Are We Living in a Cosmic Computer Game? The Strange Evidence that Gravity Might Be a Clue

What if the gravity holding you firmly in your chair right now isn’t a fundamental force of nature, but actually compelling evidence that our entire universe is running on computer code written by an intelligence we can’t even comprehend?

Look around you. The chair you’re sitting in. The device you’re reading this on. The very gravity that’s keeping you from floating away. What if these seemingly solid foundations of reality are nothing more than clever programming in an unimaginably advanced computer simulation?

It sounds like science fiction, but a growing number of serious scientists are entertaining the possibility that our entire universe—including gravity itself—might be evidence that we’re living inside a vast computational system.

The Digital Universe Theory

According to revolutionary research published in the journal AIP Advances, gravity may not be a mysterious force that attracts objects toward one another as we’ve long believed. Instead, it could be the product of an informational law of nature called the “second law of infodynamics.”

This theory suggests that the universe naturally seeks to be in states of minimal information entropy—essentially compacting and simplifying information, just as computers do when managing data. When particles consolidate themselves together under gravitational attraction (forming planets, stars, and galaxies), the information gets more compact and manageable.

In this view, space isn’t continuous and smooth—it’s made up of tiny “cells” of information, similar to pixels in a digital photo or squares on a computer screen. Each cell contains basic information about the universe, and all are gathered together to create the fabric of reality.

The Mathematics Behind the Matrix

The researcher behind this theory developed a mathematical model that treats space as discrete rather than continuous. In this model, each quantum of space—called an elementary cell—registers properties of matter, including position and velocity, functioning as information storage.

When mathematical calculations were performed on this model, something remarkable happened. The entropic “informational force” created by the tendency toward simplicity was exactly equivalent to Newton’s law of gravitation.

This suggests that matter flowing under the influence of gravity might not be a result of a force at all, but rather a function of the way the universe compacts the information it has to work with—like a cosmic computer processor managing resources efficiently.

Experiments to Test the Simulation Hypothesis

Thomas Campbell, a former NASA physicist, has taken it upon himself to find out if we’re living in a simulation. He’s established a non-profit called Center for the Unification of Science and Consciousness (CUSAC) to fund experimental endeavors that might reveal the truth.

Scientists at California State Polytechnic University have started the first experiment, putting Campbell’s far-fetched hypothesis to the test. His experiments include a new spin on the double-slit experiment, a physics demonstration designed to show how light and matter can act like both waves and particles.

Campbell believes that by removing the observer from these experiments, the actual recorded information never existed in the first place—instead of current quantum physics suggesting the existence of entanglement that links particles across a distance. In simple terms, without a player, the universe around them doesn’t exist, much like in a video game.

Different Theories, Similar Conclusions

Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom approached the simulation question differently in his 2003 paper “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?” His reasoning suggests that if we ever reach a point where we’re running simulations of our ancestors, and those simulated ancestors run simulations of their own ancestors, then most minds in existence will eventually exist inside layers of simulations—meaning we probably are too.

Meanwhile, leading physicists are considering the possibility that our universe may be a vast holographic projection. According to this radical theory, the three-dimensional reality we perceive might actually be an illusion—encoded on a two-dimensional surface like a cosmic projection.

Professor Marika Taylor, a theoretical physicist at the University of Birmingham, cautions that this holographic universe theory isn’t suggesting our experiences are artificial. Instead, it proposes that the fundamental nature of reality operates under different physical laws than we assume.

Evidence in the Building Blocks of Life

Remarkably, even genetics might offer clues. One study examined RNA sequences of SARS-CoV-2 variants and found that mutations tend to reduce information entropy over time, consistent with the second law of infodynamics. This challenges the Darwinian view that genetic mutations are completely random events and suggests an underlying computational mechanism.

The study also referenced Spiegelman’s experiment from 1972, where a virus was studied over 74 generations in isolation. Initially containing 4500 base points, the virus’s genome consistently decreased with each generation until reaching just 218 base points after 74 generations—a reduction of over 95%, unexplained until now but consistent with the theory that information entropy tends to decrease over time.

The Cosmic Code Hypothesis

If the universe is running on some kind of cosmic software, maximum efficiency would be expected. Symmetries would be expected. Compression would be expected. And laws like gravity would emerge from these computational rules.

This perspective invites us to reconsider the fundamental nature of reality—what if the laws of physics are just manifestations of computational rules within a source code? For an observer outside the universe, everything follows a set of coding instructions, while for those of us inside the code, these instructions manifest as mathematical and physical laws of nature.

Take Pauli’s exclusion principle, which states that two or more identical fermions cannot simultaneously occupy the same quantum state. This bears an uncanny resemblance to programming rules, specifically how variables must be distinguishable to ensure order and predictability in code execution.

Similarly, the abundance of symmetries observed at all scales in the universe resembles a computational optimization process or data compression—high symmetry means less computational power and low information content.

The Quest Continues

While we don’t yet have definitive evidence that we live in a simulation, the deeper scientists look, the more our universe seems to behave like a computational process. Ongoing experiments aim to detect “holographic noise”—tiny fluctuations that could reveal whether our universe truly operates as a cosmic hologram.

Whether we’re living in a reality that exists independently or inside an unfathomably complex simulation, one thing is certain: the universe is stranger and more fascinating than we ever imagined. And gravity—that force we’ve taken for granted since Newton’s apple supposedly fell from the tree—might be our best clue yet to the true nature of our existence.

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