Hi, Nick here from Pods with Nick and James.
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Hi, welcome to Pods with Nick and James.
I am your co-host James. Say hi, Nick.
Hi.
Cool. Right, so today's topic is something that's close to my own heart,
but actually something I'll be honest with you.
I've let go over the years. For some reason, I really picked this up,
this theory up when I first came to faith in my early 20s. I think I was actually 20.
And then, you know, did some reading into it. But I just over the years, let it go as I,
I don't, I stopped seeing it as an absolute or as a, there are parts of this that I disagree
with as well. But the theory that I'm going on about and already tripping up over is the
theory of intelligent design, which in my mind is the idea that the universe is so finely tuned,
that there are so many, not, well, coincidence is the wrong word.
But that there are so many details and exact details which allow for the universe to exist
as it does and for life to be possible as it is that seem to point towards the existence of
a transcendent cause to the universe, which a lot of people then put down as God and said,
then put down as God and some people just see as a transcendent cause. What really surprises me
is that even this theory nowadays, sometimes the annoying thing is some advocates of it
are using pseudoscience and some advocates of it are just using science. And you get,
it's frustrating to me that it, it's frustrating to me that there's a lot of disagreement
on this topic within the scientific community and nobody hears about it. But the more I've
done research into this, the more it looks like there's actually disagreements in
in loads of scientific theories all the time and none of us hear or know anything about it.
This has been really enlightening for me on my own, my own ignorance of the modern history of
science, the modern history of multiple scientific findings. And it's just, you know what, it's been
a pleasure to read about and to get back into. My main source has been the case for a creator by
Lee Strobel. Lee Strobel was a atheist news reporter who did research, kept on doing research into
whether God existed by speaking to a lot of high-end scientists. And despite some of the
fine things that he found out, a lot of what he thought, what he found the evidence was went
against his own beliefs and eventually he ended up coming to know God himself through what he
studied. What I will say just as a quick caveat thing is that although I believe there are things
that point towards the existence of God, I don't see, I wouldn't consider myself an advocate of
intelligence design simply because I don't, I still don't think you can prove,
I don't think you can prove the existence of God through intelligent argument,
which is possibly a massive failing in myself as a Christian. But yeah, that's just how I feel about
it. I think you need to have a personal experience, otherwise you're not going to have
things that are needed to make you believe some of the things that I believe. Now I know you've
done a fair amount of research into this over the years, Nick, and I also know that although we're
on different sides of the fence of this, I will happily, as I sit here, freely admit that you've
probably done a fair bit more research into this. What are some of my other sources would be
Reasonable Faith by Dr. William Lane Craig. I'm probably going to buy this book called Icons of
Evolution and even though I disagree with the conclusions that are brought up in that book,
it still seemed to have some interesting facts about scientific inquiries that are
displayed in textbooks, at least in America. What is your understanding of intelligent design and
what are some of the readings that you've been doing? Well, for me, my first introduction,
should we say, to intelligent design was I was about nine and I went to Sunday school
and was introduced to the Christian faith and the ideology of there being a creator
who designed not just the earth, the sky, the plants, the animals, humans as well.
And it didn't didn't compute with my head at the time. As I grew up, I've always been quite a
skeptic, but I've always been very open minded. I almost sit there and say, convert me. That's
basically been my argument with a lot of faiths that I've had conversations with. I've basically
sat there and just had conversations with pastors, with missionaries, whoever, and given them the
option, given them the opportunity to convert me, talk to me about their faith and bring me over to
their side, because I also, I find myself going, there's millions of people that believe what you
believe. I can't just deny the fact that that might have some relevance, might have some truth.
So I go, I'm not intelligent enough on my own to argue against you despite the fact that I don't
hold the same beliefs as you. So what that's done is it's allowed me to accumulate a perspective
of not just one faith, but many faiths, many different perspectives of intelligent design.
And then what I've also done is I've also had a real curiosity into the scientific world
and the world of the unknown and the unexplainable and things like that. And all the time that you're
going through that kind of research, you find yourself going, you find yourself almost asking
the question, is there relevance? Is there some other part at play here? So there's always that
question in the back of your mind, whether or not that's part of conditioning, part of growing up
in a world where there are faiths and when there are those faiths, you always have that open-ended
question in the back of your mind, like are we being watched? Is there a higher power, as it were?
