The article suggests this paper is based on quantum gravity. Which we don't have an accepted theory of. Based on this, I'm not going to read the rest of this clickbait.
I'm surprised that the simulation hypothesis is even falsifiable. I mean, the guys above are supposed to be in a totally different level of existence from ours, how can we even start to think we can debug the simulation? Wouldn't that be already covered by beings way smarter than us?
It is hard to even disprove that we aren't a Boltzmann brain that hallucinated entire reality. Assuming the simulation is perfect(or at lest consistent) the only way to falsify it is to get some impossible estimates for required CPU/memory/storage. I think the whole "if simulations are possible, multiple ones will be created" falls apart when 1 second of running simulation requires several years of compute.
But some people seemingly like to pretend with enough "can do attitude" they can prove or disprove anything in a paper, no matter how unconvincing the line of reasoning.
I’ll play devil’s advocate. The beings that made our VMs are clearly superior. But the Halting theorem applies to them too. They too represent floating point numbers with finite precision. Does that mean we can catch them violating conservation laws? Maybe.
In any case, here’s some food for thought: ray tracing is undecidable [1]. If something is undecidable, it is for any form of computation, classical, quantum, or anything. Does this mean we can find some “glitches in the matrix”. It simply means such glitches are there (if we are in a similation). But they might be too infinitesimal for us to identify.
for the article: "the fundamental nature of reality operates in a way that no computer could ever simulate"
Yes, no computer in our universe, with our physical laws. In "a totally different level of existence", all bets are off regarding the fundamental nature of reality there. It could be utterly different. So, speculation is nonsensical, it's unfalifiable.
Unproveable superstitious rubbish. Irrational numbers exist as ideas, but there is no physical evidence that they are found in nature. We have processes that in their ideal limit will converge to numbers known to be irrational, and the law of large numbers certainly makes them appear to be such, but there is no physical quantity that is measured irrational. In fact we know that at some point we cannot measure much anymore so even the illusion of infinity is null.
Yes, this is exactly my problem with claims about the 'real' universe if we are, in fact, in a simulation. It might be literally, programmatically, impossible for us to infer anything about it. The analogy I like to use is Pac-Man believing that the entire universe exists within the confines of a blue-walled maze.
From the ghosts perspective it is of prime importance to understand the behaviour of pacman. But it is influenced by the player's psychology which is in turn influenced by the surrounding world. Then: a sufficiently advanced model of pacman must include (at least implicitly) a description of the outside world.
I'd say the question is flawed (at least, in this context); religion is purposefully the opposite of empiricism for most everyone I know, anecdotally. Hence why it's given the term "faith".
Exactly. How do you formulate "simulation" without such faith? The idea of demonstrating evidence of either god or simulation is equally nonsensical. The people grasping for such might as well grasp for the spaghetti monster.
I agree with you, don't get me wrong. I'm just pointing out that comparing the two as if disproving an inherently empirical thing (we're in a simulation) also disproves a belief-system/faith-based thing (God or religion) is nonsensical in that the second isn't rooted in empiricism, algorithms, nor the scientific method. They don't believe God is something to be proven or disproven, he just is and that's that (as per their faith).
Realistically, the same could be said about the simulation theory. I don't really buy the article as-written, despite also not personally believing we're in a simulation.
Their argument is that quantum gravity can encode undecidable statements, and therefore cannot be completely computed. Of course take it with a grain of salt, since it relies on an incomplete and possibly inaccurate characterization of quantum gravity, something we don’t know anything about. Still, a cool idea.
Do you necessarily need to compute anything in order to perform a simulation? Suppose whenever some weird undecidable statement quantum gravity situation comes up inside the simulation, you pause it, recreate the scenario on a lab bench, and then copy the data into your simulation. You didn't compute what would happen, you don't even necessarily understand how it works, but as long as its the same quantum gravity stuff inside and out, the simulation can proceed faithfully. This makes some assumptions about locality I guess.
