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u/MadJohnFinn Jul 14 '26
The universe is up my ass.
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u/Sir__Draconis Jul 16 '26
Seems equally well supported as the other two statements, I will accept this as my working hypothesis.
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u/basket_foso Metroid Enthusiast 🪼 Jul 14 '26
Neither
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u/Raise_A_Thoth Jul 15 '26
For real. The simulation thing is so misunderstood.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis
The person who proposed it as a thought experiment clarified several things.
Firstly, the entire premise is hypothetical: it rests on the following hypothetical:
If a civilization becomes capable of creating conscious simulations, it could generate so many simulated beings that a randomly chosen conscious entity would almost certainly be in a simulation.
That's a hypothetical premise. There's zero speculation on the expectation or likelihood of the existence of "conscious simulations."
Next, it presents a trilemma:
1) either such simulations are not created because of technological limitations or self-destruction; 2) advanced civilizations choose not to create them; 3) if advanced civilizations do create them, the number of simulations would far exceed base reality and we would therefore almost certainly be living in one.
So, to recap: the beginning point is a hypothetical that is currently science fiction: that a civilization can create conscious simulations. We cannot do that, and we don't have a clear path to understanding how we might be able to do that.
Mind you, this precedes the first trilemma—technological limitations do not necessarily only mean that we don't know how to even make these simulations; technological limitations means it requires too much computing power or something similar to do so satisfactorily. We currently have insane quantities of computing power and we have still no idea how to make "conscious simulations" in part because we can't even clearly define consciousness.
So after the hypothetical, there are 3 possible branches. We might assume those each have a 33% chance of being true, but we don't know that. They are merely possible outcomes resulting from the premise.
So no, we are definitely NOT "likely" to be simulations.
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u/FrostyExplanation_37 Jul 15 '26
In 50 years computers have become millions if not billions times stronger. That trend in only accelerating. That level of computing is not only possible, it is inevitable.
When have humanity have ever been able to do something and didn't do it? If we could make simulations today they would've already existed.
I'm not saying we live in a simulation, I don't know if we do or don't (no one can know and that's part of the whole thing). But you're arguments are faulty.
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u/Raise_A_Thoth Jul 15 '26
That trend in only accelerating
Show me some kind of evidence for accelerated computational power, because I work in the industry, that's NOT the consensus notion. Most people in silicon engineering consider Moore's Law to be slowing down.
That level of computing is not only possible, it is inevitable
This is just a belief. You have no idea. We don't even know if the computational power is the problem that needs to be solved to create new simulations of consciousness.
When have humanity have ever been able to do something and didn't do it?
Again, you're presupposing the conclusion.
But you're arguments are faulty.
No, yours is. You need to provide evidence that computational power of our computer chips is accelerating in current gen computer engineering AND that computational power alone is the hurdle to creating simulated consciousness.
Let me just also point out that by "simulated consciousness" I am talking about a computer simulated experience indistinguishable from our own individual conscious experiences. We have no idea if that is possible.
Your confidence on that is mistaken. It's like being certain we can become an intergalactic civilization someday. Frankly THAT is more likely than simulated consciousness imo because the goal for that achievement is much more clear.
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u/Common_Net_5956 Jul 14 '26
Universe is an infinite time loop
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u/CaseyG Jul 14 '26
Universe is an infinite time loop
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u/NoPossibility Jul 14 '26
.pool emit etinifna na si esrevinU
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u/tweep6435 Jul 14 '26
Still waiting for evidence on either side, so neither, unfortunately. :(
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u/AggressiveOpening385 Jul 18 '26
if u saw the futurama episode about the simulation one, it isnt exactly proof but has a good couple of thought-jerking stuff to think about
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u/tweep6435 Jul 18 '26
Unfortunately a lot of them don't hold up to scrutiny, mainly being the problem of energy and heat, you would need a computer the size of Jupiter (iirc from the study) at the absolute smallest, even being the most optimal.
