What's Outside The Simulation w/ Donald Hoffman

Summary

Podcast Summary: "What's Outside The Simulation w/ Donald Hoffman"

Podcast: Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Episode Date: May 14, 2026
Guest: Donald Hoffman, cognitive scientist and author
Host: Tom Bilyeu

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the nature of reality, the metaphors and theories suggesting our Universe is a simulation, and the profound philosophical and scientific implications of such a possibility. Tom Bilyeu and returning guest Donald Hoffman explore whether space-time is fundamental, what might exist "outside" our perceptual headset (or simulation), the primacy of conscious agents, and whether the code of reality is editable. The discussion continuously grounds itself in the limitations of scientific models, the humility required for inquiry, and the tantalizing frontiers at the intersection of physics, philosophy, and computation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Observer in Science and Physics

• [00:36 - 01:42] Donald Hoffman opens by outlining how modern science has struggled to properly model the "observer."
  • In Newtonian physics, the observer is ignored.
  • In Einstein's relativity, the observer is reduced to clocks and pointers.
  • In quantum theory, the observer is central—there’s a unitary evolution (when unobserved) and collapse of the wave function (when observed), but no universally accepted model of the observer.
  • "Quantum theory has no universally accepted model of the observer, and we haven't had it for now a century." (Donald Hoffman, 01:38)

2. The Simulation Metaphor & Positive Geometries

• [02:42 - 05:32] Tom introduces his increasingly strong belief that the simulation is an apt metaphor for reality—even if not literally true.
  • Hoffman agrees space-time is not fundamental—a growing consensus among high-energy physicists.
  • Examples: Nima Arkani-Hamed claims “space-time is doomed.”
  • European Research Council is funding efforts to search for deeper, emergent structures (positive geometries) outside space-time.
  • They reference Feynman’s brute-force math for particle collisions that is greatly simplified through positive geometry.

3. Why Space-Time Isn’t Fundamental

• [05:32 - 09:11] Hoffman explains that every scientific theory is based on assumptions it cannot explain; thus, theories are always provisional.
  • Space-time, brilliant as a framework, operationally ceases to have meaning at the Planck scale due to the limitations imposed by black hole formation when probing at small scales.
  • "Space-time is just a scientific theory, right? ... It can never explain its own assumptions." (Donald Hoffman, 05:38)
  • "The very notion of space-time itself has no operational meaning at all at what's called the Planck scale." (07:13)

4. Rendering Reality: The Video Game Analogy

• [09:30 - 12:08] Tom shares how working in video game development helped him realize the universe only "renders" reality as required for an observer, akin to computational efficiency in games.
  • Recent Nobel-winning research showed the universe isn’t "locally real"; it renders only as needed—like a game engine.
  • Space and time's “pixel size” and “tick speed” align curiously with the Planck scale—a computational metaphor.

5. Division in Physics: Is Reality Continuously Rendered?

• [12:08 - 13:18] Hoffman clarifies that not all physicists agree with the rendering (simulation) perspective.
  • Some interpretations (e.g., De Broglie-Bohm) posits underlying reality persists unrendered, while others (Quantum Bayesianism) see the wave function as merely encoding observer beliefs.

6. What Is “Base Reality”?

• [17:14 - 21:33] The conversation pivots to defining what, if anything, is outside the simulation/headset.
  • Hoffman references Leibniz’s monads and John Wheeler’s observer-participants: Reality begins with the observer. Hoffman calls these “conscious agents.”
  • "What's really there is a bunch of observers interacting." (Donald Hoffman, 19:42)
  • If consciousness isn’t fundamental to you, just call them “observing agents.”
  • Tom presses for clarity to avoid anthropomorphic projections (humans, animals, AIs) on the “observer.”

7. The Observer as a Markov Process

• [23:02 - 23:04, 26:18 - 31:31]
  • Hoffman defines a fundamental observer as "a set of possible experiences and a matrix that says what's the probability of the changes of experiences"—formally, a kind of Markov chain.
  • "The fundamental thing is literally a set of possible experiences and a matrix that says, what's the probability of the changes of experiences? That's it." (Donald Hoffman, 23:02)
  • The observer is not a photon detector or a biological entity—those are inside the headset (simulation).
  • Markov chains are computationally universal, able to express any computable process, tying the notion of experience to computation.

8. The Limits of Escaping the Simulation / The YOU Problem

• [31:31 - 39:00] Tom distinguishes between three metaphysical versions of “you”:
  1. The Matrix's Thomas Anderson—a real you somewhere outside.
  2. A pure program (an NPC)—no you outside the code.
  3. Fundamental consciousness—one consciousness expressing through avatars.
  • Hoffman aligns most closely with the third: "There is one consciousness, and it has all these complicated branchings into subconsciousnesses ... and that whole thing is the fundamental layer." (Donald Hoffman, 37:28)
  • Scientific humility: all theories are provisional, so this model is "close, but not precise."

9. Is the Universe Computational?

• [39:20 - 44:08] Tom asks if the “headset” metaphor implies that consciousness “writes computer code,” with the universe inherently computational.
  • Hoffman agrees computational models (Markov chains, Turing machines) are mathematically apt for describing how experiences unfold, though with caveats about what’s inside or outside the “headset.”

10. What Happens to “You” in This Model?

• [44:08 - 48:35]
  • Tom challenges the persistence of the “self.” If you fundamentally alter your experiences (e.g., radical changes in memory, processing), is it still “you”?
  • Hoffman, drawing on meditation and introspection, argues that deep self-awareness involves recognizing we are not the persona, career, or even our thoughts and feelings—but rather the awareness itself, ever transcending.
  • "That's not you, that's you lost in the game. ... I am capable of stepping back, looking at the whole game, disidentifying." (Donald Hoffman, 49:11)
  • The ultimate proof, argues Hoffman, will be when science can “write down the code” that renders space-time—enabling abilities that defy the rules of physics, i.e., “miracles” relative to our current snapshot.

