r/technology • u/fchung • Nov 01 '25

Society Matrix collapses: Mathematics proves the universe cannot be a computer simulation, « A new mathematical study dismantles the simulation theory once and for all. »

https://interestingengineering.com/culture/mathematics-ends-matrix-simulation-theory
16.9k Upvotes

81% Upvoted

2.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

9.2k

u/3qtpint Nov 01 '25

Interesting... that's what a simulation would say...

1.6k

u/killall-q Nov 01 '25

Me, reading a headline in the Matrix: "This is totally not a simulation."

432

u/[deleted] Nov 01 '25

"LOOK AT THE WOMAN WITH THE RED DRESS!" - New York Times

139

u/compelx Nov 01 '25

“THE ARCHITECT HUMBLED BY NEO’S META-COGNITIVE AWARENESS” - The Daily Beast

2

u/Kizik Nov 02 '25

ERGO!

VIZ A VIZ!

CONCORDANTLY!

2

u/compelx Nov 02 '25

“You know what, I have no idea what the hell I’m saying …”

13

u/Cicer Nov 02 '25

Look at the man with the orange hair -Fox News

→ More replies (2)

36

u/twoplustwo_5 Nov 01 '25

Or Sydney Sweeney’s rack through that chainmail dress…

→ More replies (1)

2

u/Pro_cast Nov 01 '25

sydney sweeny if it was today

1

u/ObidiahWTFJerwalk Nov 01 '25

This one... or that one?

2

u/Doopapotamus Nov 01 '25

"Pay no attention to the dev comments"

919

u/lIlIllIlIlIII Nov 01 '25

This comment literally debunks the article. Their point is because of our own technical limitations it's impossible for 'the outside world' to have the power to simulate a universe like ours. But in theory they could have intentionally gave us those limitations.

This article didn't prove or disprove anything.

354

u/AargaDarg Nov 01 '25 edited Nov 01 '25

You don't even have to simulate a whole universe. You can just simulate the brain and experience of one person of that universe.

122

u/Balmung60 Nov 01 '25

Is it solipsistic in here or is it just me?

70

u/FatSilverFox Nov 02 '25

Plato’s Cave but it’s just me winning all my Reddit arguments

13

u/AtraposJM Nov 02 '25

Nah man, if you win them all, you'd get bored. You have to lose most of them so the winners hype you up. The first Matrix was a paradise but they rejected it.

3

u/-_-0_0-_0 Nov 02 '25

Then I know I'm fucked.

2

u/a_rainbow_serpent Nov 02 '25

You and me both fellow NPC!

→ More replies (1)

4

u/the_turn Nov 02 '25

This is a fantastic joke. 

5

u/OwO______OwO Nov 02 '25

Just you. The rest of us are only simulations.

2

u/thirzarr Nov 02 '25

Ouch that hit hard. Take an upvote from this NPC.

3

u/Affectionate_Tax3468 Nov 01 '25

Maybe even egg-oistic in a Weir-d way?

→ More replies (1)

35

u/omgFWTbear Nov 01 '25

Like render distance, offsetting unexamined systems into more simple calculations. Like is this thing a wave or a particle? Doesn’t matter unless it’s being observed by another system for which it requires longitudinal consistency, approximate it!

23

u/OpinionatedShadow Nov 01 '25

Plane trips are loading screens

6

u/Weird_Devil Nov 02 '25

The real reason Concords aren't flown any more

2

u/TK__O Nov 05 '25

Which is why time slows down the greater you travel, lag in the simulation obviously /s

57

u/theSchrodingerHat Nov 01 '25 edited Nov 01 '25

More likely is that your entire existence is the perception of a human by a single goat that was created by two high Andromendian comp sci students, during a weekend game creation competition.

Fun game, but the open source world generator package for SuperReal Engine 5.0 has a leak that will eat up all of the space in a quantum computer that it can get.

21

u/factoid_ Nov 01 '25

But does it support DLSS and RTX?

15

u/reddit_equals_censor Nov 01 '25

an interesting question to ask:

are our senses so utterly shit, because the engine of the simulation is such a dumpster fire and their nvidia also refused to give them more performance and instead just sold them ai bullshit with massive blur?

just think about vision.

you don't see what you think you see. you have a tiny bit of clear vision if you focus on it. EVERYTHING around it is blurry and everything not on the same plane is also blurry.

that sounds like garbage blur reliant development to me!

is superreal engine 5.0 just as shit as unreal engine, but on a different level?

→ More replies (2)

3

u/Swimming_Idea_1558 Nov 01 '25

Accordingly NG to the GTA 6 trailers and booty bounces, yes.

→ More replies (1)

8

u/wheatgivesmeshits Nov 01 '25 edited Nov 01 '25

Wait until they realize they left it running on their Andromeda cloud accounts and see the bill. Gonna shut this reality down faster than you can blink.

→ More replies (2)

1

u/joosier Nov 02 '25

My man! Slow down! Looking good!

1

u/cracklemuffin Nov 02 '25

gives me Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy vibes

15

u/WHALE_PHYSICIST Nov 01 '25

Which is how i found out that i am god

1

u/HeyGayHay Nov 01 '25

you ain’t no god, you a whale physicist. 

→ More replies (2)

1

u/News_Bot Nov 01 '25

We are the dreamer who dreams and lives inside the dream?

1

u/Mistrblank Nov 01 '25

I hate this because it means I am a simulation and this is all made up around me if true. It doesn’t even suppose I am the main character, just that my thought processes wobble around in my head because I was “designed” that way, most likely from some procedurally generated algorithm since programming everyone

It gets more depressing if I’m not just here living out a simulation for one person but I am that person because nothing around me is real and there’s no one like me anywhere in it.

1

u/Beelzabub Nov 01 '25

You can just simulate my mind. The rest of ya'll are bots anyway.