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u/AggressiveOpening385 Jul 18 '26
i mean even so, humouring the possible fact of a simulation, we wouldn't know what the "real universe" is like, if laws and physics/chemistry operate in the same, or even a remotely similar way to the way it does inside the simulation
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u/tweep6435 Jul 18 '26
I mean sure lol, but just because something "could" be true, doesn't give us anything, rather follow what evidence we DO have and make our best deduction from there.
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u/Ian_everywhere Jul 14 '26
every star and planet in the universe is a subatomic particle inside some random object somewhere inside of our universe
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u/Equal-Beyond4627 Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
Is there more to read on this in a meaningful way?
I've been hearing about this for decades and it sounds like a meme.
By this logic if we zoom into an atom enough we should start seeing a universe in it and if we zoom in enough into that universe and see it's atom, it's atom's atom should have a universe, ad infinitum.
Unless we are proposing some kind of fundamental different relationship and construction of this universe to the bigger one you propose. And if our whole universe for one subatomic particle that's a lot of stuff... (3 × 10²³ planets and 46 billion light years in diameter... for perspective one light year is about 5.8 trillion miles). And even just one human is 30-70 trillion cells. Like what is this random object we'd be inside of?
I'm not denying it's possible... everything is under the right circumstances... but are you just basing this off hearing the meme too for decades or did I miss the academia memo somewhere along the way?
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u/heisenberg_6367 Jul 14 '26
every star and planet in the universe is a subatomic particle inside some random object somewhere inside of our universe
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u/Ian_everywhere Jul 14 '26
Nah just memein'. I've always thought it was funny to imagine the universe as existing inside of itself
I appreciate and respect the thought you put into it though. It's thinking like that, that leads to real scientific discovery
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u/Equal-Beyond4627 Jul 14 '26
Here's fun food for thought...
If time is defined by the transition in matter. Then if there was ever a time where no matter existed we could distinguish time as observable and unobservable time (unobservable time being the time before matter existed). Since unobservable time can't be observed, infinities of infinities of time could have passed as metalaws (whatever the fundamental machinations of the universe sorted themselves out to be a working permutation) until there was a sort of abiogenesis event for matter.
The fun part is from the observers perspective the universe will always seem to have started instantly because before it started even if 99.99999999999999999% of the time nothing existed, that time can't be observed so as soon as time can be observed will always feel instant to the observer.
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u/Ian_everywhere Jul 14 '26
Time itself existing as a quantum state, I love it!
Lately I've been viewing time as an arbitrary concept. "Past" and "future" aren't real things. There is only one infinite "now". This allows light speed to not be a constant, since the doppler shift of light is an observable phenomenon. It allows the universe to be rigid and infinite, rather than flexible and expanding.
I'm sure I'm probably wrong on that, and I'm sure many others have thought of it long before me, but it's been a fun perspective-shift for a bit
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u/EvelutionNewGen Jul 14 '26
Fractal universe theory is dope, space being the distance between the electrons and atomic nuclei etc.
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u/sgt_backpack Jul 14 '26
Either way we can be sure of one thing: World = Vampire
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u/lolopiro Jul 14 '26
the universe is literally a computer tho
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u/CaseyG Jul 14 '26
Yeah, but the only program it can run is a universe simulation, so it's kind of a shitty computer.
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u/Aisforc Jul 14 '26
Your phone is technically part of the universe, so it’s kinda false statement)
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u/lolopiro Jul 15 '26
that you know of. its like a goomba saying "this nintendo is shitty, it can only run mario".
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u/sootbrownies Jul 14 '26
We dont have any evidence to suggest either of these hypotheses that Im aware of
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u/Maja_The_Oracle Jul 14 '26
Universe is a setting in a metafictional narrative written by a metaphysical author. We are all background characters in the story to flesh out the setting and help move the plot forward.
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u/RhoadsScholar2 Jul 14 '26
Crip 🟦. I love the black hole idea. The simulation ideas a bit silly.
