created”), noting the profound philosophical and societal implications.
  • “God creates the world by speaking...not possible before, but now with generative AI, we’re at the point of creating highly immersive simulated realities with words.” (Summary of Dr. Virk’s argument, 46:00–47:00)

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9. NPC vs RPG Simulation Theories—Agency & Meaning

• Two Models:
  • NPC Model: We are mere programs; risk of being “unplugged.”
    • “Some academics...focus on that. And I can see why that could be scary for people.” (Dr. Virk, 48:05)
  • RPG Model: We are players that choose to incarnate and experience.
• Fear of Discovery? Some posit that learning the truth might prompt “unplugging,” but Dr. Virk sees this as unlikely and points to traditions that have always hinted at reality’s illusory nature.
  • “There are people who like Plato’s philosopher have peeked outside the simulation and realized it. And they haven’t shut us down yet.” (Dr. Virk, 50:07)

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10. Practical Insight: Agency, Healing, and Hope

• Simulation Hypothesis as Empowering: Recognizing reality’s malleability (even as “simulated”) can offer hope and possibility to those feeling stuck.
  • “If you feel there’s possibility, it actually might exist, right?...That sense of stuckness does not have to be your reality. That’s what’s the hope in the simulation...” (Mayim, 56:45)
• Clues & Guidance: Glitches, intuition, psi abilities—these may be clues or nudges toward one’s “life plan” or growth.
  • “Looking for the clues, expanding our awareness...the universe is made out of this data, and we can process it and it is revealing itself.” (Jonathan, 58:08)
  • “What if every time we’re in a difficult situation, we ask, am I aligned with my life path?...Is this random chance, or am I being shown a message?” (Jonathan, 58:37)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Love & the Life Review
  “The message you get by experiencing other people’s pain is that how you treat them actually matters...those relationships are actually more important than anything else.” — Dr. Virk (07:42)

• On Stacked Simulations
  “They made thousands of simulations. You’re the only one who’s created a sub-simulation, but you’re using too much power so we’re going to unplug you, which is a possibility.” — Dr. Virk (02:41)

• On Glitches as Clues
  “I don’t think these are glitches. I think they’re actually clues...a larger expansion of consciousness...” — Jonathan (51:57)

• On the Limits of Human Imagination
  “Any human attempt we have to understand what the purpose, meaning or endgame is, is going to fall so short of what actually is happening. Like it’s like saying, I’m going to use Tinker toys to build a jet.” — Mayim (51:11)

• On the Empowerment of Simulation Theory
  “Even if you just say, ‘there’s more than this, I’m more than this,’ I think it opens up a lot of possibilities.” — Mayim (57:48)

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Recommended Timestamps for Key Segments

• Stacked Simulations/NDEs: 01:23–04:55
• Love & Moral Experience in the Simulation: 04:55–08:58
• Glitches & Awakening, Expanding Consciousness: 10:01–12:05
• Who Runs the Simulation?: 12:05–14:19
• Cultural Interpretation (UFOs, Jinn, Angels): 18:12–22:18
• Life Preview, The Choice to Re-Enter “the Game”: 24:33–29:20
• AI/Tech Singularity & Human Cognition: 32:06–36:41
• Prompt Theory & AI Worldbuilding: 43:37–48:05
• NPC Model vs. RPG Model: 48:05–51:57
• Agency & Practical Takeaways: 54:34–58:58

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Final Thoughts

The episode is a fascinating, far-ranging exploration of simulation theory—not just as a scientific hypothesis, but as a lens integrating spiritual traditions, moral philosophy, and modern technological anxieties. Dr. Virk, Mayim, and Jonathan grapple with the hardest questions about agency, consciousness, and purpose—offering both reassurance and provocative speculation for anyone wrestling with the deepest mysteries of existence.

Highly recommended for:

• Science-curious listeners hungry for spiritual depth.
• Spiritual seekers looking for rigorous, paradigm-expanding frameworks.
• Anyone pondering the meaning behind life’s so-called glitches, suffering, and serendipity.

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Recommended Resource:

• The Simulation Hypothesis by Dr. Rizwan Virk (as endorsed by Mayim and Jonathan in the closing minutes)

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Transcript

[Mayim Bialik]

Foreign. Bialik.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I'm Jonathan Cohen and welcome to part

[Mayim Bialik]

two of our conversation with Dr. Rizwan Verk, the author of Simulation Hypothesis. Dr. Verk got his degrees at MIT and Stanford University, recently got his PhD. He's a venture capitalist, successful entrepreneur and video game pioneer who's lived in the world of Silicon Valley. But also the dips a deep toe into the worlds of mysticism, AI and how all of this might fit into a gigantic simulation that we may be living in. In part two of our conversation with him, we're gonna talk about who might be behind a simulation. Is it God? Is it aliens? We're gonna get to all of it.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Would it ever be possible that the creators of the simulation threatened to unplug us? We're gonna talk about the evolution of human consciousness and the awakening that's happening. We're also going to talk about what do glitches in the simulation mean. I propose that they are clues to help guide us to the life that we are meant to live. And each one of us can get a better understanding of how to navigate the challenges that we face by becoming more aware of the clues that are presented. Mayim also asks about love.

[Mayim Bialik]

Where does love fit in the simulation? We will find out in part two of our conversation with Dr. Rizwan Burke. Break it down.

[Jonathan Cohen]

So is a near death experience the reality that they see just another version of a simulation that's rendering or is it outside of the simulation entirely?

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Well, that's a good question. And now you get into this idea of stacked simulations as well. People ask me what's outside the simulation. I don't take a strong position on it, but I can go through the possibilities.

[Mayim Bialik]

Aliens out there. Aliens.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

It could be future humans. I mean the term, the term simulation hypothesis came from a guy named Nick Bostrom who's a philosopher at Oxford. And you know, he called these ancestor simulations which would be like us simulating ancient Rome or simulating Greece. Right. So it would be future humans simulating. And that's what kind of what the Matrix was.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Remember when, remember when there was water in the oceans? Let's go back and remember when teenagers

[Mayim Bialik]

wouldn't get off their phones. Now the phone is their brain.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Exactly. Or like in the Matrix, right? They're like, right, 1999. They're simulating.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

There's actually another simulation film that came out in the same year as the matrix called the 13th floor. I don't know if either of you have seen it.

