Episode 967 Scott Adams： I Teach You How to Reprogram Your Brain Using the Simulation Filter
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Summary
In this episode, I teach a technique for reprogramming the simulation, or is it the simulation itself? Or is it something else we re trying to reprogram in order to live in a more enjoyable reality?
Transcript
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Hey everybody, come on in. This is the place. You know in the morning when we do
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these periscopes it's all about enjoying the beverage. But in the evening it's
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about enjoying the knowledge. That's right. The insight to the the awareness
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that you'll be gaining right now it's gonna be incredible. Now I hope you all
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saw my video that I made last night teaching you the user interface to
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reality. If you look at the comments you can see that it was well received just
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about a hundred thousand views since yesterday and it's on fire. And the
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podcast I referred to in that that same periscope is screaming up the charts on
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iTunes. Well deserved. So I thought I would extend the concept since I went over
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well. And I'm gonna teach you today a little technique for reprogramming the
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simulation. Oh wait, did I say reprogramming the simulation? Because when I tweeted it
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I said reprogram your brain. Is that different? I'm not sure. If you reprogram
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your brain, have you reprogrammed the simulation? Well let me ask you this. Have
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you noticed that we live in a country in which there are two completely different
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worlds living simultaneously? In one, the president is a big orange monster
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destroying everything. In another, he's sort of a god-king or at least very
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entertaining. These are not the same worlds and yet we seem to be able to still
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reproduce, still exist. So you tell me those different mindsets who are
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experiencing entirely different realities, is that their reality? Have they
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reprogrammed their own simulation? Well, I'm going to take you on a little bit of a
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mind trip today. I'm first going to reinforce the concept of the simulation for
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anybody who needs a little little bit of a more of a nudge to accept it as a
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useful tool. Then I'm going to teach you how to use stories to reprogram your brain
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brain? Or is it the simulation itself? Maybe we can't tell. So it goes like this. The
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simulation is not meant to be a reality which replaces whatever your prior version of reality
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was. It doesn't replace anything. And it doesn't even need to be true. Because the base assumption
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is that our little human brains don't have nearly enough processing power to know what's true
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anyway. That's why we can walk around in these different movies. We each think we have a truth,
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but it's sort of generated by our brain to keep us sane. That's why the Republicans and the Democrats
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have different little bubbles and they just walk around them. There's no larger truth that seems to
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affect them. They stay alive. They go through their lives and it seems to work that they're in
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different little bubbles. So the first thing you must accept is that you can live a life in which
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you can create a bubble that's better than the bubble you're in. Will that be the true bubble? Will
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that be the bubble that's the right one and everybody else has the wrong bubble of reality?
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Probably not. Probably not. Because what are the odds that you would be the one who figured out
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reality and nobody else could? It seems far more likely that we live in our own constructed
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somewhat subjective worlds. I happen to live in one that's pretty darn good. I seem to find a way to
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enjoy myself just about all the time. Some people are living in a bubble and they could be in what looks
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like my same world except they're struggling and everything looks like it's going the wrong
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direction. Is there a larger truth to it all? Don't know. Don't know if we could ever know. But I do know
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that you can reprogram your at least your subjective reality and I'm going to teach you how. So don't think
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about the simulation as true or false. Think about it as fun. It's a fun exercise. It's an alternative
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way to think of the world. And every time you can think of the world in an alternative way that still
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works, it should take you to a higher level of awareness that you shouldn't be so sure about your
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view of the world if there are so many interpretations that can all work. So just for fun, I'm going to say
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simulation evidence to get you a little bit closer to enjoying the, let's say, the utility of thinking
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of this as a filter on reality. It doesn't have to be true. It just has to have utility. Something
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will make you happier. Maybe it predicts better. See for yourself. So don't get too hung up on evidence.