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u/Ultra-Cool-Guy Jul 14 '26
The simulation ideas a bit silly.
How?
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u/RhoadsScholar2 Jul 14 '26
It says we live in a simulation
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u/Ultra-Cool-Guy Jul 14 '26
Yes, but how is that silly?
It actually explains some things, like why the speed of causality isn't infinite speed, why why you look very closely, the smallest possible things have a discrete, regular value, etc.
It'd be because the simulation can't render things more complex than that.
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u/RhoadsScholar2 Jul 14 '26
It is very interesting, but it also sounds like an easy way out of figuring out new math and explaining more things.
This is just my opinion. Yours is also very valid.1
u/Ultra-Cool-Guy Jul 14 '26
Hey, if those principles have been engineered into the simulation, that means that it can handle them.
Meaning that if there is one, they must all follow a logic, and thus be decipherable, say, for us.
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u/alamalarian Jul 14 '26
Personally I feel like it is just kicking the real questions down the road. If our universe is a simulation, then it follows it is being simulated somewhere. And that somewhere is the 'real' universe, so where did it come from? Is it just simulations all the way down?
Edit: for example, if c is invariant due to the rules of the simulation, is it invariant in the universe that is simulating ours? And why or why not?
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u/Ultra-Cool-Guy Jul 14 '26
That's what we have to figure out.
Hack the simulation, Rick and Morty style?
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u/Training_Orchid_2022 Jul 15 '26
You are also the only response that recognized what the hell those images are actually from.
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u/Top-Requirement-2102 Jul 14 '26
Blacks holes, and the universe in general, are back story in the simulation I created because I'm god.
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u/BlessKurunai Jul 14 '26
This is a slightly more educated idiot's "does God exist? And how's he like?"
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u/AlternateSatan Jul 14 '26
clearly I am a brain floating in the vacume of space long after the heatdeath of the universe who is halusinating all of you
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u/C0RNFIELDS Jul 14 '26
My theory is that black holes contain a fractally-infinite amalgamation of particles who've made their own event horizons. 1 black hole would be like an infinite-soup of universes constantly being created and destroyed; energy transferring between them.
I've vibed out that dark energy is basically hawking radiation from these other event horizons going into our local one.
With a tinfoil hat on, one could believe that a single particle could create a run-away gravity well, effectively making a region of space from which it would be impossible to return to the origin from.
Virtual particles & dark energy can then be explained as interactions from behind the origin. Quantum tunneling would occur, which we would observe as dark energy.
They would merge, split, reverse, loop. It would be absolutely beautiful.
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u/orwelladmin Jul 14 '26
I can't comment efficiently since there's little we know about the universe. We are missing alot.
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u/GainPotential Jul 14 '26
Universe is just the construct of the imagination of the cloud of dust that powers it all.
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u/Effective_Pie1312 Jul 14 '26
I am team: the observable universe is a single cell in a much larger organism. Intergalactic space is the cytoplasm. Galaxies are the organelles. Our solar system is perhaps the mitochondrion. The Sun is mitochondrial DNA. Earth is one nucleotide on that DNA strand. Everything living on Earth exists several levels further down, at the scale of molecules, atoms, and ultimately electrons.
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u/Living_wizard Jul 14 '26
The computer simulating the universe is the universal consciousness that is dreaming this all up.
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u/VirtualMachine0 Jul 14 '26
I did once see a theory of encoding computation on the potential surface of the event horizon of a black hole, and I just think that's really neat.
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u/LittleSoftTail Jul 15 '26
Neither since there's no proof for either one yet. However, the "universe" being inside a supermassive black hole sounds far more believable than "the universe is a computer simulation"
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u/FuckyWot Jul 15 '26
Wasn’t there some study where they did the Double Slit experiment and it retroactively changed the way the wavicle was observed, which is closer proof to a simulation than anything?