[Mayim Bialik]

I think I may have seen it a million years ago.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

It Got kind of overshadowed. Matrix was the most talked about film of a year and it came out like literally 60 days afterwards.

[Mayim Bialik]

Bummer.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Yeah, bummer. But in that they're in 1999 and they create an ancestor simulation of, of 1937, Los Angeles. And they go in there and they can experience and they come out and I'll give away the, I'll give away the, you know, the plot because it's a 25 year old movie. They find out at the end that they are within another simulation from the year 2024, so from last year. And basically, you know, it's a stacked simulation. And they also say, well, we made thousands of simulations. You're the only one who's created a sub simulation, but you're using too much power so we're going to unplug you, which is a possibility. But getting back to your question about near death experiences and what's outside the simulation, I do think that there is another level, at least one other level, because people report things that are familiar to them. Like for example, a nice garden that they report.

[Mayim Bialik]

You mean in NDEs?

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

In NDEs, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they also report seeing more colors then they can see and more sounds coming at it from a computer science background. It reminds me of when we had eight bit games and you would hear about these games that had like 16 million colors or whatever and you realize, oh, with more bits you can get more colors. Right. And people report it being more realistic than it is here. But at the same time I think that what they see initially is something that makes them comfortable for the most part. I mean there are some uncomfortable NDEs, but for most.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, we've had. Elizabeth Crone said that she believes that everyone's NDE would be tailored to them. Meaning if you are a person, you know, just like when you have dreams or if you have a psychedelic experience, it's in theory sourced from your own data bank.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Right, right, right. And in a way, like, like at the end of Contact, for example, if you've seen that movie, she meets the aliens, but they appear to her as her dad.

[Mayim Bialik]

Why?

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Because that's a familiar figure for her. And then she realizes it's not really her dad, but that's how it appeared to her. So I do think, you know, that those tailorings happen. But when you talk to atheists, you know, those tail, the tailorings are different but because for them they didn't necessarily believe there was anything, but there is potentially something, something so something that would be comforting to them but yet maybe

[Mayim Bialik]

knock them off their perch in that sense. And I think this is sort of a question I have for you. Um, what. What our atheist nde, you know, people have reported is love as the universal, overarching language of whatever comes next or whatever this different consciousness state is that we can exist in. Right. In these extraordinary situations. So that's sort of, I think, another reason why, you know, I've had resistance to talking about simulation.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Where does love fit in? Where does feeling connection? You know, all the things that we know about the neurotransmitters that comprise the systems that our brain and nervous system have evolved to feel pleasure, pain, you know, the complexity of an emotional experience, which, while we can leave it for a second when we're in, you know, a VR space. Right. You know, for most of us, we're able to be able to say, that's not. I'm not feeling something. I'm experiencing a memory, but I'm not feeling it. Right. Where do feelings fit in?

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Well, I think feelings fit in in the sense that our simulation is wired for feelings. Right. We have emotions. That's a key part of our character in this life. And it's possible that, like, why do we play video games? It's one of the questions I get asked a lot is, you know, why would we be in a simulation? And I say, well, there's two different questions I'll ask in return. Because you can think of this at a civilizational level, or you can think of it as at a personal level. And at a personal level, the question is, why do we play video games? And it's to have experiences that we can't have necessarily outside of that game for whatever reason.

[Mayim Bialik]

Like, you can be whoever you want.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

You can be whoever you want. You can fly around. You can also have, like, bad experiences.

[Mayim Bialik]

You could be a bad person.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

You could be a bad person. Grand Theft Auto. Right. I mean, I knew people who also wanted to just have a virtual life. Like, I used to spend a lot of time in Second Life. I don't know if you guys remember. So Second Life is an example of what's called a metaverse, or a virtual world, where it's not a traditional game.

[Mayim Bialik]

Nope.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

In the sense, it's like people go in there and do whatever they want, really. But you create things.

[Mayim Bialik]

You have a job, you can have a spouse.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

So I know people walk in for work.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Yeah. Literally, after work, they would go home, and then they would have a bartender job at a club in Second Life. And they get paid peanuts. So they weren't Doing it for the money. They would get paid in Linden dollars at the time. This is pre Bitcoin. But they liked having that experience of the social experience of these avatars. People would be married in real life and then they would get married to somebody else. Other people wanted to be really promiscuous in their virtual world.

[Mayim Bialik]

Then they got STDs.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Virtual STDs. But the point is there are experiences that you may want to that are challenging even. But if outside of this world is basically love and compassion and inside this world is a whole bunch of very negative things as well as love and compassion, I think the way to play the game is told by how you evaluate the game. And this is why I go right back to the life review as being such a critical, important point. The message you get by experiencing other people's pain is that how you treat them actually matters. And so I don't think this game is Grand Theft Auto. Some people might that you're out there to abuse as many people and steal as many things as you want. But in reality, in the end, what you're going to be evaluated on. If we buy this concept, when you replay the game, the scoring, if you will, the database of quests is how did you treat other people? Right? And I think that's something we can learn from the NDE about the nature of the game. And it also ties back to scriptures, you know, it ties back to the Golden Rule, this idea that how you treat other people actually does matter, that those relationships are actually more important than anything else.

[Jonathan Cohen]

And if we're in a non physical state outside of our avatars, then we've come here to experience physicality and all that comes with it in a way that potentially outside of this simulation we are not able to experience.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Right. Just like I might go into a virtual reality simulation to try to fly around on a dragon. There was one another VR simulation that same year where I was flying around on this dragon. It's not something I could do outside.

[Mayim Bialik]

What did it feel like?

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

It felt nauseous at first because the VR technology was not very good at that point.

[Mayim Bialik]

Don't you think you'd feel nauseous if you were actually flying on a dragon?

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Well, I mean, then I began to like it. Once you get used to it, you, you begin to like it. Right. So it depends on how smooth the dragon is, I guess.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Let's stay here for a second. Both on, on the purpose collectively and then individually on an individual level. I don't think it's only about going on quests. I think it's also about understanding.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's about avoiding your life and being in video game land.

[Jonathan Cohen]

No, I don't think so at all.

