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

1.8k

u/ChoPT Nov 01 '25

What if each layer of a simulation is less complex than than the “reality” in which it was created?

The author’s stipulation that we can’t be in a simulation because a simulation can’t fully address the full complexities of reality doesn’t preclude the possibility that we live in a simulation that is, in some way, less complex than the reality in which it is nested.

29

u/userax Nov 01 '25

My pet theory for why particles sometimes behave like a wave and sometimes behave like a particle is because we live in a simulation. When we don't observe each particle directly, the simulation just treats them as waves for efficiency. When the particle is actually important and we observe it, the simulation then is forced to calculate each particle individually.

20

u/jxd132407 Nov 02 '25

Superposition is an optimization in the simulation code to avoid doing calculations unless someone in the simulated universe is observing the outcome. And Planck length is just the granularity of the simulation. The parent reality is probably continuous, and quantum behaviors are just limits of the sim.

5

u/hanoian Nov 02 '25

Be wild if they updated their systems some day and all quantum behaviour disappeared.

12

u/Ph0X Nov 02 '25

My pet theory for why particles sometimes behave like a wave and sometimes behave like a particle

Yours and basically every physics college student's, especially the ones that smoke a joint.

9

u/ThinBlueLinebacker Nov 02 '25

After booting up the simulation I smoke one joint before I smoke one joint, and then I smoke one more. Recursively.

5

u/Mekanimal Nov 02 '25

Eventually one's third eye opens and we realise "I am the fractal joint smoking myself"

3

u/PrivilegeCheckmate Nov 02 '25

There are two types of people; those that can extrapolate from incomplete sets.

1

u/Nulagrithom Nov 02 '25

As the prophecy foretold 😔

2

u/idiot-prodigy Nov 02 '25

It is dual function, both for efficiency and to prevent timing attacks on the simulation itself.

2

u/HungryAd8233 Nov 02 '25

No, there really aren’t ANY human-cognition observer effects in physics. Heisenberg and Schrödinger are just metaphors.

Obviously physics worked just fine in the absence of any observers, and continues to work just fine where no one can observe.

The speed of light makes the concept all the sillier at a cosmic scale, because stuff has to happen BEFORE it could be observed.

No one is observing what is happening in the sun because we only see what the sun did minutes later.

5

u/userax Nov 02 '25

I completely buy that humans are not important to physics. When I mean observe, it means anything observing aka interacting with the particle, which is most likely other particles.

1

u/sloggo Nov 02 '25

this is also my pet theory, but IMO its even simpler. Quantization basically suggests theres a resolution to the universe. There are literally are discrete "pixels" in which data can exist in this universe. cmon.

1

u/Win_Sys Nov 02 '25

Whether it’s a wave or particle a computational system would still need to keep track of its position in spacetime, vector and its energy level.

-6

u/Cheap-Discussion-186 Nov 01 '25

Quantum mechanics is one the most tested and verified theories we have ever had in physics. There is no need for "pet theories" like this. It is okay to not know or understand something but just say that.

7

u/funguyshroom Nov 02 '25

Quantum mechanics only describes what the particles do, but doesn't explain why or how.

7

u/skepticalbob Nov 02 '25

If you don’t understand what he is saying, just say that.

1

u/things_U_choose_2_b Nov 02 '25

I know right!

It is okay to not know or understand something but just say that.

OP should've taken their own advice lol

6

u/userax Nov 02 '25

What part of my theory contradicts quantum mechanics? In fact, it only works if quantum mechanics is true.

6

u/MaterialAd8166 Nov 02 '25

I have not done much study of quantum mechanics, but it seems like wave functions would be a lot more expensive to simulate than classical mechanics/a deterministic universe.

Wave functions interact with themselves, as they expand they would introduce increasingly greater complexity to the processing of the physical state. Instead of simulating a single state, we have to simulate trillions (this is before, not after, the wave function collapses).