CR118: Christmas special! Return to the simulation with Anders Indset, Author & Philosopher

From all of us at Cloud Realities, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! 

Back in our December 2022 Christmas special, we explored the far reaches of reality, asking whether we live in a simulation and if that even matters. Now, we return to that question with fresh perspectives and new challenges…

In this last Cloud Realities podcast of 2025, Dave, Esmee and Rob return to the simulation with Anders Indset, philosopher, author, and long-time friend of the show, revisiting a question that’s been quietly running underneath everything we’ve discussed since 2022: If reality itself is information and what does that mean for being human?

 

TLDR:

00:58 – It’s Christmas!
08:32 – Major announcement and reflections on the Cloud Realities podcast journey
15:32 – Celebrating three big wins: B2B Marketing Awards (Best Content, Best Customer Retention) and The Drum (Best Creative Audio)
22:55 – Is there a next thing?
23:30 – Welcoming Anders Indset, who shares his vision for practical philosophy and the future of human/AI co-evolution
32:02 – Exploring the Quantum Economy and the Singularity Paradox
58:10 – Deep dive into the Simulation Hypothesis, revisiting the 2022 discussion and Rob is again confused...
01:27:45 – Anders enjoying Christmas in the Norwegian wilderness
01:29:40 – Edit point

Guest

Anders Indset: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andersindset/ or andersindset.com

Additional information: thequantumeconomy.com and tomorrowmensch.com

Hosts

Dave Chapmanger: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chapmandr/

Esmee van de Gluhwein: https://www.linkedin.com/in/esmeevandegiessen/

Rob Snowmananahan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-kernahan/

Production

Dr Mike van Der Buabbles: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcel-vd-burg/

Dave Chapmanger: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chapmandr/

 

Sound

Ben Jingle: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-corbett-3b6a11135/

Louis Snow:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/louis-corbett-087250264/

 

'Cloud Realities' is an original podcast from Capgemini

Creators and Guests

Host

Dave Chapman

Chief Cloud Evangelist with nearly 30 years of global experience in strategic development, transformation, program delivery, and operations, I bring a wealth of expertise to the world of cloud innovation. In addition to my professional expertise, I’m the creator and main host of the Cloud Realities podcast, where we explore the transformative power of cloud technology.

Host

Esmee van de Giessen

Principal Consultant Enterprise Transformation and Cloud Realities podcast host, bridges gaps to drive impactful change. With expertise in agile, value delivery, culture, and user adoption, she empowers teams and leaders to ensure technology enhances agility, resilience, and sustainable growth across ecosystems.

Host

Rob Kernahan

VP Chief Architect for Cloud and Cloud Realities podcast host, drives digital transformation by combining deep technical expertise with exceptional client engagement. Passionate about high-performance cultures, he leverages cloud and modern operating models to create low-friction, high-velocity environments that fuel business growth and empower people to thrive.

Producer

Marcel van der Burg

VP Global Marketing and producer of the Cloud Realities podcast, is a strategic marketing leader with 33+ years of experience. He drives global cloud marketing strategies, leveraging creativity, multi-channel expertise, and problem-solving to deliver impactful business growth in complex environments.

What is Cloud Realities?

Exploring the practical and exciting alternate realities that can be unleashed through cloud driven transformation and cloud native living and working.

Each episode, our hosts Dave, Esmee & Rob talk to Cloud leaders and practitioners to understand how previously untapped business value can be released, how to deal with the challenges and risks that come with bold ventures and how does human experience factor into all of this?

They cover Intelligent Industry, Customer Experience, Sustainability, AI, Data and Insight, Cyber, Cost, Leadership, Talent and, of course, Tech.

Together, Dave, Esmee & Rob have over 80 years of cloud and transformation experience and act as our guides though a new reality each week.

Web - https://www.capgemini.com/insights/research-library/cloud-realities-podcast/
Email - [e-mail]

