All language subtitles for Through.the.Wormhole.S01E01.HDTV.XviD-FQM

Colossal beauty.

Awe-inspiring intricacy.

Are the wonders of our universe
a cosmic accident

or the result
of intelligent design?

For centuries, religion
and science were bitter foes.

Now science actively searches
for our creator.

Some physicists think
he's hidden in the math.

Neurologists think
she might be in our brains.

And computer coders believe God
is one of them

and that our world is nothing
more than his simulation.

Through the Wormhole 1x01
with Morgan Freeman
Is There a Creator?
Original air date on June 9, 2010

Space.

Time.

Life itself.

The secrets of the cosmos
lie through the wormhole.

Through the Wormhole 1x01
with Morgan Freeman
Is There a Creator?
Original Air Date on June 9, 2010

-- sync, corrected by elderman --
-- for www.Addic7ed.Com --

every culture claims a God,

an all-powerful entity

that created the world
and directs our fate.

But why do we share this belief
in a cosmic creator?

Did we dream it up to serve
a need in our psyche or culture?

Is God really out there --

up there?

This is a journey
into the science of God.

I promise you
it's quite a trip.

Some of what we'll find
almost defies belief.

Sometime in the early '70s,

I bought my daughter
an ant farm.

She soon got bored, but not me.

I was memorized
by this little menagerie

squeezed between two panes
of glass.

And I wondered, what could
they ever know about me,

the one who built their world?

What can we ever learn
about who or what created us,

stranded as we are
in this colony of humanity?

For as long as scientists

have struggled to understand
our place in the universe,

there have been those who've
hoped to get a glimpse of God.

400 years ago, the great
astronomer Galileo Galilei

had a ground-breaking insight.

Nature's grand book is written
in the language of mathematics.

From that time to this,

scientific geniuses
like Newton and Einstein

used math to dig deep
into the workings of nature,

to search for God

through the equations that
defined the laws of physics.

The latest mind hoping
to join these illustrious ranks

is Garrett Lisi.

The universe

can very successfully
be described mathematically.

You have to imagine
how the world's working

in a certain circumstance

and then use reason
and mathematics

to develop a description
of how that might be happening.

But it's imagination

that breaks the trail
before reason enters.

After earning his Phd,

Garrett escaped
the confines of academia

in search of adventure
and a space in which to think.

Rather than go into
a normal academic-track job,

I just split off for Maui,
became a surf bum,

and did the research
I wanted to --

mostly spent time doing
physics research and surfing.

But all of our attempts
to understand nature

so far have been fragmentary.

There's one set of rules
for tiny atoms,

another for giant objects
like stars and galaxies.

And the two sets of math
don't fit together.

What physicists like Lisi seek

is a single, overarching theory,

a mathematical design
that explains everything.

Garrett thinks
he may at last have found

this theory of everything.

And if he's right, God could be
one heck of a mathematician.

Garrett's work is
at a leading edge of physics.

Before we plunge
into this mind-bending math,

we first need to back up a bit,

because it's possible

there's already evidence
for a creator in the math.

Andy Albrecht
is a leading cosmologist.

Hello, how are you?

He's also
a renowned chocoholic.

I'll have the chocolate soufflé
and a latte.

Just as a perfect
chocolate soufflé

relies on a precise mixture
of ingredients

baked at a specific temperature
for an exact time,

so our universe
looks the way it does

because of a precise balance
between four fundamental forces.

The four forces we know and love

in the world around us

are gravity,
electromagnetism --

those you've probably heard of.

Then there's also the weak force
and the strong force.

They're a little bit
more specialized

but absolutely essential

to make the world work
the way it does.

Gravity, in many ways,

is the force we know first.

We try to walk,
and we fall down.

That's because of gravity.

When you carry something
a little too heavy and it falls,

it's because of gravity.

Electromagnetism tells us
how the chemistry works.

When you cook something,
the energy you use

is ultimately
electromagnetic energy.

Weak force is about
a billion times less strong

than electromagnetism,

and it's responsible
for radioactivity.

The potassium in a banana
is radioactive.

If the rate were too high,
it could destroy us.

The sun is basically
a nuclear reactor.

The strong forces release energy
in the nuclear reactions.

One of the remarkable things
is, when you add it all up,

all these forces have to be
exactly the way they are

for life as we know it
to exist.