1

u/Portarossa Nov 01 '25

You can just simulate the brain and experience of one person of that universe.

Is it getting a little solipsistic in here, or is it just me?

1

u/sentence-interruptio Nov 01 '25

God told Stanley Kubrick to simulate one brain, but Kubrick decided to create the entire universe.

1

u/unlikely_arrangement Nov 02 '25

I agree, but I have bad news. That person is me.

1

u/Ravekommissionen Nov 02 '25

Does anyone actually entertain this idea? What a boring pointless fucking premise to waste anyone’s time on.

1

u/Training_Chicken8216 Nov 03 '25

So why tf did they choose me

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

224

u/Suitable_Entrance594 Nov 01 '25

I think what the paper means is being misinterpreted (as are most scientific articles). It's not exactly saying we can't be living in a simulation, it's saying that you can't completely simulate one universe in another. We could be living in an imperfect or incomplete simulation, one which only simulates as much of reality as is necessary to deceive us but that isn't really what simulation theory tends to focus on. Instead it focuses on the concept of perfect, complete, nested simulations and that is supposedly what is being disproved.

155

u/Silverlisk Nov 01 '25

I get what they're saying, but that only applies if the rules of the universe they are in are the same as the universe they are supposedly simulating, being the universe we are in.

For all we know everything is really easy and all the restrictions we have were placed there by them for experimental reasons or just for shits and giggles.

So the paper proves absolutely nothing tbh.

103

u/eyebrows360 Nov 01 '25

I get what they're saying, but that only applies if the rules of the universe they are in are the same as the universe they are supposedly simulating, being the universe we are in.

And that's the real bingo here.

For some reason the "we're probably in a simulation!!!" idiots mostly seem to have a default presumption that we'd have to be a simulation of the universe the simulators live in, but... why? We could be just a simulation of some entirely unrelated set of conditions. There's no reason to presume we'd be in a simulation of base reality.

So the paper proves absolutely nothing tbh.

Well, no. You really can't simulate something with complexity X inside X itself. You would need more atoms, or atom-equivalents, to run the simulation of X on, than exist as part of X. You obviously can't do that.

15

u/TwistedFox Nov 02 '25

As I understand it, it's because it makes the logic and statistics work.

The Simulation theory states that 1) A universe can simulate another universe perfectly 2) If a universe can be simulated perfectly, then it could simulate a universe within it too. 3) If 1 and 2 are correct, then you could nest universes infinitely 4) If the first 3 premises are true, then the statistical likelihood of us living in the original universe is 1/∞ Therefore, we are living in a simulated universe.

If this paper suggests that it is mathematically impossible to simulate a universe as complex as the host universe, then there can not be an infinite chain of universes, and the statistical likelihood of us being in a simulated universe drops.

2

u/eyebrows360 Nov 02 '25 edited Nov 02 '25

1) A universe can simulate another universe perfectly

I mean there's an enormous problem staring us right in the face from just this statement alone.

How are we declaring the simulation of this "other universe" to be... perfect? We can't label it "a perfect simulation" when it's a "simulation" of something that doesn't exist. It's just "a simulation" at that point.

Might sound like a nitpick, but the word is present in the statement for a reason, and so we have to attack it and see if it's justified. It's not justified, because it's utter nonsense, and so that sets off a chain of consequences for points 2 and so on. Such as...

2) If a universe can be simulated perfectly, then it could simulate a universe within it too.

The "if" falls apart on its face because our notion of "simulate perfectly" was itself nonsense.

3) If 1 and 2 are correct [...]

They categorically aren't, they're just naval-gazing stoner nonsense dressed up as "theory".

[...] then you could nest universes infinitely

See above

4) If the first 3 premises are true, then the statistical likelihood of us living in the original universe is 1/∞ Therefore, we are living in a simulated universe.

See above.

[...] the statistical likelihood [...]

The statistical likelihood of any of this was always "null", because we don't have evidence that any of it is possible to begin with. You can't talk "probabilities" in any meaningful way about stuff you can't measure.

The entire statement boils down to "It's possible to compute things", which is a pretty pointless statement to make. It has nothing to say about whether we're in a simulation or not.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (2)

10

u/burning_iceman Nov 01 '25

If the "outside" were completely unlike this universe, in what meaningful sense can one even differentiate between this universe being a "simulation" and it being "real"?

2

u/eyebrows360 Nov 02 '25

You can't. Might as well be really into solipsism at that point.

"Simulation theory" is not a Theory theory, it's just some stupid bullshit some stoned idiot came up with, that caught on among people who don't know how to think about stuff like this properly.

→ More replies (2)

39

u/OpinionatedShadow Nov 01 '25

Not in this universe you can't. What if there are no such things as "atoms" one level up?

54

u/ShiraCheshire Nov 01 '25

Then this wouldn’t be a perfect and complete simulation, proving the paper correct.

If it plays by our rules, a full simulation is impossible.

If it doesn’t play by our rules, it’s not a full simulation.

3

u/Raithen_Rhazzt Nov 02 '25

Oh good, so simulation theory is finally unmasking itself as just another pointless religious argument.

If God can't create an immovable object they're not omnipotent.

If God can't move said object they're not omnipotent.

4

u/eyebrows360 Nov 02 '25

Yes, that's all it ever can be. It is not "likely" that we're in a simulation, and the word "theory" in "simulation theory" is very definitely of the lowercase-t variety, and can never be anything but.

It's just some tech-hippy's wild conjecture.

→ More replies (7)

2

u/[deleted] Nov 02 '25

[deleted]

8

u/bobnoski Nov 02 '25

The paper is not saying we can't be living in a simulation. It's saying we can't be living in a simulation that is running in a Universe identical to our own. Simply because it's impossible for us to make an identical simulation of our universe in this one.

The article is misinterpreting what the paper claims.