CR118: Christmas special! Return to the simulation with Anders Indset, Author & Philosopher
[00:00:00] Dave, you're on mute. You're on mute, Dave. Sorry. You know when we talk about this amazing future and we're discussing it, while humans can't operate a mute button, I think we might be stuck in a rock for a bit. Room for growth.
Welcome to Christmas. Realities, an original podcast from Capgemini. And we hope you're having a very merry Christmas and best wishes for a healthy and happy new year. Now on this Christmas special of the show, we are returning to the simulation specifically in light of progress on AI quantum processing power.
And now we're developing understanding of it all over the last three years. But first, there's some big news about the show. I'm Deb Chap Manger. I'm Ms. Ma from the Glue Wine. And I'm Rob Snow Manhan,
and I'm delighted to say that, uh, joining us [00:01:00] is, uh, Dr. Mike Vander bobble. How you doing Dr. Mike? Yeah, I'm, I'm good. Especially for Christmas. I'm coming out of my cave, so, uh, yeah, it's, it's nice to hear you on the show. You do sound like you're in a cave. Is it? Yeah. How are you on a professional low gain, Mike?
And somehow you still manage to create echo to this day. It takes a production amazed, it takes a producer's touch, I think Rob, it's a special kind of capability, special, a special touch like line clean design in the houses. So it's, uh, modern design. Now, later in the episode, I'm delighted to say that we have got Ander's Inset returning.
Uh, he's a philosopher, an author, and we're gonna return to the simulation with him. Um, and if you haven't, about three years ago, our first Christmas special, um, was with Anders and we were talking about, um, the simulation theory. And we're gonna go back into that with him. And we're gonna wind in the last three years worth of AI development and quantum development [00:02:00] and see how those things are shaking out.
But before we get onto all of that, it is Christmas Woo. It, it's actually Christmas Day as we, uh, launch this show. So Esme, yeah. Let, let's update the listeners. How is the Christmas display construction this year? Any major variations from previous years? Yes. I've added one small thing 'cause I didn't have a lot room left.
Mm-hmm. Um, there's this small sauna house. Oh, yes. And there's this guy half naked, peeking right around the corner of the door. Cheeky. Cheeky. Yeah, cheeky. So, yeah, no, it's, it's full blown. It's, uh, and I still kept it at two and a half meters. Right. So I, I was like, am I gonna keeping it contained? It's two and a half meters.
Yeah. I was wondering, am I gonna, you know, I, I actually want to add a train track and, uh, but I, yeah. Oh, a snow train. Hello. Now we're getting into a no train, but there is a ski, uh, lift and there's a [00:03:00] skating, ice skating area, and a shopping mall. You can have, uh, french fries. You know, you actually wanna live in my village.
Is there a little Cloud Realis podcast studio planned is like a, I should add that I should make like little. How do you say that? E icons of us, four of us little days do in my, what would you, do you wanna be in the sauna house with the guy or do you wanna where, where? I think that's what I heard. I saw his eyes light up when you said them, about the guy looking right at the door.
I, you know, the way I ever dislike for say, Tai Chi yoga, uh, saunas are also on that list. Really? Yeah. Yeah. 'cause you have to share stuff. This, this sounds absolutely ridiculous. I mean, tapas, the yoga thing was bad enough. And a tapas. Yeah. But like tapas. Have you ever been in a sauna? Have you ever been to saunas?
I go in, I hate them. I, I like a, like a, I like hot bath or whatever. That, that's all cool. But something about sauna, I just, I just make me uncomfortable. I dunno what it, is it the nakedness? Is it the nakedness? Again, I think that's, that's a, that's a part of [00:04:00] it. And de definitely I'm very British in that sense.
Um, but there's also this, I I, I dunno, they're just not for me. I, I just get really uncomfortable really fast. It's just, I don't like it. God dang. I'm not, I'm not engaging, I'm not engaging Israeli. Do, don't put me in the sauna. I could be stood out outside. Where do you wanna I I'll be sat on a park bench with a, a, I dunno, a glue vine.
Not even, I'm not touching that. Rob. Not putting, I'm not going anywhere near that joke. So how's your Christmas season been? Mine? Yeah. Uh, it's been all right. Getting a bit more crisp, added Christmas tunes on. That's good. I like that there is a, I do enjoy that part of it, building up to Christmas and then after Christmas, it's be like, oh, but yes, it's fine.
We have done a lot of our Christmas shopping now. The boys are a bit older, a bit easier. They just want a new phone or something, so mm-hmm. We go there. But now I recommended to you the best Christmas song in the world a couple of weeks ago when we were in, uh, Vegas. Have you bothered listening to it? Is the question.[00:05:00]
I did, I need to go back and listen to it again. It is, I, it's one of those ones that I think you have to get, you get into a bit. Yeah. It gets very well. I see the potential, very potential, but, uh, yeah, yeah. No, it could, well make it onto the standard Christmas Tunes, uh, list. It's LCD Sound Systems.
Christmas will break your heart if you haven't heard it. It's my solid. I actually recorded Rob singing in the car Christmas. No, you didn't, don't, don't, don't tell me this exists. No, I'm gonna leave that for a moment that I could, you know, what was I singing? I sing a lot when I think nobody's listening.
Uh, well we were there in the car. Oh, right. Well you never listened to me listening. Exactly. I'm gonna say Sunday par for the course. I say stuff and look around and you're all looking out the window trying to avoid me. Es May's building a fire left for us. Yeah. Yes. The doce that comes on re and Marcel Merry Christmas.
How are you doing? Uh, fine. Yeah, just returned from vacation at Aruba, so, uh oh. And how is the, uh, how is the economy of the Caribbean at the moment, mate? Yeah, so [00:06:00] I left Bonair, so now they've collapsed Aruba. They've, have you not seen the news? They're in devastation. 'cause there's the, it's just, it's gone.
They've just had to abandon, abandon the island. No. So my, my, my daughter is working there for four months in the hospital and Yeah, when it's Christmas you have to fist her and, and Thais. So Flo and Thais. Um, re it was really nice being there. And, and, uh, David, I think you need to reveal your Christmas experiences.
Oh, thanks for asking Rob. You know, we have to do it once in a while. I have, um, you have enjoyed this Christmas season. It seems to have come up very quickly. Yeah. 'cause I was, I, I also went on a, a late holiday this summer, which, uh, this autumn, in fact, it was like the last two weeks of October. And then before you knew it, you into Christmas we're into Christmas party season.
I went to a couple of really good ones. Um, this year I went to one Christmas party, had Nile Rogers and Sheik at it. Robert, who were they? Sorry, I don't actually know who that, [00:07:00] am I supposed to know who they are? Is that a thing anybody like? Right. We're all just looking at Dave Roger on the screen now.
What, sorry? Who's Nile Rogers. Oh. Okay, so now Rogers like co-wrote Let's Dance with David Boy Song. Oh, I know that song wrote, I know that song, song Get Lucky with DAF Punk. Oh, right, okay. And like literally a, like, literally a bazillion other songs that you, that are both, he's, he's, uh, he's trademark. He's like the jangly guitar sound that you can hear in, um, in Get Lucky, you know, that sort of trademark.
Nile Rogers. It's, he's a big deal. Like he and he had a band called Chic in the eighties that did sort of very sort of, uh, you know, paradigm eighties sort of stuff. Anyway, he hit the headlines, festivals and stuff, and he showed up at this Christmas party. That was, that, that was a, that was a, that was a fun night out.
Oh, that sounds quite good. Although you are losing points for using the phrase literally a bazillion. I'm sorry. I'm gonna have to pick you up on that. Oh God. That's, that's, it's just not good enough day from somebody like Christmas. [00:08:00] Even at Christmas, this place, even at Christmas, I need to call you out on Yeah.
Points like that. You are a professional speaker person. Maybe not quite, maybe not quite a bazillion How many Ns in a bazillion Well, I dunno, but I suspect it's a lot. It's Brazilian even a, a, a number. Is that a thing? We need to check. I mean, there's a whole quality control issue. It's not if it's either.
If it's not, it should be 24. Yeah. Right. So let's move on to some big news. Marcel, what is our big news? So this is our last episode of, uh, cloud Realities, sir Dave, Rob, our, and it's May episode. Yeah. Of Cloud Realities. Yeah, I'm seeing it here. I think it's a three year journey. Am I fired? Just coming to a conclusion?
Is that what you're, uh, is this a bad way to tell me? I'm no longer required? Uh, yeah, we're just going to, we're gonna tell you this now, and then the three of us are gonna go off and do more episodes and then hope you don't notice. Alright. Okay. Well that's fine. I, I'm, I'm, I'm [00:09:00] used to that type of, uh, behavior from the group I'm in, so we, you know, we're all good.
I'll just go sit in the corner. Yes. So, uh, it's been a, it's been a amazing three years. Like we launched the show back in what will be the year, what was the year, Marcel? That we launched the show? It was, uh, we started in November, uh, 2022. November, 2022. So we're now in Christmas 2025. So almost exactly three years.
Give or take a, give or take a few weeks. Um, and we happened to launch the show, which was given the name of cloud, it was going to talk a lot about cloud industry, cloud transformation, et cetera. But we launched the show. Coincidentally, right. At the time, I think it was Rob, correct, if I'm wrong, GPT-3 at that point.
Yeah. It was in and around there. The, the models were starting to become viable for external consumption and out of the labs. And so we've ended up really by virtue of holding a mirror up, [00:10:00] tracking that journey for the last three years. And the breadth of what we talk about and the impact technology can have, have just got wider and more impactful.
And it feels like as the show has completed an arc to a certain extent, at this point, it seemed, it seemed to make sense to go. Okay. Let's take a pause on that. Esme, you are the newest member of the team already making a huge impact. Um, what has your bit of the journey felt like to you? Well, I think I, well I've grown up together with you guys.
Uh, so I think that's something that I definitely admire towards you guys, that you, uh, were able to help me get through it. And at the same time, I also, it's going so fast that technology in know everything that's happening in, uh, in, in terms of releases of, of capabilities. What I also see is that every conversation ends up talking about trust and not [00:11:00] so much trusting the technology, but trusting the people, uh, and the organizations behind it.
So that, and, and that's what I still find fascinating. Um, so that's what I love. So that really stood out. And also that technologies, the speed is increasing, but I think the sensemaking, so again, the human side is not going that fast. Um, so that's, uh, that's also something that, that I see. And I think also that a lot of innovation or autonomy feel like the opposite of governance.
And they're not the opposite. So I think that's also something that we heard throughout the shows, is that it's about providing a structure for your people that provides direction, but also the, the, the, the possibility, uh, to be a, a team that is able to deliver end to end. So, uh, yeah, I, I've been inspired.
Hmm. I think we left a lot, uh, which I absolutely, uh, love about the show. Uh, and I love the chemistry that we have as a team. And that's also [00:12:00] something I think we could not, you know, you can add people on paper in profiles together, like oh, that expertise and that expertise. But in the end, I think it's like the, the, the human part that makes the difference.
