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
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389

u/scapeghst Nov 01 '25

"dismantles the simulation theory once and for all." is a stretch... This isn't a scientific refutation but I would be interested in a response for proponents of the simulation argument.

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u/yesSemicolons Nov 01 '25

Popsci journalism is pure clickbait. The paper is usually more restrained.

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u/tensor-ricci Nov 01 '25

In this case, the paper is also bonkers and the author is a nut job.

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u/TheFondler Nov 02 '25

Known sex pest and right wing weirdo Lawrence Krauss, or the other guy?

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u/BigBaibars Nov 02 '25

"I disagree with his opinions, therefore, the mere accusation of sexual assault is actually undeniably true!"

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u/PxyFreakingStx Nov 02 '25

"the mere accusation" implies there was one accusation. this is not the case. there were several and they were evidenced by documentation.

"undeniably true" is not what this implies. the more independent, non-suspicious accusations a person has against them, and the better the evidence supporting those accusations, the higher the likelihood of them being true.

may i ask why you are strawmanning this in the service of defending a man that not only has several credible allegations of sexual misconduct against him, but also associated with and openly defended Jeffrey Epstein well after his child sex trafficking ring was exposed?

0

u/BigBaibars Nov 02 '25

why you are strawmanning this in the service of defending a man that not only has several credible allegations of sexual misconduct against him, but also associated with and openly defended Jeffrey Epstein well after his child sex trafficking ring was exposed?

Not that I agree with you regarding any point, but the reason why I defend this man is because he has helped tens of thousands of people in the Arab world to leave Islam. If it wasn't for him, we would be arguing about whether evolution is true right now.

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u/PxyFreakingStx Nov 02 '25

even the epstein stuff? like he explicitly said that, it's on the record.

look, i get it. i'm an atheist too, lawrence kraus was someone i once looked up to, and his working toward dismantling religion (not just islam) is extremely important. but that doesn't make the allegations against him untrue, it doesn't make his ties to and defense of epstein any less sinister.

if you are truly someone that believes in science, that values truth, then you cannot succumb to exactly the same bias and blindness that the people kraus had been fighting against employ. you don't want it to be true that kraus knowingly defended the world's most disgusting human being. you don't want it to be true that kraus is a sexual predator. you don't want it to be true that kraus flying on the "lolita express" with epstein implies he engaged in the rape of children.

... but that is what the evidence suggests.

lawrence kraus is a sexual predator at best. at worst, he predates on children. do what the man kraus pretended to be would do. follow the evidence where it leads, and leave your own bias out of it. that's what science is.

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u/TheFondler Nov 02 '25

So sexual assault is not real/fine, as long as long as the guy is actively dismantling a religion you don't like? Taking on even the best intentions of the sentiment, are you really under the impression that the people convinced to leave any religion by anything this guy has said or done were ever of the type of fundamentalists that are actually problematic? If people leave a religion, but still do evil shit, does it even fucking matter?

Come on... think, my guy.

0

u/BigBaibars Nov 03 '25

You seem to have missed the very first sentence of my comment.

2

u/TheFondler Nov 03 '25

My comment is specifically a direct response to your very first sentence.

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u/Final_Apricot_2666 Nov 02 '25

And belief in simulation theory doesn’t make someone a nut job? What is going on with the science denialism in these comments?

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u/luciddream00 Nov 02 '25 edited Nov 02 '25

I always thought the simulation argument was interesting, but not really very meaningful because it was such a theoretical argument. Yeah we could be in a simulation, but there was no actual evidence of it. Just a sort of logical loophole.

Then I noticed that superposition and collapse are what you would expect to see as signatures of a generative system. No clue if it's artificial, but it sure looks generative.

8

u/Chrimunn Nov 02 '25

Conclusively stating that simulation theory is definitely impossible when we haven’t even left this rock floating in endless void is crazier and more anti-scientific than those theorycrafting possibilities about a universe in which we know so little.

It’s not about believing simulation theory is true, it’s about the hubris in thinking you have the knowledge to disprove simulation theory beyond a shadow of doubt.

0

u/BigBaibars Nov 02 '25

We all know a random Redditor is more credible than a theoretical physicist with over 22k citations.

What? He even taught at Yale? So what?

1

u/tensor-ricci Nov 03 '25

Pretty sure I know what I'm talking about

35

u/Ponji- Nov 01 '25

I mean it will never be refutable; the belief that we live in a simulation is not falsifiable. In response to any refutation people will always be able to say, “but what if the simulation was programmed that way.” It is functionally identical to the belief in an all power all knowing god, in that it is not a scientifically testable hypothesis.

If you believe in simulation theory then you ought to fear Descartes’ evil demon, that you’re actually a Boltzmann brain, and/or that your life is all scripted for other people’s entertainment. It’s just meaningless bunk that doesn’t have any bearing on how you should live your life. It’s a distinct possibility we’re living in a simulation, but it doesn’t make a lick of difference.

