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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.”
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let’s play a fun game where we read a “breaking news” story about a scientific “discovery” and count the reasons to be skeptical about it
by Patty Wellborn, University of British Columbia
…
Dr. Mir Faizal, Adjunct Professor with UBC Okanagan’s Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science
right off the bat - you have a conflict of interest where the person writing this is from the same university as the lead author.
this article is stylized to read like “news” but it’s probably more accurate to treat it like you would a press release.
and in fact, this same text is on UBC’s website where it explicitly says “Content type: Media Release”
Patty Wellborn’s author page there seems to indicate that writing this kind of press release is a major part of her job
and his international colleagues, Drs. Lawrence M. Krauss
huh…that name sounds familiar…let me go check his wikipedia page and oh look there’s a Controversies section with “Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein” and “Allegations of sexual misconduct” subsections.
Their findings, published in the Journal of Holography Applications in Physics
that journal is published by Damghan University in Iran
there’s a ton of xenophobia and Islamophobia that gets turned up to 11 when people in the English-speaking world start discussing Iran, so I don’t want to dismiss this journal out-of-hand…but their school of physics has 2 full professors?
if I was going to find out “oh Damghan is actually well-regarded for physics research” or something that’s not what I’d expect to see
but anyway, let’s look at the paper itself
except, hold on, it’s not a paper, it’s a letter:
Document Type : Letter
that’s an important difference:
Letters: This is a very ambiguous category, primarily defined by being short, often <1000 words. They may be used to report a single piece of information, often from part of a larger study, or may be used to respond to another paper. These may or may not go out for peer review - for example, I recently had a paper accepted where the decision was made entirely by the editor.
reading a bit further:
Received: June 6, 2025; Accepted: June 17, 2025
this is “proving” something fundamental about the nature of the universe…and the entire review process took 11 calendar days? (basically one work week, the 6th was a Friday and the 17th was a Tuesday)
Like others have stated, this would only hold true if the supposed outer universe to ours has the same properties as ours. So while it may be true that we will never simulate a universe that is equal to ours (with classical computers and algorithms), it doesn’t negate that a computer/device in a universe could simulate an inferior version of the universe.
Take Minecraft as an example. You can make the logic leap and say it’s a simulated universe, and people have in Minecraft created am inferior version of Minecraft with Redstone logic.
So of you can create an inferior version of Minecraft within Minecraft, it’s not much of a jump to think that we could be an inferior version of some outer universe.
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.
The research is interesting, but there is so much wrong with this headline. For instance it’s relying on a definition of a computer is, but it’s not really prepared of a computer+ appearing. Another problem is that this doesn’t deal with the possibility that it’s still turtles all the way down, but each turtle is less complex than the one below it…
that no computer could ever simulate.
That assumes that the über-universe has the same laws of physics. We cannot, and will never be able to tell if this is a simulation universe. These professors assume that the other universe simulating ours is very similar. The only thing they could proof is, that the universe which simulates ours, cannot have the same laws of physics. Maybe that.
It’s a disproval of a specific theory, that if it was possible to simulate a universe that in turn could do the same, then there is probably an infinite series of simulations. And since it would be very unlikely that we’d be the first in the series, then we’re probably a simulation as well.
It’s also equally unlikely that we’d be the last simulation in an infinite chain, so if we can’t simulate a universe, we’re probably not a simulation ether.
Why would it be unlikely for us to be an end point, though? assuming an infinite chain from all spawned universes is kinda just silliness, imho.
If this is some big deal simulation (as in not common or easy, but like one simulation per universe) it would need several rounds of testing with simpler or randomized states to ensure it even works well enough for full prod. Sure those universes probably wouldn’t be maintained indefinitely, but from the inside it would be identical. There would necessarily be several of these -per chain link-. Plus if it’s for research, why wouldn’t they try simulating “impossible” universes with different physics than their own? I mean we do it, and we are nowhere near this level of complexity.
If simulation becomes trivially easy in just some of the universes, though… Everyone who plays sandboxy games plays through several really shit runs while they figure out what they are doing, before finally getting somewhere. And then half the time those runs get abandoned as well for whatever reason (like having a killer new idea, or some event happened that can’t be recovered from). I see no reason universe simulation, should it get trivially easy, would be any different. Some game which entities set up and play out, or abandon for something better… or maybe they are fucking around with mods and just testing stuff out so it doesn’t need to be complete in that way. (e.g. in rimworld a dev test map is tiny, and spawns with zero configurations, just random simplified spawning to test things, and you may need to spawn dozens of these to sort out issues.)
And if that’s the case, that for any reason there are far more end points than links in chains (like tassel fringe rather than chain), I see no reason to assume we would have physics that allow us to be a link rather than an end, since ends would be infinitely more common.
Always seemed a stupid theory anyway.
If you simulate a computer doing a difficult calculation, you cannot skip the cost of the calculation. If a universe were a simulation containing another universe in a simulation, then the outer computer is processing the cost of simulating 2 universes, so it was either over-engineered for the original task, or the second universe is parasitising the processing available to the first universe. Either way, running 1 big universe is probably significantly more efficient than running a concentric series of ever more inefficient virtual universes inside virtual universes.