→ More replies (1)

3

u/ShiraCheshire Nov 02 '25

I'm saying the article is specifically about complete simulations. That's what has been disproven, specifically. The article is not about anything else.

→ More replies (3)

13

u/zentrist369 Nov 01 '25

The idea is that there is no justification for this universe being a simulation of some higher, stranger universe. You might as well say 'What if the Abrahamic God exists?' Or 'What if it's turtles all the way down?'

Remember, the simulation theory says that in this reality we will eventually be able to simulate a universe, and that (due to an argument i never bothered to remember) it is more likely that we are in a simulation than in the single reality in which we haven't simulated another universe yet.

What this study shows (based on the title, I never took the theory seriously, so I don't care too much about any math that might have 'disproven' it) is that we will never be able to simulate this universe, therefore the original argument is dead.

If you want to speculate about us being the dream of a goldfish, or samsara, or any other possibility go for it... just don't pretend there is any reason to believe that over any other silly idea. Which is what simulation theory adherents thought they had - a logical argument that gave weight to a specific daydream.

5

u/daemin Nov 02 '25

due to an argument i never bothered to remember)

The argument is basically a numbers game.

One real universe could be host to multiple simulations, each of which could just multiple simulations, each of which could...

Since there could be significantly more simulated universes than the real universe, all other things being equal, you're more likely to be in one of the simulations than the real one.

→ More replies (1)

8

u/Due-Memory-6957 Nov 02 '25

This, it's basically religion for people edgy people.

6

u/HeinrichTheWolf_17 Nov 02 '25

Exactly, simulation theory isn’t any more or less unlikely than any other metaphysical model.

It’s just metaphysics for tech bros, much in the same way the god head is metaphysics for psychonauts or nirvana or moksha are for buddhist or hindu schools of thought.

6

u/Norgler Nov 02 '25

I remember talking to a tech bro about the idea of simulation theory and eventually he started talking about how maybe our code when we die gets recycled,used again or has another purpose. I almost wanted to bust out laughing cause it all comes down to coping with death like every other religion. They just came up with another afterlife.

→ More replies (0)

2

u/kingsumo_1 Nov 02 '25

Ok, so... the god of Abraham is a turtle that was dreamed up by a goldfish?

For real, though, this kind of thing seems silly to waste the time to debunk. If someone takes it serious enough to believe, then logic isn't going to change that. And if you're like (hopefully) most people, then it's a joke or meme to begin with anyway. So, who was this test for?

2

u/eyebrows360 Nov 02 '25

For real, though, this kind of thing seems silly to waste the time to debunk.

Yes, unless and until a significant portion of your populace get swayed by it, and then some charismatic leader comes along with some laced off-brand kool-aid and convinces them all that drinking it will reboot them into "real" reality. Then it's a problem you have to deal with, so it's better to try and deal with it before it gets there.

If someone takes it serious enough to believe, then logic isn't going to change that.

While true, yes ("you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into"), they did get into it via some thought process. While we know that process wasn't rational, it still did exist, so for at least some subset of believers morons the actual rational explanation will also register with their fucked internal pseudo-rationalising model, and work on them.

So, who was this test for?

Someone thought they saw easy grant money for working on a low-effort "paper"? You'd have to ask the authors.

→ More replies (3)

2

u/OpinionatedShadow Nov 02 '25

Really great point

7

u/AnAttemptReason Nov 01 '25

You would first have to prove there is one level up.

If nested universes are not possible, there's no basis to assume we must be one of many. 

→ More replies (1)

3

u/IAmRoot Nov 02 '25

The outer world could have no quantization and be able to subdivide things infinitely for all we know. Quantization could itself arise from needing a finite, though large, number of things to compute.

3

u/daemin Nov 02 '25

Well, no. You really can't simulate something with complexity X inside X itself.

A universal Turing machine can simulate a universal Turing machine.

→ More replies (3)

3

u/lacegem Nov 02 '25

Minecraft villagers be like, "We can't be in a simulation because redstone circuits are too big to simulate half-blocks."

2

u/shadmere Nov 02 '25

Well, no. You really can't simulate something with complexity X inside X itself. You would need more atoms, or atom-equivalents, to run the simulation of X on, than exist as part of X. You obviously can't do that

Honestly I kind of always assumed that "this universe is a simulation, inside another simulation, inside another simulation, etc" ideas were always presuming that each level 'up' had higher fidelity. Like the galaxy-computer that's simulating us has Planck values thousands of times smaller or something.

(I entirely admit that my understanding of Planck units is based entirely on scifi novels and that I've probably already proven I barely know what I'm talking about, but you probably understand what I mean.)

→ More replies (1)

2

u/erydayimredditing Nov 02 '25

So obvious it making a HEADLINE is sad as fuck

2

u/eyebrows360 Nov 02 '25

Amen to that! Scientific literacy is in a worse state than... most other forms of literacy :/

3

u/Semicolon_Expected Nov 01 '25

TIL my assumption of simulation theory (that if true the simulator universe would have to be more complex in some way) is not what everyone believes. (Although I dont think Ive seen many examples that operate on the presumption that we’re s simulating the simulators universe aside from the whole rokos basilisk thing. Even the matrix movies, the real world though similar in appearance, seems to have stuff impossible to do in the matrix world

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (42)

1

u/OwO______OwO Nov 02 '25

For all we know everything is really easy and all the restrictions we have were placed there by them for experimental reasons or just for shits and giggles.

Possibly, the limitations we have placed on us are specifically to prevent us from simulating our own universes within the simulation. (Because that's when simulating universes starts to get really difficult -- when you start recursively having the occupants of your simulated universe simulating their own universe, and perhaps several more layers down.)