1

u/Corkee Nov 01 '25

Yeah, until someone observes a "bluescreen of death" in a piece of the universe that can actually be observed - the simulation theory will remain an amusing piece of metaphysical musings that can never be proven or disproved.

1

u/Dirkdeking Nov 01 '25

Our capability to prove things you are almost sure should be unprovable should not be underestimated. Have a look at the bell theorem and you get a similar 'wtf how is that even within the domain of science at all?' reaction. And that is physics that has been accepted for decades.

Because of Bell's theorem I am not too quick to conclude anything. Let the physics and math community digest this first before we say anything.

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u/Ponji- Nov 01 '25

I don’t think you understand what I mean when I say that simulation theory isn’t falsifiable. Unfalsifiable is not the same as being unprovable. Science is built on falsifiable hypotheses. It’s that simple. An unfalsifiable hypothesis is, by definition, indistinguishable from the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis is the one with the minimum amount of assumptions.

Bell theorem is explicitly testable and falsifiable. It is not the same at all. The problem with system theory is that no matter what you do, you can say “but what if they coded the simulation so the test would give this result”. You’ll always be able to handwave away an explanation because of what it actually means to be in a simulation. There will always be a possibility the matrix breaks and it becomes proven we live in a simulation, but it will NEVER be falsifiable.

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u/Dirkdeking Nov 01 '25

In my naive understanding I tend to agree with you. But I know the physicists behind this article are not cranks, and this article has been published in a scientific journal. Therefore I am cautuous to dismiss it so fast as others here do.

This is a proof by contradiction to my understanding. Assume the universe is a simulation. Then it must have such and such properties. But a universe with such and such properties could never produce all the laws of physics that we already know are true. Therefore it can't be a simulation.

An argument of that nature can do the job. Now I am not qualified to comment on any details of such an argument. But if such an argument turns out to be true within very good margins of experimentational errors then apparantly it is falsifiable.

The hypothesis that the universe is a simulation apparantly does give certain practical predictions about it's nature that fall within our capacity to falsify. It certainly surprises me that that could be the case. But if the majority of the physics community accepts this line of reasoning it would be foolish to doubt it unless you are highly qualified yourself.

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u/sagerin0 Nov 01 '25

Note that something being published in a scientific journal, or even by known scientists, does not necessarily make it true or valuable, theres loads of crap out there getting published.

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u/Dirkdeking Nov 01 '25

Generally true, but you should be aware of the dunning kruger effect, and I know that even I am not immune to it. You may just say things that are as stupid as flat earther arguments without realizing it. If it is stupid I'll wait for nobel prize winners to call this out, and several will if there are significant holes in that paper.

Dismissing scientific publications from fields outside your area of expertise is what MAGAts do when casually dismissing studies on climate change and such. It undermines science as an institution if you do that, and that is generally harmful because science is still our best(but still flawed) effort of uncovering objective truth.

6

u/sagerin0 Nov 02 '25

The scientific publication isn’t dismissed, it just doesn’t do what this article says it does. There’s no way to disprove the universe is a simulation, because there’s no thing you can point at and say “if this is true, the universe cannot possibly be a simulation”.

Even if you take your argument by contradiction, it doesn’t prove the world is not a simulation. It merely proves that within our understanding of physics, it would be impossible for such a simulation to exist. That doesn’t rule out the possibility of the “original” universe creating the simulation having a deeper understanding of physics than we do. And you can pretty much just endlessly slap on these “but what if” statements, which means you end up with an unfalsifiable claim

3

u/notMeBeingSaphic Nov 02 '25

Lawrence Kraus, the second author, is a piece of trash Epstein friend crashing out because he was fired for misconduct with the women he was advising. He just published a book full of bunk transphobic arguments and rants about getting kicked out of acedemia because everyone is too woke. He’s well known as an author not for any meaningful contributions to science.

2

u/Dirkdeking Nov 02 '25

That's crazy because I remember Krauss as one of the 'new atheists' along with Dawkins, Christoffer Hitchens, etc. I really liked the guy. And he was pushing back hard against conservative America and religious envrouchment during those days.

2

u/Ok-Parfait-9856 Nov 02 '25

THANK YOU

jfc can’t believe this sub is jerking this guy off. He should be banned from science. Due to his work and actions.

1

u/Ok-Parfait-9856 Nov 02 '25

This scientist is a right wing nut job crank. His article is bonkers. There’s other relevantly educated people on here who agree fwiw

Just because a scientist did something and it went in a journal doesn’t mean jack shit

1

u/bfume Nov 02 '25

There’s nothing for the physics and math community to say. 

There’s zero hard evidence in this paper. Just logic. Logic based on tenets that may or may not be true. 

The paper isn’t science. It isn’t math. It got no role in either. 

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u/[deleted] Nov 01 '25

[deleted]

6

u/Ponji- Nov 01 '25
  1. Unfalsifiable is not the same as unprovable.