11. Memory and Continuity of Consciousness

• [52:58 - 53:32]
  • Will the transcendent “you” retain memories of its life(s)?
  • Hoffman: "I don't see why you shouldn't be able to have the memories and look at them. Just like I have a memory of being a five year old crying because someone stole my toy in the sandbox." (53:11)
  • But how are memories stored if the “self” is not biological? Hoffman explains that, outside the headset, memories would be stored in the transition probabilities—in nonphysical Markov chains.

12. Death, Personal Identity, and the Limits to “You”

• [55:25 - 58:00]
  • Tom pushes back: If identity is so mutable (as with age or Alzheimer’s), does “you” even persist outside the headset?
  • Hoffman: Our attachments and beliefs are transient; “consciousness” explores itself through infinite perspectives. The “one consciousness” moves through avatars, gathering perspectives.
  • "There's really just one consciousness through two different avatars... And at some point it will say, well, I've done that enough, now I'll do something else." (Donald Hoffman, 57:45)
  • Tom: The concept of "you" outside the headset is "incoherent," paralleling how "space-time" is incoherent beneath the Planck scale.

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Notable Quotes

• Donald Hoffman:

  • "Quantum theory has no universally accepted model of the observer, and we haven't had it for now a century." (01:38)
  • "Space-time is doomed. It cannot be fundamental."
  • "The very notion of space-time itself has no operational meaning at the Planck scale."
  • "The fundamental thing is literally a set of possible experiences and a matrix that says, what's the probability of the changes of experiences? That's it." (23:02)
  • "You can always step back... that's not you, that's you lost in the game. ... I am capable of stepping back, looking at the whole game, disidentifying." (49:11)
  • "There is one consciousness, and it has all these complicated branchings into subconsciousnesses ... and that whole thing is the fundamental layer." (37:28)
  • "There's really just one consciousness through two different avatars... And at some point it will say, well, I've done that enough, now I'll do something else." (57:45)

• Tom Bilyeu:

  • "Once I realized I've got to put all this thought into how the game world renders... the universe only renders what is being measured or interacted with. That's also how a game actually works." (09:47)
  • "If I went in and gave myself, you know, 190 IQ, I'm not me anymore because I'm not a guy with 190 IQ..." (54:18)
  • "We are our biology. And so the second you tell me I transcend my biology, I'm like, oh, it's not me." (53:22)
  • "The concept of you is incoherent outside of the headset." (54:50)

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Memorable Moments & Analogies

• Tom likens the Planck scale to a “pixel size” or “tick speed” in a video game, underscoring the simulation analogy. (09:30 – 12:08)
• Hoffman compares our “avatars” in this VR to the characters we play in a video game—suggesting we are far more than the persona in the headset.
• The discussion about memory carries a striking analogy: a Ferrari disassembled to make a blender—if “you” are your parts, can they meaningfully exist in a new configuration? (53:32)

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Key Timestamps

• 01:38 – The observer problem in quantum mechanics.
• 05:38 – 09:11 – Why space-time is not fundamental; Planck scale explained.
• 09:30 – 12:08 – Tom’s video game universe metaphor.
• 19:42 – "What's really there is a bunch of observers interacting."
• 23:02 – The observer as a Markov process.
• 37:28 – “There is one consciousness... the fundamental layer.”
• 49:11 – "That's not you, that's you lost in the game."
• 53:11 – Memories as experience, even upon transcending the game.
• 57:45 – One consciousness, many perspectives.

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Overall Tone & Style

• The conversation is deeply philosophical, reflective, and grounded in cutting-edge theoretical physics and cognitive science. Both Tom and Donald are rigorous, playful, and genuinely curious—openly acknowledging the limitations of current science while exploring possibilities with humility and excitement.
• Tom frequently uses practical and metaphorical language to simplify the concepts for non-technical listeners.
• Hoffman remains rooted in scientific precision, invoking mathematical models and referencing physicists and cognitive science findings.

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For New Listeners

This episode is an extended, engaging exploration of what might lie outside our everyday experience. It oscillates between technical explanations and accessible metaphors, allowing listeners of all backgrounds to ponder whether reality is best understood as a simulation, what the nature of the observer is, and whether the "self" persists beyond our current experience.

If you grapple with questions of consciousness, reality, or simulation, or enjoy having your deepest assumptions challenged—in a thoughtful, rigorous, and humble way—this conversation will fascinate and provoke you.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Donald Hoffman, welcome back.

[A]

Thank you, Tom. Great to be back.

[B]

It's great to have you back. So I just recently did a video about the fact that we are living in a simulation, which I am increasingly convinced is is true, which made me want to bring you back on. Now, we've talked about your theory before that this is essentially we're in a headset like a VR, and the entire human experience is happening inside of that VR headset. Therefore, even space time is not real. Now, I think we're going to diverge a little bit on my sort of blanket statement that this is a simulation and we'll get into that in a minute. But you've started saying something incredibly provocative and very interesting for me, which is that if this is a simulation like thing inside of a headset, then we might be able to edit the code. And if we think of physics as being the pathway to editing that code. Then you've said even things like a nuclear bomb would just be firecrackers compared to what we'll be able to do in the future.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So do you really believe that the code is editable? And if it is, have we already edited the code?

[A]

First, I agree that space time is not fundamental, and I'm a cognitive scientist. And it's really, of course, up to the high energy theoretical physicists to say whether or not space time is fundamental. Right. Not a cognitive scientist, but they've been doing that now for quite a few decades.