Of course the whole affair seems a little moot since you obviously only have to be accurate enough that it doesn't disrupt the ancestor simulation or whatever, but that's less fun to think about I suppose.
I think the distinction is a little semantic; the idea is that a simulation is anything that can be computed by Turing machine. So regardless of if we’re in a TM that’s being fed weird undecidable statements, the fact that they exist at all means at some level reality can’t be a TM. Contrast that with having undecidable processes that might go on forever, we could be in a TM and still have those.
Basically simulation here means “is a TM”, not “is nested”.
“ Here’s a basic example using the statement, “This true statement is not provable.” If it were provable, it would be false, making logic inconsistent. If it’s not provable, then it’s true, but that makes any system trying to prove it incomplete”
Only if you assume the law of the excluded middle, right?
Statements aren’t just true or false, they can also be malformed or undefined.
That example is particularly fishy. The truthiness of a statement is not part of the statement itself, so any explicitly stated truth value is not inconsistent with truthiness, rather it is meaningless.
(dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45762892 )
And again, almost every statement in this paper is wrong, including the main claim
The article suggests this paper is based on quantum gravity. Which we don't have an accepted theory of. Based on this, I'm not going to read the rest of this clickbait.
I'm surprised that the simulation hypothesis is even falsifiable. I mean, the guys above are supposed to be in a totally different level of existence from ours, how can we even start to think we can debug the simulation? Wouldn't that be already covered by beings way smarter than us?
It is hard to even disprove that we aren't a Boltzmann brain that hallucinated entire reality. Assuming the simulation is perfect(or at lest consistent) the only way to falsify it is to get some impossible estimates for required CPU/memory/storage. I think the whole "if simulations are possible, multiple ones will be created" falls apart when 1 second of running simulation requires several years of compute.
I think it isn't falsifisble.
But some people seemingly like to pretend with enough "can do attitude" they can prove or disprove anything in a paper, no matter how unconvincing the line of reasoning.
This. The main issue with how people approach the simulation hypothesis is by thinking that the beings that made our VMs are just like us.
I’ll play devil’s advocate. The beings that made our VMs are clearly superior. But the Halting theorem applies to them too. They too represent floating point numbers with finite precision. Does that mean we can catch them violating conservation laws? Maybe.
In any case, here’s some food for thought: ray tracing is undecidable [1]. If something is undecidable, it is for any form of computation, classical, quantum, or anything. Does this mean we can find some “glitches in the matrix”. It simply means such glitches are there (if we are in a similation). But they might be too infinitesimal for us to identify.
[1]https://users.cs.duke.edu/~reif/paper/tygar/raytracing.pdf
> But the Halting theorem applies to them too. They too represent floating point numbers with finite precision
Does it? Do they?
IMHO, it likely isn't even falifiable.
for the article: "the fundamental nature of reality operates in a way that no computer could ever simulate"
Yes, no computer in our universe, with our physical laws. In "a totally different level of existence", all bets are off regarding the fundamental nature of reality there. It could be utterly different. So, speculation is nonsensical, it's unfalifiable.
I always felt that most numbers being irrational would make simulation tricky.
On the other hand, if it's just me, and everything including you is just simulated for my benefit, it's not too hard.
There are no irrational numbers measurable in the universe. Irrational numbers as far as we encounter are computable via straightforward algorithms.
> There are no irrational numbers measurable in the universe.
Because of course measurement reduces them to rational. That doesn't make them go away.
Unproveable superstitious rubbish. Irrational numbers exist as ideas, but there is no physical evidence that they are found in nature. We have processes that in their ideal limit will converge to numbers known to be irrational, and the law of large numbers certainly makes them appear to be such, but there is no physical quantity that is measured irrational. In fact we know that at some point we cannot measure much anymore so even the illusion of infinity is null.
I refer you to my previous answer.
Indeed, simulating God himself will have to wait a little bit
The only thing to simulate is my personal experience.
If the minds are being simulated they could be manipulated to ignore any evidence they are in a simulation.