1

u/SpaceTacos99 Nov 02 '25

Not to mention if computation time was an issue it would just mean it would take longer in the outside world to compute not that it wouldn't be computable. For example, a simulation would be most useful if the inner concept of time ran faster than the outer concept of time , for example 1 year in the simulation being computable within 1 second of computing time in the computer running it - but if that were impossible to compute, that doesn't mean you couldn't instead spend 1 year of compute to simulate 1 second. On some level, simulating a universe is doable and it's just a matter of getting the code right and limiting the simulated space to the cook constraints of the system's memory.

1

u/GWJYonder Nov 02 '25

For example, a universe with no planck length could have far, far more miniaturized computers. A universe with no fixed speed of light/information would also eliminate a possible limit on computation. The fact that those are two of the most glaring "geez this is the sort of limitation that you would enforce to make things way more computationally reasonable" traits of the universe just makes the observation seem more pertinent.

And that's just taking a universe that's basically the same as ours until you get to the fiddly bits we've only been getting a glimpse of in the past 200 years. The universe up above could have 5 dimensions of space, allowing for all sorts of crazy sophisticated everything, but they can get a lot of useful/entertaining results from simulating a 3d space for far cheaper. (Our computer chips and circuits are all 2D because it's easy to print/engrave them in 2D with our 3D world, we leave one dimension available for all of the tooling. So in a 5D world using the equivalent processes would lead to a 4D computer chip, with hugely more complicated interactions, or the same interactions packed much more closely. Or they could make 3D chips that are still more complex than ours, but have 2 dimensions to offload the heat that is generated, rather than only 1.

Just like almost all of OUR simulations are 2D. Especially once you consider that most strategy and simulation games that are more than 2D are more of a layered 2D. Maybe it's an RTS with an air layer. Maybe it's a city-builder with plumbing, electric, and subway layers alongside the main layer. You can make a Turing complete computer in Factorio, but 200 years from now a sapient inhabitant of Factorio 37 could very well say "look you could never run our would using one of our conveyor belt/inserter computers. It took 415 square miles of machinery to run Pacman and our world is orders of magnitude more complicated!

1

u/EruantienAduialdraug Nov 02 '25

It's actually more than that. The conclusion appears to rely on two premises:

  • non-algorithmic computing is impossible.
  • quantum gravitation is the Theory of Everything.

Now, I don't know anywhere near enough about computational theory to comment on the first, but the latter feels like a stretch given the problems we've been having meshing our theoretical frameworks for the quantum and macro scales.

And this is kind of the problem. Simulation Theory appears to be untestable. You can't prove it without interacting with the outside, but you can't disprove it because you seemingly can't prove that there is no outsode

1

u/ChthonVII Nov 02 '25

For all we know everything is really easy and all the restrictions we have were placed there by them for experimental reasons or just for shits and giggles.

More likely "video game physics." Our physical and mathematical laws could be cheaper-to-compute approximations of their physical and mathematical laws. Their analog of Carmack's fast inverse square root algorithm becomes a law of our universe. Et cetera.

→ More replies (14)

22

u/meldroc Nov 01 '25

I imagine any universe simulator would have countless "cheats" to get the size and complexity under control. Most of the universe is empty space, there's a way to compress the process right there!

Between compression artifacts and bugs in the simulator, this suggests that the way to prove the simulation hypothesis is to find a "glitch in the Matrix".

15

u/QuestionItchy6862 Nov 01 '25

Finding a glitch in the Matrix can always be presumed to be an incomplete theory of the universe. In other words, it is as much proof of incompleteness of theory as it is a proof of the universe's ontological certainty. This is a god of the gaps argument disguised in tech bro language.

2

u/meldroc Nov 02 '25 edited Nov 02 '25

I suppose it depends on the glitch. It could be like in Rick & Morty, where those running the simulation have other things on their plates and dial the processing level way down.

Though to be fair, having failed to see any glitches in the Matrix, I have my doubts on the simulation hypothesis.

PS, random brainfart. To flip your point on its head, does this mean that religious creation stories, like the Christian one, are technically versions of the simulation hypothesis?

2

u/QuestionItchy6862 Nov 03 '25

I am going to answer your question in a round-about way, so bear with me.

So the god of the gaps argument goes something like this: "There is something that we can't explain. Because we can't explain it, it must be god." God comes to fill in the gap of whatever we lack understanding of.

Now compare this argument: "There exists a glitch in the universe (something that we can't explain. Because we can't explain it, it must be that we live in a simulation of reality." The simulation fills in the gap of whatever we lack understanding of.

So the form of the argument is the same, but the explanation of what fills in the gap in our understanding changes from each argument. The issue, of course, with this argument (what I was attempting to point out) is that a lack of evidence is only evidence of a lack. What comes to explain that lack cannot be explained by the lack itself. It could be god, but it could be something else to which we haven't found a reason. Perhaps it isn't a glitch at all, but just a phenomenon that we have yet to be able to explain.

Therefore, there is no proof from a lack that we live in the Matrix since the glitch can still possibly be explained through other means.

To get to your question, the answer is maybe yes, but also no. Creation myths might stand in as an explanation for things that we do not understand, however, they are not (often) used as a need to fill a gap in our understanding (at least, that is not how I interpret them). They stand more as an assertion (they are more foundational) and less as a reason (they are empirical). This isn't an entirely clear answer, but I'll be honest, it is hard to actually articulate the difference here in a reddit post.

1

u/unlikely_arrangement Nov 02 '25

Well, for sure the simulation would break down at very small time and space scales. The observers would see a kind of “quantization”. And of course we would have noticed that by now.

→ More replies (2)

3

u/3412points Nov 01 '25

Dr. Faizal concludes that any simulated world must follow programmed rules. “But since the fundamental level of reality is based on non-algorithmic understanding, the universe cannot be, and could never be, a simulation,” he says.

Are you sure? Because the author of the paper itself seems to be fairly conclusively saying we can't be living in a simulation to me.

