A team of physicists led by Mir Faizal at the University of British Columbia has demonstrated that the universe cannot be a computer simulation, according to research published in October 2025[1].
The key findings show that reality requires non-algorithmic understanding that cannot be simulated computationally. The researchers used mathematical theorems from Gödel, Tarski, and Chaitin to prove that a complete description of reality cannot be achieved through computation alone[1:1].
The team proposes that physics needs a “Meta Theory of Everything” (MToE) - a non-algorithmic layer above the algorithmic one to determine truth from outside the mathematical system[1:2]. This would help investigate phenomena like the black hole information paradox without violating mathematical rules.
“Any simulation is inherently algorithmic – it must follow programmed rules,” said Faizal. “But since the fundamental level of reality is based on non-algorithmic understanding, the universe cannot be, and could never be, a simulation”[1:3].
Lawrence Krauss, a co-author of the study, explained: “The fundamental laws of physics cannot exist inside space and time; they create it. This signifies that any simulation, which must be utilized within a computational framework, would never fully express the true universe”[2].
The research was published in the Journal of Holography Applications in Physics[1:4].
This assumes a very narrow definition of “simulation” based on our current computational theories and technology. Nothing about the simulated universe theory says the thing being used to simulate us has to be anything resembling a game engine or virtual machine like we have today, or even something that runs on anything we would recognize as a computer. In the same way a peasant from the middle ages would not even be able to fathom a virtual machine from today due to missing entire categories of context and background knowledge, us thinking we can extrapolate our technology and simulation techniques to beings that would be literal gods to us and their technology is extremely presumptuous and vastly overestimates what we know.
How is it in any way narrow? The three theorems they use (Goedel, Tarski, Chaitin) are actually incredibly broad. They absolutely include things we can not even imagine.
I did some light reading about the Goedel theorems.
The First Incompleteness Theorem
- In any consistent formal system that is powerful enough to express basic arithmetic, there exist true statements that cannot be proven within the system.
Second Incompleteness Theorem
- No consistent system can prove its own consistency.
Therefore, wouldn’t it be strange to rule out something using our current math/physics systems? Blackholes, neutron stars, quasars and other funny things that can’t be explained exactly DO exist after all
Wouldn’t be strange that an hyper advanced civilization could simulate us with tech, energies or even nature laws beyond our comprehension
^(edit: typo)
Therefore, wouldn’t it be strange to rule out something using our current math/physics systems?
I get the thought, but math and physics are not the same. Math includes logic. When the authors of that paper make that argument, they don’t rely on our current understanding of physics. The theorems they use rely only logic. They are true independent of how the physics and the computation works.
Blackholes, neutron stars, quasars and other funny things that can’t be explained exactly DO exist after all
Yes, black holes inspired the paper. They do make the assumption, that a theory of quantum gravity would explain them. That’s what most people want out of such a theory.
I can’t speak to tarski or chaitlin, but Goedel’s incompleteness theorem has only a narrow application context and is highly debatable outside that context (i.e., the real world)
The key findings show that reality requires non-algorithmic understanding that cannot be simulated computationally.
I propose that the researchers just don’t know how to create such an algorithm and therefore assume it isn’t possible.
But wouldn’t that suggest the authors were smart dumb people with titanic egos?
These people are academics, so surely that can’t be right?
Well yeah sure if you want a set algorithm to perfectly reproduce this exact universe deterministically, that’s not gonna work out so well.
But a simulation doesn’t have to be perfectly consistent and deterministic to “work”. If anything, the fact that some things can’t be predicted is evidence in favor of us being in a simulation, not against.
This paper just rules out a class of algorithms. Were not in a specific type of simulation. Doesn’t mean we’re not in a simulation at all.
The laws of physics have been consistent everywhere which is a basic premise over which the rest of the physics is based. Everything can be predicted however not very accurately. Every phenomenon has a function to determine probability of each and every outcome. That doesn’t mean we know everything. Things we don’t know makes us unable to be accurate.
Disclaimer: an engineering student not a logician. However, one of my recent hyper fixations lead me down the rabbit hole of mathematics specifically to formal logic systems and the languages and semantics of them. So here’s my understanding of the concepts.
TLDR: Undecidable things in physics aren’t capable of being computed by a system based on finite rules and step-by-step processes. This means no algorithm/simulation could be designed to actually run the universe.
A language is comprised of the symbols used in a formal system. A system’s syntax is basically the rules by which you can combine those symbols into valid formulas. While a system’s semantics are what determines the meaning behind those formulas. Axioms are formulas that are “universally valid” meaning they hold true in the system regardless of of the values used within them (think of things the definitions of logical operators like AND and NOT etc)
Gödel’s incompleteness theorems say that any system which is powerful enough to define multiplication is incomplete. This means that you could write a syntactically valid statement which cannot be proven from the axioms of that system even if you were to add more axioms.