[Mayim Bialik]

For some people, it is.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I'm talking back to a lot of the mystical traditions and the consciousness conversation, which often has this notion of remembering and trying to actually get over the forgetful part of consciousness. The fact that when we become embodied, we have this level of forgetfulness. And often it's about remembering what we're capable of. It's about expanding our awareness and learning that there are mechanisms and capabilities that we all have that can supersede the limits that we were programmed with. So if we come in as these avatars, and we only believe in materialism, for example, and we only believe that the world is, you know, only what has been rendered in front of us, and then we start to peek behind the curtain of what is it over here that hasn't been rendered yet? And can I access that through a dream, for example? I don't necessarily see it as a glitch in the Matrix that showed you that dream. I kind of align with how Thomas Campbell explained it, which is that is an opportunity for you to realize that you are here and that the limit of the materialism is only a small faction of what's possible.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Yeah, and I agree with that, by the way, that was my interpretation of

[Jonathan Cohen]

it afterwards, because a glitch almost sounds like it's a mistake versus it's an I like the cue opportunity where it's cueing you to say, wait a second, let's broaden your perspective. And then what else is possible if

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

that perspective is going on here? So it's almost a way to encourage the awakening process, if you will.

[Jonathan Cohen]

And so if the universe is constantly rendering and updating and each one of us is a part of that, then in our conversation recently, we had with Dr. James Gladfelder, he's talking about how the universe is revealing itself. So if the simulation is processing constantly and the data is being. Is processing, and we are learning more and more how to process that data, then it wants to reveal itself. And that's part of the experiment on a collective sense. I also think there's a collective

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

need

[Jonathan Cohen]

for the experiment to see if the world will survive or humanity will survive the world.

[Mayim Bialik]

I think that brings into question sort of who's behind the simulation, which I think is something, you know, you can have a God entity if you'd like one. Right. You can have, you know, you can have aliens. I mean, aliens are one of my favorite things to talk about or non human, you know, the alien. You know, we've spoken to Adam Frank and we've spoken to Robin Hanson and most recently we spoke to Dr. Avi Loeb. And you know, one of the things that I'm having to adjust to, cause they didn't teach this in graduate school at ucla, is that aliens. There is no reason to believe that aliens do not already exist. And that means since they're not here now that we know of, they are likely very far ahead of us technologically. They are possibly some form of artificial intelligence already. We would then have this possibility that that is what is behind this kind of simulation. Some sort of being that has an enormous head start, technologically speaking and is either observing or as Robin Hanson says, domesticating us. Making sure we don't, I'm gonna just say like making sure, okay, we don't go out of the universes and galaxies that we're allowed in. Or making sure that we don't figure they, we can't be smarter than them. It's not like I'm gonna figure out the simulation and I'm gonna break through and I'll show those aliens they would ha. If we are in a situation where we are being observed, controlled or created in a simulation, don't think that you're going to figure it out and pull a Neo, right?

[Jonathan Cohen]

Well, you may pull a NEO locally, but not intergalactically. Meaning that when what Robin Hansen says is that they're sitting on the edge of our, our solar system making sure that we don't get too technologically advanced. Because if we exit the solar system, it could have a larger repercussion on the galaxy at large.

[Mayim Bialik]

We mess everything up and make it all dirty and polluted everywhere.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Hypothesis.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Right, the zoo hypothesis.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

We're being, you know, kept to a certain point.

[Jonathan Cohen]

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[Jonathan Cohen]

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[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

And I think that's that's certainly one possibility when it comes to aliens or even UFOs, but I think our, our understanding of that subject is also limited by our current view of the world. So if you look at the UFO experience and I spend a lot of time like, you know, I spend time with Avi Loeb I'm an advisor to the Galileo project and Gary Nolan at Stanford, the Soil foundation, and spend time talking to Jacques Vallee, who's been researching UFOs since the 1960s. He was part of Project Blue Book, so probably longer than most researchers out there. And if you think about it, people who claim to have been contacted by these entities in the 50s, they said, where are they from? They said, we're from Venus. Now we know that's probably unlikely, right? But did they just lie in order to have something that would fit their mental model? Because in the 50s, aliens were from Mars or Venus. That was something we could understand. Our science was good enough to understand it. We didn't know perhaps at that time there's no life. Or maybe we didn't buy the 50s, but in general, it wasn't well known that there's no life.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, those were the close planets. We all know the order.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Right? But what I'm saying is now we know there are planets on other solar system, and so we can interpret these phenomena as potentially being alien, but there are other interpretations of the phenomena that. So the reason I brought up Jacques Vallee's work was because he says, look, there have been stories of connections, encounters with non human beings for thousands of years across different traditions. In the Celtic traditions, you have the fae who are like, take people into the fae world. There are some in France that are a different set. And then in the Middle east, particularly in the Islamic countries, the Arabic countries, you have the jinn and their stories. And I remember looking at some of the stories of these jinn that have been recounted from medieval times, and then looking at the stories that people tell at modern abduction. And they say some of these are eerily similar. And so the question is, is it possible that they're seeing some entities from outside the simulation that are projecting in, but they're being presented in a way just like a couple thousand years ago, someone might have seen an angel with wings or interpreted that to be an angel. Or like the Fatima sightings in Portugal, they just saw a woman and they interpreted her as Mary. She never said she was Mary in that particular case. So is there an element of interpretation that our current science and our science fiction actually limits our ability to think about this?

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, I mean, look, I'm sure.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

But this is a long discussion.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, no, and I'm sure you're, you know, I'm sure you're familiar with the very common, like, retort to that, which would be, you know, perhaps the human brain making it up again. We'll generate similar concepts because we have not evolved that much over the last, you know, 10,000 years or so. Right. Meaning, like the brain that we have is the brain that existed in medieval times. It's the brain that existed in the time of Jesus and Muhammad and all these things. And so we're all tasked with this impossible notion of why am I here? What's it all for? Where did it come from? What are we doing here? And so there's not an infinite number of possibilities, Right. So that the human brain, no matter what time in history you find us, will conjure something that can help explain it.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Right, right. Or it could be that we encounter phenomena we don't understand and the human brain puts a mask on it, tries to interpret it.