So it's difficult to really argue against, as I said, it's difficult to argue against
intelligent design, but at the same time, it's not something that you can, as you said,
it's not something that you can necessarily prove. So it's not something that you can
as you said, it's not something that you can necessarily prove, unless we actually went,
we actually managed to find the Ye Olde Grand Workbench where it was worked upon
and found evidence with the tools and the DNA evidence and whatnot else of what was used to
create said remnants and said ancestors and planets and whatever else. There's no real way
that you can actually prove it. So for those devout, I'll believe it if I see it, you're never
going to believe it. But for those that look for the meaning between the lines, it's hard to deny it.
Maybe it can work for them.
Yeah, it's hard to deny it. Some of the most intelligent people in the world throughout history
have come to the conclusion that there's very good grounds for intelligent design.
Yeah, like Newton, Einstein.
Isaac Newton said, this most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets could only proceed
from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being. Basically saying that the
position of the stars, of the sun and the planets and the comets and everything else in our,
just in our solar system, so perfectly tuned that it couldn't just be happenstance.
Yeah, well, that's the thing. I know there's a famous, with these sorts of stories, it's always
hard to know whether they're actually true or not, because, you know, who knows if the famous people
said what they're reported to have said. But one conversation between Isaac Newton and a friend of
his who was an atheist at the time, Isaac left a beautifully painted globe in his study when his
friend came to visit him, and then left his friend waiting in there a couple of minutes, which even
to me is like basic manipulation. Don't be doing that. Don't make your point by getting people to
wait for you or whatever. But anyway, moving on. He came down and his friends asked him,
oh, who made this beautiful globe? And the whole argument is incredibly trite, but Newton was just
like, oh, well, no one made it. It's just there. And then use that as a backwards and forwards
between the two as a way of talking about the universe and how it must have some kind of
transcendent cause. The reason why the intelligent design argument has become slightly more prevalent
in today's society rather than in ancient culture is because people like Plato, well, actually,
Plato did believe that the world was created by the demiurge, but Aristotle just thought that
the universe is simply infinite and eternal. And a lot of thinkers in a lot of societies
have believed that. And to be fair, the universe, it may not be infinite, but I have no way of
proving that it's not. I also, it's so big that it almost might as well be. And also, although
the universe I don't believe will be, is or will be eternal, it's going to exist for such a long
time beyond myself that once again, it might as well be. So it's difficult to, with these things,
it's difficult to separate the fiction, the theory, and the fact. But like for me, the reason,
not for me, sorry, the reason why this, back to the original point, I'm already just struggling
to get my thoughts together, the reason why this school of thought has become slightly more, and
the reason why I say slightly more is because it's not in the news every single day. It's not
on the front of loads of magazines all the time. It's just there in, at the end of a YouTube video
on biology, on a YouTube video in, on science, in a scientific magazine. It's just, it's there. It's
a thought which has occurred. Is, sorry, the reason why this thing has become about is because
things like the Big Bang Theory, the fact that, the undeniable fact that the universe is expanding,
are well-known facts that have been taught in schools for at least what, like,
I want to say a hundred years at this point, but it might be less than that. I know that
the idea that the universe is eternal is more difficult to deny when
I can't remember the guy's first name, but when Hubble saw the Doppler shift
and then looked at the number of stars which have the red shift, therefore,
oh yeah, it's just to any of our listeners who haven't heard of this before,
the Doppler effect is the change in wavelength when a body that is
emitting light is moving away at a certain speed, it changes the wavelength of the light that the
object is emitting. Because so many stars in the night sky seem to be producing a different
wavelength of light to what we would expect them to be, it is believed that they are
moving away and their speed is changing. So, it's a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very
very fast speed is often calculated by a lot of people who are far more smarter than me.
But since Hubble has been able to show fairly categorically that the universe is expanding,
that seems to point towards the Big Bang Theory, or originally as it was called the Cosmic Egg
the idea that the universe had a point of creation. And because of this and because of a lot of other
constants and details in nature, a lot of people look at the world and go,
huh, if things were just off, just by the tiniest amount, it would be impossible for life to exist
as it does. I also have a couple of problems with this theory, but I'll tell you what, I'll bring
those up in a little while as I realise I'm already talking too much.
I've got a counter argument for that final point.
Brilliant.
Because I don't believe that, I personally don't believe that
everything's so perfect just to sustain life. I believe that life will find a way in whatever
circumstance.
