It’s a plot device beloved by science fiction: our entire universe might be a simulation running on some advanced civilization’s supercomputer. But new research from UBC Okanagan has mathematically proven this isn’t just unlikely—it’s impossible.
Dr. Mir Faizal, Adjunct Professor with UBC Okanagan’s Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science, and his international colleagues, Drs. Lawrence M. Krauss, Arshid Shabir and Francesco Marino have shown that the fundamental nature of reality operates in a way that no computer could ever simulate.
Their findings, published in the Journal of Holography Applications in Physics, go beyond simply suggesting that we’re not living in a simulated world like The Matrix. They prove something far more profound: the universe is built on a type of understanding that exists beyond the reach of any algorithm.
“It has been suggested that the universe could be simulated. If such a simulation were possible, the simulated universe could itself give rise to life, which in turn might create its own simulation. This recursive possibility makes it seem highly unlikely that our universe is the original one, rather than a simulation nested within another simulation,” says Dr. Faizal. “This idea was once thought to lie beyond the reach of scientific inquiry. However, our recent research has demonstrated that it can, in fact, be scientifically addressed.”
This is such a surface level analysis that i get cringe by reading it. Who the hell says the simulation couldntve been written in a way that you cant simulate itself inside it. For all we know, the upper level universe has not only physics, but logic that we cannot comprehend. Im not talking about non eucledian geometry or how many spacial and time dimensions they have but the way true and false statements, logic itself, could work in a different way. Thats why we may never understand physics because the rules that define it could possibly not even make sense in the world that they in turn define.
Yeah it makes sense that a simulation isn’t fully comprehendible from inside the simulation.