[Mayim Bialik]

Right. Like no one is like, I mean, except Terence McKenna when he smoked DMT. No one will say, like, mechanistic elves must be behind, you know, why I'm dreaming. Like, nobody says that, but it's, I mean, and I say that slightly tongue in cheek, but the notion is for people who delve into the world of psychedelics and even the world, you know, when we talk about yoga nidra, and we talk about, you know, these kind altered states that one can place themselves in, I think our strongest evidence does come from psilocybin, from lsd, from ketamine, from these kind of like, oh my God, mushroom, like what's happening? So to me, that's interesting because it's also, people use it recreationally, but some of these psychotherapy assisted journeys that involve internal family systems work and that involve that kind of traveling to other states of consciousness where in many cases you're experiencing a sort of life review.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Right, right.

[Mayim Bialik]

You're experiencing. Yeah. Or even in emdr, I mean, we've had people say, I had one experience, not through emdr, but in a sort of therapeutic trance kind of state where it's not that I was looking at my childhood bedroom, I was in my childhood bedroom. The eyes that were looking around the room were as if I was in a, a body that was small and that was looking around the room. Right. So being able to kind of move into different timelines. Right. Is something that we can't, we know we can do. Is it an artifact or is it, you know, part of this training?

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

And I think it's, you know, an ongoing debate. Like, for example, like when the Native Americans saw like these big boats coming, right. They just couldn't, they couldn't interpret it. They didn't know it was a boat. They just said they're like cities made of would like. At first they didn't even perceive them. When they perceived them, they weren't sure what they were looking at. That doesn't mean that there wasn't actually something in the ocean. It just means that their preconditions were such that they only interpreted. And it's possible that a lot of our interpretations are in this way and that the UFO phenomenon, the alien phenomena, is very complex. That said, in a multiplayer simulation, getting back to your earlier question about as a civilization, remember I said there, you could view this question about the purpose of the simulation at a personal level, which is the video game, but at the bigger level, why do we run simulations? We run simulations. Neurons. We run simulators of simulations of the virus spreading, of the weather, of the stock market, of landing on a comment, all of these types of things. And why do we do that? We do that to see what will happen and to see what's the most likely outcome. But we never run just one simulation. We always go back and we modify the variables and we run multiple simulations. Why? Again, we want to see what's the most likely outcome and in some cases we want to say what's the most favorable outcome. So how can we steer this? Which variables would wear?

[Mayim Bialik]

And favorable doesn't necessarily mean positive, happy and good.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Not necessarily. Whatever the purpose of the simulation.

[Mayim Bialik]

And that's why people who are, you know, of a religious ilk would say, only God knows. Right. Only God knows what's intended for you.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Right? True. Yes. Unless you're able to go through an awakening experience and you remember, you know, you remember part of your. So we've talked about the life review. There's also this idea of a life preview where sometimes people either near death experience. I think you had Jim Tucker on your show recently.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

But there have been people who have remembered the time before they were born and they remember hovering over their parents.

[Mayim Bialik]

Betty said. Betty, our favorite Betty, Buddha Betty. Betty said she saw her life laid out in milestones. She saw that her parents would commit suicide. She saw that she would be a drug addict, a prostitute. She saw everything laid out. And I want you to touch on this.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

One of the most fascinating Universal Reports from NDEs is the choice to come back.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

And when you. When I read your book and you talk about it, it's that choice to pull that next quarter out of your pocket. That's what I thought of. When you'd be playing a video game, I'd be in. What was it called? It was called, like Mom's Cleaners on Melrose near La Brea. When I was a kid. And, you know, I'd be given a bunch of quarters, and I would watch it. It was counting down. If you want to play again, put. Then it would be like, do it.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Would you like to give it to.

[Mayim Bialik]

And just that one freak mom. I need one more quarter. Talk a little bit about not just the sort of preview of life, but this sort of choice to live again.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Yeah. And I think that that's all. They're related to each other, because even in the preview, when you said she saw it all laid out. And I think I haven't listened to your podcast with her, but I think I've heard her on another podcast talking about her story.

[Mayim Bialik]

We'd like you to listen to ours.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Oh, absolutely. I'm sure it was. Yeah. And it was more recent, too, so you always get the latest. But there was a guy named Michael Newton, Dr. Michael Newton, and he wrote a book called Journey of souls back in the 90s. And he hypnotized patients and regressed them. And rather than going to a past life, they were regressed to that point in between lives where they remember dying the previous time. And they had a life preview, which was very similar to what you're describing here. But they described it. Now, this is interesting to me. They described it in technological terms. They said it was like a big computer screen which had these lines, and these lines have these milestone points, Right. And you can go this way or you can go that way. And so you have some choices.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's like a flowchart.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

It's like a flowchart.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's a choose dynamic. It's exactly your life.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

It's exactly choose your own adventure, which I used to read as a kid.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, totally.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

But there's still a part of you. And this is what. What I was referring to earlier when I was talking about the writer's room that's sitting there and watching and saying, okay, let's throw something else at them, because they didn't make the right choice or they went this way. It's kind of like a care package in the Hunger Games where, like, they're sending something in to try to affect the outcome of the game. But I think when you come out and there are moments that we come out and it happens spontaneously to people. But I also think most of the mystical practices, whether it's, you know, the yogic practices, the Sufi practices, probably in Kabbalah as well, they are meant to have you be able to come out. There was a Famous yogi named Narmana Maharshi. And he basically, he didn't necessarily teach you any techniques. He just said, I'm going to ask you a question. Who are you? Who's suffering? Who is the you independent of what's happening to you? And the point of that was to keep questioning and to try to remember that there's a part of you. They called it the Atman in the Hindu traditions, or we might call it the soul in the Sufi traditions. They talk about dying, meaning this awareness, but remembering that there's a part of you that's outside of this. But then when you come out, it's like taking off the virtual reality headset. And then you have this choice, like in the Matrix with Cypher. Remember he was the guy who betrayed them and he had the, you know, he's like, oh, I want to go in and experience this meat, you know, eating this steak, this meat. But I know it's not real, but I don't want to remember nothing. That was his line. But I think in the near death experiences, many of them are given this choice. Some they just send you back, they say, nope, it's not your time. This was a freak accident. This wasn't quite supposed to happen. Or this is meant to get you on a different path when you go back. But others have the choice. And so if we think of these lines and then you could zoom into those lines and actually see what's going on, the choice, some of them say, well, I was shown what would happen to my children if I don't go back. Like who they would be raising.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Yeah, we've heard that.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

So that's a kind of life preview. There was a woman named Natalie Sudman who was in Iraq and she was killed. Not killed, but she had an NDE because of an ied. And she said after her life review she had this planning session. And this was, you know, really sounds a little grotesque in a sense. And she even laughs about it. She goes, she was sitting there and trying out different possibilities, almost like they were simulations. Like, what happens if my leg never heals? What happens if I'm blind? What happens if this, this. And she was seeing these previews of things that might happen. And it's almost like there's a part of us that's planning for potentialities ahead of us. And that to me reminds me of running simulations, running forward. And so I think then the choice is, do you want to go back into the game and this might happen or do you want to stay out? And most people Say they want to stay out because now they're experiencing love and compassion and there's no suffering. But when they see what's going to happen to their loved ones if they're not there, then they make the choice, particularly mothers, they make the choice to come back in because they want to be there for their children.