Change any one of them,
dial the parameters,

and something will go wrong --

the planet will disappear,

the sun will shut down,

the DNA will come unraveled.

Some people call it
the Goldilocks paradigm --

not too much, not too little,
everything's just right.

Oh, that's perfect.

Some physicists believe

this precise calibration
of forces is evidence of God.

Dr. John Polkinghorne did
pioneering work on the quark,

a fundamental
subatomic particle.

He is also a knight commander
of the British Empire, a Sir.

And after a lifetime

of distinguished
scientific inquiry,

he was inspired to follow
a new line of work...

As a priest.

I do indeed believe in God,
yes, indeed.

Yes, in fact,
I'm an Anglican priest,

so it would be rather shocking
if I didn't.

Those four fundamental forces
are the portfolio of things

that bring about the physical
processes of the world.

And a very interesting fact
about the world

is that those forces,

in their specific strengths
that they have,

have to be very close
to what we actually observe

if we were to be here
to observe them,

because it turns out
that only a world

whose forces are very similar
to the ones that we experience

would be capable of producing
carbon-based life.

John finds it
difficult to imagine

that the fine-tuning
of our universe

has happened by accident,

that there is no divine hand
behind it.

This fine-tuning makes it clear
we don't live in any old world.

We live in
a very particular universe.

And why is that?
Why are we so lucky?

Of course,
religious belief offers you

a very straightforward
and attractive explanation.

But scientists are split

over whether this balance
of forces

is a sign of intelligent design.

In fact,
it could be nothing more

than a roll of the cosmic dice.

Dr. Alan Guth is
a revered figure in cosmology.

His theory of inflation

is the accepted idea of how
the early universe formed.

Inflation says that
right after the big bang,

the universe expanded
phenomenally fast,

doubling in size 100,000 times
in just a fraction of a second.

Inflation helps explain

how the world we know could
have come into existence.

But inflation has another
head-spinning implication --

there ought to be
more than one universe.

An important feature
of this process of inflation

is that when inflation stops,

it doesn't stop
all over at the same time.

What tends to happen
is it stops in some places,

and those then become universes.

And elsewhere, in what we now
call a multiverse,

inflation would go on,

and only later, more pocket
universes would form.

And there can be an infinite
number of these pocket universes

formed altogether
by this process

that we call eternal inflation.

The point is that
if there really is a multiverse,

we would be living in just one
of these many pocket universes.

That could be, for example,
our universe right there.

Each of these pocket universes

could have different laws
of physics.

In our universe,

the four forces are aligned
in a perfect way.

Together, they allow life
to coalesce and flourish.

But each pocket universe
in Alan's multiverse

could have a completely
different balance of forces.

Maybe electromagnetism
is weaker,

and perhaps gravity is
way more powerful.

The result --

an entirely different universe
with no chance of human life.

To Alan, our universe

is not carefully crafted
by a divine being.

It's just a lucky roll
in a cosmic crap shoot.

This debate for and against
an intelligently designed cosmos

has raged inside the world
of physics for decades.

And that's where Garrett Lisi
comes in.

A single mathematical theory
to explain everything

could bring science
closer than ever

to understanding our creation.

And right now,
it's all in the head

of a beach bum in Hawaii.

One universe.

Four forces.

Billions of galaxies.

The precision and complexity
of our world

is enough to make
even the sanest cosmologist

go just a little bit crazy.

How does it all fit together?

Is there a single, overarching
design to the cosmos?

And if we find it,

will we glimpse
the mind of God?

Scientists have spent decades
and billions of dollars

on this quest.

They've build giant
atom-smashing machines to probe

how the four fundamental forces
actually work.

They've found that
down at the microscopic level,

billions of times
smaller than atoms,

forces are actually caused

by the movement
of tiny particles.

Electromagnetism
is carried by photons.

The strong force is carried
by particles called gluons,

the weak force by particles
called the "w" and "z" bosons.

But they've never found
the force carriers for gravity,

the elusive gravitons.

And that's where their efforts

to unify
the math of the universe

are stuck treading water.

But renegade physicist and
compulsive surfer Garrett Lisi

could be on the cusp
of succeeding.

Right after people got the idea

that there were these
electromagnetic, weak,
and strong forces,

which was
toward the end of the '70s,

almost immediately people saw
how they fit together

to make a grand unified theory
unifying those three forces.

Now, it's much trickier

to try to bring gravity
into the picture

because it's slightly different.