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This is not like scientific evidence or core evidence. It's just stuff that's compatible with
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the idea. First of all, the basic idea is that there will always be more simulations than there
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will be real universes. And that has to be true if you look at the entire arc of time. That might not
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be true at the moment. But if you were to look at the entire arc of time, of course, there will be
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more artificial worlds than originals, because originals take time. But as soon as somebody can make
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an artificial world, whether that's in 10 years or 50 years, they'll make more than one. And so there
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will probably be far more artificial worlds over the entire arc of time. And you don't know where you are
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in that arc. What are the odds that you're at the point where you're the first original species and
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you're not one of the billions or more of simulated realities that come after? So the math is compatible
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with you being more likely to be a simulation. Is it true that history has always been here,
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which would suggest there's some kind of deep reality and we have a notion of what that's about?
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Or is history created only when we need it, when we need an observation? When you dig a hole in the
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backyard, does it put the, does the dinosaur bone just appear when you're digging? Because if this is
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a simulation, that's the way it would work. Because there wouldn't be enough processing power to create
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the universe and all the possibilities. So instead, it would do what a regular computer programmer would
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do today. They would build a limited world. You wouldn't be able to get out of it. It wouldn't
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have as much detail as, as the entire universe would need. It would only add detail when you were
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observing it. So in other words, the world would come into focus only upon observation. And there's
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some suggestion in physics that maybe that's actually what's happening. So is history created on
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demand? Well, consider the, um, the idea of spooky action at a distance. If you've never heard of
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this, uh, after this is over, Google spooky action at a distance. And you'll find that if you separate
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two entangled photons, you can put them anywhere in the universe. And if one is observed, it changes
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the, the state of the other instantly. Now we have no rules of physics that can explain how that can
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happen. How could observing this photon in one part of the universe instantly, which is faster than the
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speed of light, because there's not enough time to transmit it by the speed of light. It actually
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happens instantly that when you observe one, the other one comes into some kind of a defined state.
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Now, is that an example of creating history? Because how could something happen on the other side of
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the universe without any time passing? The only way it could happen is if maybe history is somehow
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affected. Now, is that a good example? I don't know. Probably not. But I'll bet that you could find in,
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um, I'll bet that you could find in physics examples where it seems the history is being created
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by the present. I think the double slit experiment might get you close to that too. But fact check me on
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that. All right. If it were simulated, you wouldn't be able to get to the outside and look in. And in
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fact, we can't. The speed of light, you know, is a, is a boundary. So we can't get to the edge of the
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universe and ever look in just the way you would make it if it was a, if it were a computer program.
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It simplifies things. You don't need a big bang. You don't have to explain, you know, how everything
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came from nothing because that's how software works. The software seems to come from nothing.
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It's just an arrangement of zeros and ones on some kind of a structure. So a lot of thorny questions
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that are hard to understand, hard to explain, just sort of become easy. It's like, well, the software
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was written that way. How do you explain this spooky action at a distance? Well, it was just something
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we couldn't reconcile with the software. So we just made it so. We just made the code say,
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if one thing is observed, the other thing happens at the same time. Sure. It's not very neat. It's a
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little sloppy, but you know, that's the way software is sometimes. Sometimes you just have to paper things
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over. Isn't it nice that there's a perfect balance of physical laws and everything and that we happen
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to be the humans who always win? Well, of course, there's some kind of survivor, you know, reason that
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that could be true. The reason that we're even talking about it is because we're the winning
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species. If we were not the winning species, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
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But isn't it convenient? Very much like if you were to design it for, let's say, putting your
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personality into it so that you could play it like a game. This is what you would do. You would make sure
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that it didn't destroy itself while you're playing. So it would have some kind of amazing balance.
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And your species would be the dominant one, because why wouldn't it?
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And then, of course, we would not be made of anything. If we were a simulated world, we would
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never be able to find what we're made of. Now you're thinking to yourself, we know what we're made of.
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It's like, you know, electrons and photons and particles and quarks and charms. You know, maybe you don't
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know, but physicists know. It's all that stuff, those elemental stuff. But here's the thing.
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What are those things made of? You know, I get that there are, you know, quarks and leptons and stuff
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like that. But what are they made of? Well, eventually you get into just word weird salad, like, you know,
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well, it's energy. But what's energy? What's energy? It's the movement of stuff. What's the stuff?