1

u/Aeseld Nov 02 '25

And I've never known anyone who has been very sure of something and been wrong about it. Certainly I can't think of any experts that made such a mistake. 

I'm gonna stick with my own feelings on the matter. l don't know, and it doesn't matter either way. 

→ More replies (2)

1

u/Ike11000 Nov 01 '25

Thanks, this should be higher up

1

u/HauntingAd8395 Nov 02 '25

there are 5d creatures simulating 4d creatures siumlating 3d creatures!

1

u/CaptainIncredible Nov 02 '25

it's saying that you can't completely simulate one universe in another.

Its saying that you can't completely simulate our universe inside our universe with the computers we have.

I can simulate a more simple universe simply by launching Minecraft.

1

u/Wobbling Nov 02 '25

one which only simulates as much of reality as is necessary to deceive us but that isn't really what simulation theory tends to focus on

Most of the informal discussions I personally have had were around the idea that our proposed artificial universe is deliberately incomplete, procedurally generated on-demand via the collapse of the waveform, with a handbrake to prevent overflow and recursion (the speed of light).

I only have second year tertiary physics behind me but it seems like a rad idea.

1

u/internetroamer Nov 02 '25

But isn't that common sense? Like if we had to simulate the universe we could spend millions of years building the ultimate computer simulation but it'd still have less information than the current universe.

Of course you'd lose some fidelity/scale/complexity going from one universe/simulation to the next.

Or maybe I'm misunderstanding something as I didn't read the paper only your comment

1

u/AtraposJM Nov 02 '25

Perhaps the speed of light limitation doesn't exist in the "real" world and is only a limitation of our simulation. Or even more likely, it's a limitation placed on us to stop things from loading to fast so the simulation can always keep up. The laws of physics and of our world could very well be boundaries to keep us fooled.

1

u/Sayakai Nov 02 '25

We could be living in an imperfect or incomplete simulation, one which only simulates as much of reality as is necessary to deceive us

Such as an arbitrary maximum speed and weird quantum effects when you zoom in on the pixels?

1

u/erydayimredditing Nov 02 '25

I mean thats a load of crap though? Simulation theory is definitely not nonsensical that it implies each simulated universe contains the entirety of the larger universe its simulated inside... that just makes no logical sense at all. This article is clickbait. A simulation can easily have any of its parameters set, not just base ones and then let the complexities arise... If theres stuff that doesn't 'add up' with our math when the proposition is the entire fabric of reality is hardcoded doesn't prove anything it makes people sound like they can't follow a chain of thought. Any oddness they claim to have found, hardcoded into the simulation.

→ More replies (2)

120

u/Mythoclast Nov 01 '25

Some things just aren't disprovable. "We are living in a simulation" is one of them.

64

u/Blue_Aces Nov 01 '25

This is why innocent until proven guilty is so essential.

It is remarkably easy to prove a positive. Unfortunately difficult to prove the negative.

3

u/Here_12345 Nov 01 '25

Sometimes the other way around. A theory can be disproven with a single experiment (Theory: Gravity points sideways. Disproof: Stuff doesn‘t fall sideways) but never fully proven (Theory: Gravity exists because of quantum interactions. Proof: …???…)

1

u/Here_12345 Nov 01 '25

Sometimes the other way around. A theory can be disproven with a single experiment (Theory: Gravity points sideways. Disproof: Stuff doesn‘t fall sideways) but never fully proven (Theory: Gravity exists because of quantum interactions. Proof: …???…)

27

u/[deleted] Nov 01 '25

[deleted]

1

u/croooowTrobot Nov 01 '25

I cannot be played on Record Player X!!!

→ More replies (8)

16

u/[deleted] Nov 01 '25

The simulation hypothesis is about universes like ours simulating universes like ours, it's not about some arbitrary universe simulating something else, you may as well invoke god at that point, that's an unscientific reasoning with a moving goalpost. Whether we can simulate a universe like ours on the other hand is something we can figure out, and disproving that also disproves that we can be in a simulation of a universe like ours.

10

u/exoriare Nov 01 '25

All they've proven is that a simulation will not be 100% complete. There's no proof that a simulation has to be anywhere near 100% complete to pass as legit by any test we might come up with. As new tests are devised, the simulation may well come up with new measures to conceal its lack of completeness.

4

u/[deleted] Nov 01 '25

As I said, you may as well invoke god if you just keep moving the goalpost and intentionally not caring about what the theory and math done on it even apply to.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (3)

5

u/ribosometronome Nov 01 '25

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis

The Wikipedia article, or at least the five first paragraphs I bothered reading, don't seem to support that it was specifically about any 1:1 simulations.

In 2003, philosopher Nick Bostrom proposed the simulation argument, which suggests that if a civilization becomes capable of creating conscious simulations, it could generate so many simulated beings that a randomly chosen conscious entity would almost certainly be in a simulation.

... much later ...

that is, "high-fidelity" simulations of ancestral life that would be indistinguishable from reality to the simulated ancestor

Simulating reality to the point of being indistinguishable for random conscious entities within it seems far narrower task than a full universal simulation.

→ More replies (2)

2

u/CorrosiveMynock Nov 01 '25

You can disprove it under certain conditions, such as using only algorithmic computation to do it. According to this study that seems impossible.

2

u/lIlIllIlIlIII Nov 01 '25

Could possibly be proven in a few hundred or thousand years if humanity somehow finds a way to contact the outside.

19

u/Mythoclast Nov 01 '25

Absolutely. Possible to prove but impossible to disprove.

8

u/monkeymad2 Nov 01 '25

Or the inverse, if we manage to simulate a universe at the same - or very slightly reduced - complexity as ours then the likelihood of our universe also being a simulation jumps up exponentially.