Tricky is an understatement.

The greatest minds in physics
have all but given up

on unifying gravity
and its unseen gravitons

with the other three forces.

But then Garrett had a vision,

a vision of twisted circles.

I was working on just how this
whole algebraic structure

fit together, of gravity
and the other forces,

and I started to wonder
if this thing

could be understood as a whole,

if this entire structure
could be described

as part
of some larger lie group.

A lie group
is a mathematical shape

that is a collection of circles
twisting around each other

in a specific pattern.

Now, the simplest lie group
is just a circle.

Now, if you take a second circle

and you wrap it
around that inner circle,

keeping it perpendicular,
you get what's called a torus.

It looks like the surface
of a doughnut.

But if you take a third circle

and keep that perpendicular
to the other two,

and you Twist it
around the inner circle

as you wrap it around,

you can get all three
of those circles

to Twist around each other

to form
a three-dimensional shape.

But this is only the beginning.

Garrett kept on twisting circles
around one another

until he'd done it 248 times.

The end result is a shape
so complex

that it can't even be
fully appreciated

in three dimensions.

It's called the e8 lie group.

To us, it's just
a mind-bending pattern.

But Garrett Lisi realized

the way the circles
twisted around one another

looked just like the way various
fundamental particles interact.

In physics, each one of
these circles can be associated

with a different kind
of elementary particle.

One circle could correspond
to electrons.

The other circles
could correspond

to the force particles,

such as photons
or weak-force particles

or strong-force particles,
the gluons.

For months,

Garrett turned this kaleidoscope
over and over in his mind.

And then it hit him.

He found a set of circles

that seemed to act like
the never-yet-seen graviton.

And for the first time
in the history of physics,

a mere mortal saw
how gravity might fit in

with all the other forces
and particles.

You know, seeing how gravity
could be combined

with these other lie groups
during this unification

was one of the greatest moments
of my life.

Dr. Lee Smolin
is a world-renowned physicist.

He's watching with keen interest

as Lisi struggles
with his attempt

to put all the forces of nature

into a single
mathematical framework.

My view
of Garrett Lisi's work

is that he's doing something

which is very high risk,
high payoff.

If he's right
or if even something

in the direction
that he's going down is right,

it's very important

because it's
a kind of hypothesis

that most of us
have given up working for --

that is, a unique unification

within a beautiful
mathematical structure.

Garrett calls

this dizzying
geometrical relationship

between all the particles
and forces in the universe

an exceptionally simple theory
of everything.

It predicts several
as yet undiscovered particles.

And scientists across the world

are on the hunt for those
right now.

One is the most sought-after
particle in all of physics,

the Higgs Boson.

There are some parts
that are in this larger group

that are not clearly these
elementary particle forces.

But what they are is
exactly what you need

to describe the higgs field.

And the Higgs field is
this geometric particle field

that gives mass to all known
elementary particles.

And it's exactly the missing
puzzle piece you need

to tie everything together.

The center
of the action in the Higgs hunt

is halfway around the world
from Garrett's beaches.

In the cooler but no less scenic
city of Geneva, Switzerland,

researchers are peering

through the most advanced
scientific microscope

in human history --

the LHC,
or Large Hadron Collider.

They're throwing everything they
have at finding the Higgs Boson,

the particle that is supposed
to give everything mass.

But they should also be able
to detect

some of those new particles
predicted by Garrett Lisi.

If they do exist,

the exceptionally simple theory
of everything

could finally offer a blueprint
of the entire universe.

This dizzying geometry
might also be divine geometry,

a unified math
that created you, me,

the sun, the stars,

everything
in the known universe.

It would be another
important factor showing us

that we live in a world
of wonderful order,

and that is highly suggestive
that that is because it is

a creation with a divine mind
behind it.

The irony is

that the man who's taking us
so close to the creator

is not himself a believer.

It's much more satisfying
to me that this bit of geometry

could have come into existence

than to imagine
some complicated creator

with some sort of personality
and complex structure

brought this simple thing
into existence.

Garrett's mind-bending search

could be getting closer,

or it could all be a bust.

There's a process
of give and take,

of construction and criticism,
that makes science work.

And it depends on courage
and audacity to get started.

And a thing that I admire about

is that Lisi
has that courage and audacity,

which doesn't mean
I think he's right, okay?

