Big Think: You don’t see objective reality objectively: neuroscience catches up to philosophy

 Professor of neuroscience Beau Lotto explained to Big Think that the world you see is not necessarily the world that is, because we evolved to view the world in a way that is useful rather than accurate: [...]

This tendency for our minds to bend sensory data in ways that are useful can be seen in a number of instances. One of them is the well-known Thatcher Effect, in which an image of a face (originally one of former British Prime Minister Margret Thatcher) is flipped upside-down and has some features, such as the eyes and mouth, inverted as well. While the switched features are clear to us when the face is made right way up again, it is often impossible to tell when the face is upside-down. [...]

A middle route might be to view science as the systematic collection of subjective information in a way that allows for intersubjective agreement between people. Under this understanding, even if we cannot see the world as it is, we could get universal or near-universal intersubjective agreement about something like how fast light travels in a vacuum. This might be as good as it gets, or it could be a way to narrow down what we can know objectively. Or maybe it is something else entirely.

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Big Think: Here's how to prove that you are a simulation and nothing is real

In fact, if we don't believe we are simulations, concludes Bostrom, then "we are not entitled to believe that we will have descendants who will run lots of such simulations of their forebears." If you accept one premise (that you'll have powerful super-computing descendants), you have to accept the other (you are simulation). [...]

Simulating the whole universe, including all the details "down to the quantum level" requires more computing oomph, to the point that it may be "unfeasible," thinks Bostrom. But that may not really be necessary as all the future humans or post-humans would need to do is to simulate the human experience of the universe. They'd just need to make sure the simulated minds don't pick up on anything that doesn't look consistent or "irregularities". You wouldn't have to recreate things the human mind wouldn't ordinarily notice, like things happening at the microscopic level. [...]

A fascinating outcome of all this speculation is that we have no way of knowing what the true reality of existence really is. Our minds are likely accessing just a small fraction of the "totality of physical existence." What we think we are may be run on virtual machines that are run on other virtual machines - it's like a nesting doll of simulations, making it nearly impossible for us to see beyond to the true nature of things. Even the posthumans simulating us could be themselves simulated. As such, there could be many levels of reality, concludes Bostrom. The future us might likely never know if they are at the "fundamental" or "basement" level. [...]

What are other implications of these lines of reasoning? Ok, let's assume we are living in a simulation – now what? Bostrom doesn't think our behavior should be affected much, even with such heavy knowledge, especially as we don't know the true motivations of future humans behind creating the simulated minds. They might have entirely different value systems.

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Big Think: Why the wars America starts are unwinnable | Danny Sjursen

Danny Sjursen—a prominent U.S. Army strategist and also a former history instructor at West Point Academy—posits that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't winnable. So... why don't we leave? As he puts it: "We have the inertia of a military-industrial complex, which makes a lot of money for a lot of people and keeps a lot of people employed, on one end, and then we have the sunken cost fallacy on the other side, where we say “We’ve committed so much we can’t possibly leave.” Danny is brought to you today by the Charles Koch Foundation. The Charles Koch Foundation aims to further understanding of how US foreign policy affects American people and societal well-being. Through grants, events, and collaborative partnerships, the Foundation is working to stretch the boundaries of foreign policy research and debate by discussing ideas in strategy, trade, and diplomacy that often go unheeded in the US capital. For more information, visit charleskochfoundation.org. NOTE: The views expressed in this video are those of the guest speaking in an unofficial capacity and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Command and General Staff College, Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the US government.

Big Think: The fascist philosopher behind Vladimir Putin’s information warfare

 Yale University Professor Timothy Snyder gives a crash course in Ivan Ilyin's philosophy of fascism and explains why this worldview is so appealing to Putin: it defines freedom as knowing your set place in society, asserts that democracy is a ritual and not a reality, and maintains that there are no facts in the world. Perhaps the most fascinating part of this is how new technology—like Facebook—is turning old fascism into political warfare.

Big Think: Is the Trump presidency a religious cult? | Reza Aslan

Are fundamentalist Christians a dangerous religious cult? Possibly. The controversial author and religious scholar Reza Aslan posits that President Donald Trump has much of his evangelical fan-base believing that he's somehow been anointed by God to become President. Nevermind the Russian election scandal, his affairs with porn stars and unwarranted sexual acts towards women, or his inability to remember even a single Bible verse when asked. Evangelical Christians are abandoning their core moral beliefs to follow, as Reza suggests, someone who exhibits every trademark of a cult leader. 

Big Think: Is World History Becoming More Peaceful or More Violent?

If you want to understand trends in the history of global violence, look to data, not headlines, says Harvard psychology professor and linguist Steven Pinker. The news cycle will never be a good indicator of historical trends because no reporting occurs where problems aren't also occurring. "Because you never see a reporter standing outside a school saying, 'Here I am in front of Maplewood High School, which hasn't been shot up today,' or, 'here I am in the capital of Mozambique and there's no Civil War.'" So what does the data show?

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Big Think: Liberal vs. Conservative: A Neuroscientific Analysis with Gail Saltz

What the difference in brain structure between liberals and conservatives? And where do our political convictions come from: rational deliberation, or biological determinism? Psychiatrist Gail Saltz explains.