[B]

They've said, saying that it's not fundamental,

[A]

that it's not fundamental. So Neymar Khani Hamed at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton says that flat out, he says space time is doomed. It cannot be fundamental. And also quantum theory. So space time and quantum theory together are going to have to arise from some deeper framework. There are others as well. Many, many other famous physicists, so many now that are working on this and making progress, that the European Research council has a 10 million euro initiative on what are called positive geometries. And there are now dozens if not hundreds of mathematicians and theoretical physicists who are now starting to look for structures entirely outside of space time that can make predictions inside space time. And they're finding them. They're finding these things that are called positive geometries.

[B]

Okay, really fast. Because I think people get lost at this. And my promise to the audience is that I'm going to try to simplify this stuff to the point where if you understand just a little bit of the concept, it begins to open up a metaphor, if nothing else. And so I've always said, regarding my belief that we're in a simulation is that it may just be that that's the best metaphor, that it's not literally true. You and I both agree, whatever we say here, over in the fullness of time, will be proven to be incomplete at a minimum. Sure. But I think that the idea that we're living in a simulation is such a profoundly accurate metaphor that it's very useful. So when we talk about them discovering these positive geometries, my understanding is basically you have Richard Feynman who creates this, like really brute force math equation to describe what happens when particles collide. And it's this just ridiculously complicated math equation that people will spend an entire career on. A single equation.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Then you've got arcana. Hamad. I forget.

[A]

I can never remember.

[B]

Thank you. He realizes, oh, Wait a second. These can actually be simplified into a single geometric shape. And when you calculate the volume, I think it is right, of that simple shape, all of a sudden, in a very fast way, you can figure out how particles will interact when they collide.

[A]

That's exactly right. When you let go of the wrong framework and space time is just the wrong framework for princip reasons that we can talk about that are very, very simple, it's actually very straightforward to understand why spacetime cannot be the fundamental base level of reality. The first step is that space time is just a scientific theory, right? And every scientific theory is just a theory. It's not the truth. Every scientific theory starts with assumptions. And it says, if you grant me these assumptions, then I'll explain all this other stuff. But it can never explain its own assumptions. So we get space time by making certain assumptions, like Einstein assuming that the speed of light is the same in all reference frames and so forth. But it doesn't explain its own assumptions. And so we will always need a deeper theory to explain the assumptions of a previous theory, but the new theory will always have its own assumptions. So science is a very humble enterprise in a way. We always know that our assumptions are not the final word. Now, a great scientific theory gives you not only the tools to explore what it can explain, the scope of what it can explain, it'll also give you the tools to explore the limits of its own assumptions. That's what a great theory. And it turns out that Einstein space time together with quantum theory, so quantum field theory and gravity together give us the tools to show where their assumptions stop and their assumption. So what they show is that the very notion of space time itself has no operational meaning at all at what's called the Planck scale. 10 to the minus 33 centimeters, 10 to the minus 43 seconds. And so that means that spacetime is a wonderful framework, brilliant. And Einstein's contributions are brilliant. So is quantum mechanics. There's nothing wrong with these frameworks, but we knew a priori that they can't be the final word, because it's just a scientific theory. Theories are just theories. But in this case, the theory is so good, it says, this stops at the Planck scale. It has no meaning, no operational meaning, if you want to be very, very clear about that. If you want to measure things that are smaller and smaller and smaller, you need to have smaller and smaller wavelengths of light or radiation, right, to resolve them. So your microscope is using smaller and smaller wavelengths of light to resolve things. But Einstein and quantum theory together tell us that as you get smaller and smaller wavelengths, the energy is going up. And as the wave energies are going up, Einstein says energy is mass, mass is going up. Curves, space time is being curved by the mass. Eventually the mass is so great that you create a black hole. And so the very thing that you're trying to measure gets destroyed in a black hole. And if you get frustrated and say, well, I'm just going to try put more energy, make it a smaller wavelength, the black hole just gets bigger and bigger. So it really means that the very notion of space time has no meaning operationally at all. At 10 to the minus 33 centimeters, 10 to the minus 43 seconds, we know it's over. Now, most physicists don't need to worry about this, right? What they're doing is within the normal range of physics that we can do every day. But the high energy theoretical physicists are the ones for which this is a serious issue because they're looking at the very, very high energies and they're looking at the limits of the current theory. And they're the ones that are, that the European Research Council is funding with the 10 million euro initiative to say, okay, what's next? We knew that spacetime stopped at the

[B]

plank because they really want to get beneath that minimum size.

[A]

We need a deeper theory. There has to be some deeper scientific theory that gives rise to space time. So space time in that sense will be emergent from a much deeper framework. And we already get the hint that that's happening to us because we're finding these positive, they're finding these positive geometries to make the computation simpler.

[B]

