this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2025
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Your argument is bad and you should feel bad.
Impossible to describe does not mean that it’s not possible to simulate, and impossible is an incredibly strong criterion that sounds quite inaccurate to me. We simulate weather systems all the time, even though the systems are fundamentally chaotic and it’s impossible to forecast accurately. We don’t even know that gravity is quantum, so that’s quite a weird starting point but we’ll ignore that for a second. What is this argument?
This seems like a huge leap to conclude that just because some aspects of our understanding seem like we wouldn’t be able to fully describe them somehow means that the universe can’t be simulated.
Who’s to say that reality is completely defined? Perhaps there are aspects to what we consider the real universe that are uncertain. Isn’t that foundational to quantum mechanics?
What bothers me most is that they equate a model with reality.
Quantum gravity theory is our current working model that we use to describe our observations. It's not reality itself, and no scientist worth their money would claim that it is, because if it was, physics would be solved and it isn't.
That's how science works: We have observations, we build models to describe them, then we have more observations that don't fit the old models, so we build newer models that also describe the new observations. Since we aren't omnicient, there's always something we can't observe (yet) and what we can't observe we also can't describe.
This, in fact, would fit quite well to an imperfect simulation that doesn't perfectly follow all the rules we made up when observing.
The amount of computer power used to run those simulations is immense, and even then, the predictive capacity of those models starts degrading rapidly around 7 to 10 days ahead. There's some amazing science that goes into those models, but the results are hard-won. And what we know about more energetic systems (say, the magnetohydrodynamics of the sun) is far less comprehensive.
And be careful with that "fundamentally chaotic" assertion: there are degrees of how chaotic a system is, and some aspects of a system can be more deterministic than others.
Weather simulations are approximations. It’s not an exact replication of the universe.
But who sait it must be a perfect match?
I mean they can argue that we can't simulate correctly the universe (just check kaos theory) but that doesn't mean we cant simulate a universe. Even a universe that looks feels like ours.
The paper makes the argument that the universe we live in is mathematically uncomputable. No algorithm can describe it. There’s no mathematical formula we can use to compute the universe as it is.
If this is the case, then we don’t live inside a computer. Something more than pure computation is required.
Now their argument is that quantum gravity is the thing that makes the universe uncomputable. I’m not sure how valid this part of their argument is.
SO many assumptions in that statement
Well, ”computer” in the mathematical sense is well defined of what it can and cannot do. The limit is the halting problem or equivalent problems.
The question is: is there some equivalent to the halting problem in the real universe? If that’s the case, then there’s no algorithm you can use to describe the entire universe.
It is in this universe. Who's to say the same holds remotely true in a different universe that may have entirely different laws of physics?
In that case it must also have different laws of mathematics for it to work.
Yes sorry, I took that as one and the same.
Can the universe not also approximate? Why must it be an exact result whenever a rule is applied?
Then it’s not an approximation - it’s the reality. The question is whether all things the universe does can also a computer do in theory. If one thing about the universe is uncomputable, then the entire universe is uncomputable.
The paper suggests this thing is quantum gravity. I have my doubts about it, but I’m in no position to refute the paper.