Ah, like, well, for lack of a better way of putting it, like, you know what, I'm sorry, mate,
this isn't supposed to sound trite, but the Jurassic Park quote, life finds a way.
No, exactly that. It is that, right? So, I mean, there's video, look up on YouTube, right,
there's videos where they put, like, pond water in a jar, no oxygen, seal it up, and it ends up
with its own ecosystem. In your head, you're like, okay, there's no way of replenishing resources
which are being consumed, but life finds a way of making it work within that environment.
Yeah. I have no doubt that if you go to Pluto, for example, you'll find bacteria that is
surviving out on Pluto. You go to Mercury, you'll find bacteria that is thriving in that
environment. Because despite what we conceive as sustainable for life, it's sustainable for the
life that we understand, or that we've observed. And if we were to go into those environments, we
wouldn't be sustainable. That's fair, that's fair. That's an argument that you're not going to be
able to counter that.
Yeah, to be fair, no, you're absolutely right. If I go to Mercury, without outside of the
spacesuit, I am dead. Very quickly.
There are things that exist on this planet, which would exist in environments that you couldn't.
So, even here, like you think about a cockroach, if a nuclear blast happened,
and there was a radioactive fallout, cockroaches would be fine.
Apparently the rats will as well, but cockroaches have a higher tolerance.
Yeah.
Yeah. And if that's not an example for how there's always a means for life to make its way,
then you stop looking at it like, oh, it's the perfect scenario, and think about it more along
the lines of, this is an abundance of life within this specific set of circumstances.
But if we were observing a different set of circumstances, we would be observing a different
abundance of life. And it might just be observable in a different way. It wouldn't necessarily be
humans walking around or apes swinging from trees and stuff like that. But it's a bit vague,
and I understand that life is just, the thing that people misconceive is that they think of life as
us. But life is just life forms of some description, even bacteria, and everything begun with bacteria,
even where we are. It all began with that. So, the existence of bacteria shows the ability
for life to exist. And if everything that exists within this little Goldilocks belt that we're in
now has built from bacteria, the foundation was designed, in inverted commas, designed in this
realm, and built up from within that, and therefore exists within that, and couldn't exist anywhere
else. I feel like I've lost my mind.
I feel like I've lost you.
No, no, no, I think I know what you're saying. Like, if we did...
It's interesting that when...
Right, okay, so one of my things is, I don't know, which is when I don't know if the creation
story is simply allegory. A lot of the time I think there is just allegory because there are...
Like, I can't argue against micro evolution. When it comes to like germs and single celled
organisms, what really surprises me is that there is a huge precursor to even single celled
organisms. And you're absolutely right, bacteria can exist in a huge number of places. I honestly,
I will be surprised if it exists on Pluto or if it exists on Mercury, but by no means, I'm not
going to say that it doesn't. And I'd bet a fiver on it, I wouldn't bet good money. You know what
I mean? Like, I'm not going to say, oh, if there is, I'll do this ridiculous thing, or I'll give
you this thing which is going to cost me several years of my life working away in order to be able
to do. Like, it's interesting for me that the chemical components to produce life, like carbon
based life, you're right, they are abundant in our solar system, but there are still like constants,
then this is the annoying thing, and this is where I have to just put my hands up and say
ignorance and please just bear with me. There are constants, there are chemical constants, energy
constants, which make even the existence of that life possible. And those constants, even in and of
themselves, are very, very specific and they are throughout the universe. And I guess that's
something which some people say points towards intelligent design, whereas other people,
say, well it is that way, so it shouldn't surprise us that it is what we observe. Like, kind of just
a bit of a cyclical argument when it's just like... It's the same argument observed from the other
side, right? Yes. So you say that complexity is what denotes intelligence, you know, intelligent
design. However, the counter arguments of that is that natural process and system of life,
survival and a fittest kind of theology, is what results with that complexity, because that
complexity is necessary for survival in this reality, I suppose, for lack of a better term.
On this planet, in order for our eye to work the way that our eye works, it's evolved through many
different trial and errors into the form that we see. Or we... Not necessarily, that's a bad term,
let's not use see when we're talking about eye. You get the idea. Whereas, the counter argument
to that is that the eye is such a complex biological invention, that it seems impossible that that
would happen out of natural evolution. It's also interesting that people have...
People again have disagreed and used the eye as evidence for both sides of the argument.