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So you end up getting into nonsense if you keep drilling down. If you keep saying, but what's
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that made of? You get to really just a nonsense situation. So we can't actually determine we're
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made of anything, which is suspiciously what a simulation would discover. It's like, I can't
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find out what we're made of. If you're worried that evolution doesn't explain everything, you
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don't need to be. If we're a simulation, we're just software. And you don't need any aliens,
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which would certainly explain why we haven't made first contact or seen any signs of life.
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Now, you could also explain this by it just hasn't happened yet. But if we're a simulation,
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there's no reason for other planets to have aliens. Just there's no reason. Just the way if you were
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playing a video game, you wouldn't create planets that you're never going to visit within the context
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of the game. It would just be a waste of time. So are any of these evidence per se? No, not really.
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I wouldn't call it evidence. But it's fun. It just tells you that the simulation filter holds up.
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It's sort of robust. That's the only thing I want you to get out of this. You don't have to believe
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it's true. You just have to have a sense of what it is. And then, once you have a sense of what it is,
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you say to yourself, well, if that's what it is, let's just say, what if? What if we're a simulation?
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What would that imply? Well, one thing it might imply is you might be able to hack it. You might be
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able to find a way to, within the rules of the simulation, get a better result. Now, I've got a
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little insight for you that I learned from being a famous cartoon guy. There are a lot of people who
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were really, really successful, and just because of my weird life, I get to meet a lot of them.
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And if you ask them privately, they will tell you that it feels as though they can
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hack the simulation. Now, they won't use those words, but they will tell you quite often
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that their life has suggested that they can simply make things happen that shouldn't be possible.
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It's very common. And so, it seems that there are people who believe they can hack the simulation
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and have. I believe that as well. And when I say I believe it, I mean it's a convenient and useful
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frame or filter for looking at the world that makes me happy, and it also seems to be predictive.
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All right. Now, if we're a simulation, you would also expect there would be some kind
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of a challenge built in, some kind of a game, some kind of a purpose, because it's hard to
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imagine that anybody would go through the trouble of building a simulation without putting in
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some kind of a mission, a goal, an objective to it. So, do we know what that is? Maybe. Could
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be that the purpose is to ever increase our awareness, to just go up to higher levels of
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understanding of our situation, until maybe there's some kind of godlike ending to the
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game. But imagine, if you will, that we're a simulation built with some kind of game rules,
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and as we figure out the simulation, we get to advance in levels. So, you can imagine that
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there are certain things that would be introduced into the game for the purpose of challenging
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our understanding of our situation and giving us a shift in consciousness, something like
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a coronavirus, which just comes out of nowhere, and is going to have the effect of massively
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changing human awareness. The very way we feel about our place in the world, how we relate
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to each other, how we work together, how we communicate, who we trust, who we don't, we'll
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be reassessing every single part of civilization. From the ground up, we'll be reassessing everything,
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all of our priorities, all of our assumptions, all on the table. I'm even starting to wonder,
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was it always true that we could just make money out of nothing, like we just did? Now, of course,
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it's a special case where it's almost impossible to have inflation. So, maybe in the case where it's
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impossible to have inflation, because there's not enough demand, maybe you could just print money.
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Did we just learn that in a special case, we could literally print trillions of dollars and
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there's no, there's apparently no, there's no downside to it? Now, I don't know, does it come
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back and bite us in the ass later? I'm actually confused about this, because the stock market is
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acting like there's no, there's no penalty to it. So, I would just say that there are a whole bunch
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of things that we've assumed to be true, that we no longer assume to be true. A lot of it has to do
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with it, with what experts have told us. And then, I think we're going to have a big awakening about
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privacy, and you might not like it, but I think that the, the ultimate outcome of that is going to be
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that people will not, people will give up more privacy than you think they ought to. So, I don't
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want to have that conversation. But just to say that there's going to be these massive consciousness
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shifts. Now, here's the fun part. If you are a software, if you are a simulation, and if you can
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reprogram yourself, I would say that this is how it works. Your brain is a pattern recognition machine.
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It just automatically sees patterns, often incorrectly, but it sees patterns, patterns,
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patterns. It's not a logic machine. It can do a little bit of logic, but it's mostly a pattern
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machine. So, stories are how you program a pattern machine, because you want to put in stories
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to become the new patterns that are better than whatever the other patterns were, because you're
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sort of operating on the software that's in there. It's just working on habit and pattern.
