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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
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Wednesday November 05, @02:46AM (2 children)
One of the areas where the paper fails is in assuming one can't know all the rules. For glaring example, what's the physical characteristics of an uncomputable problem? They merely assuming such a problem can fit into the universe and as a result somehow that means non-algorithmic rules.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Wednesday November 05, @05:49PM (1 child)
How did it "assume" that? The paper identified such problems, and addresses that issue quite directly.
One that is mathematically undecideable. (e.g. like the halting problem)
They argue that simulating the universe (in a computer) is equivalent to solving the halting problem which is not possible; and they argue a number of undecidable (non-computable) physics phenomena essentially embed the halting problem.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 06, @01:38AM
Let's review the basic argument. The undecidable argument is based on the following: that a sufficiently complex algorithmically generated system has undecidable problems, assume without justification that simulating the universe is somehow remotely related to deciding an undecidable problem, and thus can't be simulated by an algorithmic system again without justification. The very concepts and theorems described so far show how undecidable problems can easily fit within an algorithmic system. Classic case of stolen concept fallacy.