Yeah. When it comes to a lot of people think that the eye generally is badly designed
because of the way that the nerve ending is, means that every eye has a blind spot in it,
that just the brain glosses over and every single retina sees the world upside down,
which then requires a neural... Which then the image is flipped in the brain, you know?
Yeah. And this is where you start to get towards the realm of...
Almost like your brain being a computer.
And this is kind of where I walk you down the road of where I sit in my thinking.
Great. Let's go for it. I don't think that...
I don't think it's beyond comprehension to believe in intelligent design.
Let's start from the beginning here. Okay. Everything, every faith has got a level of
history that denotes that there was a creation of intelligence. And the more that you look into
things like this, you start to question... You start to question what's outside of the bubble?
What's outside of reality? And is reality is what we see, what we experience real?
Or is it just exactly that? It's just experience? If... And like, bear with me here, both listeners
and yourself, just bear with me because I am going somewhere. So hold fire.
No, no, no. I talk way too much. You take the mic, you do what you've got to do.
Right. So think about it like this, right? Reality is consciousness. Consciousness is intelligent.
And intelligence is that the entity of consciousness as one organism, as one entity,
knows everything. And if you think about it outside of the sphere of reality, it exists
in a state of all-knowing omnipotence, much the same way as we talk about God.
In a state of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, all the omnis.
All the omnis. But on its own, outside of this entity, its experience, it is just
a library full of books with all the answers. And it's meaningless.
To have all that intelligence, all of the answers, and yet no way of really
experiencing what that means, it's meaningless. Thus, reality. Reality is a means for that intelligence
to, is a means for intelligence to experience through everything, through everything that it knows,
in billions of different, just think about it in terms of humanity. There are billions of humans
on the planet, and each one of them lives a different experience. If consciousness exists
within each of those beings, and experiences the rules that it knows outside of the entity of reality,
from a completely different perspective, then it gives all of those answers, all of that reality
to the meaning. No, it's probably the wrong thing to say. I think, well, actually, I don't think I
know. My headset just broke about two minutes into that. So I've just had to take my headset
off and put you on speaker, but I have missed some of that. So I'm really sorry listeners.
I'll give you the, I'll give you the cliff notes. Let's do the cliff notes, just to get you back up
to speed. Thank you. So I did this, because it's a really complex thing to explain, I prepared.
So all existence, including life, humanity, and every form of reality, originates from a singular
entity driven in a desire to experience. This entity exists beyond the bounds of reality,
as we know it, possessing complete knowledge and understanding. However, within this infinite
knowledge, there's no questions, only the curiosity of how these truths manifest and interrelate across
countless scenarios. Consciousness then is the mechanism through which the entity explores
those relationships, experiencing its knowledge in action across limitless spectrum of possibilities.
Through this existence itself becomes an act of exploration and understanding.
That's incredible.
That's where I sit.
Oh, right. I'm going to need to try and just get my head around that. Give me a second.
Imagine there's an infinite library that contains every book ever written and every book that could
ever be written. And inside this library, all the answers to every question exist.
Here's the thing, simply having the answers isn't the same as understanding what they mean.
Yes, well, absolutely. You've got different, there's a difference between teaching somebody
the times tables and then having someone being able to actually,
I don't know, you can, okay, so you can teach a parrot to say a phrase,
but they might not necessarily understand that. They might not understand what they're saying.
Yeah, they're just making the sound.
Yeah.
Yeah. They wouldn't be able to write a Shakespearean play.
Just because you've taught them language.
Yeah, that's it.
So imagine that library that we were just talking about is alive. It's curious and it wants to feel
what it knows. It decides to write stories and step into them, becoming the characters living
through the plot and experiencing the emotions, challenges and outcomes. In doing so, it transforms
abstract knowledge into real lived experience.
That's interesting. So I'm just making sure I'm understanding you here because I think that
I might not be, although I will admit that that was incredibly succinctly and eloquently put.
But I'm just going to say what I think you're saying and then hopefully,
either you can dumb it down or you can re-explain it because
I'm hoping that I'm not the only one or the only one who's maybe misunderstanding you here
and simply what I mean by that is, listeners, if you understood perfectly what Nick said the first
time, then I apologize. Okay, so are you saying that reality is just the interface of consciousnesses
interacting with each other, trying to gain a better understanding of their own being and of
each other's being or no, there's more to it than that. There's more to it than that.
They're only singular entities when they're able to observe each other in the means that you and
I observe each other. However, outside of this reality, it's the same thing.
Consciousness is the one that is able to observe each other.
