MATHEMATICAL ROADBLOCKS WITH QUANTUM MECHANICS INDICATE THAT THE SO-CALLED SIMULATION HYPOTHESIS IS IMPOSSIBLE.
In the modern sci-fi classic The Matrix, the filmmakers present a story in which the universe is actually an unthinkably complex computer simulation. While the concept itself isn’t particularly new, as a science fiction premise, it was the first time that mainstream moviegoers were introduced to the idea, and it blew minds around the world.
Even more mind-blowing: Quite a few physicists and philosophers believe that the computer simulation theory might actually be true. These aren’t cranks, either. At this year’s Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate conference in Washington, DC, celebrity scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson estimated that the odds are about 50-50 that all of reality is actually a computer simulation run by an advanced civilization. Elon Musk has suggested that it’s almost a certainty.
The good news, for those of us who prefer our reality unsimulated, is that a team of physicists in Europe recently discovered proof that it is mathematically impossible for the known universe to be a computer simulation. Theoretical physicists Zohar Ringel and Dmitry Kovrizhin from the University of Oxford and the Hebrew University in Israel published their findings last week in the journal Science Advances.
The details get rather complicated — more on that in a bit — but to fully appreciate the development, it’s helpful to know more about the simulation hypothesis.
It goes like this, according to proponents: Assuming that enormous amounts of computing power will be available in the future, then it’s likely that future generations will use these computers to run detailed simulations on the history of the species. These sims would be so powerful that individual characters within the simulation — you and I — would essentially be conscious entities.
In fact, if we accept the idea that future computing power will be practically limitless, then it’s actually probable that we’re already living in some kind of cosmic hard drive. If future computers can spit out limitless simulated universes, then the likelihood of our current reality being the “base reality” are virtually zero.
pIt’s worth reading up on the simulation hypothesis, if for no other reason than it keeps your speculative synapses limber. Physicists and metaphysicists both have built some genuinely persuasive arguments for the idea, citing various mathematical and logic anomalies that suggest we’re in a cosmic computer simulation.