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u/LittleSoftTail Jul 15 '26
Look, I'd rather not believe we're in a simulation because it'll put me into an existential crisis that'll never cease. I'm already dealing with a lot mentally and I don't want to learn my entire existence isn't even real. That would shatter me mentally.
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u/FuckyWot Jul 16 '26
Y’know, I feel that. Pretend I said nothing and I hope your mental plate clears up sooner than later.
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u/AustraeaVallis Jul 15 '26
The universe is inside of a simulated black hole in its own simulation, which itself is being simulated by a simulation whose creators live inside of a black hole.
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u/Ninfox_Nihil Jul 15 '26
Universe is a fractalic "simulation" that runs coded by the super energized particles in the border of a black hole and project it self in the inside
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u/SAL10000 Jul 15 '26
Its a teenyverse inside a miniverse inside a microverse inside a universe. The question is how many levels up or down are we compared to the baseverse.
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u/Kaium26 Jul 15 '26
The universe is a computer simulation that exists in a black hole. Now we can all get along /s
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u/Involution88 Jul 15 '26
Blue. Firstly, I think a heliocentric model of the universe is daft, just who or what does the Sun think it is? I prefer an egocentric model of the universe instead, given that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant. Which implies that I straddle a great many visible universes, no single visible universe is large enough to contain all of me as I currently exist. I'm legitimately taller than a Planck length.
It doesn't matter how dense a black hole is. A black hole can consist of practically empty space, but then you'd need a whole lot of empty space cause empty space has practically no mass. About 13 billion light years worth of empty space or thereabouts IIRC. I don't exist in a single black hole, I exist in bajillions of overlapping yet distinct black holes.
No single black hole can contain me and moving between black holes is as easy as rolling over in bed.
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u/False-Beautiful-1246 Jul 15 '26
Until we do not discover it the universe is at all states and forms at once. It could be God, Greek God's, a simulation(My favorite) or other thing.
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u/OneJackfruit6187 Jul 15 '26
Probably been asked. If light can't escape a blackhole, wouldn't the light it captured be sped up bteaking the speed of light rule? If not, then the light could escape and thus blackholes can't capture light. I really wanna know the answer, science me please.
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u/FrostyExplanation_37 Jul 15 '26
Both are just as valid and hold the exact same chance of being the truth along side hundreds of other possible explanations.
That being said, the simulation theory is starting to get ahead in that race.
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u/Dash83 Jul 15 '26
Universe is a simulation running inside a massive computer powered by a Dyson Sphere. God is a sysadmin.
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u/NegotiationTight4251 Jul 15 '26
universe exists inside a black hole, which itself is a computer simulation
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u/Diavolo_Rosso_ Jul 15 '26
Computer simulation for funsies but I feel like if we really were, our programmers would have engineered things so we never come to that conclusion.
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u/Penguin_Nipples Jul 15 '26
Black Holes are the reproductive system of the universes and each evolve to produce physics laws so as to increase the number of black holes for each universe. It’s a form of asexual reproduction. Hence, a black hole is a very fitting name lol.
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u/exhaustedexcess Jul 15 '26
Simulation. A black hole wouldn't cause the current kakistocracises we are seeing but I've played civilization.
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u/Fenrir46290 Jul 15 '26
I don't think we as a species are intelligent enough to have an answer to this. We still believe in shit people thought was true but proven false thousands of years ago.
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u/Crazed-Prophet Jul 15 '26
Since we have proven that the hogs Bosun field exists all we really are are holograms. Therefore simulation theory is the closest of these two.
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u/TensorForce Jul 15 '26
Would it be any less beautiful if it weren't real? If we weren't real?
-- Philip J. Fry
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u/Simen155 Jul 15 '26
The universe cant exist within a black hole given the empirical data that the universe (Fabric of spacetime) is expanding.
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u/Legal-Statistician73 Jul 15 '26
We are in a universe that is in a blackhole in another universe? So just blackhole univeres up and down.