Consciousness is the one thing. Let's think about it in terms of Christianity, right?
You get taught in Christianity that God is in everything.
To a point, yeah. It's not pure pantheism because he's also transcendent and exists outside of that.
Exactly. And it does. Consciousness is existence. What wording did I use here?
So back in the library, that's not empty just because conscious, because you and I exist,
because consciousness is experiencing through our reality. The library is still open.
Yeah. And we take what experiences we've learned and go back to the library.
Yeah. Yeah. When we die, we go back to being that one consciousness outside of,
that one entity outside of reality. Yeah. But when we become
you, me, the dog, whoever, whatever, it's a means for consciousness to experience
some of the answers that it had back in the library from that perspective,
giving the answers real meaning.
Okay.
Yeah, that's gone, this has gone a lot more metaphysical than a...
Well, this is the problem with why I can't necessarily stop at any one faith,
because I think there's truth in so much faith. And there's so much similarity between so many
different faiths. And I'm not about to say, I'm not, I'm certainly not saying any of them are wrong,
by any means. In fact, they're probably all right in their own way. But it's, it's all, it's also
people that live outside of faith are also correct.
And intelligence itself, design, whatever you want to call it, it's all relative, it doesn't matter.
Oh, mate, my brain is just completely falling out of my head.
Yeah, this is what I was worried about, I think,
because I was thinking about the fact that I was going to be a
human
engineer and I was thinking about the fact that I was not able to create object realism for lags in
Be having these conversations because they do they do try and stretch you.
Yeah, now this is this is the this is the interesting thing though and I think this is why.
I'm metaphysical views like some of the ones that you've expressed, although if my terminology is wrong I apologize but.
This is why they go somewhat against.
Science normally is that because a lot of people believe.
Truth or object truth and object truth.
By object I mean absolute by object I've mean by objective and therefore what is what is real and what is definitive.
A lot of people believe that to be.
Singular whereas.
The view the view that you express seems to be from my experience and from my hearing at least.
What you're saying is simply is that it's not that truth is not that simple.
Yeah, or that reality is not that simple which means I think we have gotten somewhat off topic, but I still believe that this is all great and this is all good.
Content because this is exactly the sort of thing that I wanted to be talking about with you in this podcast because you.
You do have to wonder like although.
Something may objectively exist, but our subjective experience of each thing is going to be different.
And it's difficult to say whose experience of that object is even more real.
And whose view.
Of that object is more objective or true.
I do believe in.
Objectivity and I do believe in.
The truth being somewhat singular.
But what I will admit is that I know that that view in and of itself.
Is is derisive.
And this is the real kicker is I also know.
That there's more to it than that like.
What is is but at the same time.
The how we all experience the what.
Is is colored by our own.
Our own consciousness and I don't I don't I though in my case I know that that.
Undermines the objectivity I can't see that being.
I or at least I'm very much hope it's not the same for everybody else.
You know or like or is it together as we view the objective.
And come to agreements on the objective do we go become closer to truth simply by hearing.
And understanding the correlation the sorry the cop.
The color rations of other people's so objective reality of truth.
Or of existence I should say.
I think it.
Use use the two slit experiment for example here.
And I don't know if you've heard of what the they call it a double split double slit experiment.
And it though whether electrons or a wave or a particle and it's like absolutely.
The weather that being observed or yeah yeah.
So it's almost like you say.
It's correct.
No matter the observer you're right.
Yeah whether it be the electrical electrical eye looking at it and it's the.
Electronic wave pattern that's on the has been.
After the only observation sheet in the back of the room or whether it's the human eye
that's looking at it and you're getting that sporadic random pattern that you'd expect
to see from so just I want to bring people up to speed just so that they're aware of
what the double split double slit experiment was.
It was an experiment conducted by scientists where they fired electrons through two slits
and then observed how that pattern presented on a.
Readable sheet at the back of the room and you'd expect from if electrons are being fired
randomly through two slits that they would eventually form two lines but that those lines
would form in quite a random pattern because based on what we think should be happening
as humans and what they found was when they observed it through a camera it.
Displayed one pattern like a wave pattern against the wall when it was observed by human
eyes it got that random pattern that you would expect to see from.
Random exchange like that and there was another another circumstance as well which I can't
remember when when they didn't observe it at all it just.
I did something else I can't remember exactly but it's almost like the electron was aware
of what.