[Mayim Bialik]

Elizabeth said she didn't want her husband raising their kids.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Well, there you go.

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean, she just said, she said, if I could give my children the choice of not having a mother who died or them having their mother, I would rather they grow up with their mother.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I just had the craziest thought experiment during part of this conversation. So Robin Hansen talked about the fact that aliens are likely far more advanced civilizations. And because there would be alternatives in technology to replace biology, they are likely artificial already, right? Their bodies have broken down and they no longer have physical bodies. They're likely some sort of techno hybrid or full technology consciousness, if you want to apply consciousness to that. So and then if you take Avi Loeb's idea of the interstellar gardener, which is that creation of the Earth is likely from an external source, which is how all religions talk about it. And the gardening is like, okay, I'm gonna, you know, create this thing and see if life is habitable. It could be that the larger test of will humanity survive on Earth could be future aliens trying to regain access to the physical form, which they lost during their evolutionary process, which made them technical.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Well, now we're getting into almost like a time travel type scenario, although not necessarily, but that's another one of the theories that's been put forward is that aliens are actually time travelers from the future trying to. Who have gone down the wrong path, Meaning they are us from the future who are trying to make us make different choices in the past and in a simulated universe that would be possible.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Or trying to jump from their timeline backwards. Like you said, a simulation was created of 1937 Los Angeles, right. In order for them to go back and experience that if I'm an AI

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

non humanoid, they want to come in.

[Jonathan Cohen]

They want to recreate the best possible scenario to avoid them mistakes of the past. And in order to do that, I'm going to run as many simulations as possible to make sure that I don't go down the wrong path again. Now here are some of the pitfalls, right? Because Greg Braden talks about the evolution of. And not only Greg, but Ray Kurzweil and others talk about us hitting that singularity point. That could be the wrong point where everything goes Awry, meaning we lose X elements of our humanity the more we merge with technology.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, that's what I was going to ask about. In terms of stages of technology, where does this conversation lead us when we talk about, oh, we're here now, we're looking at AI. We're fighting at the dinner table over, is AI better than humans? What happens next?

[Jonathan Cohen]

But let me. Let us, let me walk just a touch closer to this. Meaning we've already see, like, I saw a video online recently that was a teacher just, like, at her wit's end saying, like, you don't understand what's happening in the classroom, nor should you, because, you know you're not in the classroom. But it isn't that kids are distracted on their phones. It's that when you take their phones away, they are empty vessels inside because they cannot focus. They're just used to getting so much stimulation that I'm just looking at the eyes of these dead children in my classroom who look like drug addicts dealing with withdrawal, at how slow the pace of the information is as they're used to being flooded. So if you think about the trajectory of how our brains are changing, and then in very short period of time, we will have the opportunity to merge more fully with machines, whether that be through neural implants or more adaptive technology. We could continually be moving away from and giving up aspects of our humanity. So I just wanted to place that in terms of, like, where are we in the process?

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Yeah, well, there's a lot of individual points there, I think, that you made, but in terms of our technology development. So as I said, the reason I went down this rabbit hole was because I played that virtual reality game and I started to think about how long would it take us to build something like the Matrix? And that's why I lay out the 10 stages to the simulation point in the book. And these include the ability to build virtual reality and augmented reality, but also AI characters that are indistinguishable from biological beings. So I define the simulation point as a point where we can build virtual worlds that are indistinguishable from physical worlds, but we also have AI characters within them that are indistinguishable from characters controlled by humans or even from biological characters. And when we reached that point, I call that also a kind of technological singularity, because if you look at the term as it's used now with Kurzweil, for example, it's used for the merging of silicon and biology. And with Vernor Vinge, the sci Fi writer who wrote the paper about the technological singularity. I think it was back in the early 90s. You know, he actually laid out many different ways in which could reach the singularity, one of which is super intelligence. And that's another way we think of the singularity. But the term actually was borrowed from physics by von Neumann, who was a mathematician, but also kind of a computer scientist in that he invented the von Neumann architecture, which is what we use for all of our computers right now. And he borrowed it and said it's the point where technology is growing exponentially and then everything will be different for humanity. And it does feel like we're reaching that point.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, mental health is in the garbage. Like, you know, body dysmorphia. Suicide rates for teens are skyrocketing. Like, it feels like the world's on fire. Also, like, the president sounds like a comic book villain more and more every day. Like, I feel like I'm literally in a video game when I turn on the news.

[Jonathan Cohen]

But this is sort of where my point was about the kids and our use of tech is that it's changing how we operate without it. So in some ways the singularity has happened. Not that our consciousness has merged or that we've become a silica. But without my maps, like, I can only go very few places. I can't remember anything.

[Mayim Bialik]

You're back in the shtetl. You just only have to go.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

We're the last generation that remembers what, MapQuest. Yeah, MapQuest.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Like, I could use it if I had to. Right, like my son couldn't.

[Mayim Bialik]

You used to be able to stop at a gas station and the guy who worked there knew the neighborhood.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

He would. I would tell you, yeah, go this way. Take a left at the tree.

[Mayim Bialik]

Number of times I stopped at a gas station to ask for directions.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

In the 80s, I remember driving across the country with my Rand McNally Alice. And then I'd get into the next state and then I'd need a map

[Mayim Bialik]

of a. Yeah, a triptych from aaa, which you can still get.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Oh, so. So our basic cognitive functioning has drastically changed in a very short period of time, which is moving us towards some sort of merger or dependence on. And we talk about, like, all the things we're going to offload from a decision making standpoint to artificial intelligence, which I think is getting us there. So I'm agreeing with you. And also I feel like we're further into the curve than. Than we may realize. Well, mind B, Alex breakdown is supported by bio optimizers.

