New research shows that the universe is not a simulation.
It can’t be.
A groundbreaking study from physicists at the University of British Columbia Okanagan has taken direct aim at the popular “simulation hypothesis,” arguing that our universe cannot be a computer simulation—ever.
The team combined physics, logic, and mathematics to explore whether reality could be built from raw computational rules, as suggested by some theories of quantum gravity.
Their conclusion?
Reality contains truths that no algorithm, no matter how advanced, can ever replicate. Drawing on Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, they argue that some aspects of the universe—known as Gödelian truths—are fundamentally undecidable by any computer-based system.
This challenges one of the boldest questions in modern philosophy and science: Are we living in a simulated universe? According to the study’s authors, even if a superintelligent being built a simulation, it would still be limited by algorithmic processes. But our universe, they say, isn't fully algorithmic. That means it can’t be simulated—not now, not ever. As co-author Dr. Lawrence Krauss explains, any true “theory of everything” must go beyond computation. The building blocks of space and time, it turns out, may be too real to fake.
Source: Smilga, W., & Krauss, L. (2025). Consequences of Undecidability in Physics on the Theory of Everything. Journal of Holography Applications in Physics.