Was watching it even to a point where and this is where it gets really messed up because
what they did was they changed the observer halfway through the test to see if as the
particles were traveling through the air whether or not they'd see the end of one pattern
in the start of the next one and but what they what happened was it switched instantly
so even the pattern even the particles that have traveled through this little ready seemed
to go back in time and change their pattern based on what was observing their impact so.
The as I said it was basically like saying is intelligent design a thing well yes but
is intelligent design not a thing well yes and in the same it's like Schrodinger's
cat right like a superposition.
And I think that's where you'll always get to in any kind of argument like that is there's
so many it's such a superposition to be in and because it's completely dependent on the
observer.
Yeah okay and like literally it although it's interesting though that we talk about the
difference of things being observed I know that the calculations of the early big bang
require there to be a observer of some kind.
In order for things to have worked out as they do but then again I haven't done my research
freshly enough into that in order to quote a direct source which is annoying but I understand
what you're saying is that people will observe the same well in okay one one angle of what
you're saying this multiple angles of saying no I'm not going to pretend to have grasped
all of them one of the ones that I have grasped is that people will observe the same thing
and see and what they will interpret is what they want to see but also what is there is
in some ways is changed by their interpretation.
Yes.
But to a point at least.
Yeah like it fits the pattern that they expect to see.
Yeah.
Which is where I was going with that double split experiment analogy.
It caters for what's observing it and what the expectation is and like if you think about
the big bang they're basing their calculations off of regressing calculations that they've
made within the known universe right.
Yeah.
They make observations on how things are moving and how they're rotating and what speed they're
traveling and how fast they're slowing down and things like that and if they're speeding
x y z you know and then they reverse it they go backwards and they go well if we go back
far enough then everything comes out of this one point and that's how they came up with
the concept of the big bang.
But what's to say there was nothing that intervened throughout that process that changed the pattern
there's no way to know is there.
So all that you've really got is a theoretical circumstance.
No that's it.
That's it.
It's frustrating that for me you can look at a million and one facts in science but
when it does come to intelligent design or not it for me is more of a philosophical thing
but what annoys me on is that both sides from both sides of the argument simply accuse the
other of pseudoscience or of bad science and it gets this frustrates me because I'm
I'm too definite in my words and thinking processes which is weird because that's a
complete juxtaposition of how I feel which is a mess of all things all the time but like
I prefer it when it's like one person being right and one person being wrong and not both
people having legitimate criticism of the other one's methodology but the fact that
both of their both the fact that both arguments criticism of the other one appear from an
outsider's point of view to be true simply means that once again I'm left in a place
of confusion and somewhat agnosticism in that both sides of the argument seem to somewhat
be true like just to go back to intelligent design quickly one of its one of its you know
what like this is the thing as well because I think it is a it's a way of thinking that
I think it is adopted by a lot more people than its criticizers would want to admit and
a lot less people people than its proponents would want to say like I think it's one of
those things where it seems there seems to be a massive gray area of it but um intelligent
design has a organization behind it which is kind of pushing some of it forward which
is the center for science and culture which is part of the discovery institute and is
set in Seattle in Washington a major proponent of it is a gentleman called well Dr. Jonathan
Wells I say that the reason why I include a doctor in his title is because he has two
PhDs and he is both a genuine religious person and a genuine scientist doesn't necessarily
mean everything that he says is correct but it he's it's not like he's just a know-nothing
who's coming out of this with an agenda and it's just um it's frustrating that when I
look a little bit at um so Jonathan Wells his there's an interview in the book that
I read there's an interview between Lee Strobel and Jonathan Wells and the things that some
of the things that Jonathan Wells says are entirely valid when it comes to um what makes
good science and what doesn't and having a a premise or a self-proving not self-proving
a hypothesis which doesn't or saying that a hypothesis requires no proof is bad science
and therefore some of the elements of some of the stuff that is put forward in evolution
is bad science but then it's interesting that um some of the scientists that he quotes
in his own work which was called Icons of Evolution we'll probably do a um we'll probably
do an episode on this at a later point uh but a number of scientists who are included
in that work have come forward and said look you've misquoted us it's just it's annoying
to me that so much of this seems uh seems messy and it does it frustrates me that um
when I have spoken to some real scientists some of them have seen intelligent design
as valid and some of them have seen it as absolutely preposterous and it's difficult
for me to to know which way the coin falls you know yeah I mean Elon Musk has a theory