Tldr: if we’re in a simulation, we’re either right at the top, or we’re a dumbed down bottom tier universe inside the 20-dimensional computer of a bored hyper intelligent being beyond our ability to imagine, and we’re the equivalent to a pond slime experiment.
I agree it’s a stupid theory.
But of course, if I designed the simulation, I don’t have to actually simulate any of the complex bits, I just have to alter each simulated person to remember successfully observing the results of the complex bits.
Edit: Of course, my solution breaks the infitine chain of nested worlds anyway. I don’t have to simulate infitine nested worlds in my simulation’s computers - I just simulate a small believable set of memories of having done so. So even those infitine nested worlds are just paper cutouts of the real thing.
I guess either way, I don’t spend infitine processing power, so the average person has a 50/50 chance of being inside or outside the top level simulation.
Edit 2: But ironically, each person has 100% chance of believing that they are taking part in an infinite set of nested simulated worlds - if my simulated memories are believable enough.
But these are just thought experiments, which do not proof anything. I could also have some thought experiments and tell the odds based of our current knowledge. We have no clue and then talking about likelyhoods makes no sense. It’s like talking about infinity. Just thought experiments to me, not real science that proof the one or other.
The thing is that some people took it as proof and have built their assumptions about the world on that.
This is paper is dispelling the idea that it’s even a plausible thought experiment.
The thought experiment (and this debunking) also assumes that the simulation is a perfect simulation of the “laws of physics”. I would even say, if even there were multiple such simulations (infinite), its not guaranteed that each of them are identical in their physics. Not only depends on the knowledge of their builders, also they might even want to adjust it.
This possibility was never even in the equation (for or against the idea).
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Ok, but we have no observations that would lead us to believe it is possible to do, let alone lead us believe it is likely the case. So it stays a thought experiment, not a plausible explanation.
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Not the laws of physics, the laws of logic. Those are what math (and therefore the proof) is based on, and it’s harder to imagine those being different in the hypothetical parent universe.
And where do the laws of logic come from if not from the laws of physics and the way our brains perceive and process them?
“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,” Dr. Faizal explains. “It requires non-algorithmic understanding, which by definition is beyond algorithmic computation and therefore cannot be simulated. Hence, this universe cannot be a simulation.”
aren’t they basing this conclusion on their current “understanding” of what computers are capable of, and assuming that their current limitations will remain limitations forever? not saying the universe is definitely a simulation, but you don’t have to go too far back in time for the tech we have today to seem like impossible “magic” even to the smartest most imaginative scientists
Computers are defined as machines that preform a series of arithmetic and logic operations.
The point being that this kind of math is not capable of simulating a universe. If it did something else, it wouldn’t be a computer. It would be something else.
The point being that this kind of math is not capable of simulating a universe. If it did something else, it wouldn’t be a computer. It would be something else.
the “something else” is the thing-- saying that it’s impossible for the universe to be a simulation is going ahead and claiming that there will never ever be a “something else” that could do the computation, or, have the “non-algorithmic understanding” they’re talking about.
which to my mind is on an equal plane as “we don’t know why X happened, therefore god exists”
edit: interestingly, speaking of “god,” hermeticists believe the universe itself is a mental projection “all is mind,” the principle of mentalism. from that point of view, our universe isn’t a “simulation” per se, but more like a dream. or nightmare. more nightmare than dream at this point
https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/7-hermetic-principles
Saying that the universe could be a simulation, when we have no evidence for that assertion is the same as saying “god could have made the universe”
Like, we can’t prove that isn’t true, but why they hell would I believe it’s a reasonable possibility if there is no evidence suggesting it as a possibility.
if there is no evidence suggesting it as a possibility
100 years ago there was no evidence that you (and everyone) would have not just a phone, but an actual computer in their pocket. “balderdash!” they would have said if you suggested it. “preposterous! impossible!”
again i’m not saying we ARE in a simulation, nor am i telling you what to believe, but i’m still skeptical of the “it’s impossible, proven by my math” claim, seeing as how so many “certainties” throughout history have had to be adjusted–or discarded–due to new developments
It’s not worth considering as a real possibility until a plausible pathway by which it could be done is presented. Not even like, a practical pathway, just something that could theoretically accomplish the task.
This paper is just saying that computers could not even theoretically do the task. There is no possible sequences of arithmetic or logical operations that could do it. And a computer is definitionally a machine that carries out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations.
there are plenty of things going on in the world that science can’t explain. but it happens, without a “plausible pathway by which it could be done”
anyway, nice talking. i reject the “it’s impossible” claim
That’s assuming that a Turing Machine is the most powerful possible model for computation. Which it may be, but it’s an open question.
But outside of the confines of the reality we are in it could be on a universal computing device simulating all the reality rules we live by. We would never know because we can’t be outside the reality we are in. Compute position of neutrino, update position, collate interaction with calculated gravity of blahblahblah. We can’t actually comment on what’s “outside” reality.
if We cannot simulate a universe on a computer then the argument for why we would be a simulation is removed in turn, by the logic of the thought experiment.