Okay, so do you see? Actually, okay, I have a follow up question there, but I really want to ground the audience who isn't technical, on why I think at a minimum, the metaphor of the simulation is going to be so helpful. So this all started click for me when I started doing video game development. And all of a sudden you're making all these decisions and you start looking at the universe and you're like, wait, I'm having to create physics. So you're looking sideways at the real universe and you're like, I am mimicking all of these things that I see in the real world to get this thing to function. And then you start getting to rendering. And once I realized I've got to put all this thought into how the game world renders, and then you find out that there was a Nobel Prize awarded for proving that the universe is not locally real, which is a fancy way of saying that the Universe only renders what is being measured or interacted with. So you could say if you look at the moon, it renders because you need to for that perceiving agent. It gets very tricky how you want to define that, because it isn't just about conscious agents, though this may be where we disagree. But I would say it's anything that needs to interact or measure that thing. That's how the universe actually works. That's also how a game actually works. And so I started going, whoa, the fact that the universe effectively only renders what it must render, and that it is always seeking computational efficiency, I was just like, yo, this is too weird. So when we start talking about the Planck scale, if people just go, oh yeah, you don't render anything beyond that scale because you have a pixel size. Now, metaphor, sure, I'm fine with that. But if you recognize that, oh, one of the ways that you can tell that this isn't base reality, let's say, is that it has this finite size that happens to map exactly to the idea of a pixel size or a tick speed in a computer. Because when you're doing a game, there's a speed at which it checks with the code. And so the fact that the real universe also has a tick speed and a finite pixel size is just too wild. And so if nothing else, even if that ends up being proven like up, there's something that I'm missing and it gets you part of the way there to understanding it, it still gets you a long way to understanding it. And so as we talk today, I'm going to try to anchor the audience at a minimum in that metaphor to help them understand why this kind of thing stops people in their tracks when they start hearing how the universe actually operates.

[A]

Right. Well, I'm on the same page with you, completely on the rendering, only as you need it. But I should be very, very clear that physics today is divided on this issue. So some physicists, I mean, they all recognize the high energy, theoretical physicists all recognize that space time is doomed at the Planck scale. So that's, that's not in question. What is in question is what to do about it and what to do with quantum theory. And so there are so called primitive ontology approaches where they still try to have something that's there all the time, whether you render it or not. So the De Broglie Bohm interpretation of quantum theory, for example, has a particle that's riding on the quantum pilot wave, but there really is a particle all the time, and it doesn't get rendered on the moment. So I just want to be very, very clear that even though you and I are on the same page, the physics community is divided on this. There are others who will say that the quantum wave function really is like there's a program called Cubism, so Quantum Bayesianism that says the quantum wave function really just describes the degrees of belief of the observer and nothing else.

[B]

So it's a complete degrees of belief.

[A]

Degrees of belief about what you will see interesting when you observe what you'll find when you observe Taking a short

[B]

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[A]

Basically the idea is something that Leibniz proposed in his Monadology. He said we need to start with the observer. He called them monads. And he said we need to have monads and some kind of pre established harmony.

[B]

No one knows what a monad is.

[A]

Yeah, so it's just an observer. This is just an observing entity. And John Wheeler, who was Feynman's PhD advisor, John Wheeler came to the same conclusion. He basically said we need to restart physics with what he called observer participants. We need to have some kind of mathematical model of those and show them.

[B]

Do you think they need to be conscious?

[A]

My own personal view is yes, that they need to be conscious. But the mathematics that I'm working on allows a non conscious interpretation. It wouldn't be a problem. So I'm personally thinking about it as conscious. But when you look at the mathematics, you don't have to stay conscious. You can just say the appearance that something is like consciousness or something like that. So it's really when I think about what I'm doing, it's a model of the observing process. And the reason that that's really critical in science is if you think about what Science is. It's a bunch of people that are looking at the world carefully with experimental equipment, but we're looking at the world, we're talking with each other, and we're comparing our observations. What kinds of observations do you get? What do I get? What structure of the world would explain our observations? So it's. We're not removed from this whole thing. It there is, we have to understand how our observations interface with the theories that we're trying to build. And so that's the critical thing. And what's happened in science is we, in Newton, we ignored the observer.

[B]

Let me ask, do you think the universe was rendered prior to biological life?

[A]

The distinction between biological life and non biological life, non biological entities, is an artifact of the headset. I don't think it's a principal distinction. So the answer would then be, I guess, yes, it's prior to biology. I think that the distinction between living and non living is not principled. I think that it's an artifact of the limitations of our perceptual headset.

[B]

I'm going to remind you that you said that when we get to artificial intelligence, because I heard you say things about artificial intelligence that would have made me expect a different answer there. Okay, so we. You haven't said the thing yet, so I take the headset off.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And what's there, what is the fundamental structure?

[A]

What's really there is a bunch of observers interacting.

[B]

Okay. It's really that you would call conscious agents.

[A]

Yes, I'll call them conscious agents. But if someone, I should say if someone doesn't like to have consciousness fundamental, then I would just say observers. Just call them observing agents. That's all you need.

[B]

Okay. When I think of the words observing agent, I think most people are going to conjure like a thing that is maybe not conscious, but either is an AI entity, is a frog, is a human, is a mosquito. Like they're going to have some sense of like that or a ghost or an apparition or a God. Like they're, they're going to be so trapped in the words and images that they've seen that I fear that the metaphor is going to keep pulling them back into the headset and they're gonna have a very hard time getting to a more foundational truth. So it. I'll give. So yours is conscious agents. Final answer.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What do you believe? I get.

[A]

I think the thing that I should say that would probably be the most understandable to the widest audience is just simply, I have a mathematical notion of an observer as the foundational notion.

[B]

Give me the most obscure example of an observer.

[A]

So all, by the way, an observer is very, very simple. Imagine yourself sitting at a stoplight, and you're focused on the stoplight, and you can see red, green, or yellow. Yep. Here's a very, very simple observer that can see three colors, and for a while you see red, and then maybe it turns to green. Then maybe it turns to yellow. So for me, an observer is just simply an entity that can have a range of experiences like red, green, and yellow. And those experiences change. And that's literally all I mean by an observer.

[B]

It's the concrete that the light is shining on an observer.

[A]

Anything that you experience is an experience. That itself, the observer is the capacity to have experiences and have those experiences change. So anything that you see, like this table or my hand or concrete or a street, those would all be experiences that an observer can have. But. But the observer is really an entity that has the capacity to have a range of experiences. Maybe three, maybe a million. In the case of.