[Mayim Bialik]

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[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

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[Mayim Bialik]

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[Jonathan Cohen]

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[Mayim Bialik]

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[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Oh. So there's an idea in about technology and science called Colling Ridge's Dilemma, which basically says that you don't know the side effects of a technology until after the technology has been rolled out. Like for example, you know, who knew that when Facebook was first created?

[Jonathan Cohen]

They did.

[Mayim Bialik]

Me. Me and Facebook.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

You and Facebook. Right. But in general, when people adopt, started adapting it. Right. They didn't realize it was gonna lead to more polarization.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah, but like every hippie knew. Every hippie knew. That's what's interesting to me.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Yes, the hippies knew.

[Mayim Bialik]

All the people who believe that they can access the Akashic records to decide if they should go to the supermarket were like, I see exactly what's gonna happen. And when Covid happened, they were like, uh huh. See 2020. What did they think it was going to happen? Like, I can't tell you how many like yoga instructors were like, it's all going to be okay. Just breathe through your nose. Like what they knew.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Right, Right. So some people may have had indications of what's going to happen.

[Mayim Bialik]

The people that society calls crazy.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Crazy and says, yeah, you know, because

[Jonathan Cohen]

society, they're the non material.

[Mayim Bialik]

Correct.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Which used to be shamans.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Yes.

[Mayim Bialik]

Right. Mystical leaders, prophets, people who when they dreamt, decided that they could foresee the destruction of the temple.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

And everybody's like, that's a prophecy.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Yeah. And that was a function within society. Correct. We've kind of gotten rid of that.

[Mayim Bialik]

No, we make them all live in Sedona.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

And they do.

[Mayim Bialik]

Actually.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Many people move to Sedona during COVID

[Mayim Bialik]

I know, they're just living their best.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

I'm in Arizona now.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

It's an interesting place. But so what I was going to say about this dilemma was that sometimes you don't know the side effects until after it's been rolled out. So it's better to roll out technologies more slowly and more flexibly rather than simply just pushing them out to everybody

[Mayim Bialik]

or saying, let's give every six year old a tablet dinner and let's give every two year old comes the babysitter.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Right.

[Jonathan Cohen]

But you're a VC that doesn't work with the business model, with the people putting money into these technologies and these platforms who want to see a return as quickly as possible.

[Mayim Bialik]

We've given them a pack of cigarettes and we're telling them to smoke it slowly. That's what, to me, that's what it is.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Right. Because from, like I said earlier, you know, part of my reason for pulling back from Silicon Valley was because it's really about making money with technology. And how do you make money with technology? Through engagement, through users coming back again.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Make it as sticky as possible.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Make it as sticky as possible. I mean, you see it with the social media algorithms and that's the only criteria that gets used for success. Right. So it's not like, I mean, the only criteria for a successful company in Silicon Valley and just broadly in our culture is did it make money or not? Right. Did it go out of business or was it successful? Whereas products may have positive effects, but if they didn't succeed financially. And so that I think is an issue with our general capitalist culture. And I say that as a capitalist and having been a VC in that environment, I mean, they're not necessarily thinking, how do we ruin the world? What they are thinking is how do we build things?

[Mayim Bialik]

Slowly ruin the world.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Slowly ruin the world. Right. But they're also often looking at science Fiction and viewing that in a very kind of what's called techno deterministic way. They're kind of looking at the optimism of technology and science, and they're trying to build. Like, for example, Facebook changed its name to Meta.

[Mayim Bialik]

Why?

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Because they wanted to build a metaverse, which the term was defined in Snow Crash, a novel by Neal STEPHENSON Back in 1992. And so they were trying to build this virtual reality world where people would hang out. But if you read that novel, it's a pretty dystopian world outside of the virtual world. Right. So we tend to ignore the dystopian aspects and we tend to look at technology as the solution to everything. And to a certain extent, I blame science fiction for this as well. Because if you think of in Star Trek, when the Doctor creates some magical cure within 45 minutes that you have to do with, there's never any side effects. I mean, no one ever has any side effects.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, that's what the show Black Mirror is for.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Yes.

[Mayim Bialik]

I mean, there's been so many amazing. Some of our favorite episodes were the ones about simulation.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Yeah. The episode the Sand June of Harrow is my favorite, and I use that in teaching.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. Well, there's. There's an episode where you can literally choose different endings.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Hmm, that's interesting.

[Mayim Bialik]

Have you not seen this?

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

I don't think I've seen this one.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. So there's an episode of Black Mirror. I'd have to pull it up. It's one of the series that they did about simulation. And you. If you watch it on an appropriate device. Yeah, you can.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Oh, right. You're talking about, like, Bandersnatch. It's more like the game, correct? Yeah, the game version.

[Mayim Bialik]

And I've tried many different. I've spent a lot of time with this episode. You can try many different possibilities. And I don't want to give it away. I mean, it's unbelievable.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

It's like, choose your own adventure.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. But like, I'm.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

But with an actual.

[Mayim Bialik]

But also my younger son and I, we were really enjoying a lot of the conversations that came from talking about simulation and gaming and things like that. And what we said is we were like, they had to record every possibility.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

So it makes you kind of start speaking this language. Right. And he said, well, what if no one picks that? I said, it was recorded anyway. Right. You have to record all the possibilities so that it can be rendered depending on what the perspective is of who wants to choose it.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

So what's happened now is with the increase in AI effectiveness, you can have AI basically generate video that looks like actors speaking lines.

[Mayim Bialik]

So there's something he told me.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

I don't know.

[Mayim Bialik]

I'm not necessary anymore.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

There was an episode with Black Mirror on that front as well. It was with Salma Hayek. Hayek.

[Mayim Bialik]

So the. The episode is Joan is Awful, where this woman starts watching an equivalent of like a Netflix show. And it's everything that happened to her that day, except slightly glamorized and sensationalized. And it turns out then that she. It keeps going deeper. It's a stacking doll where eventually Salma Hayek is hired to play her in her life. Anyway.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Right? Yep, that's the episode I was talking about.