that um we are either in a simulation or we are going to create a simulation that um will
be almost indistinguishable from our reality and therefore we basically create essentially
what is what he theorizes is that um life creates so you think about yourself as a if
you if you think about your life as your the main character in a computer game and um the
world that you live in is the um platform in which you're playing your video game right
and then within that you're going to like real humans will eventually create artificial
intelligence within a computer in its own observable uh universe and that will develop
its own intelligence over time and eventually create its own intelligence within that dimension
um and he said he speculates that um there's probably more of an 80 chance that we are
in a simulation of sorts um rather than 20 percent and around 20 chance that we're actually
living a physical reality which i think is a really twisted thing but it's also it also
shows the the level of complexity in the way that people think about intelligent design
so have you heard much of the simulation theory no no um yeah please uh yeah elaborate a little
bit i think simulation theory is exactly what i just explained it's it's uh you're essentially
in the matrix um and as laughable as that might sound um it's it feeds into that kind
of intelligent design mentality because everything is so perfect um and everything's so consistent
and um yet perfectly inconsistent at the same time does that make sense um and intelligence
is allowed to develop in the way that we have um and now if you think about the fact that
we are creating intelligence um in the way that we are we're at the point where we can
essentially create an intelligence that will eventually one day be smarter than us um almost
it almost justifies the theory does that make sense yeah yeah because because you could
create another simulation theory within the simulation theory the inception of simulation
theories all right okay yeah no i see that that's interesting
as well that um some people look at the fine-tunedness of nature and go that a god must exist and
some people look at the fine-tunedness of nature and go well this can't be real yeah
yeah although simulation if it's a simulation real and unreal is like relative so i don't
think he'd necessarily say that it was unreal the simulator yeah sorry that was an oversimplification
on my part yeah no i know you mean um not material would probably be um then how far
backwards would you have to go i'm i'm i'm uh reminded of an episode of uh black mirror
have you ever seen black mirror i've seen a couple of episodes i will not pretend to
say that i've seen all of them have you seen joni is awful um
so what happens in that episode so in this episode jone goes to work um has a horrible
day sees her ex-boyfriend ends up kissing him goes home to her fiance sits down after
stressing about how terrible her day was turns on stream berry which is like the um black
mirror version of netflix and the tv show jone is awful is on greenberry and she watches
the episode and it's her day played out again on tv and she's like stuff what is this how
has this happened like why is my life being shown on there and causes all kinds of crazy
drama and um she ends up losing her job because of it she ends up going completely like bonkers
because um stream berry is playing her t her life like it's tv show um but then the more
you go into it you find out that actually it's all ai written and she's actually the
third inception of the real jone whose life has been written by stream berry because obviously
jone originally the original jone has this happen and stream berry uses ai to create
this tv show but then within that within that within within that stream tv show reality
there's also a tv show of jone and how jone interacts with that tv show and within so
on so forth yeah and she's the one that we're actually watching is like the third inception
of that and there's like further with different celebrities it's hilarious um it's a really
twisted way of looking at it but it um if nothing else it told me always read the small
print um but um it really gets your head ticking as well which is i think absolutely what um
the writer i forget his name now of black mirror was going for my god that guy's a genius
is it charlie brooker yeah that's the one that's the one do they have multiple other
aren't there multiple writers yeah no mainly it's charlie brooker though isn't it is his
his um baby but yeah i mean that it's hilarious but that's a good representation of of simulation
theory you get a chance to watch it watch it it's a great episode she goes nuts she
smashes stuff up yeah charlton brooker yeah charlton brooker brilliant okay well i think
we've covered a good amount of um a good amount of uh philosophy a good amount of our own
um our own views um yeah thank you very much for uh for listening listeners um we'll try
and uh yeah we'll we'll come back to some of these points at another time maybe we'll
cover a slightly lighter topic in the next one yeah yeah you know you know what yes but
i think it's good to do a heavy one every once in a while absolutely i reckon we will
come back to this absolutely i really enjoyed that um sorry for um every glazed eye and
every um far look and distant eyes um that came out of people's faces whilst i was talking
um it's why i don't generally discuss my um beliefs but that's how i feel and everybody's
everybody's valid to feel whoever they want which is what we always say in these podcasts
um you had a little taste of mine feel free to share yours remember there's a reddit you
can share your perspectives on uh there they would have been voiced at the beginning of
the podcast so feel free to go there and give your perspective all right all right thanks
again listeners have a good night thank you
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