But I think that people have
to propose ideas

of the ambition of this idea

if we are ever to solve
these big problems.

Garrett Lisi
may be the first man

to discover
the mathematics of creation,

succeeding where great minds
like Einstein failed.

But what if he's wrong?

Or, worse, what if there is no
math that unifies the universe?

Well, that wouldn't trouble
this man,

because he believes
that the creator

is not out there in the cosmos.

He believes God exists
inside our minds

and that he might be able
to summon him

by throwing a switch.

For thousands of years,

we have meditated, fasted,
and communed.

We have prayed and chanted

to make contact
with the divine.

But what if all you need

is a magnet on the right
hemisphere of your brain

to see God?

This is Dominica.

She's a nursing student
in Sudbury, Ontario.

She's about to experience God.

Dominica is not a visionary

or a priest or a nun

or even particularly religious.

I do believe in God.

However, I don't believe

that you have to go into church
to talk to him

'cause he's everywhere.

Dominica has agreed
to participate

in what she has been told is
a simple relaxation experiment.

And this is the man

who's going to lead Dominica
into the light,

Dr. Michael Persinger.

He runs
the mind consciousness lab

in the basement
of the science building

at Laurentian University.

Our primary research is involved

with understanding
the relationship

between brain structure
and function and experience.

And more specifically, is there
a biological and brain basis

to some of the concepts
that are called

the God belief
and the God experience?

Dr. Persinger
is a neuroscientist.

He believes that God
resides in our brains.

In fact, he even thinks he knows
in which part of the brain.

One of the things we were
really excited about was

what's the brain basis
sense of self?

After all, that's the great
human definition -- who we are.

And we knew it was tied

to language
and left-hemispheric processes.

But then we asked the question

what's the right-hemisphere
equivalent?

So we have this second sense
in the right hemisphere.

And when you experience it,

it's called the sense presence.

And we think that's the
prototype of the God experience.

All he has to do
to create this God experience

is place this yellow helmet
on his subject's head.

He calls it the God helmet.

Okay, so we're gonna
put on the helmet.

Our approach was very simple --

if you want to study the brain,

then let's look at the brain

in the laboratory
with an experiment.

Just follow the experience

and let it come to you,
all right?

Okay.

After putting Dominica

into a sealed chamber
with no light,

the research team will monitor
her brain-wave activity

for one hour.

In a few minutes,
Dominica's brain waves

start to order themselves
into a relaxed pattern.

Then Dr. Persinger activates
a magnetic coil

sitting over the right side
of her brain.

It's no more powerful
than a hair dryer,

but it's designed
to focus its energy

on a small set of brain cells
in the right temporal lobe.

Those cells, he believes,

will stimulate in Dominica

a sense that someone
or something is present.

We hypothesize

that, as the human being
developed the ability

to forecast
their own self-dissolution,

their own death,

which is tremendously
anxiety-generating,

that another concept emerged

which allowed
that anxiety to be reduced.

And whatever that concept was,
it had certain parameters.

It had to be infinite
and forever and everywhere.

Otherwise it would have an end.

If you have an end,
then you have anxiety.

So there had to be a concept

inculcated
within the brain itself

that there is something
out there that goes on forever.

And if you somehow relate to it
and can be a part of it,

the idea of anxiety
becomes a nonevent.

Dr. Persinger believes

the efforts of our brains'
right temporal lobe

to relieve the anxiety of death

is what we sense when we think
we are sensing the divine.

And he's designed his God helmet

to produce that sense
on demand.

Dominica?

Yes?

Okay, I'm about ready
to come in. Just relax.

For one hour,

Dominica has been shut
inside the chamber

without light or sound,

alone with her thoughts...

And perhaps also with God?

You said you felt
the presence of something.

Yeah, there's, like,
other things around me.

Okay,
can you describe them?

Not -- there were
just bodies of nothing,

not doing anything,
just chilling.

How many
were just chilling?

Um...

She actually counted them.

You see her move her hand?
Yeah.

She was
actually recreating it.
Yeah.

More than 80%
of Dr. Persinger's subjects,

whether they are
religious believers or not,

sense a presence
from the God helmet.

When the right
hemisphere is being stimulated,

she felt a presence
of things around her,

five entities
that were faceless.

I can see, like,
down my body was,

like, up more so I could
only see, like, above.

How -- above?

Yeah.
Okay.