[B]

Do we agree that a photon detector is an observer?

[A]

So now we have to actually say, what's an observer versus what is a headset representation of an observer? So when I have.

[B]

Well, so we're talking about. The headset is off. This is what I'm trying to figure out.

[A]

Oh, okay.

[B]

And so you take the headset off. I. When you say conscious agent, I think I understand his position. I don't agree with it, but I understand his position. When you start going into the caveats, I. Then I'm projecting onto you now I'm like, oh, he's trying to get to what I think is the fundamental thing. But I won't know until I can pin you down on.

[A]

Right. So the fundamental thing is abstract. The fundamental thing is literally a set of possible experiences and a matrix that says, what's the probability of the changes of experiences? That's it.

[B]

Okay. So that's a mathematical chain.

[A]

It's a Markov chain, and it's abstract. So when you talk about a photon, a photon detector or something like that, that's a different thing. That's.

[B]

Now photons are already inside the headset.

[A]

That's already in the headset. That's right.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. But I was just trying to figure out if you would agree that that is because. Okay, let me briefly say what I think it is, and then let's do back and forth and see if we can figure something out. So I think the universe is computational. And I said I had a confession about when you take the headset off or when you exit the simulation. I think the second you exit the Matrix, in my language, you have to confront the only question that matters. Why is there something instead of nothing?

[A]

Right?

[B]

That, that is quite literally every science, every inquiry, every question, what are God's thoughts? All of it is going to wind up with, how is it possible that there is an unmoved mover, something that always was and always will be is just there? Like, it is very hard for us to grapple with. My only answer is I have no idea. So I'm. I am only attempting to grapple with, I'm in the Matrix. I don't think there's any way out. I don't think there is. Removing the headset and I will attempt to convince you of that in our time together today. So for me, part of what I'm trying to figure out is there's some set of assumptions that you have that make you interested in this whole conversation. And I think the ability to edit the code is part of what drives you. Whereas for me, the thing that drives me is understanding how the world works so that as a human, I know how to make the most of this experience.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Anyway, period. So my confession about what's outside the headset is so I can get people to understand, okay, we're in the Matrix, we're in the headset, and the only thing that matters is that the universe is computational in the exact same way that a video game is computational. The reason the universe is not locally real is for the same reason that a video game world, which feels gigantic to like, think about how big a Minecraft world is, is 8. 8 times the size of planet Earth. Once you take a measurement inside the game, say this is a meter in the game, and then compared to the size of Earth, it's about eight times bigger. So the worlds are just staggeringly large, yet it's all processed on one or two chips. And so it's things that feel disparate in the game are actually being processed in the exact same spot. So getting people to understand that, I think, is precisely why we're like, wait, how could this gigantic thing called space time communicate over distances that would require it to break the speed of light, but it's not actually because it's all being processed in the same place. So that is where I think, if you come back to that, that this is literally functioning like a video game. And video games are basically a simulation inside of a SIM simulation, right? Then it will all start to make sense. But the Second you ask, what's outside the simulation and can we access it? Then I'm like, that doesn't. It doesn't even make sense.

[A]

First would say, yes, I like your idea about computation being the driver of the interface. And the Markov chains are computationally universal. So anything that can be done with universal Turing machine can be done with Markov chains.

[B]

And really fast. I just want to explain. I had to look all this stuff up. So for anybody that's like, markov chain, what the hell is that?

[A]

Right?

[B]

I feel your pain. A Markov chain is the mathematics that explain how one thing transitions to another.

[A]

That's right. I guess the direction that would be helpful right now would be to point out that in the video game, say, Grand Theft Auto or something like that, right, you have a car that you're driving. You see a steering wheel, you have an avatar. You see your avatar hands gripping the wheel. You see other people driving their cars, you see their avatars, but you are not your avatar. You are outside the game altogether. You're sitting somewhere with a Coca Cola or something like that, playing the game. But the avatar in the game is not you. It looks like you. And if you get immersed in the game, then you can identify with the avatar temporarily. So you do want to learn how to play the game well, if you want to be an expert in the game. But you can also step back and say, there's a world entirely outside the game. And in the metaphor I'm pushing here is it's not only possible to say that, it's possible to actually look at the code. There is software outside of the virtual reality game, and science is eminently up to the task of getting that software and figuring it out. So that's what I'm up to. I'm saying, yes, I agree with you, Tom. We should learn how to live in the simulation, to live good lives, enjoy ourselves. But it's not at all hard to think about the possibility that we can step out of this, because I am not the Hoffman avatar. I transcend that. You're not the Tom avatar, whatever you are. The Tom avatar is a trivial headset projection of something far more interesting, far more powerful than the little Tom and the little Don that are sitting right here. These are little avatars stuck in the rules of this game. We transcend the game, and it's possible, because we transcend the game, for science to transcend space, time, and to actually find the first layer of software that's rendering this headset. And so the theoretical physicists are doing this right now, they're finding the positive geometries. They're still scratching their head. What does this mean? We're just starting, though. I'm proposing a Markov chain approach to this, which I'm saying this is a mathematically rigorous framework that will give us the software that can exactly render curved space time of Einstein, quantum field theory, non locality. All of these things will come out of a deeper layer of software. And it's eminently within the power of science to rigorously write down this first layer of software outside of these, outside of this game, outside of this VR game and show exactly how this VR game is rendered. And I want to do that simply because I'm a geek scientist and I just want to understand it. But you can easily see the technology that would come out of this because if you are the person. So if you're a wizard in Grand Theft Auto, you know how to drive the car as fast as you can in the rules of the game. And so you're the wizard in the game. But if you're just someone who can't drive very well, but you wrote the software, right? You couldn't actually play the game very well, but you wrote the software, you know the code. You can do stuff that's miraculous to the wizard. You can take the air out of his tires, you can take the gas out of his tank, you can make his car turn into a donkey and have him going five miles an hour. You can do anything. You can do miracles because you're not stuck in the game. You're not the avatar in the game. You transcend the game. And so that will be one of the big evidences from science that you are not your body. When we can actually transcend space time and play with space time, like a game writer can play with the game that they've written. So that's what I'm after. I'm saying. And then you can't think big enough about the technologies that will come out of it, right? If you can play with space time, you're not stuck inside the rules of space time. So Einstein's laws can't go faster than the speed of light. That's true in the headset. It's not true. If you're writing the code, you can do whatever you want. And if you can start to play with time and space because you know how they're rendered, then you can do miracles. So that's why I say all the technologies we have right now will look completely antiquated as soon as we get the first layer of software outside the headset. And there's absolutely no reason why science should be limited to space time mathematics. Absolutely none. And the reason is because you are not stuck in space. You're not an object in space time. Your mind, your abilities transcend space time because you yourself are rendering space time right now. So the proof of that will be when we actually write down the code, show how the space time is rendered, and then start to play with it like we're playing with a toy. That will really show.