So let's be honest, if they're listing expertise with us, it's gonna be a short list. I mean, something else, it's about the length. It's about it has to be so else, right? Yeah. Has to be something else. Anything. Got a paper over those cracks. Uh, Marcel. How has the journey been for you? So the first time Marcel and I met was to talk about a, this fledgling idea for a podcast.
You remember that? Yeah, I remember it. It's summer 2022. So I've still got the, your look of disbelief and disappointment that was etched on your face and I was trying to describe it to you as if to say, what is it, whatcha talking about? No, I'm, he's always got a look at disbelief on his face. That's his natural face.
It's his natural resting face. Disbelief. I only know that now though. I didn't, it's the [00:13:00] first time I've met him. So, no, it, it, it was sort of the first time, uh, I thought about doing something else with clout because a normal life, I'm responsible for, uh, uh, cloud marketing on group level, and I thought a podcast, some of that's never been done.
And, uh, first I thought, Hmm, podcast, what, what is it? And then we had a conversation, uh, I I saw your sort of, uh, knowledge and the things that you have done with, with other podcasts. And I thought, Hmm, this is a, a good opportunity to, to do something different in the, in the organization and in the market.
And, um, and how's it been? Has it, uh, what's it like you were initially thinking it would be when you were kind of thinking that through? Has it been any different? What's it, what's it been like for you? Uh, I thought, let's just try something. And then we discussed, uh, do it weekly and then I thought, oh my god, weekly, your podcast with, with guests and where are the guests?
And, and. Oh, sounds like hard work, doesn't it? Marcel? Yeah, [00:14:00] that was one, but also you were like, you were like every week. Every week what? Every week. So 52 weeks. Uh, then, then no vacation breaks and then, but finding guests in the beginning, that was really, really a struggle and a challenge. Sometimes on the Wednesday evening we had to, to find a solution to, to, to publish something On a Thursday.
We did have a couple of those, and this is really behind the scenes. Uh, but, but that was a real challenge. And then I don't know what happened, but, um, we launched mid of November, 2022. Two weeks later, we, we went to a s reinvent. We, we thought maybe we must bring something somebody in. And it was Rob as a sort of roving reporter
Han and, and, and had he, it was a click. And a few weeks later, more and more people were saying, ah, it's really amazing what you're doing. We're listening to your podcast. And, and, and yeah, the listeners' numbers were growing and yeah, the feedback was coming. Also, people, [00:15:00] uh, came to us, like PR agencies on, oh, we have a good guest.
And that was an amazing turnaround. And, uh, I mentioned the word guest, but uh, it, it's guest led and we had some amazing, uh, guests like, uh, father Paolo ti. Suddenly we had a personal advisor of the Pope in the show, and I, the first time I saw him, we saw him at an event. Uh, Dave, we just connected to him and, and he agreed to be on the show.
So that's an amazing highlight. And, um, yeah, I think the biggest highlight is a couple of weeks ago, uh, when we suddenly, uh, received three prizes and, uh, awards. Awards, awards. Awards. What we got awards. Yeah. And that, that's an amazing thing. So I must mention them. It's the B2B marketing award for best content and best consumer retention, and also a drum award for best creative audio.
So, well up Ben and Louie. Yeah. So Ben and Louie. So, uh, amen. [00:16:00] It, it's all about guests and of course the hosts and a little bit about the producer. But if you, if you receive a price on best creative audio, uh, it's, it's a big bow to Ben and Louis. Uh, yeah. So, so we couldn't do it without them and, uh, amen to that.
And also the, we couldn't do without listeners making Yep. The show relevant and, and valid. So one, we are extremely thankful for those awards. We, we were so delighted, like, you know, you could be all cool about it and say, well, awards, awards don't mean anything, blah, blah. But they do, you know, you, we work hard on the show and we were, we were so delighted by the recognition.
So a big thank you to, to B2B marketing and the drum for, for that. But also, like I was saying to our, to our guests and listeners, so Marcel's already said it, but the shows. Is is very central around its guests, completely by design because you know, the, what they bring to the show in terms of their good humor [00:17:00] and their insight and their conversation is, is what makes our breaks an episode.
So to all of them, thanks so much. Uh, and then to, to listeners who stick with us. We hope you, we hope we help on the commute or wherever it is you listen to us walking the dog or, you know, whatever it might be. Um, yeah, and it's been a real pleasure, uh, talking to you, roving report to Rob Carnahan. Hello.
How's it been for you? How's it been for me? I have three reflections I think on this one, Dave. First one is, uh, meeting all the people. And for me personally, I learn a lot, uh, just by having the interaction in the discussion. Amen. You know, the whole. Expanding horizons with brain and as inset the one where you're about to hear, quite frankly, has caused my brain to spin for years.
Every time I speak to him, he, he loads something new in that, that I just have to process. Um, a lot of shared experiences on a human level around where the podcast has gone [00:18:00] and where we've taken it on the road. So I have enjoyed that. Sometimes hard, sometimes fun, but always an experience. And then, uh, a bit of a deeper understanding of getting, um, getting us together as a group.
Learning more about you guys is humans. I think a little, I probably know a little bit too much about you now these days, but, uh, yeah, yeah, there's definitely a lot about getting, getting that sort of camaraderie going, which is quite good fun as well. So those, if it was, if I was to reflect, it's those three.
Yes, they're good ones. But importantly, Dave, as the, um, as the instigator of the podcast Hmm. The one who, uh, fought the good fight at the beginning to get it all going, has put the energy behind it to, to be the spark of genius, the catalyst, the driver That was, what's your reflection on three years of hard fought and won podcasting?
Uh, I think my first one is I absolutely loved it. So when I, when I was originally thinking about it and having that, those conversations with [00:19:00] Marcel back in that summer of the year, that was 22. Um, the bit that worried me was like on the other show that I did, which is called Cloud busting. Shout out to those, um.
I was kind of in the, you know, one of the second seat roles and I talked about it with j the cohost of that other show. And that was the, the, the, the strong team up there. So coming to this, it was like, well, I, I'm going to kind of be the kind of anchor of the thing. So the, the, the journey of like getting my head around that has actually been really quite enlightening and, and helpful and a learning curve.
And I second your thought, Rob, which is the, the opportunity to have one good structured conversation a week. It just makes such a big difference if it's like, you know, one thing, whether you're doing a podcast or just living your normal life, like finding the time to have a conversation along the lines of the ones that we are lucky enough to have on here with [00:20:00] somebody.
Whoever that is really does make a big difference, even if you only take one or two things away. Um. You know, that's, uh, incredible. And then, uh, the other thing I've enjoyed massively about it is work. Like, you know, working with you guys and the show ultimately becoming a combined effort. Uh. And now everybody, uh, has a role on the show, whether it be, you know, to do with the creation of different, uh, bits on the show, whether it's to do with how the production pipeline works for the show.
You know, like we all, we all do a bit. And the show therefore is reflective of, reflective of all four of us, plus Ben Louie and, uh, and Kisha who does, uh, some of our social media for us. So the, the, it becoming a, uh, a more cohesive team effort. Is making the show better and better and better, I think, and the one thing I want to add to that is, um, I think three years ago we also, uh, traveled a lot to, to big, uh, [00:21:00] vendor events like AWS Google and, and Microsoft events, but also like Mobile World Congress.
And, and what we did is instead of staying in hotels, we rented an Airbnb house. And, and the, the, the chemistry is so different than when you are in a hotel or together with a team in the morning setting a cup of coffee, enjoying the rides to, to the location in the car with, with music on and, and some laughs that, that's really special.
It's also important to mention, uh, that we started in the beginning with Shakia Sha. We did big shout out to Shaki Al. It helps us find our feet. In the early days of what this was and how it became What it became. Yeah. And finding, you know, it was, I'd only just started at CAP at the time, so it wasn't like I had an extensive network of friends I'd known for years that you could immediately go, Hey, you know, we've had loads of great night nights out, you fancy making a podcast.
So we were all sort of thrust into it a little bit to try and find our [00:22:00] feet and, you know, I think Esmer mentioned it, but like, find our way through chemistry and uh, and how it's gonna work and what each other's roles are gonna be on the show. Uh, and yeah, Sharky really helped during that period. A indeed she did.
So thank you very much. Maybe talk about a final thank you, which is actually the three big partners, AWS Google and Microsoft in, in no particular order have been enormously supportive. Whether it's getting incredible guests for the lives that we've done over the last three years, um, or guests that have come onto the normal weekly show.
Um, they've always leaned in. Uh, and we've had particularly good conversations with them. So that's been awesome. Which has led led to the, you know, this year's co-sponsored episodes even. So we're, again, we're hugely delighted and thankful about that. Alright, so there's some reflections of the last three years of the cloud realities journey.
And given it's coming to an end, you might be thinking, is there a next thing? Well [00:23:00] stay tuned. And keep an eye on your feed in January, you'll find out if there is a next thing or not. Now, with that, let's go to our conversation with Anders Inset, who is gonna return to the simulation with us and bring at least this initial part of Cloud realities, uh, full circle.
Uh, and I'm delighted to say that joining us, um, on today's Christmas special is Anders Inset is back on the show, author and philosopher Anders, how are you doing? It's always a pleasure to see you. Likewise. Thank you so much for having me back on. Um, doing pretty good. I mean, Christmas is upon us, so it's uh, it's a good time.
Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. You need one of those loyalty cards 'cause you've done that many podcasts with us. You've got the stamps, you should get something free. Free cappuccino. Yeah, free cappuccino. [00:24:00] That's all it's worth by the way. One coffee hours and hours of high end input into our pods, making us sound good.
And you get a coffee. Happy to feel that every now and then. Getting a coffee back is so we need That's good. There you go mate. You could have a flat white instead of You're fancy. Oh, fancy. Yeah. I had a colleague teach me about the Cortado and a Flat VI and the cappuccino. We had an I for detail, but yes.
Don't get me started on that. There, there is a big difference isn't there, between those things. Now, where do you stand on the, uh, the sort of festive coffees, like the eggnog coffee or that kind of thing? Don't get me started on that. I mean, I have, I I, I wouldn't even dare to, to have an opinion and, and, and not even to get into an argument about the specialists in that field.
So when it comes to the 27 different milk sorts you have to add that it makes, that's completely theory beyond, there's, there's a lot. Like why is it coffee lovely? There's a few variations and whatnot. And [00:25:00] then suddenly at Christmas we go crazy and insert like eggnog into the middle of it. An eggnog don't.