She had these marked,
intense feelings

of visual sensations in the --
always the upper visual field.

Did you notice that?

That's typical of the temporal
lobe being activated.

I see
you checked here that,

"the experiences did not come
from my own mind."

Can you describe that?

I was, like,
watching myself.

So it wasn't
me feeling like --

I was watching myself
lying on the road.

I didn't feel like my head
was attached to me.

You felt like what?
My head wasn't attached.

Okay, so you felt like your head
was attached somewhere else?

Yeah.
Okay.

Now, also it says you saw
vivid images this time.

Yeah, there's, like,

heat coming up,
like fire coming up around.

Which one
did you like the best,

the first or the second?
The first one.

You liked the first one?
Okay.

I want to float again.
That was cool.

Okay, well.

I'm not too much liking
the fire part, the second one,

but I don't know.

The first one
was awesome.

She had a classic experience
that takes place in the chamber.

Now imagine what that would be

if she was sitting
in a church pew

or a synagogue or a mosque

or, for that matter,
laying by herself at night

in the middle of her bed,
and this happened.

Can you imagine
how she would label it

and the impact it would have
on her entire life?

There we go.

Dr. Persinger's work

raises
the extraordinary possibility

not just that spiritual
experiences can be induced,

but that some

of the most intense and
influential religious visions

in history
may have their root

in nothing more than the wiring
of the human brain.

Abraham,

Moses,

native American shamans --

almost all religious leaders
and spiritual guides

have attested
that they were struck

by vivid and thunderous messages
from the creator himself.

In the history
of religious experience,

many of the great
religious thinkers

have had electrical ability
in the temporal lobe.

Luther, as you know,
who started Lutheranism,
was struck by lightning.

These are brief events that have
a powerful impact on people

during those critical times
of their life.

And, really, the great challenge
to science --

and this is the exciting part --

is not so much the fact

that the brain's generating
the experiences --

is what are the stimuli?

You've seen a few examples
of the crude stimuli,

when we apply magnetic Fields.

But what about natural stimuli?

What about stimuli

that are manufactured
or manipulated by societies?

What about intrinsic
chemical changes?

And what about all those stimuli
we don't know yet

that can produce
the most powerful experience

in the history of humankind,
the God experience?

For thousands of years,

billions of humans
have built their lives

around the cherished idea

that a creator is out there
looking down on them,

caring for them,

a God who is both creator
and protector.

Dr. Persinger's God helmet
forces us to consider

a radical reimagining
of human experience.

God may not have created us.

He may not be protecting us.

God may simply be in our minds.

But one scientist
has an even more radical take

on the creator,

one that flips Dr. Persinger's
theory on its head.

This time, it's God that's real
and we that are imaginary.

Our creator may actually be
a cosmic computer coder,

and we might be nothing more
than a simulation.

The search for God continues.

Will we find him hidden in the
deepest recesses of our brain?

Or can we uncover the creator
in a mathematical theory?

Let's take a closer look

at perhaps the strangest
possibility of all.

We'll start here.

Will Wright is a creator...

Of one universe, at least.

In the blockbuster hit
video game "The Sims,"

this software genius
created a world

filled with digital people not
too different from you and me.

Well, the Sims
inside the computer

really are digital recreations.

They're simulations of humans.

And so we basically have
to describe to the computer

all the kind of overall aspects

that we think, you know,
encompass humanity.

I think humans are very good

at displacing
our identity into others.

We call that empathy.

And so a lot of the game
is based

around the empathy that you're
feeling with the Sims

so that what
they experience basically is

what you're experiencing
at one level removed.

But consider this.

How much empathy do you think
you could feel with this SIM...

And how much with this one?

The rate of increase
in computing power

that we've seen
in the past few decades

shows no sign of abating.

And the level of realism
of computer simulations

is bound to keep pace with that.

When our Sims look as real
as our friends,

won't the lines

separating our real lives
from our virtual lives

begin to blur?

Computers and games
and simulations

are kind of on this path
of increased reality.

You can see this
in computer graphics and movies.

As we experience these things

at these very granular levels
of detail,

again, these experiences,
I think,

are starting to blur the line

between real experiences
and virtual experiences.

Well, who's to say
we're not there already?

One scientist

from the Jet Propulsion Lab
in Pasadena, California,

believes we might be

and that the evidence
could be all around us.