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Introduce a story that will upgrade some of that. Let me give you an example.
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Do you see this lovely mask? This was sent to me by a viewer who might be watching this
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right now. Her name is Young Jacob. And Young sent me a nice note with this mask that apparently
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she made. This will all tie together in a moment. And so, Young told me this. She said she'd read
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all of my books, and especially my tips on goals versus systems. So, that's from this book. Had
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it failed almost everything and still went big. And upon learning the systems being better than goals
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goals, idea, which Young says was a game changer for her business and her parenting. And went on to
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thank me and etc. And then she sent me and Christina a pink version of this, which are the coolest
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masks that I have. So, I'll actually be using this. So, thank you, Young Jacob, who, and I guess your
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real estate business is doing well, thanks to that. Now, that was a story. This is a story that one
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person just turned into code. Because there's a really good chance that Young is either watching
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this live or will watch it on replay, and not knowing that this was coming, is saying something
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along the lines of, I can't believe this is happening right now. Because I read his book. I used his
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ideas. It changed my business and my parenting for the better. I sent him this thing, and now he's
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talking to me on this screen. Young Jacob learned the user interface for reality. What she just did
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doesn't seem like it's easy to do, does it? And she did it effortlessly. After learning, the very tips
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that I've been telling you are useful for reprogramming your reality. Now, what she did is she created a
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story that's now part of her permanent, I would say permanent structure of her brain. Now, the next time
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she thinks to herself, hey, there's a thing that there's a thing that's a little bit hard, I wonder
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if I could do it. This story will will be part of that part of that history that says, yeah, because
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that other thing worked out. Give it a shot. What's the worst that could happen? So she now has a little
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bit of an inventory of a success story. I likewise have a whole inventory of stories that collectively form
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what I call my personality. And collectively, they become my reality. So I have a completely artificial,
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let's say, subjective reality formed by the sum of my life stories. You too should look to find ways
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that you can add stories to your history, because those stories directly affect the pattern matching of
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your brain. And when you can match the pattern matching of your brain to a new story, it can kind of clamp on
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easily and become part of your permanent code. So do some things that you know will work out. Find some
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minor challenges. Try some things that won't hurt you. Maybe be nice to somebody, see how it works out.
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Do a kindness to somebody, as, you know, this is what Jung did. She just, she used a technique that I
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actually write about in my books, reciprocity. So she did something for me without being asked. It was
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actually very nice. It's a really good mask. And I actually needed one. So it was like sort of perfect.
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And in return, she got a shout out and a story. So she understood that about the way the universe
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works. If I do this for somebody, I get a little bit back. So go find your story. Find the thing you
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can do that can build your inventory of things that work for you. I'll tell you, I'll tell you a few,
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another one of my stories. So one of my stories that I try to keep going in my head is that I
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I can win against all odds. And indeed, through my life, I've had just ridiculous success at things
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I shouldn't win at because I don't have any experience. You've, you've witnessed some of
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them. So here's one of the stories that just fits into that inventory. Years ago, I lived at,
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at apartment buildings, at some tennis courts. They had a tennis tournament for the people who lived
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there. And they, they somewhat randomly paired us up. And it was going to be a doubles, mixed doubles
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tournament, meaning men and women playing on the same teams. And I was paired with a young woman who
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had never played tennis. So I was in a tennis tournament. And I got paired with somebody who
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had never hit a tennis ball, not once. And that's my, that's my doubles partner. Now, I, of course,
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said to myself, I think I'm going to win this thing. She'd never played before. But here's
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the positive part. She was a college athlete, basketball player. So she was a, a well-trained,
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well-coached athlete in general, which meant that she had all the physical coordination you would
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ever want. All the hand-eye, she had height, you know, she was strong enough because she was an
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athlete, et cetera. And so I, I said to myself, we're going to win this. And I told her where to
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stand. You know, I had her play the net mostly. And I said, you're just going to learn basically
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one thing. You're just going to go up to the net every time. And you just got to get close enough
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that you can bang the ball down when it, when it floats over. If it gets to me, I'll hit an
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aggressive shot because I was better than the other two people on the other side. And there'll,
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there'll be a weak return and then you go and slap it down. Now, of course, you can imagine that we
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lost badly the first several points because they just slammed it at the, what they imagined was the
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weaker player and they were right. And, you know, the first few times she gets hammered, it's just
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pretty, pretty intimidating. It's like, ah, ah. And, but each time I used my then growing powers of
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persuasion. And she was of course getting very, very down on herself and negative. And I, and I
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told her, no, we got this. We got this. You are so right. You're almost there. Just make this one
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adjustment. You're 90% there. Just tap it down the next time you see it. And, you know, three more
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points we'd lose. We're down a game. And she'd be, oh, you know, maybe I, we should just quit. You
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know, I'm not even hitting a ball back. And I'd say, no, we're almost there. Watch this. We're
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going to get the next couple of points. Before you knew it, she'd win a point. You know, maybe by
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lock, you would just hit the side of the racket and fall on the other side. But we get a point.