[Mayim Bialik]

But.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

But now with AI, there's something called prompt theory. So this is a new flavor of simulation theory. And basically you can see videos that people have created. So this started a few months ago with Google v03, which was basically one of the better video engines. But it would not just generate video. You could have the actor saying things. And so the prompts that were given to these characters has them talking about the fact that I am not a prompt. Look at how realistic this world is. Never date a guy who talks about prompt theory because, you know, he's kind of lost it. And so you watch these videos, we're going to ban anyone from our school who teaches about prompt theory.

[Mayim Bialik]

You understand why this is scary?

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Yes, this is scary for many of

[Mayim Bialik]

us because this is also how a lot of conspiracy theories are getting conflated. Right. A lot of hatred is being spread. Truth is being twisted.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Like, I mean, not just twisted, but it's the erosion of any sort of objective reality if everyone's TV show ends differently. And now Amazon has created. I think they just created the technology or bought the technology for a whole series of animated videos that will be fully AI gen and fully customized to the individual. So you can create the stories and plot lines.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Right.

[Jonathan Cohen]

We have no shared.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

It was the company, they just bought them. Yeah, but I think primarily they were doing more cartoon type.

[Jonathan Cohen]

It's all like south park type cartoon animations, cartoons.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

But more recently there has been this Google Genie was literally released like two weeks ago, where it could take a prompt or a description. Or now with X and Grok, they're doing it too. It can actually make it a navigable virtual world. So we now have the ability to basically give prompt and have it create not just an image or a static video, but to actually have you explore that virtual world. So we're getting to the point where AI can Create a virtual world. Now, this actually does tie back to my investigation of religions, right? Because normally, you know, in the scientific world, we would dismiss stories of God created the world in three days. Genesis must be bullshit, right? And of course, because there was never any mechanism for that. That doesn't make any sense. But if you look at it, you say, okay, let's take it seriously, but not literally. What is the mechanism God uses to create the world? He speaks, he commands, and the world gets created by itself. And so that wasn't possible before. It was like the. But now it's like the holodeck in Star Trek the Next Generation, where how do they program the holodeck? They simply speak and the AI creates the characters and creates everything within it. And so we're getting to that point where we can probably create AI characters. Not fully immersive worlds yet, but pretty good. So that in a few years we'll be able to. Now, I think where it gets scary, and this is why I try to draw the distinction between the NPC version and the RPG versions of simulation theory. I think people that are scared by simulation theory tend to focus on. On the NPC version, which is that we're all just AI characters inside this game. What happens if the simulators shut us down? Right. And there have been like, there was a philosophy professor a few years back, he wrote an op ed for the New York Times where he said we should not try to find out if we're in a simulation. Why? Because if we do the simulators, and the answer is yes, the simulators might decide to end the experiment and shut us down.

[Mayim Bialik]

Honestly, it seems better than what you're proposing.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

It's a modern version of Pascal Wager. Yeah, Pascal.

[Mayim Bialik]

He says it's also the Prisoner's Dilemma.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Yes, similar to the Prisoner's Dilemma, but he said, let's not even try to find out. Just like Pascal's saying, look, I don't know if there's a God or not, but if there is a God, then I could be punished for doing all these bad things. But if there isn't a God, it doesn't matter whether I did good things or bad things, but on average, I would be better off. Now, that assumes the NPC version. That assumes that we did not play a role in creating the simulation. We did not decide to come in and be characters within the simulation. And so, you know, a lot of academics who talk about simulation theory, that's the version they focus on. And I can see why that could be scary for people. But that Also leaves open the possibility that if you were running that you would run multiple timelines. You would run it again and again and again. You could end up with characters like Groundhog Day, for example, where they go again and again. You could try out every single possibility. And so back to the civilizational question of running the simulation. It could be very much to see where it ends up. Does it end up destroying itself? Do humans get off the planet? Maybe there's another civilization of aliens. And the whole purpose of the simulation is to see when we meet, you know, how long does it take us to get to that point where we can meet, which is a whole interesting discussion in and of itself. Um, so. So anyway, I think that there's a lot of interesting elements to. To this, but that's why I. I mean, I write about both the NPC version and the RPG version in the book. But I think you can. You can look at it differently depending on your orientation. And it doesn't have to be just like religion. Mystical experiences don't have to be negative. They can be a positive in your life. Simulation theory can be a negative or a positive in your life if you view it that way.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I don't think they would unplug us because I think they want us to see and have the experience of knowing that we are part of something that is greater.

[Mayim Bialik]

I disagree. I disagree.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Well, in the movie the 13th Floor, so I bring up science fiction a lot just because it's easier to talk about these possibilities. Just like with aliens, it's easier for people to imagine them. But it was actually based on a book which came out all the way back in, like, 1964, I think, called Similacron 3 by Daniel Goluye. And they modified it a bit in the film, but in the book, it was actually a simulation run by marketing AD executives. And when he figured out that he was in a simulation, that's when they wanted to shut the experiment down, because their experiment was, how will people react to marketing new products. It was a very 1950s Mad Men type of world. But I don't necessarily think that's the reason for the simulation, because there are people who, like Plato's philosopher, have peeked outside the simulation and realize it, and they haven't shut us down yet. And, I mean, all our religious texts have been saying this for thousands of years. So perhaps that, in my opinion, that's not the most likely scenario, but it could be if we were in an NPC simulation. That certainly could happen.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah. The only reason that I disagree is I Think that if we're at the level of potentially contemplating that we're in a simulation that is governed by some sort, like any. Any human attempt, we have to understand what the purpose, meaning or endgame is, is going to fall so short of what actually is happening. Like it's like saying, I'm gonna use Tinker toys to build a jet.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Well, I do agree with that to a certain extent. Because. Because whatever computer systems would be running this simulation would have to be so advanced.

[Mayim Bialik]

Correct.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Like, well beyond even what we think of as quantum computers.

[Mayim Bialik]

No, we can't.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Which.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

We're not even there. Yeah, we're not even there.

[Mayim Bialik]

You can't imagine it, but that's what I appreciate. You don't think that they would unplug us?

[Jonathan Cohen]

I don't think so. I think that it's. I don't think these are glitches. I think they're actually clues. And I think that's a term I

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

like, by the way. I like that term, clues.

