| I started to feel that I may have discovered the user interface reality
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| The reason that I thought that is that my life was working out so well
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| That I couldn’t explain it in any ordinary way
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| I tried to become a cartoonist with no experience in cartooning
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| Without any experience, I was the hottest cartoonist in the country
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| At about the same time, I had written my first book
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| It was a number one New York Times, runaway bestseller
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| With no experience at writing books
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| And there were a number of things that I was touching and doing and it seemed
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| as if I could manipulate reality
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| But here’s the thing
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| But here’s the thing
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| Was I manipulating reality to get these ridiculous results or, was I simply
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| good at my job?
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| How can I tell?
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| How would I know if I were manipulating reality, 'cause that’s sort of what it
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| felt like
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| But that didn’t seem right, right?
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| Or was I just good at my job and I didn’t realize how good I was so I performed
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| better than I expected
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| Maybe
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| Could be
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| It’s possible
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| Maybe
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| Could be
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| It’s possible
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| And it seemed as if I could manipulate reality
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| But I wanted to test it
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| Maybe
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| Could be
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| It’s possible
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| And so, in 1997, I did a bold experiment and the experiment was this
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| I very publicly and annoyingly made a prediction and I chose an area in which I
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| had no expertise
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| I thought I would try something that was just impossible
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| I would make the most unlikely prediction and then wait as long as it took for
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| it to become true
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| And if indeed I could get the most unlikely prediction, then maybe other people
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| would believe me when I explained to them the user interface for reality
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| I predicted that in my lifetime, the theory of evolution would be debunked in
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| scientific terms
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| Not in religious terms but in scientific terms
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| You can imagine how well that went over
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| Obviously, I’m a nut and I should not be listened to and you shouldn’t listen
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| to anything else I ever say
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| That was 22 years ago, 23 years ago
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| So something happened today that was a very big deal in my life
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| And it was that there was a podcast, Patrick Courrielche, he told a story,
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| he heard of my prediction about evolution being debunked and then he,
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| he brought the story into the question of the simulation
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| Now of course, if the simulation is true, then what we believe about evolution
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| probably isn’t
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| ‘Cause you don’t need evolution, if you have the simulation
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| We just are here and our history is created on demand whenever we go looking
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| for it
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| Maybe
|
| Could be
|
| It’s possible
|
| Maybe
|
| Could be
|
| It’s possible
|
| And it seemed as if I could manipulate reality
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| But I wanted to test it
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| Maybe
|
| Could be
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| It’s possible
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| What Patrick did is told you something that I couldn’t do myself
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| I couldn’t tell you that my prediction had actually came in
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| I’ve been trying to, but I feel like I failed at it because I’m not credible
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| about judging my own predictions
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| Obviously, I’m mistaken
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| If the simulation is true, evolution is, so 22 years later, there’s now a
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| competing theory that serious scientists buy into and, although you can’t tell
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| which one is the true one if either one is, maybe neither, maybe they’re just
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| filters
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| What you can tell is the odds
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| Maybe a billion to one for the simulation
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| Maybe
|
| Could be
|
| It’s possible
|
| Maybe
|
| Could be
|
| It’s possible
|
| And it seemed as if I could manipulate reality
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| But I wanted to test it
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| Maybe
|
| Could be
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| It’s possible
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| So, having nailed my 22 year gamble
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| That I could make a prediction so unlikely
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| That the best explanation is that somehow I’m authoring the reality just as
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| filter, again, that doesn’t mean that I can actually change reality,
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| it means that if I put that filter on it, I get good results
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| And if you just think you’re happy but you’re not, are you happy?
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| Yes you are
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| If you think you’re happy, you’re happy
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| If you thought you went through life as a billionaire but you were just crazy
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| and you weren’t, still good?
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| Still good
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| 'Cause you’re happy, you thought you were a billionaire
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| So, accept your subjective life
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| Maybe
|
| Could be
|
| It’s possible
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| Maybe
|
| Could be
|
| It’s possible
|
| And it seemed as if I could manipulate reality
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| But I wanted to test it
|
| Maybe
|
| Could be
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| It’s possible |