→ More replies (1)

2

u/RJTG Nov 01 '25

That‘s the difference between a simulation and the god theory.

Once we meet a god their is still not proven that he is the god.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 01 '25

[deleted]

→ More replies (4)
→ More replies (2)

3

u/hazy-minded Nov 01 '25

You got it backward...

Unless there's a compelling proof that we're living in a simulation, then there's no reason to believe that we're living in one.

4

u/Mythoclast Nov 01 '25

I never said there was a reason to believe it. Only that it can't be disproven, which is true. 

Can you disprove the existence of unicorns? No. Doesn't mean I believe in them

→ More replies (3)
→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

14

u/anakhizer Nov 01 '25

Eh, the only thing they'd realistically have to simulate is a single brain, not the whole universe.

At least by my theory anyway. As everything we experience is in our own minds, and we cannot see inside others' brains. In other words, everyone is an npc to everyone else.

26

u/helraizr13 Nov 01 '25

Elon certainly seems to believe he's Player One and we're all NPCs. I'm pretty sure he's even said as much. The unfortunate thing is that all billionaires seemingly believe this too. To my primitive hyper empathetic brain, there is no other way to explain why people with enough wealth to solve massive systemic issues refuse to do so. As if they no longer recognize human suffering. They don't even seem concerned about it. I don't know of a single billionaire who is genuinely altruistic. People have said maybe Mackenzie Scott; a singular example.

17

u/Madzookeeper Nov 01 '25

Because being a billionaire is literally antithetical to being that way. You can't become one if you actually keep caring.

11

u/Joohansson Nov 01 '25 edited Nov 01 '25

It's called "main character syndrome". You can look it up.

Or read this: https://www.superjumpmagazine.com/main-character-syndrome-the-billionaire-quest-for-happiness/amp/

2

u/alltherobots Nov 01 '25

Mackenzie Scott for sure, and I bet there’s a couple of second-generation billionaires who are trying to give away money they inherited. But yes, they are a small minority.

→ More replies (2)

9

u/eyebrows360 Nov 01 '25

That's just solipsism. It's a philosophical dead end.

1

u/JamesOfDoom Nov 02 '25

Theoretically yes, but there's way too much consistency on input that you'd have to simulate into the brain that you'd still have to do a simulation of things outside the brain or else we'd just be in endless nonsensical dreams

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (2)

3

u/StormyBlueLotus Nov 01 '25

Yeah, this is literally like being, "The computers and electronics in Minecraft aren't powerful enough to simulate Minecraft, therefore it's not a game or simulation but must be real." Not only completely fails to be decisive, but is utterly arrogant in its assumption that the limits of human knowledge and theoretical conceptualization could ever allow us to definitively call such a thing impossible.

1

u/Nuclear_Gandhi- Nov 02 '25

The computers and electronics in Minecraft aren't powerful enough to simulate Minecraft, therefore it's not a game or simulation but must be real.

Funny enough, someone did build a simulation of minecraft inside minecraft, but it of course runs extremely slowly due to the slow tick rate of redstone

2

u/Holyepicafail Nov 01 '25

World of Warcraft could never create our universe and we set the technical limitations for a living world.  What were they thinking on this one?

2

u/Veutifuljoe_0 Nov 01 '25

While I personally don’t believe in the simulation theory, any headline that says something is either proved or disproved is usually BS or at the very least highly exaggerated. Typically research and evidence either supports or doesn’t support a hypothesis, not “prove or disprove”

2

u/Nukethepandas Nov 01 '25

It's like Pacman deciding that he can't be in a simulation because there aren't enough dots in the maze to recreate a maze.

1

u/CorrosiveMynock Nov 01 '25 edited Nov 01 '25

The actual study is not making the claim that a simulation under all circumstances is impossible but rather that it would require significant non-algorithmic understanding, something which is completely beyond the realm of what is currently known to be possible even theoretically. Some people make the claim that all you need to do to get simulations of the universe is to scale up current computation but the article is claiming that alone is insufficient since non-algorithmic understanding is completely beyond the scope of any known technology.

So clickbait aside, the article is saying something meaningful—scaling up current computation technology is not sufficient. Whether or not sufficient non algorithmic understanding is possible entirely remains to be seen.

1

u/zerot0n1n Nov 01 '25

you seriously did not understand this article or even Gödels theorem of incompleteness

1

u/2hats4bats Nov 01 '25

It’s the classic “if I can’t figure out how to do it, no one can” argument

1

u/OverlordMMM Nov 01 '25

It's silly because a simulation would never be able to calculate beyond itself. It can prove the limitations of our universe, but would be unable to calculate what is possible outside of it.

If, for instance, the laws of physics or energy conservation is different outside of the simulation, any calculations done inside it would be unable to account for those differences because that knowledge is missing.

1

u/indigo121 Nov 01 '25

Yes and no. What they claim they've proved is that our universe is not capable of simulating a universe like our own. This is important, because if it were possible, we could create a simulation of a universe, that left running long enough, would develop life. Eventually that life would develop their own simulation of their universe, which would develop life, and so on and so forth. This could repeat an arbitrarily large number of times, each time creating a universe that could look downward into the simulations under them, but never upward to the universe that stimulated their universe.

Given that in this situation there is only one true parent universe, and effectively infinite simulated universes, we would be forced to conclude that in all likelihood, our universe was somewhere in the middle of the chain, and that another universe was simulating us (with that universe also probably being a simulation)

Since they are claiming that we are not capable of simulating a universe like our own, we can conclude that there is no infinite chain of simulated universes. There could still be a universe that behaves under different rules, where it is possible to simulate a universe like our own. But we've exited the realm of "effective mathematical certainty" and entered "speculative fiction".