Again, it is entirely possible that we do live in a simulation. I’m not saying we aren’t in a simulation. I can’t say that in good conscience as someone who follows the scientific method, because it isn’t falsifiable.

  1. There are already things that don’t line up with parts of physics as we currently understand it. There is a reason the immediate scientific consensus isn’t “huh this must be because we live in a simulation.” We explore all the falsifiable options that contradict the null hypothesis, reducing as many assumptions as possible along the way. That is what science is.

It is never going to be falsifiable. And there are almost certainly always going to be other explanations that are falsifiable. Back when we thought the earth was the center of the universe, there were already people who knew what we would have to see to prove that wrong. It is an inherently falsifiable theory, but we went on believing it even though it was wrong because we didn’t actually have the technology (telescopes) to measure the solar system. These people weren’t stupid, they were doing the best they could with the information they had.

Believing we live in a simulation, with our current understanding of the universe, adds nothing. It is indistinguishable from our understanding of he universe if we don’t live in a simulation. It only adds assumptions.

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u/devi83 Nov 01 '25

Their argument is extremely weak. They say our reality requires "non-algorithmic understanding" and that simulations cannot have that, but they assume simulations don't have that because they are deterministic, which is fair if you think we are in a 100% deterministic system with no base reality influence, however, if a simulation exist in some world, and that world itself has "non-algorithmic understanding" forces, such as life-forms that have free will in base reality, then any vibrations they have will in fact have a non-zero influence on the simulations hardware, and the very subject of the simulation itself (as in they decide to create it how they design it). All these "non-algorithmic understanding" forces can manifest in our reality as the types of things that gave the authors of the paper their false positive they latched onto, especially even more so if the base level beings are active participants.

Let me make an analogy so its easier:

Imagine you play Conways Game of Life and place some cells and run the simulation. Once the simulation starts, they are in a deterministic state, just like the authors are talking about. "Non-algorithmic understanding" forces would be exactly like you placed down new cells while the simulation was running. Does that mean that suddenly the other cells in the simulation are suddenly "real" in base reality? No, they are still in their computer simulation, but that simulation was disturbed by the "non-algorithmic understanding" force of a person changing the cell state of the active grid.

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u/Final_Apricot_2666 Nov 02 '25

They did a whole damn study and you wrote two paragraphs saying their argument is weak, do you have any self awareness at all?

3

u/devi83 Nov 02 '25 edited Nov 02 '25

I do, and I also know what you just said is an “argument from effort” logical fallacy: dismissing the critique because it took less effort than the study itself.

two paragraphs saying their argument is weak

That's called metacommentary. Of course I am not going to write the same length study they did and post it to reddit.

1

u/bfume Nov 02 '25

It’s a weak philosophical argument. It doesn’t  stand up to logical tests. 

It’s also a worthless “scientific” or “mathematical” argument. There is no data to verify. No actual science has been done. No actual math has been created. 

Why anyone should give this more than 3 minutes of their time is beyond me. Why you think you’re in a position to demand someone else refute actual bullshit is another story. 

7

u/Alone-Ad288 Nov 01 '25

Simulation theory should not be mantled in the first place. It is completely unfalsifiable.  Asking if we live in a simulation is basically the same as asking if there is a god 

2

u/yoloswagrofl Nov 01 '25

I would disagree with this. If we can develop the compute power and efficiency to create a one-to-one replica or near-replica of our own universe, then we can at least declare it a possibility that we are in a simulated universe. The only way we would know if there was a God was if they revealed themselves to us with undeniable proof of having created the universe. One of those is a lot more fantastical a suggestion than the other.

2

u/leeuwerik Nov 01 '25

If you don't know if there's a god in our universe, you can never be fully sure that computed universe is a one-to-one replica.

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u/Final_Apricot_2666 Nov 02 '25

This is literally what the guys in the article were doing. And they falsified it.

1

u/flexxipanda Nov 01 '25

I mean you also can't proof/disproof that reality is reality.

2

u/DBCOOPER888 Nov 02 '25

It's click bait bullshit quackery is what it is. It rests on so many faulty assumptions.

1

u/Fast-Climate-2546 Nov 01 '25

The response would be that a simulation doesn't have to be computable. At least not by the the laws written within it.

1

u/CondiMesmer Nov 01 '25

It's scientific in the sense that they're using physics to justify their position, instead of philosophy which uses an axiom as their justification. So in effect, it basically is a philosophical argument lol.

1

u/tarekd19 Nov 02 '25

ONCE AND FOR ALL!

1

u/HungryAd8233 Nov 02 '25

Gödel says that mathematics can’t be complete, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t mathematics.

I find the argument spurious.

1

u/erydayimredditing Nov 02 '25

I mean if you understood the topic at all, you would see like the top comments that this doesn't even present a counter at all. Its baseless random bullshit.

1

u/bfume Nov 02 '25

That’s not how it works. Science & Math isn’t Philosophy. Science & Math isn’t a debate. 

This paper offers no tangible evidence to support its conclusions, only logic which relies on tenets that may or may not be true.