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And she was, her confidence started to come in and she started to get into her natural athletic
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vibe. And the next thing you know, we took it all the way to the finals. The first day she'd ever
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played tennis. And we were, we were, we were chewing our way through the, uh, through the rankings.
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Now, we, we ended up losing in the finals, but we got to the finals and, you know, it was against
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all, all odds. I mean, it couldn't have been more ridiculous. We, we shouldn't have had any right to
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even be in the tournament, much less make it to the finals. So even though we didn't get the final
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thing, it wasn't important. It was just a, you know, just a fun tournament, but it's part of my
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inventory of stories that I remind myself that I can win against incredible odds. And that's the
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story that seems to form for me over and over again. Now, somebody says, Scott, was I a 4-0? Yes,
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I was approximately a 4-0 at that point. And she was approximately a zero. So, uh, somebody says,
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a lot of us have inventories of failure. So here's what you do. The stories that you think about the
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most will be the ones that influence you the most. Focus is the most important thing you can do.
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Focus and repeat, focus and repeat. So play back your success stories as much as possible.
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And also play back future success stories. I like to literally imagine future successes
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and replay them in my head a million times. And sometimes the, the success plays out just the
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way you imagined it. It's really freaky. So that's fun too, because their stories don't even have to be
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all, um, ones that have actually happened. I'll give you the perfect example.
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Here's my most powerful story. I have one story that rules my other stories, right? Every other story
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that forms my personality and my subjective reality is the weaker version of this one. And I call it the
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prisoner island story. And this is who, this is who I think I am. Not because I was necessarily born this
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way, but because I've programmed myself to be this person. And it's a source of great strength and
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confidence. And the story goes like this. And again, it's a future story. It doesn't have to be a real
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one. It's like a fantasy story. Well, actually, I hope it's not my future, but it's a fantasy story.
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It goes like this. There's an island of prisoners where all the bad people go. And of course,
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they're tough and they're, you know, they're murderers and, you know, just the worst bunch of
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people. And for some reason, um, I, uh, I get blamed for something and I'm convicted and they
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drop me off on the convict island on day one of the convict island, because I'm not as large as a lot
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of the other prisoners. I get beaten up mercilessly. On day two, just as bad. I get beaten up, almost
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killed. On day three, they're using me for a toy. On day four, there's practically nothing left of me.
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Come back in a year, I'm in charge of the island, and I've killed every one of them.
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That's my story. Because it doesn't matter how much badness happens the first week.
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Because I didn't go to the island for a week. I went there to rule the island.
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First week didn't go well. Second week, I'm going to find a way. By the third week, people are going
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to start dropping. By the fourth week and the fifth week, people are going to start saying,
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maybe we should be on your side. If you come back in a year, I'm running the island. That's my story.
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Now, of course, I'll never be dropped off on a prison or island. But I take that story with me
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as my core identity, because every situation you put me in, I just got dropped off at the island.
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And like, yeah, I know today might be bad. Guess what? Next year is going to be for you.
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So that's my story. Find a story like that that works for you. It doesn't have to be real.
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It could be one of those. If it's compatible with your personality, that's best. That one fits me.
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I don't know why. But go build up your story inventory. That is how you program yourself.
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That is your tip for today. I hope it's useful. And I will see you in the morning.