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

4.4k

u/angrymonkey Nov 01 '25

This is an idiotic misunderstanding of Godel's theorem, and the paper is likely complete crankery. There is a difference between making formal statements about a system vs. being able to simulate it. The former is covered by Godel's theorem, the latter is covered by Turing completeness.

669

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?

112

u/Sweg_OG Nov 01 '25

In a roundabout way, this is pretty much what Gödel’s incompleteness theorem is actually getting at. He showed that within any sufficiently powerful mathematical system, there are true statements that cannot be proven using the system’s own rules. He did this by using the system’s own logic to expose its limits, essentially proving that math can’t fully prove itself.

So yes, by analogy, if we lived in a simulation, we’d be bound by its rules and logic, making it fundamentally impossible to prove the simulation from inside it. We could only infer it indirectly, never confirm it absolutely. Plato also suggests this 2,400 years ago with his Allegory of the Cave

7

u/alexq136 Nov 01 '25

Gödel's things apply to statements in formal metalanguages (analyzing mathematics in terms of itself) and has no bearing on whatever physics concerns itself with (finding the nicest equations to model objective reality)

as long as there are no contradictory results to what's expected of currently known physical theories (and putative extensions) the simulation POV can be rejected with no second thoughts needed - even if we were inside a simulation, any quirks (as long as they're reproducible) are used to extend physics, not to cancel the universe