Could we really live in a simulation like in the movie The Matrix? According to mathematics we cannot exclude it, as recently demonstrated in a study by the American theoretical physicist and mathematician David Wolpert of the Santa Fe Institute.
According to Simulation Theory (in English Simulation Hypothesis), Indeed,
the universe we live in may be nothing more than a computer simulation operated by an alien entity outside the computer.
David Wolpert asked himself whether this hypothesis is feasible from an IT point of view and, translating it into mathematical language, arrived at an affirmative answer, even if this does not mean that the hypothesis is necessarily true.
Simulation Theory concerns both physics and computer science, but Wolpert was the first to address it from the computer science point of view in his recent article ‘What computer science has to say about the simulation hypothesis’. To understand whether a simulation can exist that contains our entire universe, we must first establish whether this is possible from an IT point of view: if this were not the case, then the hypothesis should be excluded a priori.
To answer the question Wolpert translated the Simulation Theory into mathematical language, typical of computer science, and using mathematics he managed to demonstrate that such a simulation can be admissible from a computer science point of view as long as the following two hypotheses are verified, both quite widespread among physics scholars:
- Everything that happens in reality – an apple falling, a star exploding, … – can be written in the form of a code or formula that a computer can calculate.
- The physics of our universe must allow the construction of an ideal computer capable of performing those calculations.
If we had the certainty that our universe respects these two conditions, shared by most physicists, then from an IT theoretical point of view there would be no obstacle to the fact that our universe could be a simulation, as Wolpert himself demonstrated.
This means that our universe, from a mathematical and computer science point of view, could easily be a simulation, but Wolpert went even further. His work opens the door to much broader possibilities than the hypothesis in which our universe is seen as a simulation inside a computer governed by an “alien” entity. According to what was demonstrated by Wolpert, from an IT point of view, we cannot exclude for example:
- The Matryoshka effect: our universe could contain a simulation contained in a universe which in turn is contained in a simulation and so on in an infinite chain of universes simulated one inside the other.
- The game of mirrors: our universe could contain a computer that simulates our own universe, creating a loop in which reality simulates itself.
- The short circuit: we could be simulated by an “alien” entity, but at the same time create a simulation in our world that controls those same aliens.
So do we really live in the Matrix? From an IT point of view, Simulation Theory finds no obstacles and does not prohibit complex situations like those in these examples, but be careful, this does not mean that it is true, it only tells us that we cannot exclude it a priori.
