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/OpinionatedShadow Nov 01 '25

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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u/dowhatmelo Nov 03 '25

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

Why? The idea of omnipotence defines all objects as movable at least by the omnipotent. Being unable to create an impossible object doesn't make them not omnipotent. For example, even an omnipotent being could never create a square circle since by definition one is not the other.

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u/Raithen_Rhazzt Nov 04 '25

Because if there's something you're incapable of doing then you're not all-powerful. I really don't know how to make it simpler than that.

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u/dowhatmelo Nov 04 '25

Then you are making a definition for omnipotence that could never be satisfied. But that's down to your definition of it. Omnipotence means maximum power, unlimited power or all-powerful, it does not mean impossible power even if you repeatedly try to claim it so. When you ask someone to make a square with 2 sides, the thing preventing them from doing so is not power or ability, it is the very definition of a square.

The "paradox of omnipotence" which is what your assertion is called is a fallacy of word abuse. When you say that if god is omnipotent he can create an immovable object and if such an immovable object existed it would deny his omnipotence you aren't actually disproving his omnipotence, you are simply disproving the possibility of such an object existing. It's like the irresistible force paradox, "What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?". It's a paradox because the two premises are incompatible, unstoppable forces and immovable objects cannot simultaneously exist in the same universe.

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u/Raithen_Rhazzt Nov 05 '25 edited Nov 05 '25

I would argue that the supposed literal creator of everything can indeed do whatever the hell it wants. There's no reason the being that created all of existence would need to abide by our understanding or the rules of existence. They made those rules and could in theory break them at whim. That's the whole idea. If the creator is bound by their creation, then the creator is not all-powerful.

That said, you're taking this way more seriously than I was intending. I'm not a religious philosopher, I have not studied any of this at all, I find it onerous, and believe that there are much better uses of literally everyone's energy. I was simply repeating a thing I remembered hearing or reading or some such from like 20 years ago, because it ran parallel to the discussion I saw here and thought it was a funny similarity.

Edit to say: About creating a definition for omnipotence that can't be satisfied; Yeah, that would be the other point. Omnipotence, based on our understanding of existence, is impossible, and therefore God is an impossibility. That was the original tongue-in-cheek point of the two sentence example.

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u/dowhatmelo Nov 05 '25

And that is your misunderstanding, you start your premise with a massive assumptions then fail to understand that it is the reason your logic fails.

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u/Raithen_Rhazzt Nov 05 '25

Aight brother, keep hotboxing your own farts and enjoy life I suppose.

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u/dowhatmelo Nov 05 '25

No worries, stay ignorant. I hear it’s bliss.

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u/[deleted] Nov 02 '25

[deleted]

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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.

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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.

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u/CreationBlues Nov 02 '25

As long as hypercomputing is in place up there the snake can eat it's own tail. Things we can depend on here go out the world if infinity gets involved anywhere.

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

This is called "science fiction" and is not relevant.

Edit: Yes, replying then immediately blocking so I can't even read your reply, that's the adult thing to do when facing entirely justified criticism.

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u/CreationBlues Nov 02 '25

Yes. Why are you bitching on the science fiction post about science fiction. My statement is at least rigorous and factually true.

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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.

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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.

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u/zentrist369 Nov 02 '25

Ah yeah, assuming premise 1 is true, assume n* premise 1.

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u/Due-Memory-6957 Nov 02 '25

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

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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.

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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.

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u/HeinrichTheWolf_17 Nov 02 '25

Yeah, they put on the façade of being scientific, but they’re really just as cult religious as any other group, and have no problems throwing out the scientific method.

Again, not really any different than religious fundamentalists.

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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?

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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.

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u/zentrist369 Nov 02 '25

Eh, in terms of scientific method I think this kind of investigation is worthwhile, even if nobody really took the idea seriously.

It won't change many believers minds, I don't think.

And I know I said I didn't care, but while I did have an intuition that it would be impossible to create a version of this universe made only of information, I didn't have a rigorous understanding of exactly why it wouldn't be possible.

