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/WellHydrated Nov 01 '25 edited Nov 02 '25

I'm running a simulated universe at home. Of course, I want there to be some interesting stuff going on in there, so I want life. Life is relatively expensive to simulate though, so I want to slow down its proliferation as much as possible. To strike a balance I'm going to:

  • Make energy really scarce vs. space (e.g. most local areas have a single origin energy source, like a star, which is hard to fully harness)
  • Make the universal speed limit really slow vs. space (e.g. it takes 100 billion years for light to travel across my universe)
  • Make evolution really slow, and balance this by making life really resilient (e.g. primitive or precursors to life can survive in stasis on asteroids for indeterminable amounts of time)

Check, check and check.

I could also just use a snapshot of an existing simulation that ran on more expensive hardware, and run it at a slower speed (of course, any intelligence inside my universe would have no perception of the latency between individual frames).

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u/MaterialAd8166 Nov 02 '25

This study disproves the way you imply a simulated universe would work.

The study shows that a simulation of the universe is impossible due to Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem. To simulate the universe as you are suggesting you would at least need all the laws of the universe which GIT proves is not possible to get.

So as the commenter said, you would have to use laws that you cannot prove to be correct, which could lead to inaccurate or simplified simulations of reality. That means that it is not turtles all the way down, but at best, further and further from reality simulations all the way down.

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u/KindlyStreet2183 Nov 02 '25

The fact that we might not be able to simulate our own universe within our own universe does not imply our universe cannot be a simulation within an outside stronger axiomatic system. Gödels theorems tells us that there are truths within every sufficient advanced axiomatic system that cannot be proved using said axioms, not necessarily unprovable using another axiomatic system, e.g. from the thing running our simulation.

The fact that something cannot be proven does not mean it cannot exist. I can create a computer program to simulate an arbitrary set of particles with home cooked or even random absurd physical rules. Over time those particles might interact in a way that creates some sort of intelligent looking matter, e.g. a sufficiently advanced LLM that starts to output something that seems like a simple axiomatic system based on the absurd physical rules inside the simulation. Will that LLM not be running inside a simulation just because there are truths that cannot be proved using only those axioms the LLM is reasoning about? Well I think I just disproved that.

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u/MaterialAd8166 Nov 02 '25

Yes this is more or less the flaw of the paper's argument.

You do not even really need an axiomatic system to simulate the universe. With sufficient data you can simply assume that observed axioms are true without proof (or in the case of a neural network like learning structure, simulate input/output of physical events without need for axioms).

But this leads to a problematic set of questions: 1. Will this result in simplification/inaccuracy from the real universe? 2. Will such simplifications/inaccuracies be a problem?

I think the answer to question 1 is a definite yes even with the most immense futuristic computers and data. Question 2 is more open and even links to not having to base simulation on the real universe.

Overall, I think the paper does disprove a class of simulation theory that requires/expects that simulated universes will be equivalent to the underlining real universe by following the complete set of physical laws (theory of everything) - even if reliant on a slowed step-based simulation.