[Jonathan Cohen]

There are clues that there's a larger expansion of consciousness that has been shared through all, all the mystic texts. Why are all these mystics having this awareness of non physical reality and communicating it? It's so that there can be a larger understanding. Physics is now being pull, pulling us and trying to bring the materialist view forward to help merge these things. That doesn't seem like it's an unplugged situation. It's like, let's take this information, build bridges across all these disciplines, build a larger understanding of why we're here, both collectively and individually. And I think better things will happen and potentially the. Well, I'll say the experiment may ultimately succeed in that we don't all destroy each other.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Let's hope that's the case. Right. Or if we do destroy each other, it's possible that you can rerun the simulation. And there's a whole branch of physics that talks about multiple timelines into the future, but also multiple possible pasts. That gets really strange.

[Mayim Bialik]

This was such a great conversation. I do really recommend the simulation hypothesis. Dr. Virk, thank you so much for being here and really a pleasure to get to talk to you.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

So great to be here and this has been a fun discussion.

[Mayim Bialik]

Awesome.

[Jonathan Cohen]

There's a lot about the simulation and the rendering. Rendering that mimics the brain's creation of reality.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yes.

[Jonathan Cohen]

So I cannot render what is happening at your house while we're at the podcast studio or.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Yes, you can.

[Mayim Bialik]

You could just reach into the ether and ask what's happening there. You could remote view My house.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Well, this is what I think is interesting, is I could move my consciousness based on what we've learned about remote viewing to any location and render what is happening, get information. Now, it will be different than if I'm physically there and seeing it. But is it existing without it being observed?

[Mayim Bialik]

So, you know, if a tree falls in the forest and no one's there to hear it. Right. Does it still make a sound?

[Jonathan Cohen]

No, it doesn't.

[Mayim Bialik]

Of course it does. Well, it does. If you believe in the physical nature of reality to some extent, just to a limited extent, the only way that you will know if it makes a sound is if you're observing it. This is the observer problem, right?

[Jonathan Cohen]

Correct.

[Mayim Bialik]

But if I want to function in the world and not constantly feel caught in a loop of, like, is this happening? Is it not happening? Like, what do I do? Is it. Then I need to assume that when the tree falls, it makes exactly the sound that it does. And birds and squirrels will, you know, know that a tree has fallen, maybe.

[Jonathan Cohen]

And there are things that are happening that I'm perceiving that may only be my perception of them.

[Mayim Bialik]

I say that all the time and

[Jonathan Cohen]

that there is a larger view that can. That can be created. Now, I want to take this to people's perceptions of their limits, people's perceptions of their difficulties. We get ingrained and say, this has happened to me. I can't get out of this situation.

[Mayim Bialik]

Now we have an answer. It's a simulation, and aliens are simply trying. That's not what it is.

[Jonathan Cohen]

It doesn't necessarily mean about aliens or anything else. That's like the step beyond, which is, let's hypothesize about the creation of the universe in general, which is similar to God created the universe or any other mythology. It's a. It's a myth that we can speculate to give us comfort to and wrap our small perspective around some larger idea of why we're all here in the first place. But if you take the on the ground view, the fact that there can be clues, that there can be a larger intelligence mapped onto our lives is similar to the fact that we could have guardian angels, the fact that there could be a divine intervention, the fact that our perspective on something could change in a way that would help us see it more clearly or have more opportunity and possibility. Like, let's go back to really base materialism, where we think about. And you've explained, and we've had other guests like Susan David explain that when we're in a calm state, our Perception and our awareness is such that we can find solutions to problems that we otherwise would feel totally overwhelmed by.

[Mayim Bialik]

Excuse me.

[Jonathan Cohen]

You're welcome. That's the universe showing me a sign that it's working.

[Mayim Bialik]

I think what feels, you know, particularly sort of like, comforting. Not necessarily about, like, oh, yes, we're in a simulation, or, no, we're not in a simulation. But the notion of if you feel there's possibility it actually might exist, right? Meaning that sense of stuckness that he talked about does not have to be your reality. And I think if we were to say to him, like, what's the hope in the simulation? I think that's what the hope is, that if you feel like you're, you know, kind of going over the same things, like, yeah, there is a spiraling up that you're doing because of repeated experience. And it doesn't mean that it's not gonna be painful. It doesn't mean that it's not gonna be challenging. But the ability to say. And there's a lot of different ways to say it, simulation hypothesis is one of them. But the ability to say, I'm not my thoughts, I'm not. Everything that I'm thinking, I'm not. All of the pain that I'm experiencing, that's a part of me. Or if you have trauma, right? And, oh, I feel like I'm afraid of intimacy. And every time I'm in a relationship, I keep breaking up. It's because, like, David Rico talks about this, right? With, like, what are we repeating in our relationships? In some sense, like, that's what this can give us hope for, to be able to say. Even if you just say, there's more than this, I'm more than this, I think it opens up a lot of possibilities.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Yes, you're more than this. And there's a force that can guide you towards something else. Looking for the clues, expanding our awareness. When we talk about psi abilities, intuitive abilities, the fact that there's data in the field, that the universe is made out of this data, and that we can process it and it is revealing itself. I love when he talked about how he got sick when he was off of the life plan that was shown to him and that he had an awareness of.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yep, totally.

[Jonathan Cohen]

What if every time we're in a very difficult situation, we ask ourselves one question from Betty. What now? Not why me? And the second question is, am I aligned with my life path? Do I know what my life path is and have I veered away from it? Is this random chance, or am I being shown a message.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

Yep.

[Mayim Bialik]

Really enjoyable conversation. And I think I really. I appreciate just the integration that he's able to do with all of these different modalities and also the notion that he's willing to say, I don't just need to look at it as if it's this small. Like, what if every mystical tradition, what if every historical event. Right. Was all seen through the framework that was appropriate for that culture? And just like everything we see, it's appropriate for where our situation is. But it's a much bigger picture than that. I really love that.

[Jonathan Cohen]

If you want to get integrated, come check us out on Substack, where we release exclusive content not released anywhere else. Mayim Bialik's breakdown on substack.

[Mayim Bialik]

Also, if. If this conversation was interesting to you, I do recommend that you read the book, because he gets into. He gets into the physics, he gets into the practicality, he gets into the mysticism. He really ties it all together. So I do really recommend this one. Yeah. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time.

[Jonathan Cohen]

It's Maya Bialik's breakdown.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

She's gonna break it down for you.

[Jonathan Cohen]

She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. She's gonna break down, so break down.

[Dr. Rizwan Virk]

She's gonna break it down.