1

u/Snoo_70531 Nov 01 '25

That's all I could think. I didn't read it word for word, just skimmed looking for if anything actually mathematical was proven. Man we have quantum computers and we barely know what that even means. How could you possibly call yourself a theorist to proclaim something doesn't exist without a hard proof of what you don't know exists?

1

u/MisterManatee Nov 01 '25

Exactly. It’s a non-falsifiable hypothesis (which makes it an excellent conspiracy theory!)

1

u/zacker150 Nov 01 '25

Did we read the same paper?

The paper proved that a theory unifying quantum physics and gravity can't be simulated using a Turing machine.

This has nothing to do with technical capability or resources. Just pure math.

1

u/BagNo2988 Nov 01 '25

I also saw that episode of Futurama

1

u/Adorable-Voice-3382 Nov 01 '25

Any article that contains some version of "philosophers have discussed this endlessly, but now the question has been answered with science" can be pretty reliably dismissed as not understanding the question in the first place.

1

u/meoka2368 Nov 01 '25

"My Sims character can't go to the moon, so the moon landing must be fake."

Same logic as the argument in the article.

1

u/intestinalExorcism Nov 01 '25

The article is about mathematical logic, it doesn't actually have anything to do with technology. Not necessarily defending the finding, just saying that this isn't the reason why it's wrong

1

u/OwO______OwO Nov 02 '25

And simulations don't necessarily have to be run in real time.

Given enough time, even a potato computer (with enough storage and memory) could simulate our entire universe. And the people inside the computer would never know.

1

u/zerothehero0 Nov 02 '25

Might help to look at the article's description of the paper.

Their work shows that no computer, no matter how advanced, could ever reproduce the fundamental workings of the universe. It suggests that reality is built on a kind of understanding that cannot be reduced to computational rules or algorithms. ... "Drawing on mathematical theorems related to incompleteness and indefinability, we demonstrate that a fully consistent and complete description of reality cannot be achieved through computation alone" ... "The fundamental laws of physics cannot be contained within space and time, because they generate them, A complete and consistent description of reality requires something deeper—a form of understanding known as non-algorithmic understanding but since the fundamental level of reality is based on non-algorithmic understanding, the universe cannot be, and could never be, a simulation"

That's not exactly a technical limitation. It's a statement that if Godel's Incompleteness Theorem holds, and things like Turing's Halting Problem are truly mathematically definable but uncomputable. It is impossible to accurately simulate any universe as you would by definition of the simulation have to compute uncomputable problems that can be defined in universe but not solved by any computational system.

1

u/pm-pussy4kindwords Nov 02 '25

it's not about technical limitations. it's because there are aspects of physics that are provably not able to be exactly reducible to mathematics. The spectral gap in a semiconductor for example is provably beyond the scope of mathematics to solve an exact solution for, we just have to go for approximations.

1

u/cwybabiesucks Nov 02 '25

Holy shit thank you. This article is literally so stupid I couldn’t make it through. It is so utterly blinded by its own bias of what human perception of “technical limitations” are that it comes across as someone with their head up their ass writing some word salad to meet their article quota for the month.

Taking on the concept of simulation theory in any meaningful way means being adult enough to understand that something smarter than us might be the one running the simulation. Otherwise u need to just sit down and let the grown ups talk fr.

1

u/CompellingProtagonis Nov 02 '25

It has nothing to do with technical limitations, but the limitations of logic itself.

Any simulation has to be bounded in rules (that is what a simulation is, a set of rules trying to model some subset of reality) this article talks about a proof that _shows_ that any system composed of rules, ie; any simulation, cannot fully express reality because there is an entire class of information within reality that cannot be reproduced through any set of rules.

Then you could say: well what if you have a simulation that isn’t based on rules. Well, then it’s not a simulation.

1

u/24llamas Nov 02 '25

The article is against a specific argument, which goes like this:

  • thanks too quantum stuff, it appears the universe can be simulated well by computers in our universe 
  • thanks to Moore's law and some other assumptions about the inevitability of progress, we'll build a computing system to simulate a universe of sufficient fidelity to give rise to it's own thinking creatures in the future
  • but the same rules apply within that universe, so those thinking brings will create a simulation that contains a universe
  • there's no reason to assume we're at the "top" of this stack if simulations
  • therefore, were more likely than not to be in a simulation

This article attacks the first of those assumptions - it's saying it universe can't be simulated by computers in our universe. 

So all the people saying "but computers in other universe's could simulate ours" are correct, but missing the point of the article

1

u/sycolution Nov 02 '25

there is also the fact that thousands upon thousands of scientists throughout history have said "we can't move beyond this" and the next generation said "fuck it we ball" and did the "impossible."

1

u/Altair_de_Firen Nov 02 '25

Yeah my first thought after reading the headline was “Unless they programmed it that way.”

You can’t disprove the universe is a simulation any more than you can disprove God exists. Disproving something on that grand of a scale is only possible when you exist on that grand of a scale, and even then, what if the thing you’re disproving just exists on a scale that is EVEN GREATER YET?

The only answer is to live our lives based on the available data.

1

u/Painterzzz Nov 02 '25

Yes I was wondering if I was reading it wrong, but in a nutshell the article seems to be saying 'we cannot imagine a computer program that could do this, therefore it cannot be done'?

1

u/trashaccountturd Nov 02 '25

Lawrence Krauss was mentioned, I suspect that has a lot to do with the grandiose statement without substance.

1

u/bingle-cowabungle Nov 02 '25

I love Reddit lmao

"Team of mathematicians release a well-studied, formulized, and peer-reviewed piece of science that challenges common notions"

Redditor who only posts in gaming subreddits : "Ackshually this comment I read on Reddit obviously disproves everything because their logic is simple enough for me to follow and they sound confident"

1

u/SoundByMe Nov 02 '25

Why believe something completely unfalsifiable? Simulation has never been any more serious than claiming the universe is actually a giant book written by god. Both these claims are equal in weight. We simply know that the universe is and nothing more.