I mean, that is a drink. That why, why was that ever invented? Who invented that whole yu love? Let's market and sell that. I love you. It's horrible. It's horrible. It's, it's, it's just horrible. Horrible. Are you gonna say it's too, you're gonna say it's too sweet, aren't you? I, yeah. I am gonna say it's too sweet and I suspect you also like a Bailey's at Christmas.
David, if you're gonna go with eggnog, I have no, I'm sticking enough. Comes is always good. Not only on Christmas. Yeah. No issue with Bailey's. I, I. Um, but Rob, though, I mean, if you take out the story, uh, the mythology and you put it into a solid world where you can put any, anything into explanation, all the way down to the foundation of life and consciousness, take out the story, what do we have?
So why are you arguing against these wonderful Christmas traditions? I mean, that's all we have, man. I mean, it's all we have. You cannot tell Meg as mythical legend in our lives. Come on, come on. Well, it, it's just as real as anything else we believe in. If [00:26:00] it's, you know, printed paper with ink and kinks and queen on it, uh, shiny gold.
You know, I mean, it doesn't have a value just because it's shiny. So these are stories and, uh, I'm glad you're hearing this. Hope I have more substance than other, but you know, I, I, I, I just, sorry, I draw the line at eggnog. Sorry. Alright. We mixed to my belief system while we were, we found the borders of, you know, the plausibility of our stories.
We'll cover that. So should we move on to another show? Well, well, where, just before we do that, let, if, if you think he's being difficult and stubborn about eggnog, you should hear him talk about yoga. Oh, I don't know. No, no, no. It's got no place in his dojo and does, oh, absolutely. No place is it wrong. So, no, it's like you doing Tai Chi just upset me just by the mere thought of thinking you do in Tai Chi.
It's beautiful, isn't it? It's beautiful. It's a beautiful mental image. Anyway, on that note, let's talk a little bit about Anders, what you've been up to. So, um. [00:27:00] There's a couple of major pieces of work on the Quantum E Quantum economy and the Singularity Paradox, which I'm gonna summarize in a second for, uh, for our listeners.
But why don't you just tell us what you've been up to since the last time we talked, uh, and, um, you know, where your head's at at the moment. Yeah, I've, I've published, still published quite a bit. I mean, I, I ran into the, I was in, having been born in AI with my initials being ai. Uh, I ran into a very interesting discovery when I, you know, found myself writing, and I've written the long dashes, the M dashes, and the ese, the parenthesis that came out of GBT in my books.
And I had an argument back in 2019 with my publisher why I would do that, and I found it. Uh, personal. Um, and it was kind of an aesthetical value to my writing by doing so. And then all of a sudden that was all the text that came out of GBT. Yeah. So now everyone [00:28:00] caught me writing AI and they came back and say, well, obviously this is AI text.
Um, so I flipped that and I started to send to the publishers and the journalists texts that were created by AI, where I just tweaked it and took out the obvious things that they thought would be ai. And I gather feedback saying that, oh, it's good to see people writing themself. Yeah. So we're in a very confusing time.
Um, so that ha that been, you know, AI killed ai, at least in the sense of Yeah. How I've been writing. Um, that's interesting. And, um. On that note, obviously, my, my theory is my thoughts around the economy, where we are heading, uh, the development of an externalized, uh, artificial intelligence moving towards some kind of a GI was a big topic.
My co-author, Flo Er, and I, we published a Singularity paradox back in summer where we developed the artificial human intelligence. I think we talked a little bit about that last time. Mm-hmm. But [00:29:00] what I've been up to lately is basically that now I want to, I want to build, so I've, I'm starting a new chapter in 2026 where my big vision is to build a mens, well, to create a human, to create, to go after the foundational questions of philosophy.
Wow. What is consciousness and what is life itself? Um, I give myself 20 years. Right. Um, and I romanticize failing. Um, because if I do, then I would at least in that moment, in 20 years from now, have a realization of a potentiality for progress. So we're not in a finite solved world, which is a good thing because then I would kind of, sort of, um, still have that open questions if we are machines and we can be built from information processing.
So I'm taking the philosophical into the real world. That's basically what I'm up to right now. I mean, it's good job. You're setting the bar [00:30:00] really low there, Anders, but I mean below there, there are, there. I mean there's obviously, it sounds like a very crazy thought, but if you look at it, you, you take one cell and if you could have one cell, uh, in your body, be it biologically or in some kind of biological substraint and some technical entity, and it's identical to a human biological cell, if that is true or possible, uh, what are the limitations for doing a billion or.
You know, many trillion cells. Uh, and, and, and the same applies for the neurons. So whatever that thing that we call life or consciousness is. It's either in the realm of the, uh, cytes, the beyond, that it's not accessible to us. If it's a part of physical, um, explanatory logic and we can find a way to explain it, it's just beyond the physics that we do understand, then eventually we'll be able to recreate it.
And I think building these technology that we are doing now [00:31:00] in an externalized device, a machine, a DS X, know a God out of the machine scenario is very dystopian for humanity. So what I think will happen is that we will hack our biology and chemistry and do it first principle. And, and, and, and I'm not saying that I am going to engineer, I just wanna facilitate, uh, I call this, um, endeavor tomorrow.
Mench, it's a brand, a company, uh, that basically set out to invest in deep tech companies across four fields. And I wanna explore that through, uh, applying for principle thinking to these. Questions, and it's just more of a, um, there are obviously a lot of, you know, very specific thoughts to this on business models and health topics and curing diseases and so on and so forth.
But the, the general vision is I want to spend my next. Chapter in my life to explore those philosophical questions in a, I would say, technological approach to build it. So, so to practical [00:32:00] philosophy if you, if you like, wow. Well, let's, um, maybe go back, take a step back and go back to the. Your most recent two pieces of work, actually.
'cause there's, I'm sure there's foundational thinking in there anyway, that's getting you to the, to the, to the tomorrow mesh situation you just talked about. So, very briefly, I'll just, I'll just quickly summarize. Ander's last two pieces of work. One is the quantum economy, uh, way, pos, ai, quantum technologies, biotechnology, and decentralized infrastructure no longer change the world around us, but the nature of the human experience itself.
And then in the singularity paradox introduces the concept of artificial human intelligence, which is a way of understanding how humans and machines co-evolve. So Anders, just share your background thinking with us on these things and, uh, how they come together in your mind. Yeah, so I'm, I'm not neglecting any spiritual belief or, uh, uh, you know, [00:33:00] other schools of thought.
Uh, I'm not. Negating or neglecting that there could be a foundational consciousness that emerges into what we call physical reality. Uh, I'm not tearing down the walls of our simulation bar, Rob. So, so folks, I wanna keep it stable for now. Thanks. Yeah. Keep it stable. Yeah. But what I'm doing is that I'm just taking the perception that it feels like, uh, this thing is somewhat real.
And, and looking at how progress evolves and what we are actually doing. And what we are doing, in my view is that we are creating technologies that don't evolve at the same pace that we have been used to. That we train things, that we understand things. So we are now in a position where we don't understand, um, at all.
What technology is capable of and what it's doing. So we cannot track back and through a trial and error progress future where we don't understand the foundations on how these systems operate. And, and that will just get more and more complex. Um, and [00:34:00] AI will help us explain that as well. But, but what we see then is that our evolutionary mechanisms, if we hold onto a Darwinian theory of evolution and, and, and are not at all equipped to tackle this type of progress.
So we are right now in a technological tsunami and, and that's not related to biotech and AI and quantum and all that. It's related to how we perceive reality and our understanding of the world. And, and I think that this is what we will see over the next 10 years is that we will change. Our view of the world, what we believe that we are, and how we interact with a potential physical reality.
And that will be driven through the technological progress that would follow. And so, um, my thinking is here that we will speed up. Uh, and the limitation that we have today are twofold. That's one, the compute power. So [00:35:00] we can scale that and we see that from the models. I mean, we are, you know, bored from LLMs, so we're looking for different approaches, but it's still really, really good.
Uh, the limitations are obviously on training because we have not yet, um, had robots interact with our quote unquote physical world. So the training data will change. Rob might have given that a shot, Rob. So I think that, that this will obviously change once we have. Uh, robots humanoids coming in 2026 and, and if we have a hundred million humanoids that are interconnected, they will learn 24 7 at a hundred million x speed from every interaction with the physical world.
So I think that already in 2026 we could see noble price like breakthroughs coming from AI and technology. So we're finding something significantly new that humans have not been able to do, and that will obviously speed up the progress. And just to finalize that train of thought, um, what I think then is that [00:36:00] we will not comprehend, uh, the magnitude of how that will change.
The world we live in, albeit societal business, uh, and so on and so forth. And I think this is where we lack understanding and we lack also proper thinking to comprehend what that really means. So that's, that's the background of this. Um, obviously, uh, the latter quantum economy is more around the operating system or society that I think that capitalism has the potential to destroy humanity, but it has also the potential to save the mensch, to save what we call human because that is the driver, the operating system, and we will not change that over the next year.
And regard to the singularity paradox, what we did there was basically to start out with a thought that we are conscious, we are something different, and we would rather hack evolution and take that into our own control and evolve as a species into what we have called AI [00:37:00] as in comparison to just relying on some external machine.
Which we will not understand. So that's basically the, the thoughts behind these two publications. And if I've understood that correctly, as you get under it, what you're basically saying is, hu humanity's always understood the world around us. We've invented, we've created, we, we know how it works. If we get to a situation where something is creating and learning faster than we can, we may end up living in a world we don't appreciate or understand or maybe not appreciate, but we definitely may not understand how, how, how that's working.
So we, we lose control of the environment around us, but we might have to survive within it. Is that where you were going, if I understood that correctly as part your point around the, what could happen next where we, we it is about control? Well, there, there are many layers to this. I mean, the obvious part, part that you refer to is our task that we are doing right.