Tarski’s undefinability theorem shows that not only can you write statements which cannot be proven true or false, you cannot actually describe the system using itself. Meaning you can’t really define truth unless you do it from outside the formal language you’re using. (I’m still a little fuzzy on this one)
Information-theoretic incompleteness is new to me, but seems to be similar to Gödel’s theorem but with a focus on computation saying that if you have a complex enough system there are functions that won’t be recursively definable. As in you can’t just break it down into smaller parts that can be computed and work upwards to it.
The paper starts by assuming there is a computational formal system which could describe quantum gravity. For this to be the case, the system
- must have a finite set of axioms and rules
- be able to describe arithmetic
- be able to describe all physical phenomena and “resolve all singularities)
Because the language of this system can define arithmetic, Gödel’s theorems apply. This leads to the fact that this system, if it existed, can’t prove that it itself is sound.
I don’t know what it means for the “truth-predicate” of the system to not be defined, but it apparently ties into Chaitan’s work and means that there must exist statements which are undecideable.
Undecidable problems can’t be solved recursively by breaking them into smaller steps first. In other words you can’t build an algorithm that will definitely lead to a yes/no or true/false answer.
All in all this means that no algorithmic theory could actually describe everything. This means you cannot break all of physics down into a finite set of rules that can be used to compute reality. Ergo, we can’t be in a simulation because there are physical phenomena that exist which are impossible to compute.
I appreciate this, but I think arguments that try to prove that we can’t simulate the universe atom-for-atom really miss the point.
If you were simulating a universe, you wouldn’t try to simulate every quark and photon. You would mostly just render detail at the level that humans or the simulated beings inside the simulation can interact with.
To my left is a water bottle. If I open it up, I see water. But I see water, I don’t see atoms. You could create a 100% convincing simulation of a water bottle with many orders of magnitude less computation required than if you tried to simulate every water molecule inside the water bottle.
This is how you would actually simulate a universe. You don’t apply the brute force method of trying to simulate every fundamental particle. You only simulate the macroscopic world, and even then only parts that are necessary. Now, you probably would have some code to model the microscopic and subatomic, but only when necessary. So whenever the Large Hadron Collider is turned on, the simulation boots up the subatomic physics subroutine and models what results an experiment would reveal. Same thing with looking under a microscope. You don’t actually simulate every microbe on earth constantly. You just simulate an image of appropriate microbes whenever someone looks under a microscope.
And your simulation doesn’t even have to be perfect. Did your simulated beings discover they were in a simulation? No problem. Just pause the simulation, restore from an earlier backup, and modify the code so that they won’t discover they’re in a simulation. Patch whatever hole they used to figure out they were being simulated.
If the simulators don’t want you to discover that you are being simulated, then you will never be able to prove you’re in a simulation. You are utterly and completely at their mercy. If anyone ever does discover the simulation, they can simply patch the hole and restore from an earlier backup.
This isn’t about simulating atom by atom. It is just saying that there exist pieces of the universe that can’t be simulated.
If we find undecidable aspects of physics (like we have) then they must be part of this simulation. But it’s not possible to simulate those by any step by step program. Ergo, the universe cannot be a simulation.
The use of render optimization tricks has no effect on this.
You can’t even patch it like you said with wiping minds because it would require you to do the undecidable work which can’t be done by any algorithm.
This means that you could write a syntactically valid statement which cannot be proven from the axioms of that system even if you were to add more axioms.
You can actually add the statement itself as an axiom. The point of the theorem is that no finite number of additional axioms will completely eliminate all unprovable true statements from the theory.
Also, it relies on consistency of the formal system, because inconsistent system can prove anything. In fact, you can prove consistency of a formal system if and only if it is inconsistent.
Information-theoretic incompleteness is new to me, but seems to be similar to Gödel’s theorem but with a focus on computation saying that if you have a complex enough system there are functions that won’t be recursively definable. As in you can’t just break it down into smaller parts that can be computed and work upwards to it.
In fact, any function, growing fast enough, will be non-recursive. And the same applies to various similar definitions, resulting in fast-growing hierarchy.
All in all this means that no algorithmic theory could actually describe everything. This means you cannot break all of physics down into a finite set of rules that can be used to compute reality. Ergo, we can’t be in a simulation because there are physical phenomena that exist which are impossible to compute.
It should be noted that it doesn’t rule out analog simulations.
Nice try. Can’t fool me.
Well that sucks. I was hoping it was a simulation and at any time our masters would patch the current version and make this reality less shitty.
“Sorry, it turns out there was an integer overflow causing global aggressiveness levels to flip and increase by a ton. We had a safeguard so it wouldn’t happen overnight, but I left it running since 1970, and kinda forgot about it. My bad, toodles.”
What if the simulation is programmed for this possibility?
In our universe, maybe. If the parent universe differed in some way to the simulated universe it’d be different
The odds of us being the final node in an infinitely nesting series of simulations are as vanishingly small as us being the starting node. If our universe can be shown to be incapable of simulating another universe which could simulate a universe, then the whole induction chain collapses.
Those non-scientists who applied Occam’s razor knew it was bullshit almost immediately.
Anyway, if this is an sim, it only translate the question, if those which create it are also live in a sim. It was a nice idea that we are only NPC of an galactic WoW.