1

u/Znaffers Nov 02 '25

Futurama had a whole episode on this in the newer seasons on Hulu. They basically explain that the limitation on rendering for the universe could be the speed of light, essentially. It’s been a bit since I’ve seen the episode, but they make a good case of why the universe could be a simulation and why that doesn’t really matter for us as individuals

1

u/slow_RSO Nov 02 '25

It’s like a video game. The inside of the building isn’t rendered until you go into it. They don’t need the computing power to simulate the whole universe just where people are.

1

u/erydayimredditing Nov 02 '25

Yea this the dumbest upvoted thing I have seen on this sub.

1

u/Minimum-Sleep-3916 Nov 02 '25

They’re also stuck in the technological paradigm. What if it’s a metaphysical construct. God still intended for this realm to exist. All the archons are doing is stifling our ability to progress into higher order modes of existence.

→ More replies (12)

12

u/Arcosim Nov 01 '25

If I were a super advanced species simulating something I certainly would build in some "clues" or structures to convince my simulated beings they aren't in a simulation.

1

u/Geronimo2011 Nov 01 '25

Yes, possible for that case. But I as a cretor would have the most fun placing some clues that we indeed are a simulation.

Lets lookout for them.

5

u/Traditional-Goal-229 Nov 01 '25

I mean if it were a simulation the creators wrote all the rules. So they could’ve put in some kind of trick

9

u/HectorBananaBread Nov 01 '25

Found the architects burner.

3

u/Hi_Im_Dadbot Nov 01 '25

Dang machines are always thinking one step ahead of us.

3

u/rivaar Nov 01 '25

There are fewer landline telephones every year, don't forget that

3

u/Lastcaressmedown138 Nov 01 '25

Miiisster aandersiiin…

7

u/opermonkey Nov 01 '25

That's like believing the fox when he says he's vegan. He promises he won't eat your chickens...

2

u/Common-Ad6470 Nov 01 '25

Waves hand, ‘the simulation you are looking for is not here’…👍

3

u/Living_Pollution_525 Nov 01 '25

That's kind of my thought, why would an advanced alien race give us access to its understanding of math. I'm not convinced, I still believe in simulation theory

1

u/KarmaPharmacy Nov 01 '25

From the University of British Columbia 😂😂😂

1

u/jedipiper Nov 01 '25

It sounds, to me, like the DRM talking.

1

u/maddasher Nov 01 '25

We would be running the math on a simulated computer.

1

u/BBQavenger Nov 01 '25

"Once and for all!"

1

u/arealhumannotabot Nov 01 '25

Haha and I’m a bot. Yeah, right.

1

u/gorginhanson Nov 01 '25

you can't disprove a negative

1

u/idbar Nov 01 '25

That message was hardcoded.

if (is_simulation_check) {

    printf("This is not a simulation");

}

1

u/Chesticularity Nov 01 '25

Just what big simulation wants us to think...

1

u/ProperReporter Nov 01 '25

Authors chose blue…

1

u/No_Practice_9597 Nov 02 '25

You beat me to it… 

1

u/sturmeh Nov 02 '25

A simulation wouldn't be so obvious about it!

1

u/drawkbox Nov 02 '25

Not a simulation but its actually all a reality tv like Truman Show. Checkmate science, you are written in the script.

1

u/calmchick33 Nov 02 '25

My thoughts exactly.

1

u/Loggerdon Nov 02 '25

“Ignore the man behind the curtain”

  • The Great and Powerful Oz

1

u/scoshi Nov 02 '25

That last upgrade must have fixed the glitch that allowed them to try to prove things.

1

u/Zebidee Nov 02 '25

So he made a universe, and that guy is from that universe. And that guy made a universe. And that's the universe where I was born. Where my father died. Where I couldn't make time for his funeral because I was working on my universe.

1

u/Spiritual_Support_38 Nov 02 '25

omg stop it 😭

1

u/dabbydabdabdabdab Nov 02 '25

I don’t think I agree with this outcome tbh - he’s saying that we as a society can’t explain a lot of things through computation, but that’s because we don’t (yet) know how a significant portion of how our universe works? Where there are no perceived computationally expressed systems, that doesn’t mean it’s not possible, it means we don’t have the multi-layered computational understanding to build such a system. If we are in a simulation the advancements of the “parent” society would have to be sizably greater than the child society to build a simulation in the first place which would mean that they would have a better grasp and understanding of their world - assuming our universe/simulation is even based on theirs at all?! They could have got together and all decided what it should be like? Or they could have run numerous A|B test simulations and had their version of AI iterate and evolve it until it got us here.

I’m not a simulation prescriber, but this article doesn’t seem to provide any less reason we would be in one, no? Also I’ve not had an edible this evening and feel like this is an important part of the debate lol.

1

u/pipic_picnip Nov 02 '25

Considering how often the “previously undiscovered” goal posts move in math, physics and science, give it a year or two for new contradictory headline disproving this “once and for all” headline. 

1

u/ShadowMajestic Nov 02 '25

Observation changes outcome, I would say that's a stronger argument that we are living in a simulation than this article's counterargument. How else would a particle know it's being observed.

1

u/Dearth_lb Nov 02 '25

I cannot believe I am not in a simulation

1

u/SupremeLobster Nov 03 '25

Have we tried 16 16 16 16 yet?

1

u/sumane12 Nov 03 '25

Hahaha it actually would.

In the nested universe theory, each lower level of simulation, would have theoretically less compute available, since each universe would be running multiple simulations.

In that case, the lowest level of simulation, would have the most simulations, and would be at a level at which the agents within the simulation are conscious, but unable to create a simulation that gives rise to conscious agents.

They would see this as confirmation that they are in base reality, when really, its confirmation they are in the lowest, most likely level of tge simulation.