The jobs and, and everything. So, so basically, um. I think that even today we don't understand. So I, I think I brought [00:38:00] this up the last time we spoke about, you know, the chess game where you play computer or you know, uh, Google Alpha zero generated moves and no one in the world understands why, but it just wins.
Yeah. Or if you look at the world in a finite way, solving task, finding solutions, then you kind of, sort of get into an optimization game. So you follow the algorithm. You are driven by these impulses. You are driven by the incentives of whatever the system is out to do. So, so this is obviously. The, the one part of it.
But I think also there is a, uh, much more foundational part to this when it comes to what are we and what do we want to do, uh, uh, these intelligences will get so insanely more capable that it just, you know, brings us down to the big questions of, of what do we want to do? What should we do? What can we do?
What are we, what does it mean to be a human being? And it, so it's, it's [00:39:00] basically a lot of layers to that first part of your question. But at the end, and this is to at least my view, is that it really strips us down to some very, very foundational, philosophical questions that we need to tackle in a practical matter now, which is a completely new way, um, if you would.
Kind of, sort of put the bridge above that would be a unification of enlightenment and methodology in a solved world. Right? So that's, that's where we're heading. I, I, wonderful. I, I actually, I wanna, I want us to hold that thought on enlightenment and maybe, and, and we'll return to it in a second. I wanna just boil away some, uh, AI stuff and just have a, have a chat about that.
So one of the things we've been wrestling with a little bit on the show, um, we put an episode out with a chap called Scott Hanselman, who's one of the very big brain folks at, uh, uh, at Microsoft just a couple of weeks ago. And, uh, hier Scott, if you happen to be listening, um, and we were trying to get into with him from a very [00:40:00] much, from a technical perspective, what the nature of AI was and where we are at the moment.
Do we get to any notion of a GI from where we are today? Like, is that a linear, is that a growth thing? You throw more power at it in you ultimately get there is a different place. So we we're having that conversation and. Within that, we got to a position that says, actually when you look at agents as they exist, at least as they exist today on today's technology stack, what you really get to is, you know, sophisticated batch jobs that can handle ambiguity and have got a really good interface.
And therefore, extending that thought is the AI we have today, the best automation technology we've ever had with an amazing way to have a natural interface to it. And therefore, even at that level, it's exceptionally powerful and will have dramatic impact on how we live and work. Now at the same time we're having that conversation.
Robert, do your thing about the Turing test and the other one. Oh, the, um, [00:41:00] so yeah, it was about perceptible intelligence. So I use the example, say the only thing that I know is the input I've received into my brain. So I work with Dave, I've interacted with him a number of times. I perceive him to be intelligent in commas, in, in quotes, but that's the only judgment I have.
So if I put everything in a black box and I interact with it, and it came back in what I believe to be an intelligent response, an intelligent way, and it's maybe even smarter than me in certain things. Is that intelligence. And then there's this thing like the ARC two test that went through the AI smashed through recently, which says, actually it's showing creativity.
It's now scoring higher than a human. Are we getting to the point where actually we're no longer able to judge what this is? And I suppose it got down to a conversation with, you know, if I perceive it to be intelligent, is it actually intelligent? Got into that sort of definition. I'd be interested in your view on that, because I only have my eyes, my ears, and whatever I, I can sense to tell me what, what is it around me?
It goes back to the whole point of the, you know, the simulation point and everything [00:42:00] else. I can't tell anything other than what my brain tells me so much before we let you loose on that Anders. And, and hopefully that's provoked some thoughts. Where I was trying to get to was with, was it, what's the best way to therefore frame AI as it exists today?
EG. Is the continued framing of it as anthropomorphized agent like things. Or is it actually better to just say they're tools, very powerful tools, but it's just tools. I mean, if you look at what we do, we anthropomorphize stupid Sony dogs without any intelligence and say, looked at me. Yeah. So I think the question is, it's very relevant.
It's a very important question, but it's kind of, sort of like if an AI gives you goosebump, you cannot goose it away and you don't give a care whether it's a large language model, if it has some or whatever. Right? And, and, and the thing is that I wouldn't agree necessarily that [00:43:00] even the more, and I would, I, I just, you know, repeat to what I said earlier, um, I find large language model boring, but they're so amazing that it's not clear with enough compute and scalability that they cannot quote unquote, do anything a human can.
Uh, and, and I'm, I'm cautious of the term here, but, but when I say that there are so many things we can mimic. Um, and, and, and kind of sort of play back at us. So in a general sense, obviously there are nuances to this, but it could be that we could, with enough compute, enough error correction and optimization.
Um, you know, GBT five two just came out and you can have theories behind the scene where they say it's already much more advanced, but it's just too expensive to let out on the public because it's just eating up so many resources. Yeah. What would be if we didn't have a restriction to resources in terms of energy, right?
How much can you, can you scale the compute here? So I think, you [00:44:00] know, we, we might be underestimating the power even of the systems that we are creating today. Uh, that's possible. Sure. Uh, I don't think these are the systems that we will refer to whatever a GI is. Um, I mean, there is a very vague term and people define that differently, but I think that there will be other world models, foundational models that will make these AI systems or models much more lean and, and faster because some things are given and you can relate to that.
And when you start to add different infrastructures to this, uh, maybe even some kind of quantum compute power or other ways of applying it, then I can, I cannot foresee that there are borders to the things that it could not do. And, and this is something that I think about a lot and, and in particular when we look at what we do as human beings, right?
Uh, and, and, and, and the tasks. There are tasks, a [00:45:00] plumber or you know, you can go and take a tile on a minus 20 degrees Celsius, uh, roof with a lot of snow in the center of Norway. That's a very singular task for a person. That's not the economy of scale. It's a very complex task. And that till example could be something that a robot, a machine, an AI could have difficulty doing.
But most thing we do on a daily basis, I think could be pretty much, you know, replicated through a machine. So I think, Rob, coming back to your first, I think I lost the first part of your question. So, I mean, I, I got onto Dave's comment, but there was one more thing. If, if I perceive it to be intelligent because I interact with it and I believe that to be so, and I only have my own frame of reference for.
Intelligence then is it intelligent from that thing? It's like, what's the definition of it and how do we judge it? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yes, I got you. Yeah. So what I was gonna say here was that we, I had this argument lately and people come up to me and say, [00:46:00] well, um, this is a higher state of consciousness. Uh, so they would say like, yeah, you know, a dog is conscious, right?
But we have a higher state of consciousness. And then I would say, well, what do you mean by higher state? I mean like, what is the grading here? What is the conceptual framework you are referring to? You could also argue, my dog sends that I'm coming home, sitting in a car, a kilometer away from where I'm at home.
I mean, I can't explain that. So the sensing of a dog seems to be much more complex than a human being can do in many cases. So anyone can also argue the dog is the more conscious, even of the self-awareness is not always the same maybe as we have, but it has less intelligence. Yeah, less complexity in the structures of how the neurons interact and you know, to your point then, what is it then that, you know, quote unquote, uh, becomes intelligent?
Uh, what is [00:47:00] intelligence? I mean, this is also, I mean, the term ai, it's not artificial because it's like created by someone and we haven't defined what intelligence is. So, you know, as long as you perceive it to be real and, and that to, to, to lead into your beautiful views of the simulation, you cannot distinguish it.
Uh, and, and this, I think just gonna, just gonna continue. Um, 10 years from now, we, we might not have operating systems and apps and software. We will generate the con content we consume on a device in real time on point. We just have a device. It'll be with some kind of edge technology. And if you look at how this is, I mean, we have to remember, we've been talking for three years now.
Our, uh, you know, and, and what has changed only in the last 12 months, you know, the race, uh, if you look at. The, the sheer amount of data that a grok just produces. Every [00:48:00] day you take a picture, you get a hundred thousand perfect use of a picture, and you can animate it into a video. It's still a short video, but it's pretty freaking amazing.
Um, so if you put compute on that and complexity and more, you know, a training, what are the limits? And, and therefore if you perceive it to be real, it's probably just as real as anything else. Right. But one, what I wonder is what is progress? You mentioned progress a lot. Like, okay, so we're progressing.
Progressing, yeah. What is your definition of progress? That's a very good question. Esme always comes in and, and makes me, she's the intelligent one. Yeah. Always, always does that. So, so I think progress is, yeah, this is, this is very easy to attack, but in a very, uh, simple description, I would say progress is all we have.
So, so what I mean by that, um, I mean that it's very [00:49:00] existential to us to experience and to experience our own experience by learning something. So, um, if now in 20 years there is a conscious being of some kind that has the potentiality to ask a question outta which an answer follows, that someone perceives that as progress AKA have learned something, then we are in a good state.
Coming back to Assim o's last question. And so, as long as progress is possible, I think we are in a good state. And, and this is also, I was very inspired by David Deutsch, the beginning of Infinity. And as long as we have an infinite potential for better explanations. There is potentiality for progress. I do not know how a solved world would look like.
Mm-hmm. So do we sit in awe or just take some fungi or how [00:50:00] some, you know, things flowing into our brains that have a perfect psychedelic state all the time. Do we sit in some vast or beam off to some whatever? So I don't know how that would look like. So therefore, to me, progress, positive progress, which makes it even more complex or what is positive, right?
Um, so the experience of life as something of a possi ballistic philosophy. So say that it's ni not the naive optimism, and it's not the dystopian negativism. It's a possible where I understand that progress is possible, and I, I'm an active agent. I act into life. I fill my life with substance, and therefore I learn experience, I progress.