Yes, this is exactly my problem with claims about the 'real' universe if we are, in fact, in a simulation. It might be literally, programmatically, impossible for us to infer anything about it. The analogy I like to use is Pac-Man believing that the entire universe exists within the confines of a blue-walled maze.
From the ghosts perspective it is of prime importance to understand the behaviour of pacman. But it is influenced by the player's psychology which is in turn influenced by the surrounding world. Then: a sufficiently advanced model of pacman must include (at least implicitly) a description of the outside world.
with the same success the study refutes the researchers' religious belief in the truth
I would imagine the hand-wavey response might not be far away from "God is not algorithmic".
The concept of "god" and "simulated universe" seem to be essentially the same
I'm an atheist, but I can tell you that no, they are not - at least not to many believers.
From the perspective of empirical analysis—how?
I'd say the question is flawed (at least, in this context); religion is purposefully the opposite of empiricism for most everyone I know, anecdotally. Hence why it's given the term "faith".
Exactly. How do you formulate "simulation" without such faith? The idea of demonstrating evidence of either god or simulation is equally nonsensical. The people grasping for such might as well grasp for the spaghetti monster.
I agree with you, don't get me wrong. I'm just pointing out that comparing the two as if disproving an inherently empirical thing (we're in a simulation) also disproves a belief-system/faith-based thing (God or religion) is nonsensical in that the second isn't rooted in empiricism, algorithms, nor the scientific method. They don't believe God is something to be proven or disproven, he just is and that's that (as per their faith).
> The idea of demonstrating evidence of either god or simulation is equally nonsensical.
Finding evidence is nonsensical if you assume they set everything up perfectly and have never intervened.
That is a stupendously huge "if".
Realistically, the same could be said about the simulation theory. I don't really buy the article as-written, despite also not personally believing we're in a simulation.
Just for reference, the main author's stance on god : https://youtu.be/k_VBzweMIlM?t=125
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.22950
Their argument is that quantum gravity can encode undecidable statements, and therefore cannot be completely computed. Of course take it with a grain of salt, since it relies on an incomplete and possibly inaccurate characterization of quantum gravity, something we don’t know anything about. Still, a cool idea.
Do you necessarily need to compute anything in order to perform a simulation? Suppose whenever some weird undecidable statement quantum gravity situation comes up inside the simulation, you pause it, recreate the scenario on a lab bench, and then copy the data into your simulation. You didn't compute what would happen, you don't even necessarily understand how it works, but as long as its the same quantum gravity stuff inside and out, the simulation can proceed faithfully. This makes some assumptions about locality I guess.
Of course the whole affair seems a little moot since you obviously only have to be accurate enough that it doesn't disrupt the ancestor simulation or whatever, but that's less fun to think about I suppose.
I think the distinction is a little semantic; the idea is that a simulation is anything that can be computed by Turing machine. So regardless of if we’re in a TM that’s being fed weird undecidable statements, the fact that they exist at all means at some level reality can’t be a TM. Contrast that with having undecidable processes that might go on forever, we could be in a TM and still have those.
Basically simulation here means “is a TM”, not “is nested”.
The paper's core claim is wrong even before you get into any quantum gravity stuff. The other HN thread contains a number of comments explaining why.
Similar to a cosmological argument, something that cannot be proven or disproven from within the system that cannot be escaped. How convenient.
“ Here’s a basic example using the statement, “This true statement is not provable.” If it were provable, it would be false, making logic inconsistent. If it’s not provable, then it’s true, but that makes any system trying to prove it incomplete”
Only if you assume the law of the excluded middle, right?
Statements aren’t just true or false, they can also be malformed or undefined.
That example is particularly fishy. The truthiness of a statement is not part of the statement itself, so any explicitly stated truth value is not inconsistent with truthiness, rather it is meaningless.
It’s like saying
The simulation hypothesis rests on shaky assumptions
It rests on magical conspiracy theories with an imaginary "them" hobgoblins. Changelings with more dimensions.