Rich Terrile has helped design
missions to Mars,

discovered four new moons around
Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus,

and taken pictures
of a distant solar system.

He has a logical mind
and a love for technology.

Now he's bringing that logic
to a bigger question --

who or what is the creator?

For a god-centered universe,
one has to think,

well, first, what are
the requirements for God?

God is an interdimensional being

connected with everything
in the universe,

a creator responsible
for the universe,

and, in some way,

can change the laws of physics
if he wanted to.

I think those
are pretty good requirements

for what God ought to be.

Terrile thinks
those requirements for God,

making the laws of the universe
and changing things at will,

sound an awful lot
like what programmers do

when they create
simulated environments.

And then he started thinking

about how much computing power
it would take

to create our world, our planet,

all its life,
and all of our brains.

Moore's law is
that computational power

tends to double about
every two years or 18 months.

Actually, in the last 18 years,

it's been doubling
every 13 months.

Right now, the fastest computers
on the planet

are now comparable
or even exceeding

the computational ability of the
human brain as we estimate it.

That's about one million billion
operations per second.

Where it's taking us is that in
the next year, that'll double.

In the next decade,

that'll increase
by a factor of 500.

So a decade from now,
our supercomputers will be

about 500 times faster
than the human brain.

Rich is sure that
computers a decade from now

will be able to create
a photoreal simulation

of all that we see around us.

But can a computer
ever populate a simulated world

with thinking beings like us?

The answer is inside this box.

Suppose I have a box.

And in the box I've got,
you know, a human brain,

which is the mind, or a person,

and I've got a laptop computer.

The human brain
and a laptop computer

are about the same weight.

They're about the same volume.

And they take
about the same amount of power.

Yet the human brain is about
100,000 times more powerful

than a current-day laptop.

Well, suppose this is a laptop
computer from 50 years from now,

and I have them both in the box,

and I start asking them
questions,

and I don't know
which one is answering.

If I can't tell the difference

between a human being
answering questions

and a computer
answering questions,

then, qualitatively,
they're equivalent.

And if I believe that the human
is conscious and self-aware,

I must also believe that the
machine has the same qualities.

Once computers have the power

to simulate
artificially intelligent beings

inside a photorealistic
representation of planet earth,

the ramifications
are truly profound.

Suppose we have
an enormous simulation

and we're simulating
artificial intelligence.

We created this universe.

We're able to change
the laws of physics.

We're able to do all the things,

all of those requirements
that we put on God.

We're on the brink
of creating worlds

inside the computers,

filling them
with sentient beings,

and becoming their gods.

But this is not where Rich Terrile's
quest for the creator ends.

The next step
is truly mind-bending.

He believes that if science
shows God can exist,

than maybe he already does.

Maybe we are the Sims

and our creator is sitting at
the controls of a supercomputer.

The rise of the machines
is close at hand.

Already, computers
are taking over many

of the day-to-day functions
in our world.

Are they already in charge?

Is our creator some kind
of cosmic computer genius?

Rich Terrile thinks
we might be living

in some kind
of giant simulation,

that our creator might be using

a supercomputer
with godlike powers.

And he thinks he's found
evidence for it in nature.

There is
one surefire way to tell

if you're looking
at a computer simulation.

Zoom in.

Every computer-generated image,
no matter how realistic,

breaks down into pixels
when you get close enough.

You might think this doesn't
happen in the real world,

but you'd be wrong.

In the past century,

physicists have discovered

that matter really is made
of tiny, little pixels,

fundamental,
indivisible particles

billions of times smaller
than an atom.

The theory that explains
all this, quantum mechanics,

applies not just to matter,
but to the entire universe.

Look at the way
the universe behaves.

It's quantized.
It's made of pixels.

And it's made
of individual atoms.

Space is quantized.
Time is quantized.

Energy is quantized.

Everything is made
of individual pixels,

which means the universe has
a finite number of components,

which means it has
a finite number of states,

which means it's computable.

Quantum mechanics means

it's possible
everything we see

could really be produced

by lines of code
inside a powerful computer.

But are there any signs

the universe is
actually being computed?

In the physics lab at Caltech,

an experiment
that's now almost 100 years old

offers a vital clue.

We're in a small room
at the physics lab at Caltech,

looking at an experiment that
was originally done in 1928.

This experiment takes
an electron beam

and transmits it
through a piece of graphite.