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[A]

That's your view, right?

[B]

That's my view. And then there's the. Well, it's sort of you. But consciousness is one fundamental thing, and the you in the headset can't really be experienced outside of the headset. That's a headset only exclusive. And so I've heard you say dying is removing the headset and realizing that you're part of the one.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Okay. Does one of those accurately reflect your view, or is there a different.

[A]

I would say that the third one is the closest to my view.

[B]

Okay, but it's only close. It's not precise.

[A]

That's right. Well, put it this way. It's the closest that I can come right now to saying something precise about what I think.

[B]

Okay, so you know there's something wrong, but you're not yet sure what that

[A]

is in the following sense. That every scientific theory is always provisional. That my view is that every scientific theory starts with assumptions, and you know that that can't be the final word. So when I say I'm going to assume, as a scientist, I'm saying I'm going to assume that there is one consciousness and that it is usefully described by an infinite set of different kinds of Markov chains that are all related. And we can, in a way, we can talk about. So that's going to be my theory. So there is one consciousness, and it has all these complicated branchings into subconsciousnesses and even smaller subconsciousnesses. And that whole thing is the fundamental layer. And then from that, I can create our space, time. Three dimensions of space, one dimension of time. I could create one with five dimensions, a billion dimensions of space. I could create things.

[B]

Any headset that you can want is right now. And I'll trust you because I'm not sure what the answer is going to be. But is right now the right time to go into how consciousness gives birth to the mathematics that give us the artificial but useful within the headset? Space, time.

[A]

Sure. This is perfect. It's never going to be easy, but it's not.

[B]

So we'll put. Let's really pin down. So the closest thing that you can get to right now is that to take off the headset is to return to the one.

[A]

Right.

[B]

One. Consciousness. Consciousness is fundamental. There is nothing else.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Everything else is a layer on top of that. Right. Now, before we get to the mathematics, do you believe that the metaphor of the headset is meant to communicate something that is inherently computational?

[A]

I would think that's. That's perfectly fine. The, the idea that I've got is that there are all these conscious agents, but we can write down mathematically what. How we're going to describe them, and that mathematics allows us to think of them as computational. We don't reduce them.

[B]

So computational is a very important word to me in that. Computational is making clear that this is being run on something. That energy is somewhere being consumed in order to run. The. All the code that is going to say the Donald Hoffman inside of the headset has all of these different properties. The way your cells divide, the way that your DNA comes together to form your physical structure, that you're a part of the human species. Like, all of that has to be computed. And then there are things like physics and weight distribution, aging, all of that stuff goes into the you that's inside of the headset. So to me, when I say computational, that's what I'm talking about. It's mathematics. It's energy to run the computations. And you're taking inputs which have been coded somehow, some way. So this in your. If you say yes to this, what you're saying is consciousness writes computer code. And once that code is written, then it can be run, it can be computed quite literally. And that's why it has to be efficient, because so much effort from my thinking is that goes into making it efficiently computed. Does all of that feel true, or did I get something wrong?

[A]

That's all true from a perspective. So the idea would be that the very notion of computation of a universal Turing machine, a universal notion of computation.

[B]

Well, when you say a Turing machine, do you just mean inputs become outputs?

[A]

Well, it's. In computer science, we have the notion of automata theory and formal automata and hierarchy of them. And so we have a notion of the various kinds of levels of computational sophistication that you can have. And the ultimate is a universal Turing machine, which can compute anything.

[B]

And, and so what makes something a universal Turing machine?

[A]

It. Well, so this is. Alan Turing was The one who defined it. It has a. It's a machine that has a finite set of states and a finite set of transition rules, has a start state, a set of halt states. And you can show that if it has a certain level of complexity in the transition rules effectively, and if it hasn't potentially infinite tape, you have as much tape as you need for what you're doing, then it's in some sense computationally universal. Everything that can be computed can be computed by a universal Turing machine. And also the universal Turing machine can sort of simulate any particular Turing machine.

[B]

So basically, it has the rules by which it knows how to run the computations.

[A]

That's right. And it's what Turing did that was brilliant, was he made this very, very simple. He basically had a small set of states and a start state, some halt states, and then a set of transition rules. And in fact. So when I said that Markov chains are computationally universal, you can effectively model Turing's machines with a subset of Markov chains. So they include Turing's notion of computation as a subset of, of the possible Markov chains. So. So it's. Now, the notion that you were bringing up are very, very important physical notions about energy and time and the effort that's required for certain computations. But that will be now a headset, specific aspect of the computation as seen through a headset. So.