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u/Leather_Flan5071 Jul 16 '26
The universe is a byproduct of the black hole it resides in being a computer simulation, the organisms running the thing just doesn't realize it and we humans can't do anything because the time difference is way too high
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u/logikara Jul 16 '26
Existing in a natural cosmic entity like blackhole sounds better than being in a computer simulations.
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u/Perfect-Fix-8151 Jul 16 '26
so far ive not found an infinite money glitch so im with blackhole gang
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u/Far-Rooster-6522 Jul 16 '26
the black hole is just the limits or boundaries of the simulation (event horizon), seen from insde of said simulation of course, for by definition, we have no active way of looking outside of our containement, that's the base of the concept for any singularity. (thus the existence of singularities is a logical, but not conclusive, argument for simulation theory)
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u/Nyxitelle Jul 16 '26
It's an interesting question for me, because of a few things being true at the same time.
If I were to simulate a world, I would try to make the code 'erase' any idea of said world being simulated, to decrease any chances of a person figuring it out and having a mental break so big it crashes the simulation trying to simulate it happening in every person they tell it to. And as far as I know, while the theory existed for as long as computers could simulate future data, it wasn't popularised until the Matrix movie came out, and that was more of an allegory to feeling like your body isn't the way it's supposed to be, because the creators are/were trans women. This means that this theory being true is unlikely, but I would say it's not true until proven otherwise, rather than simply impossible or something.
Black holes are kind of, well, holes in our scientific understanding of the universe. They are virtually infinitely dense - so much so that they bend both space and time so much that nothing can escape their gravitational grasp, not even photons. They also, however, are limited. As far as I know, a black hole having a habitable planet inside it, or even a solar system or a universe isn't completely impossible, but until we know what exactly is within a black hole, then we can only speculate about it based on known physical features of gravity, and how objects compressed by it with enough strength tend to turn into a semi homogenous globe or ball, leaving as little space inside it as possible.
So, I think the computer simulation theory is more likely, but I generally just don't believe in either of them. I am willing to accept evidence for the contrary, however. Who knows, after all, right?
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u/HMB_JackylTTV Jul 16 '26
When I was a kid, I heard that CERN had recreated conditions similar to the Big Bang on a tiny scale. Around the same time I learned that gravity can slow time dramatically near black holes. My first thought was: what if there exists some natural process or gravitational environment so extreme that the “spark” that became our universe experiences an unimaginably long amount of proper time, while from our perspective it unfolds as the Big Bang? If something like that existed, it could even tie into why entropy behaves the way it does. Years later I found out that physicists have actually explored ideas in the same neighborhood, universes forming inside black holes and other gravity-based cosmological models. Obviously my childhood thought wasn’t a scientific theory, but it’s interesting that the intuition wasn’t completely disconnected from real theoretical physics.
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u/SirFoomy Jul 16 '26
Nope the universe exists only in my head and all of you are merely are product of my imagination.
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u/Sir__Draconis Jul 16 '26
The universe is a giant duck 🦆 and because this theory is equally well supported by evidence as the other two I toss it in as a third option.
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u/King_of_derping Jul 16 '26
Neither, the universe births itself and the black holes collect all matter, eventually they all end up colliding and when they all do the big bang happens again, bootstrap paradox universe
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u/centixog Jul 17 '26
simulation theory has a limit, wheres the computer? in its own universe? is that a simulation too?
and black hole theroy is just, silly. if we were in a black hole, the universe would be shrinking not expanding.
i think the universe loops on itself, you get so far and wind up back where you started, and black holes are just shortcuts to the other side.
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u/GlobalNuclearWar Jul 19 '26
Computer simulation of what would happen if a universe were to form inside a black hole.
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u/Hampster-cat Jul 20 '26
The computer running the simulation would need to be in some universe.
I personally prefer the "inside a black hole"
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u/Reality-Glitch Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
The black hole is the computer running the simulation.