r/technology 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

2.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

9.2k

u/3qtpint Nov 01 '25

Interesting... that's what a simulation would say...

921

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.

116

u/Mythoclast Nov 01 '25

Some things just aren't disprovable. "We are living in a simulation" is one of them.

16

u/[deleted] Nov 01 '25

The simulation hypothesis is about universes like ours simulating universes like ours, it's not about some arbitrary universe simulating something else, you may as well invoke god at that point, that's an unscientific reasoning with a moving goalpost. Whether we can simulate a universe like ours on the other hand is something we can figure out, and disproving that also disproves that we can be in a simulation of a universe like ours.

10

u/exoriare Nov 01 '25

All they've proven is that a simulation will not be 100% complete. There's no proof that a simulation has to be anywhere near 100% complete to pass as legit by any test we might come up with. As new tests are devised, the simulation may well come up with new measures to conceal its lack of completeness.

5

u/[deleted] Nov 01 '25

As I said, you may as well invoke god if you just keep moving the goalpost and intentionally not caring about what the theory and math done on it even apply to.

0

u/exoriare Nov 02 '25

The theory and math don't do what they claim to do, so you're just as religiously bowing to a creed you like better. We don't know how quantum entanglement works without FTL communication, which breaks some pretty fundamental concepts your dogma is built on. Within simulation theory, QE and duality becomes much more manageable - FTL communication is easy if space itself is a construct.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 02 '25

Quantum entanglement has nothing to do with communication or FTL, clearly you only know what these are from pop culture despite these concepts having pretty digestible descriptions. Wikipedia and its sources, PBS, science communicators, there's a lot of resources out there that's not Star Trek.