And if I feel in my life. I think we can have a fulfilled life. Hmm. The other part of that is the zombie state where we just react to impulses. We react to data, we react to technology. We are [00:51:00] sucked through life, right? And that becomes depressing, frustrating, and eventually if we program it, maybe along the way we even lose the agency.
So the lights are on, but there's no one home to perceive them. So it's a long answer to a very complex question as me, but progress is indeed something that I think a lot about when it's come to existentialism. And to live a, a life, there's a wonderful German word I use a lot. Lab kite. Mm-hmm. Um, it's the vitality of life itself.
And that is to act into life. You are the agent, you act into life and therefore you perceive the actual part of being. And that is, if the 20th century was about the existentialism of the finitude of life, I think 21st century introduces what I have called a vita existentialism. And that is life itself, the lab kite.
And that is to progress, to learn, uh, and the foundations of experiencing [00:52:00] your own experience. So it's a very. To my view of, of, of existentialism and ish kite. Indeed. Let, let's, let's briefly go back to the point you made earlier about enlightenment and just continue the thread, uh, here a little bit. So, uh, another way that the big shift that's happening at the moment has been described is like information, age to intelligence, age, uh, and what does life in the intelligence age actually mean for.
For humans in the sense that the life, life in the information age is very different to the industrial age and, uh, and and so on. Does that align with the, the, the point you've just made and also your point about enlightenment? So moving into intelligence age, you can basically, and I'm I'll ridiculously oversimplify this, uh, at, at least to a point where I can understand it anyway.
There's, you know, there's one path. Let's just say there's two paths. There's one path that says, you know, kind of the, the dark existential for humans path that, you know, kind [00:53:00] of intelligences on our planet, get to a point where they're so intelligent, they actually don't even consider us in their thinking, and therefore that poses some sort of dark threat, probably more likely something like that.
Or an altman's accidental over reliance on AI that causes us problems versus the other path that says. Actually what they act as is, you know, again, oversimplifying, but amazing information aggregation and communication machinery that then allows the human to move up to the next level or some form of enlightenment.
Have you, is that how you are framing it and is what, what does, what does all of that mean to you, do you think? Yeah. Um, so, so I, I, I mean, I'm, I'm very open to that next level, but I'm, I'm having difficulties, even if I imagine, uh, internalized or externalized, psychedelic or spiritual travels, whatever you wanna refer that to, even then, I'm having [00:54:00] difficulties to reflect what that would even mean if we are a part of a whole and we are not, in that sense, a subject that has a relationship to our everyday task of acting into the world.
So the question for me is, when we look at intelligence is. What if every question that you can come up with, uh, is already done, or you could do it in that instant. So like the, the, if you can dream it, you can do it part really materializes, um, and, and everything is solved. What would that mean to us? How would we, you know, live then?
So it's, it's more of that part, it's kind of sort of like a metaphysics of becoming. So as long as we are in becoming, uh, and we are constantly on, uh, uh, at least a, a feeling of. You know, uh, having some kind of agency, I think we're in a good place. But, but that is to me, not given, if we [00:55:00] hand it over to a machine.
So the intention could be good. We could try to install some, you know, human ethics. Um, but it's just so superior. So it would be kind of, sort of, not even bad intention, it would be like we walking around, you know, we don't look for ants to kill 'em, but it's just that we are so much, you know, advanced and superior to ants in so many senses.
So these are like views that could be, are argued for, but there are also strong arguments against, of course, but to me, I, I'm, I'm not seeing a very promising path if we don't dare to at least play with. And, and coming back to your question, uh, moving from the Fatal Information Society into the Knowledge Society.
I think we have to go beyond that. We live in an attention economy today, an attention society where everything that is intention are the vitalization of society and economy. I think we have to get down [00:56:00] to the society of understanding. We need to understand what things are, and that is basically for me, only done by first principle and, and maybe to start with a human being with a mensch.
And as I said in at the beginning, uh, to take evolution into our own hands. So I think it goes beyond knowledge because a knowledge world, a solved world is. A world where there is no room for progress and, and, and it's not given with the understanding. So, so we're kind of sort, circling back to a lot of thoughts that philosophers had, if it's hagel or K and even work of Nietzsche and, and, and, and, and that in a new, new dress.
So I think philosophy has to become dangerous in the sense that philosophy needs to build technology. So philosophy needs to be a creative force that creates, so we are moving, I think from a [00:57:00] story of a divine creationism to a humane creationism. That we are the agents who creates and therefore we are becoming.
So we are becoming the technology that we are creating and not creating it without any understanding or purpose or goal like we are doing right now. We are trying just to put more firepower at it and see where it goes. Uh, and I think we talked, and you mentioned at the beginning with the previous paradigms.
The previous paradigms were not about, um, understanding what we created. And that was not the case. We screwed up and messed up. The only difference was we always had a window of opportunity to error. Correct. So we went back and fixed the mistakes of what we had created. Mm-hmm. It was trial and error, but we are now at a point where error correction might not be possible, and that's a completely new way of looking [00:58:00] at the world.
So, Anders, in, in much of what you've just been talking about, you're, you are, you're talking about things like perception and the way that you experience life and what that means and why it's meaningful. So let, let's return to the simulation and let's remind ourselves to start with. What that means for anybody who hasn't maybe listened to some of the earlier conversations.
Rob, you are agonized by it. Tell us what the simulation is. Well, the, it's, uh, the bit, I, I suppose everything else is simulated around me. So all I have is my sensory input to tell me what the world is and I could just be sat in a simulation and you are all ais or programs and as I turn away from you, you disappear and then you reappear.
When I reenact with it, with there's, there's a load of variations of it, but essentially there's this thing [00:59:00] where we're just in a thing that we're, I exist and you are all fake, which is a bit mind blowing when you start to get under it and get into the detail of it and what that means and everything else, and sort of challenges the sense of you and life and the meaning and all that sort of stuff.
So that's, as I see it. However, I probably have an overly simplistic view of that, and I'm not in any way an expert on the subject, although it has consumed far much processing power in my brain for the past two years. I think the general thesis is. Once a sophisticated enough solution, uh, simulation has been created, multiple, almost infinite simulations can then be created assuming compute power, um, and therefore the odds are that you're more likely to be in one of the many simulations than in, in the root world.
Is that about right, Anders? In terms of those two definitions, what, what? Where's your head? Yeah, I think you touched upon the, and I'm, the only, uh, limitation in this train of thought in my view was that you, [01:00:00] like, if 8 billion people would make a simulation and you have a simulation within the simulation, a in re we have a, you know, chain of simulations.
Uh, the challenge is entropy or maybe like the, the halt of the base computer. So if you would think about that, technically, if the base computer base reality has the same physical loss as the simulated computers within and you have no programmer or God or whoever that can come in and manipulate the base computer, uh, eventually the computer could come to un halt.
That's like the technical playful part of it. Um, when it comes to the simulation is, um, so for those that are not fa familiar with it, it's a trimmer that Nick Bostrom, a Swedish philosopher, um, published in 2003 and, um, there are three different, um. I would say, um, scenarios or statements that he makes arguments and one holds to be true and one is that, um, [01:01:00] almost all of civilization go extinct before we get into a simulation.
So there is some kind of pre-programmed technical limitation that we cannot run ancestor simulations. Um, the second argument is that, uh, we just get bored. So I mean, um, you know, for consciously choose not to run a simulation could also be an option. But, you know, we sit in awe the whole day and say, my iPhone has not done enough.
We have enough technology, let's not advance. That would be, uh, an argument. And the third argument is that progress, coming back to his, his point, uh, progress is possible. And if that is true, uh, and if you look at like the last. 50 years or so going from two dimensional pong games to almost indistinguishable 3D simulated worlds, uh, and we continue into the future, then, you know, simulation would be possible, and that is technically also doable.
Um, and if that is true, then based on the sheer timeframe and the, you know, whole essence of things, [01:02:00] then the probability that we live in base reality is almost zero. And this is what Neil Degrass, Tyson, David Chalmers, Elon Musk, uh, are very yeah. Outspoken about. So this is the theory and. This is then like what happens and, and to add to the, the last conversation, so my co-author, Floria Noyer, has very substantially published in scientific papers around what he called the quantum memory matrix.
I'm sure we could put the work in the. Show notes, um, that, that, that needs an acronym or something? I would say there's an acronym. Yeah. Qmm The quantum Memory Matrix. So basically many think here from a spiritual world. This is a Caic record. So what he has proven is basically that, you know, everything that has happened, happens.
It could happen, is written into a memory matrix, a code, uh, in the universe. So to simplify, everything in the universe is information and proving that black holes can hold information. And instead of talking about a big bang, you would talk about a b [01:03:00] big crunch where everything, the information in the universe is collapses into a big crunch, which could be what we referred to as a big bang.
Um, and this also kind of, sort of is relatable to Roger P's work about a, um, cosmic cyclic in independent, um, in infinite, infinite, uh, cyclic, um, cosmological, uh, recurrence of a universe. And, and these are kind of, sort of, um, parts that have continued, uh, on these type of views of the world, the, the reality.
But basically right now, uh, there are many, many experiments and publications around, um, reality being information, which again. You know, which kind of, sort of lean into the machinery way of thinking of it to simplify it. So, so this builds on that argument from, from Nick Bostrom. You know, as people think we could go extinct, that's one argument.
If they think we run out of interest in, in in progress, that's one argument. But if we believe that progress is doable, then [01:04:00] most likely we are in a simulation. Now, one of the things I wanted to, I read about this a few months ago and I thought. I know exactly the person I'm gonna ask this question to. So brace yourself on this, and I'm, I'm gonna actually read this out.
