Copyright Interesting Engineering
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.” He explains that this question was once thought to lie outside the reach of science. “However, our recent research has demonstrated that it can, in fact, be scientifically addressed.” Modern physics already sees reality as more than solid matter. Quantum gravity, the latest framework uniting relativity and quantum mechanics, proposes that even space and time are not fundamental. They emerge from something deeper: pure information. The limits of logic To test whether this informational foundation could be simulated, the team relied on mathematical principles, including Gödel’s incompleteness theorem. This theorem states that in any logical system, there will always be true statements that cannot be proven within that system. Dr. Faizal says the same limitation applies to physics. “We have demonstrated that it is impossible to describe all aspects of physical reality using a computational theory of quantum gravity,” he explains. “Therefore, no physically complete and consistent theory of everything can be derived from computation alone.” He adds that a full description of reality requires what they call “non-algorithmic understanding,” which cannot be captured by any computer process. In other words, computation can only go so far before it hits the edge of what logic can express. Why the universe can’t be simulated Could the deeper “information” of the universe itself be simulated? The researchers say that even this is impossible. “Drawing on mathematical theorems related to incompleteness and indefinability, we demonstrate that a fully consistent and complete description of reality cannot be achieved through computation alone,” says Dr. Faizal. “It requires non-algorithmic understanding, which by definition is beyond algorithmic computation and therefore cannot be simulated. Hence, this universe cannot be a simulation.” Co-author Dr. Lawrence M. Krauss says this discovery changes how we view the laws of physics. “The fundamental laws of physics cannot be contained within space and time, because they generate them,” he notes. “A complete and consistent description of reality requires something deeper—a form of understanding known as non-algorithmic understanding.” Dr. Faizal concludes that any simulated world must follow programmed rules. “But since the fundamental level of reality is based on non-algorithmic understanding, the universe cannot be, and could never be, a simulation,” he says. The study is published in the Journal of Holography Applications in Physics.