And what we're looking at
is the electrons

kind of going through
the graphite

and forming this
kind of diffuse blob.

Now, an interesting thing is,

when we focus the beam
on the graphite,

we find a very,
very interesting pattern.

The experiment consists of a gun

which fires electrons
at a target of graphite atoms

and a collecting screen

to record
how they ricocheted off it.

If this apparatus
was scaled up a billion times

and the gun fired real bullets,

the pattern
on the collecting screen

would just be a random smear
of bullet holes.

But in the scaled-down
subatomic world,

the electron ricochets
are not random.

The pattern on the screen

reflects the pattern of atoms
in the target.

Each electron seems to sense

where every atom
in the graphite is,

even though the target
is much bigger than it.

It's as if the electrons
are not dots, but spread out.

The electrons somehow
know where all the atoms are,

and they form
this diffraction pattern.

The experiment shows something
really rather extraordinary,

and that is that matter,

even though it behaves
when you're looking at it,

when you're measuring it,
as individual particles,

when you're not measuring it,
matter is diffuse.

It spreads out.

It doesn't have a finite form
in the universe.

These basic rules
of quantum mechanics

apply to all
tiny subatomic particles.

When we look at them,
they are just dots.

When we look away,
they lose their physical form.

A different way of looking
at that is to say,

well, how parallel
is this behavior

with what I see
in my playstation 3

when I'm playing a video game?

In a playstation 3,
an example of that is "Simcity."

It's an enormous city.

I can navigate my way
through every bit of it

because the playstation,
the video game,

gives me the frame that I need
when I'm looking there.

If I look somewhere else,
it'll create that frame.

Well, oddly enough, the universe
behaves that way in reality.

The universe gives you
what you're looking at

when you're looking at it.

When you're not looking at it,
it's not necessarily there.

Our world is pixilated

and only assumes definite form
when observed,

the very same way
our computer simulations behave.

Rich Terrile has tried
to work out the probability

that we might be living
in a simulation

to quantify the possibility
that there is a God.

The question is how likely is
something like that to happen?

And how likely is it

that it has already happened
in our universe?

Now, let's step back
from that a little bit and say,

well, you know, the universe
is 13.7 billion years old,

and here I am 50 years

from basically being able
to manufacture God.

What's the probability

that I would be so close
to that threshold

and not be across
the other side?

It's one chance in 300 million
that I would be that close.

It's an extraordinary
coincidence.

And, perhaps,
more likely than not,

maybe we are a simulation on
the other side of that threshold

and the deities that exist
are our future selves.

Our world bears all the hallmarks
of one that is smiulated.

And Rich's logic continues.

Who would be more likely to simulate
humans than humans from the future.

Our descendants.

God-like beings with the power
to create their own universes.

It's a very radical idea
of the Creator.

But for Rich, it's not
without spirituality.

One can ask,
"what are you really saying?"

Are you saying the world
was a simulation

and we're just entities in some
Playstation 12 game,

or something like that.

I'm not saying that, I actually, uh

think this is a very, very
wonderful phenonom

I take great solice in this.

It shows that somewhere along the line
we have evloved from nothing

into self-awareness.

And that self-awareness has
reached the stage now

where we, our future selves
have become Gods.

This is a wonderful. Uh, to me
a very, very spirtual thing

And that's where my
spirtuality comes from.

in seeing things like that.
To me that's a religion.

It's been said that God fills in
the cracks in our knowledge.

Some see these cracks getting smaller.

We see that constantly in physics

that we start out with something

that looks complex and as
we look at it's parts

it's parts are simplier.

Now, if you imagine some sort of
Creator, that assumes that there's

more complicated than the thing
that got created.

So to me that's a step backwards

in explaining a philosophically
satisfying model.

For others the expansion
of scientific knowledge

will never fill in all the cracks.

There always will be room for faith.

Be it in a Creator with our descendant

or in the Gods of our ancestors.

I think that the questions that
arise from science

they give us some sort of
notion that Jesus is a God.

But they leave many other questions
about God unresolved.

And we also, I think are bound
to recognize that we finite beings

will never totally understand God

The human instinct that drives our
scientific curiosity

won't stop us from searching
for answers.

Perhaps one day soon,
science will provide us with

to look up and out through
the cosmic pane of glass

that separates us from the true
Creator of our World.

If there is one?

-- sync, corrected by elderman --
-- for www.addic7ed.Com --