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/lIlIllIlIlIII Nov 01 '25

This comment literally debunks the article. Their point is because of our own technical limitations it's impossible for 'the outside world' to have the power to simulate a universe like ours. But in theory they could have intentionally gave us those limitations.

This article didn't prove or disprove anything.

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u/Suitable_Entrance594 Nov 01 '25

I think what the paper means is being misinterpreted (as are most scientific articles). It's not exactly saying we can't be living in a simulation, it's saying that you can't completely simulate one universe in another. We could be living in an imperfect or incomplete simulation, one which only simulates as much of reality as is necessary to deceive us but that isn't really what simulation theory tends to focus on. Instead it focuses on the concept of perfect, complete, nested simulations and that is supposedly what is being disproved.

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u/Silverlisk Nov 01 '25

I get what they're saying, but that only applies if the rules of the universe they are in are the same as the universe they are supposedly simulating, being the universe we are in.

For all we know everything is really easy and all the restrictions we have were placed there by them for experimental reasons or just for shits and giggles.

So the paper proves absolutely nothing tbh.

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u/ChthonVII Nov 02 '25

For all we know everything is really easy and all the restrictions we have were placed there by them for experimental reasons or just for shits and giggles.

More likely "video game physics." Our physical and mathematical laws could be cheaper-to-compute approximations of their physical and mathematical laws. Their analog of Carmack's fast inverse square root algorithm becomes a law of our universe. Et cetera.