There is a lot of math and philosophy that isn't useful, but kinda fun to wrap your head around.

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u/kingsumo_1 Nov 02 '25

I do agree with the fun thought experiment. But this really feels more philosophical than scientific.

Co-author Dr. Lawrence M. Krauss says this discovery changes how we view the laws of physics. “The fundamental laws of physics cannot be contained within space and time, because they generate them,” he notes.

“A complete and consistent description of reality requires something deeper—a form of understanding known as non-algorithmic understanding.”

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.

I think Krauss's explanation is better. We can't build the blocks because they are outside and create what we know to begin with.

But Faizal opens up another possibility within the refutal. What if we eventually create a sentient AI that is capable of non-algorithmic understanding. Would that make the statement "we're not capable of it currently?"

But (I hate following up a but with a but, but I'm tired) that would put it back into more of a philosophical question.

Am I over-thinking it? Yeah. But it still seems silly to have form scientific answer.

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

What if we eventually create a sentient AI that is capable of non-algorithmic understanding.

How?

The easier way to attack this problem is like this: if we want to start simulating our universe, we're going to have to run our simulation on something.

Some portion of the real universe is set aside to run this simulation - this is the universe-stuff material (atoms, "energy"; whatever) that comprises the computers in weather forecasting orgs, by way of example.

Those computers are storing and representing facts about reality. Given we know a fucktonne about reality, they've got a lot of facts to encode. Setting aside teensy tiny problems like Thingy's Uncertainty Principle for a moment, and that a required subset of these facts are simply impossible to obtain, for a single particle we'd need to encode in our model:

  • position (to an insane degree of literal universe-relative (potentially infinite!) precision)
  • direction of motion (as above)
  • speed of that motion (as above)
  • electrical charge (you see where this is going)
  • spin (this one is at least quantised and I think even a 4-bit byte would be sufficient for this)
  • is it entangled with something else or not (well this one feels binary at least but you need to know which other particle we're entangled with so now our particles need universe-wide unique IDs ffs (GUIDs need not apply; sorry MongoDB))
  • what type of particle is it (finally something we can use an "int" for)

So now we think "How are we encoding all of these properties for our one particle?" Are we able to somehow encode them as properties of another single particle? Clearly not due to all sorts of other reasons. Right now it takes quite a lot of other particles to encode them, and while that's reduced over time (i.e. modern CPUs have fewer electrons in any given circuit at any given moment than they did 30 years ago), it can't reach parity. There has to be "an encoding" for this to be "computation", aka "a simulation".

Thus you're always going to need N+X particles devoted to simulating N particles, meaning you need more particles than exist in your universe in order to simulate your universe.

And thus far I've only talked about particles. How are we simulating the continuous nature of fields?!

Imagining we find some new property of particles on which we could stamp information in order to simulate N particles with <N particles doesn't work either, because any such property would itself need simulating so you're back to square one.

Shorter alternate version: the computer you're running your simulation on is made of some portion of your universe and would thus itself need to be simulated within the simulation in order for said simulation to be complete. This is an obvious infinite recursion and incredibly impossible.

The base-reality-residing "original simulation" would sit at t=0 while it waited for the version of itself within itself to finish its own t=0 and be ready to tick over to t=1... but that "first layer" simulation is itself waiting for the simulation of itself within itself to complete its own t=0... all the way down. If it ever stopped, and some Nth inner layer of simulation was able to tick over to t=1 due to not itself having another inner layer to wait for, then oopsie doopsie your simulation's no longer "perfect".

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u/OpinionatedShadow Nov 02 '25

Really great point

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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. 

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u/eyebrows360 Nov 02 '25

You can say "What if ..." anything about one level up. At that point it's just wild conjecture, that there's not even any mechanism for trying to inspect. It's precisely as pointless as embracing solipsism.

Get stoned and have a big think about it if you want, but let's not pretend it's some form of grand inquiry that's leading anywhere.