[B]

Yes, but remember, we're trying to get to you. We're trying to figure out how you define you.

[A]

Okay?

[B]

And what I'm saying is the computation is, is necessary to have any intelligible sense of you that people will understand. I think part of the reason that people find this conversation interesting is it's dealing with death. And so, hey, if I'm in a computational universe, maybe I can transcend this. Maybe there's a way for me to get out of the matrix. Maybe there's a way for me to skip around on my code and be young again or whatever. Yes, I have a whole story that one day I will tell you about a guy that is obsessed with figuring out if you can flip the database entry for him, it's on his wife from zero, which means dead to one for alive.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And I think this is all what haunts people and. Or what makes this conversation so interesting.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And where I always terminate is that there is no getting out of the quote unquote matrix. Because at some point you have to accept, computational or not, we are biological creatures. And I can completely disrupt who you think you are with chemicals. So imagine what I can do with a chemical that can make your ego feel like it's dissolving. Now imagine how startling it would be to not even be computational in nature anymore. You're just one with the consciousness. Like that would be. So it wouldn't be you. Like, part of what makes you you is that you're scared of spiders or that you love ketchup or, you know, whatever. All of that is gone. And so what would it even mean to say you at that point?

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And that's where it's like, I want to start drawing distinctions. One, because I think it makes the. The setup of what this is, what's possible, what's not possible. We can actually have the conversation. But then it also brings up the sort of finiteness of the you factor. So, for instance, some people will find great relief from death anxiety at uploading their consciousness. But once they really think about it, they'll realize they have no experiential connection with that duplication. So it would be the exact same as cloning you. But you can't experience the clone. The clone's gonna go do its thing and be its own separate entity that has literally nothing to do with you other than from a starting point, you guys are identical. And so that's where I want to really ground this.

[A]

Very good. Great points. So I. I would say a couple things. I'll put something out there that's sort of stunning to start off with. I'm a cognitive neuroscientist, and I will claim that I have no neurons unless they're observed. The rendering thing that you were talking about before. So my body.

[B]

Let me stress test that. I would say that you don't believe you have no neurons. I think what you really mean is they are encoded. They're just not running. So the computation to make them turn an input into an output is dormant.

[A]

And so there. We might disagree, because I'm actually saying, like, retinal ganglion cells, that's a kind of neuron that's in me. Retinal ganglion cells do not exist unless they're perceived. They literally do not exist. There is.

[B]

Let me try one more time in a different way.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

When you think of computer code, and that code turns into a character, right? I will agree that we're simulating eyeballs or we're simulating vision, we're simulating sound. And so you could certainly say that the eyes, they're not real at all ever. But what I'm getting at is, are you saying that those never exist? So those cells never never exist and they are merely a simulated thing.

[A]

That's. That's right. They. If some neuroscientist looked inside my brain with some kind of correct apparatus, they would see neurons. Yes, and that would be their perception. Those neurons would exist only in their perception and they were actually never my neurons. So. So I'm literally saying the render is really a render and nothing is there. So the chemical, we talk about chemicals in space and time and so forth, neurons, I'm saying those absolutely do not exist except in the instant of a render. So if a neuroscientist opens a brain and looks, then that neuroscientist has neural experiences and that's all that neurons are.

[B]

Do you think what we're actually dealing

[A]

with is something much different than neurons,

[B]

but is the non visual mathematics of the neurons firing still running and that's what makes you, you, and it's just the visual layer that fails to render? Or are you saying that the, the thing we call Donald Hoffman is entirely a broadcast signal that is received and that's what animates you?

[A]

I would say that, that Hoffman is a particular rendering program that other people can see and that I experience and that I'm not. Fundamentally, I don't. Most of us identify with our bodies and with the things that are going through our head. But if you start a meditation process, for example, and you start to just go into silence and you just start to look at your emotions and you look at all the things that are so important to you, and you look and you find that you can just sort of step back and say, well, I thought that that was me. I thought that the love of doing this particular thing, which I still love, was me. Well, no, I can step back and I can look at that and say, that is something I could do or not do, but I am not that. I transcend that. So when you actually spend time just looking at yourself, all the things that you think are you, you can step back and say, no, I am more like the silence that's looking at all this stuff. I'm looking at my love of basketball, I'm looking at my love of eating whatever it is. I like to eat some pancakes or something like that. I can look at all the things that I think are. Or I'm an entrepreneur and this is really, really important to me. That's who I am. I can look at that. And so you know what I did, that I can walk away from it. That's not who I am. So there is a sense in which when you Go into complete silence and just watch all the emotions, watch all the thoughts and watch other people's emotions and thoughts. You realize, yeah, we're sort of lost in the game. That's not you, that's you lost in the game. And I can step back and just say, okay, well how is the game rendered? How am I getting sucked in? I'm not a little thing trapped in the game. I am capable of stepping back, looking at the whole game, disidentifying. So for me, being a professor, doing all the academic stuff, very, very important, getting papers published, I can look back at that and go, well, you know what? I did that. That's not me. It was important to me. I thought it was me for a long time. I identified with it. My whole personal identity was tied up with it. But you know what? At one point I was tied up with toys in the sandbox as a 5 year old. And if someone stole my toy, I fell apart. I was destroyed because someone stole my toy. But now I can step back and go, oh no, that was just that rendering of me. And you know, I went through that render and I can step back. So even my most advanced scientific stuff that I want to do, that's not me, that's just me playing in a sandbox with some toys. And so I can always step back. So my idea is really we transcend this so much that we can actually, we're smart enough that we can actually figure out the code that's rendering us and what we thought is ourselves in this thing. We can actually render that code. And if we do that, I mean, here's the proof, right? I'm claiming an empirical thing, we will be able to understand the first layer of software outside of space time. We will be able to build space time. We will be able to build models that work completely inside space time. And once we know how to do that, we will have technologies that will look like magic. We will not be bound by the speed of light. We will not be bound by the rules of the game. Because we now understand the software behind the game. We're no longer the players in the game. We transcend the game. So I'm claiming Tom transcends spacetime. Whatever Tom is, is not stuck in this body, is not stuck in the entrepreneur game at all. Tom transcends that completely. But for some reason, this one consciousness chooses to go in with both feet, go into the avatar, get lost, completely identify with the kid and the 5 year old in the sandbox and the toys, and really cry when someone steals my Toys really cry when my paper doesn't get published, really cry when someone dies, really. So I really, I'm in the game. But then I can step back and go, wow, that was a perspective on the deeper me. Whatever I am, I'm really glad I spent 70, 80, 90 years as Tom Bilyeu. But now I'm stepping out. That was a, that was a great ride.