Since the jist of the argument is that if it was possible, there would likely be an infinite number of simulations simulating each other up and down a chain, and in an infinite series it’s unlikely we’d happen to be the one at the top of the chain. It’s also equally unlikely that we’re at the end of an infinite chain.
So, if we can’t simulate here, no reason to believe we are a simulation in turn. Just like how there is no reason to believe in an as yet unobserved teapot floating between here and mars.
If each over-universe is capable of simulating multiple under-universes, I would think that being toward the fringe is way more likely than being toward the root. Maybe we’re in one of the younger universes where life hasn’t evolved to the point where it’s simulating universes complex enough to generate intelligent life for a hobby. Or maybe others in this universe have and Earth is just a backwater.
I don’t think it’s as simple as the teapot. We can already simulate tiny “universes” with computers that have internally consistent rules, and there’s no reason to think those simulations couldn’t get more sophisticated as we harness more computing power, which I think puts an interesting lens on the “why are we here?” question. I don’t think there’s evidence to believe that we are in a simulation, but I think there are reasons why it’s an interesting question to wrestle with that “What about a giant floating teapot?” doesn’t share.
We can simulate any universe we want, we code the rules of how the universe operates and let it play out. If you want our exact universe we’d need more computer power.
More compute power than the entire universe could provide.
Right, if you havea VM it takes a hypervisor machine, the hypervisor is more powerful than the VM. You obviously can’t emulate your own reality inside your reality; That makes no sense. If we were in a SIM the outer machine would be a system not operating by our rules, and would be larger. Just like a larger computer is needed to host a VM
The jist of this paper is that it’s not possible to computer a simulation of a universe. Like, there is no sequences of arithmetic or logical operations that could do it, and they’re providing proofs to that effect.
There’s a certain understanding of what is and isn’t decidable by means of Computation (capital C), and it’s fundamental to the formalized systems of logic that define computers.
From what I can glean, they show that some modern theories in physics display logical properties that we know cannot arise from a formalized computational system.
To be fair, I feel like that only means the universe can’t be described by internal computation, not that some hyper-logical model of computation couldn’t exist to drive it all from “above”… It’s fundamental, so not like a higher spatial dimension, but a sort of “conceptual” one we can’t re-articulate? 50% confused and 50% talking out of my ass tbh
The formalized computational systems are an incomplete subset of the capabilities of an actual computation system. Their logic is that such a system would be able to simulate itself, and thus we should see simulations as good as current reality.
That’s a strong supposition they are doing and even then, idk what makes them think that such a simulation won’t ever exist in the history of humanity. They are challenging science fiction, so I can go crazy pills fiction with my theories too.
I think the point is that the “incomplete subset of capabilities” is inherent to our model of mathematics, and the framework indeed cannot possibly simulate the fundamental processes of reality
This was my first thought too.
There are basic things about ourselves that we have no firm grasp of, like what is consciousness or why Tylenol relieves pain, so it strikes as hubris to claim such a technology cannot exist because it’s impossible on today’s computers.
Skimmed through their paper. They’re not arguing about physical computers, but computers as a mathematical construct (like Turing Machines).
Seems like they’re arguing that the universe is undecidable (like Gödel incompleteness and halting problem). This means no mathematical formula can describe the universe - and in turn no algorithm.
A lot of their argument goes above my head though.
No it doesn’t
Doesn’t this assume all universes follow the same physical rules?
If we can’t do it here, then the main point of the simulated universe thought experiment is void.
The argument being roughly that, if we could simulate a universe, and it could do the same, it would likely lead to an infinite chain of universe simulating other universes. In such a case, it would be highly unlikely that we just happened to be the first one in the chain, thus it would be likely we are a simulation in turn.
But it’s equally unlikely that we happen to be the last simulation in an infinite chain. So we’re probably not a simulation
What is the main point of the thought experiment?
If we consider a possibility from all sides, then whether or not we could similate a universe that follows different physics is one of those sides. We don’t have the power to do that, but we can create programs that simulate different physics. Stands to reason that not every universe may follow the same fundamental laws.
I don’t agree that it’s equally unlikely to be the first as the last, either, if the universes branch off. A tree has thousands of leaves and only one trunk.
we have no reason to believe that a universe could be simulated. No proven plausible pathway by which that could be accomplished.
That doesn’t prove it is not possible, you cannot prove a negative. It just means that we have no reason to believe it could be true.
If you find it an interesting thought experiment, then no reason not to think about it, but it should have no baring on anyone’s decision making or assumptions about the world.
I am treating it as a thought experiment, which is why I’m questioning how math can prove a negative to a fairly ambiguous question in the first place.
It’s in the realm of disproving determinism and flying spaghetti monsters.
There is a whole field of mathematics built around proving something is not computable. The paper is saying that a simulation of the universe is non-computable problem.
Yes, I know, which is why I brought up the idea of inconsistent physics between universes.
I’m not questioning whether the paper’s math is accurate. We both seem to agree the hypothesis can’t be proven in the first place.
The simulation hypothesis is creationism for techbros.
And more specifically the cult of AI and the singularity.
