Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by jelizondo on Tuesday November 04, @07:36PM   Printer-friendly

Interesting Engineering published an article about a new mathematical study that dismantles the simulation hypothesis once and for all.

The idea that we might be living inside a vast computer simulation, much like in The Matrix, has fascinated philosophers and scientists for years. But a new study from researchers at the University of British Columbia's Okanagan campus has delivered a decisive blow to that theory.

According to Dr. Mir Faizal, Adjunct Professor at UBC Okanagan's Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science, and his international collaborators, the structure of reality itself makes simulation impossible.

Their work shows that no computer, no matter how advanced, could ever reproduce the fundamental workings of the universe.

Their research goes further than rejecting the simulation theory. It suggests that reality is built on a kind of understanding that cannot be reduced to computational rules or algorithms.

The researchers approached the simulation question through mathematics and physics rather than philosophy. They explored whether the laws governing the universe could, in theory, be recreated by a computer system.

"It has been suggested that the universe could be simulated," says Dr. Faizal. "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."

[Journal Reference]: https://jhap.du.ac.ir/article_488.html


Original Submission

 
This discussion was created by jelizondo (653) for logged-in users only, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 4, Funny) by VLM on Tuesday November 04, @11:38PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 04, @11:38PM (#1423346)

    assuming that only a universe that is classically computable could qualify as a simulation, when there's no reason at all to rule out a simulation conducted by a quantum computer

    This was also more or less the consensus on the Mongolian Basket Weaving Forum. As per long standing tradition there were about five threads on the same topic there, so possibly one of the other threads disagreed.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Funny=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Funny' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4