[B]

Do you think you'll have memories of that?

[A]

I don't see why you shouldn't be able to have the memories and look at them. Just like I have a memory of being a five year old crying because someone stole my toy in the sandbox.

[B]

What is the mechanism by which memories are formed?

[A]

Well, of course, inside space time, we would talk about synaptic connections and so forth. So in the headset we would use that kind of thing in neuroscience. In the Markov chain model that I am working on, it would be in the memory of the transition probabilities of these matrices.

[B]

But how would you store that memory? If I have a Ferrari and then I completely disassemble it and I make a blender and if I go to the blender and I say that blender is a dope car, right, that people be like, that's nonsensical. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, but it's the same parts from the Ferrari. And then people be like, sure, but it doesn't drive. And so the thought that those are the same thing, like, like, not really. So for me, the one consciousness just is completely unrelated to these. You're going to hate this language, these skin suits that it wears inside of the headset. And you may have an image of the one consciousness that is so radically different than what I'm imagining, that will just never be able to really have the same conversation. But to me, it, we are our biology. And so the second you tell me I transcend my biology, I'm like, oh, it's not me. And while I agree with you on all of the, like, we'll be able to do things that are magical. But for instance, if I went in and gave myself, you know, 190 IQ, I'm not me anymore because I'm not a guy with 190 IQ. And so the second I began interfacing with the world in that fundamentally different way, my personality would just be fundamentally mentally different. And so would there be remnants? Would there be things that I recognize or somebody else recognizes? Maybe there might be overlap. But it's like that stuff, if I'm a mosquito, I'm not Me like it's just the way that data is processed is so fundamentally different. So that's where I'm like, I don't think you remains a coherent statement. In the same way that you say below the Planck scale, space time is just incoherent. I would say the concept of you is incoherent outside of the headset.

[A]

Well, I think that's a, an interesting and reasonable point of view. I would just say that if you look back at your life, the five year old Tom, five year old Don, had what they thought they were things that were very, very important to them. That if you said, look, you take these toys away from me, take my sandbox away from me, you've destroyed my world and what else is there?

[B]

Have you ever met anybody with Alzheimer's disease?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Do you think of them as the same person?

[A]

I, I think of them as someone who's had their headset destroyed and they're not able to, to use this particular headset.

[B]

So the headset version though, do you think of them as the same headset version?

[A]

No, but then I don't. So I agree they're not the same. But I also would would say that, that whoever they are transcends their body and their Alzheimer's, just like you and I transcend our 5 year old and our 10 year old and our 15 year old versions of ourselves. All of those. When I was 15, there were things that were very important to me at 15 that are just not important to me now. Things that I would say were absolutely essential, that I'd now smile and say, well, yes, when you were 15 that was important, that was absolutely essential. It's not now, it's not important at all. And so the things that I currently think are very important as an adult, I now think now have arrived. No, I've not arrived. This is just another step along the way. This is the one consciousness looking at itself from an infinite number of perspectives. I think that's what's really going on. There is one consciousness, it transcends anything. So it just looks at itself from an infinite number of perspectives and goes, oh, let me really look at myself as a five year old Don in the sandbox. Oh, now let me look as a 15 year old Tom doing a teenage thing and let me look at myself in all these different ways and enjoy that, get lost in it and then wake up and go, oh, I did that. I'm glad I did that. I learned a little bit about me, my transcendence effectively by doing all those different things. So I would put it this way, Tom, the way I look at right now is right now Tom and Don. There's really just one consciousness through two different avatars. There's a Tom avatar and a Dawn avatar that are talking and they're two different perspectives that the one is taking. And it's enjoying the process of looking at itself through a Tom lens and a Dawn lens, playing with those perspectives. And at some point it will say no, well I've done that enough, now I'll do something else.

[B]

That's it for part one. Make sure you are subscribed so you do not miss part two. Coming up soon. Let's talk about a pattern that is guaranteed to be killing your progress. You know what you need to do. You need consistent nutrition. We all do. You need vitamins, probiotics, greens. We all know that we should be doing more of it. When your morning gets chaotic, you skip it. When you travel, you skip it. When your routine breaks, everything tends to break and that inconsistency compounds against you every single day. AG1 is designed to solve the execution problem. One scoop 8 ounces of water and you're done. You're getting 75 plus ingredients, vitamins and minerals, pre and probiotics, nutrient dense superfoods, everything that used to require six, seven different supplements and perfect planning now happens in one drink that takes about 30 seconds to make. Right now, AG1 is giving you $87 worth of free gifts with your first subscription. You get a welcome kit, travel packs, vitamin D3 plus K2 and flavor samples. Click the link in the show notes or visit drinkag1.comimpact to claim this offer.

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