So, uh, recent research suggests that if the universal is simulation, it could not be a purely computational one. So seeing, uh, a bunch of physicists have used maths such as girdle's, incompleteness theorem, um, to argue that reality requires a non algorithmic understanding beyond what a computer simulation could replicate.
So I wondered, one, did you, did you catch that when it was, uh, you know, there was a little bit of buzz about it a couple of months ago. Uh, and two, just where that sat within your, within your view of it? Is it like, is it too literal, you know, kind of assuming a computer works the same as it just today and it might not like work like that in the future, take on the situation, or is there something in there for you?
Yeah, I, I mean, I, from a this, when it [01:05:00] comes down to the, the core thinking of the quantum. Mechanical part of a universe. And, and also to the math, I, I'm sure Florian would be, um, give a much more sophisticated answer that I could. Uh, there has been arguments against, and also for we listen in completeness theory, and there has also been statements and arguments around why it does not, uh, contradict.
Um, so, but I, I'm not, and I'm not in a position to answer that question. Um, I've been following debates. On some of the conversations that I've seen that has also made very strong claims that it does not contradict girdles into complete Ethereum. Uh, but it extends the views. And this is also the, the foundation that, um, Florian was, you know, also criticized because he would nage or prove Einstein wrong, which is not at all what he did.
He just extended it. He just completed it. Or, or, or continued. Better. So I think to this point, I think there is a [01:06:00] continuum of very, you know, profound work of, of girdle that you keep come referring back to. But is it incomplete? Uh, is it not fulfilled or does it just extend the arguments? And, and as I said before, I'm not technically in a point to argue there, but there are many views and videos and, and thinkers around this that are much more competent than I am in this field that would have various view.
Uh, I, to be honest, I don't know. Um, I, I do not know technically if, if there is something here. Uh, but I've seen arguments on both sides. Hmm. So I think, you know, I think people should just, if they wanna get very technical on it, they should dig in and, and, and, and have a look at both sides of the arguments.
What I find or struggle about it is, is that when we're talking about this, people like to come out and make a statement like you've just said, Dave, and it's absolute, this must be true. There's no way that it, but there. All, all they're basing it on is the, the set of knowledge that they have and the capability that they have to be able to theorize that.
And you sort of went well in a million years time, [01:07:00] how do you know that something much wider than that exists or we have a different understanding of it or, you know, the, the way we think about it's changed. It's the, but it's still come out with absolutes. It can't be true. And you go, well, we used to think that tectonic plates didn't exist and then we found them.
You know, in science we keep progressing and we keep discovering new things. And I always find it difficult when the absolutes are laid down. 'cause you go, well, you don't actually really, maybe 99%, but you know, there's still that little bit of doubt in the future that we might discover something that changes your opinion.
Now the simulation doesn't need to follow a logic, you know, it doesn't need to be complete. And, and, and it doesn't need, it doesn't need to be self-explanatory within, right. So, so I think this is also basically, um. Yeah. I, I, I don't think there is an argument for that. Uh, it, it, it, no, you don't have to have a simulation that can, um, prove [01:08:00] anything about itself.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I think this is where, uh, you, you, you would argue like against girdle, but I, I, I think this is not, um, this is not what Girdle is saying. And, and, and to your point before Rob, like when you turn around, you know, you just need local coherency, right? Mm-hmm. That's, it just renders where you are.
Right? As long as, as long as it's stable enough for you to think that you exist. Yeah. That's all you need. Yeah. It's just fine. It's just fine. Right. If we are in a simulation, you know, I mean there, there, there are probably things that. You know, also coming down to quantum physics, right? I mean, what, what is it?
Randomness, determinism, you know, all of these things. It's just that I don't think we need to decide and we need to have a stand in order to have a simulation. That's my, my understanding of, of, of these arguments. But again, here, uh, as I said before, there are much more competent physicists and mathematicians that could argue in both directions here.
But, but these are my view when it comes to, to simulation. [01:09:00] I I, is there any work that you've done since the last time you were on the show? I think we had the simulation conversation three years ago this Christmas, um, and I know you've been working on it since. Have I, I think the colu as close as you can get to a conclusion about such a thing.
I think where we left it last time around was a bit like the point you, you and Rob have just been talking about, which is like, if I, if I'm experiencing it and I'm, I'm living a fully fledged life of progress and experience and et cetera, then does it matter whether I'm in a simulation or not? Have you, have you substantially framed any of that in the work that you've been doing and or is it just deepening in your belief in it?
Deepening my belief would be be wrong to say, because I think it's the, the first part of what you said that it's really relevant. Uh, I don't care. Yeah. Right, right. So, so when you said, like, basically you talked about, uh, a couple of minutes ago or the beginning about like seeking meaning, uh, and, and finding meaning in life.
I think it's about [01:10:00] like giving meaning. So whether it's stimulation or reality, it seems that I have a capacity as an agent to observe thoughts, uh, to reflect on things that has happened. Uh, I'm not the thinker. I'm not the, you know, pulling the, the strings, uh, of the, the neurons fire and I projected onto what I call reality, but I can, I can have some capacity to think about thoughts, to think about what has happened.
So I'm all, I'm, I'm, I'm observer of reality and, and now it seems that I have some kind of agency. I don't want to get into the whole free will, uh, debate, but it seems that I have some kind of agency to act into the world so I can like, have a feeling of filling my world and giving meaning to a. Whatever reality we wanna, uh, perceive.
So I think, you know, this whole thing I [01:11:00] is, it's pretty cool to feel like you are alive. So it's, it's, it's, it's, it's funky. It's, it's fun. I think it's better than the not being alive, um, without any comparison because I, I can't say that I can compare it to, to not being alive, but I think it's pretty cool.
And therefore, I think that, as I said very earlier about filling your life and being the agent and giving meaning to life, like a wonderful journey to nowhere. But you're, you're not a meaning seeker. You are a meaning giver to your own life. And, and therefore doesn't matter if it's real, if it's simulated, whatever, if it's just foundational and the physical reality emerges out of consciousness like Donald Hoffman talks about.
Mm-hmm. It doesn't matter because it feels real to me. Uh, and therefore my, my whole agency is to, to give some meaning to it. It's the same as the Truman show, right? As long as he thinks it's real. It's real. Yeah. Until, you know, he bumps his boat to the decor and he finds out, oh my God, you know? [01:12:00] Well, yeah.
So don't grow your boat. Interestingly, as you were going through that description, and I, I don't think you did this before, but I I, I could be misremembering, you were using the term agent quite a lot, as you would, as you were describing that there. I wonder, and I don't recall you using that term before, but, but maybe you did, but do you think there is any, you know, kind of a, any interesting relationship between the evolution of the agent as we are seeing it at the moment and the creation of agent platforms and agents interacting with humans and the, the sort of world that we are highly likely to find ourselves in?
Uh, any relationship between that and what we've been talking about, do you think? Like, is it possible to say that Well, an agent, it's, it's basically passing the Turing test to Rob's point, and it's active in my organization and I talk to it every day. What do you think its experience of the situation is?
Hmm. Yeah, I, I, it's true that I, I use agency a [01:13:00] lot more today, um, in, in my thinking. And if I were to guess, I would say there is no self perception of, of a technical agent today that that's like I, I I, I romanticize consciousness being something unique in, in, in the sit, in, in, in the sit, seated in dimension in the human being.
And, and therefore, um, I think it's, it's pretty amazing. And if there is something beyond that many, I also argue for that the consciousness is uh, or some kind of pan psychic, uh, worldview and everything has some kind of consciousness. And there are many things that I'm very open to. To experiencing, believing in.
And, uh, and I've been, I've been thinking also a lot about, and I, I went to, to ga tip, I think I talked about Thato was together and, and I've been stuck with me, uh, with ancient civilizations and technologies that are not given today and how science and, and these type of civilization might have had access to other ways [01:14:00] of communicating, doing things.
And so, so I'm very, very open to, um, uh, to, to, to, to, to thinking about something beyond the things that seems linear to us. And I think this is also one of the most important part that anyone can do today, and particularly in business, in society in general, is to anticipate future scenarios. So, I mean, if you think that there will be robots, if you think that there will be progress.
What does that mean? You know, I mean it's, it's, it's, it's much easier to exaggerate on potential futures and then track back and see what that, what, what it means. I mean, very ban nail simple things like if everyone gets old and we don't get any children anymore paying into tax system and health systems, how will the world then look if you think that this pyramid in Europe will continue like this?
It's, it's, it's, it's a very simple [01:15:00] argument to play with because you could either have a lot of migration. Which mean basically Norwegians and Germans and Danes, and we'll be just vanished, uh, eventually, right? Uh, if they die, uh, or the other argument, we need a lot of humanoid robots. If we have a lot of humanoids, what does that mean?
You know, what does it mean to have a, uh, agent and a robot in our houses to interact with who has a perfect communication with other and learns very, very fast? And I mean, we see our children, we see human being learning really slow. This is not how machines learn. You know, they play 4 million games of chess against itself.
Um, it gets up and it starts to dance, and within hour it could do karate. So, I mean, basically this is like, what does that even mean to us? Uh, so anticipating future is something that becomes really important. So at least everyone can think about what does it mean to me? And in that position, we start to think about plausible futures and [01:16:00] to finish that argument.
Then it seems like we build that. Mm-hmm. So coming back to your question, the agents, it seems like we are creating that. The question is are we creating a future consciously out of these reflections or are we doing trial and error and just fueling the fire by throwing more compute at it and see where it takes us and this, these are two different futures I believe, and I would be more optimistic about the first one where we spend a lot more time thinking about what kind of future is worth striving for.
Under the assumption we will have abundance of resources in particularly energy and we will have this compute power that we are foreseeing. We will have quantum computers and you know the argument Kutz well has on uh, a GI is 2029, right? But then he has technological singularity pinpoint for 2045.
