Intro hi guys it's me quinn and as always if you appreciate my content consider hitting the like button it's the only way the youtube algorithm really notices me six singles remembrance verse past series has become one of my top science fiction series since i read it last year keep in mind this video will have some spoilers for the series there are many haunting philosophical quandaries brought up by the three body problem series but there is one that stuck with me more than the others one of the themes that weaves its way throughout all of six and those books revolves around whether or not we can actually trust that our understanding of the universe actually reflects its true nature as far as we can tell the universe is about 14 billion years old we calculate this by finding the oldest stars and by measuring the rate of expansion of the universe by observing the current state of the universe we can calculate backwards towards the big bang The Big Bang according to our best estimates there are around 2 trillion galaxies in the universe 200 billion trillion stars and over 700 quintillion planets the universe is estimated to be 28 billion parsecs across it would take light the fastest moving thing in the universe 93 billion years to go from one side to the other hearing these numbers you might assume that we understand a lot about the universe but in actuality all of these estimates are barely more than educated guesses the two things that seem clearest are that the universe is incredibly old and incredibly big it would be extremely arrogant of us to think that from our vantage point here on a tiny blue ball orbiting a medium-sized star in a nine planet solar system somewhere in a lonely dark corner of the cosmos we could actually grasp a full understanding of the intricate mechanisms that form the universe we can only approximate scientists accept that much of our knowledge of the cosmos is subject to change as we learn more about its nature as research unveils never before realized secrets of the universe and as technologies make it easier for us to observe our surroundings our understanding of the cosmos evolves the suggestion made in the three-body problem series is however more devastating than the idea of science gradually being updated based on advances in knowledge and technology what if we are not merely wrong about a few things what if our entire understanding of what the universe is and how it works is wrong the universe does in fact seem ancient if it is at least 14 billion years old as our science suggests then probability would suggest that there should have been countless civilizations to exist before mankind The Drake Equation as i discussed in my last three-body problem video the drake equation suggests that the universe should be full of other life and if this is true then what potential effect has said life had on the universe considering the immense effect that the existence of life has had upon the earth in the third book in the series death sinned the character yang yandong witnesses a simulation depicting earth throughout time with the variable of life removed in the modern era earth was a twin of mars humans often underestimated the effect that life has had on the environment of earth when yangdong considers this concept and applies it to the universe which she at this point in the story understood was full of alien beings her mind is brought to a new chilling concept if what we see when we look into the cosmos is the universe exploding with life then what would it look like without life she tried to stop thinking to turn her mind into empty darkness but a new question stubbornly refused to leave her alone is nature really natural nature as we see it may not be in fact natural at all the three body problem provides two analogies and an attempt to explain this concept one far darker than the other there is the shooter hypothesis on the farmer hypothesis we will start with the shooter hypothesis in the shooter hypothesis a good marksman shoots at a target creating a hole every 10 centimeters now suppose the surface of the target is inhabited by intelligent two-dimensional creatures their scientists after observing the universe discover a great law there exist a hole in the universe every 10 centimeters they have mistaken the result of the marksman's momentary whim for an unalterable law of the universe The Farmer Hypothesis we are observing the universe from a particular place and time a blip on the cosmic scale just because the universe appears to us in a certain way now does not mean that it has always been this way or that it will always be we are in this analogy the two-dimensional beings only able to measure the state of the universe as it exists from our perspective the universe may be operating based on intricate schematics beyond our ability to comprehend to further drive home this point is the farmer hypothesis the far darker of the two analogies every morning on a turkey farm the farmer comes to feed the turkeys a scientist turkey having observed this pattern to hold without change for almost a year makes the following discovery every morning at 11 food arrives on the morning of thanksgiving the scientist announces this law to the other turkeys but that morning at 11 the food doesn't arrive instead the farmer comes and kills the entire flock what is the universe what is its nature to think that we can know beyond a shadow of a doubt is to be as arrogant as the scientist turkey we must consider that the universe may have a deadly and eldritch function one that if we could fully comprehend might cause us to cry out in existential agony this hypothesis can also be viewed as placing an emphasis on the potential life that formed in the darkness of the universe before we did a high enough level civilization would have almost god-like potential compared to us in this metaphor they would be the farmer and we the turkeys our place in the universe could be a comfortable illusion for all we know we could already be in the belly of the beast this idea manifest itself in the series in two clear ways the alien beings known as the tricelerins creation of sofons which invisibly stifled the progress of human development by rendering physics unreliable from within our region of space and the existence of eons of interactions and wars between the higher dimensional beings that once inhabited the higher dimensional universe before it was gradually degraded by life we discussed the latter in my video the mystery of the fourth dimension the trisolarene sophons are the most direct example the sophons operate it based on quantum mechanical principles the word quantum refers to the minimum unit of any physical entity involved in interaction so sophons were in fact very small though they could unfold into higher dimensions sophons were essentially supercomputers etched onto a proton because of the principles of quantum entanglement sophons on earth provided a stream of instantaneous information about earth to the tricelerin home world in real time they watched and studied the human race the sofon supercomputer could impede the progress of scientific development wherever necessary and humankind was incapable of stopping it they had already been crippled our understanding of the universe would ultimately hit a standstill the tricelerians would not allow any development that could prevent their invasion and habitation of the earth in the first book in the series we learned that scientists in different fields throughout the world had been committing suicide yandong included this turned out to be the reason why upon discovering that their entire lives spent studying their particular feelings of science had been rendered useless they could not cope humankind does eventually begin to develop ways to thwart the tricelerins the tricelerins do not have access to the thoughts hidden away within the human mind and the aliens unlike human beings do not fully grasp the concept of deception because of this humanity invents the wall face of project which we will go into more detail about in another video the struggle between humanity and the tricelerians continues for centuries both sides suffer greatly in the end humanity would eventually learn that there were others far more powerful and deadlier than the trisolarens our interaction with the inhabitants of the trisolera had itself been a mere blip on the cosmic timeline thank you guys so much for watching make sure you like and subscribe for more science fiction videos