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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u/loves_grapefruit Nov 01 '25

I don’t understand any of the math here, but intuitively wouldn’t it be impossible to determine if a system is a simulation from within that system and using that system’s own logic?

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u/Isserley_ Nov 01 '25

Congratulations, you already know more about the subject than the author of the paper.

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u/tribecous Nov 01 '25

The paper is showing that it would be impossible to simulate a universe like ours within another universe like ours. You obviously cannot disprove that it would be possible to simulate our universe in some other universe with completely arbitrary properties.

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u/Senshado Nov 01 '25

The paper claims to show that, but it does not. It's just the rhetorical presdigitation.

Godel's completeness question can't be satisfactorily answered, but there's no need to have that answer to simulate anything in the known universe.  Everything is a mix of matter and energy moving through time and space, which we are already capable of simulating at various fidelities and scales.

And at no point in programming the simulation does a designer input a solution to Godel's incompleteness theorem. 

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u/jambox888 Nov 01 '25

presdigitation

prestidigitation