[01:17:00] That's 16 years. If you have an a GI as per the conventional description of an a GI, why do you take 16 years to propel into a singularity? So why doesn't it speed up? So, so I'm even, you know, I'm, I'm very, I mean, he's a genius. He came up with this in the seventies, in the eighties, and people are just starting to agree more with him.
But what I might not agree is that it would take then after 20, 29, 16 years for that rapid, uh, development, because my assumption would be, would just speed up a lot after that. So, yeah, it's, it's things that we can play with. Um, what does a world where energy is free even mean? You know, words, it's CapEx, big face, big fixed cost.
No, no opex, no, no variable cost. You know, what does that mean? Right. Very interesting. Well, I think on that note, we'll leave that as an open question for now. Um, [01:18:00] and is, that's always a pleasure to dig into some of those subjects with you. Absolutely. Crazy stuff. So thank you so much. Do you think it's crazy, Dave?
I I, I honestly, I, I use that term not in the sense of like insane, more in the sense of like, it's, it's just unbelievable to think about. Like, it's just like, but why, why do you say that? Because when I wrote The Quantum Economy, the first book back in 20 18, 20 19, I wrote about AI and all that stuff and I said, the 2020 to 2030s, 10 years.
Mm-hmm. And the same people said, oh, this is science fiction and you're a futurist and you're exaggerating and this and that. I just rewrote like the small little black book that's just less than a hundred pages, small format, just compact on very much like a new way of thinking on the quantum economy coming out January, 2026.
So I said, okay. Why was I radical back then? Mm. When we are now at 2025 and I was too [01:19:00] conservative. I mean, I underestimated. Yeah. Yeah. Now, when I predict and when I look at the future, people come back and say, you're crazy. Well, am I, why? I think it's boring. I think it's just thinking exponentially about progress and someone has to come out and say, we are gonna stagnate.
We're gonna take our Nokia 51, 10, we are gonna go backwards. That's crazy. You know? Crazy thinking about progress. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Potential. So, so I'm just, I'm just always surprised that my thinking is, uh, science, I call it sci-fi with the pH. I, for me, it's more of the fact that we're having this conversation.
And the crazy thing is that it is act, it's actually happening as, as we speak now. We did a thing recently where we were at a couple of conferences and at the end of the. Episode we asked all the guests like, you know, if you think about sci-fi books, films, tv, and the way that they represent tech for want of a better term and the world as a result of that tech, most of the stuff that's been influential [01:20:00] on at least our generation of, of of humans, um, is now actually available to purchase in most shops.
And you could go down to like the, the expo floor at these conventions and you can see the sorts of things, whether it be like the virtual companion from her or whether it be highly automated. Drones that can run in huge kind of, you know, kind of flocks that can like, be massively controlled or whether it be robotics or, or even quantum computers.
Right. The crazy thing for me is that it, it legitimately is all here. Yes. Like Google, Google have just announced the ability for production workloads Yes. On quantum computers. Yeah. I mean that's the, that's the thing. That's thing mind blowing is probably a better, is probably a better expression mind.
Yeah. And, and, and to that point, I mean, ex Mina Alex Garland Yeah. Wrote that back in probably 20 11, 20 12. It came out in 2014 at 11 years ago. Where is the sequel? You know, if you were to think [01:21:00] about science fiction today, what would you envision if you wanna bring it to the market in three years, two or three?
Did you see, did you see James Cameron's, uh, quote last week? It was when we were doing this thing? No, I didn't. And he happened to be quo, he must be touring Avatar at the moment or something. It happened to be quoted that he wanted to do, uh, a sequel. Another crack at it. But I guess his one to Terminator Uhhuh, because if he leaves it much longer, the world is reframed so much that it's almost irrelevant.
He's like, I need to get cracking. Yeah. 'cause the technology is overtaken me. That's good. But that's what we are, we, we, we write about sci-fi with the PHI, we are not in the science fiction real anymore. We are in the world of science philosophy. So the sci-fi is now at a PHI now with the fiction. And, and this is where, you know, what we can imagine becomes reality.
And that is where philosophy needs to step in and, and tackle that. So sci-fi to me has changed from, um, fi to PHI. Very interesting. Very interesting. [01:22:00] So, EZ, you've been sitting, listening, and I know you always come at things from a, a very humanist point of view, but what's, what's what's, you know, use your own word, but what's, what's mind blowing about the moment we're in that we've been sort of trying to noodle a bit today?
Well, I actually love Nokia. The old phone, uh, you know, my question is where's the soul in all of this? I understand your progress and your experience part, but I think it's the soul that needs to, would you say that AI is actually, if we're so progress, that I already went through heartbreak, that I already had that experience.
Uh, because it's also the struggle in life, right? It's soul meeting souls. It's, yeah, I'm just looking for a soul in all of this. Yeah. I mean a soul, it's, it's, it's a very interesting concept and I think, you know, I hope there is something like that, obviously, but I mean, this is basically also why if you listen to all [01:23:00] these various views, I think it's very healthy for people to have something to believe in.
Concepts of reference because it's, you know, Rob's rabbit hole, uh, of the simulation stick switching, right? So I think it's very healthy to have that opinion, but this is also why I found it tomorrow, Manch, and, and why I'm, I'm building that is, it's just because I want to go after intuition, soul, spirit, any concept that you can throw at that you cannot put into a algorithmic description of exactly what it is.
And this are this, this is the void that does not exist. And this is the absurdity beyond this is in the realm of what I call the cytes and the dite that was does not exist, right? So, so this is, I think it's very important. But at the moment, I'm not sure that it [01:24:00] exists. And, and therefore, in, instead of pondering it, I wanna drive technology, but I want to drive it consciously as a human being, as a soul, as a men, whatever you want to call it.
And I want, I, I wanna have that agency. To understand that I wanna make that leap from first principle, from understanding and not as a reaction to a superior technology that was created by a mens or human being that we do not understand. So that's, that's the reason behind tomorrow Mensch and, and, um, I hope that I land at the soul or something that I cannot explain.
We can get closer, but as long as there is no resolution, then probably are in a, in a pretty, I look, look forward to that conversation. Yeah. How do you do that and is it like you wake up in the morning, you do a cup of coffee, do you have like a practice to get into this mind state? 'cause it's quite different than a lot of the conversations I think that a lot of people have day in, day out.
How do you do that? Do you have like a [01:25:00] trick or a practice? Maybe Tai Chi or what, you know, you know, AIS can hold any argument. So when I wake up, I just turn on the 5.2 or 5.3 version and it runs. Yeah. A different developer wrote you ANDAs. That's why you've got a different ethos on life. It's just, yeah.
It was Dave rather than Susan this time round. Yeah. Well, yeah, exactly. No, I mean, it's, it's, I, I, to me it's just normal. I mean, it's how I see the world. I, I don't need a solid ground to stand on, you know? I, I fully understand whatever belief, whatever thing it is, it's just. It's very hard to, to tap into finite arguments that has some kind of, uh, self-evident truths that are not plausible in their own explanation.
I'm not looking at all to, to tell people what to think, but I think it's very healthy to, to learn how to think. And I try to move on that. I try to, to figure out why do I see it like that? And I, that's why I just, it's just how I see the world and, [01:26:00] uh. I'm open to any explanatory fin finite description, uh, any, you know, mono, if there are any monotheistic, uh, systems that are correct, I'm open to all, but as long as there are five or six disagree on one and come show 'em to me, I'm, I'm not.
I'm agnostic. I'm an agnostic atheist. I'm very, so this is how I see the world, and I can only see the world like that. So, um, I don't have to get into some kind of yoga or, uh, milk or coffee with eggs or whatever in the morning to get going. I just get up and I, I love it. I mean, I spend seven days a week every holiday, every part to think about these things, and it's part of my life.
It's not a work, it's just that my children, my, my wife, everyone. Relates to that, that's so it's, but I think your, your, your passion for it and your inquiry is, uh, is, is plain. Now, uh, I just wanted to address one thing before we move on to excited, which is for the listeners that didn't see this, Rob started crying about 25 minutes ago as we got into the [01:27:00] simulation and now you've got yourself back together again.
Rob, I wonder if this has helped at all. I think it's, it's always amazing when we have these conversations. 'cause what you've done is just as I was getting into the understanding of a conversation we had three years ago, you've now loaded me up with another three years of confusion. And then we're gonna meet again.
I'm gonna go right. I've just about understood the conversation we had three years ago and now it's gonna load me up again. Keep filling the hopper up. Right? If you can't convince them, confuse them. Right. Keep the
now look and as we end of the episode of the show, I think, as you know, by now, by asking our guests what they're excited about doing next. But since this is a Christmas show and it is actually Christmas Day that we're going out on, uh, this year, um, what [01:28:00] are you excited about doing at Christmas this year?
It is very easy. Um, I'm taking my two daughters to my parents in Rero in Norway, and I'm excited to spending Christmas day the day after, the day after that, the day after that, the day after that, uh, consecutive for 8, 9, 10 days straight to go out, take my 10 Ks of cross country skiing, put on a headlamp, go deep dive into the forest and just listen to the silence, uh, and just have minus 10, minus 15 degrees, come back with a white beard and just experience life to the fullest.
This is where you realize that there is a. Fricking amazing whatever simulation or reality we live in. Uh, so I'm very excited about that. Spending some time with the family, uh, and enjoying, uh, in winter wonderland in the small village of three and a half thousand people, uh, nested in the, the, the. The border to Sweden in the midst of Norway.
So that's the, I'm very excited about that. [01:29:00] If you would like to discuss any of the issues on this week's show and how they might impact you and your business, please get in touch with us at Cloud [e-mail]. We're all on LinkedIn, so we'd love to hear from you. Feel free to connect and DM if you have any questions for the show to tackle.
And of course, please rate and subscribe to our podcast. It really helps us improve the show. A huge thanks to Anders are sound and editing wizard, Ben and Louis, our producer Mike Vander, and of course to all our listeners. See you in a remix reality next year.
We are changing name, no edit point. This, this is the last episode of Cloud Realities Edit Point. Did we not have this conversation like literally an hour ago? I thought that I would throw it in. So, uh, you thought you'd just do something totally different and [01:30:00] way less interesting. Okay, we'll start again.
Edit points. Okay. Edit point.