Universe creation on a computer

The purpose of this paper is to provide an account of the epistemology and metaphysics of universe creation on a computer. The paper begins with F.J.Tipler’s argument that our experience is indistinguishable from the experience of someone embedded in a perfect computer simulation of our own universe, hence we cannot know whether or not we are part of such a computer program ourselves. Tipler’s argument is treated as a special case of epistemological scepticism, in a similar vein to ‘brain-in-a-vat ’ arguments. It is argued that the hypothesis that our universe is a program running on a digital computer in another universe generates empirical predictions, and is therefore a falsifiable hypothesis. The com-puter program hypothesis is also treated as a hypothesis about what exists beyond the physical world, and is compared with Kant’s metaphysics of noumena. It is proposed that a theory about what exists beyond the physical world should be formulated with the precise concepts of mathe-matics, and should generate physical predictions. It is argued that if our universe is a program running on a digital computer, then our universe must have compact spatial topology, and the possibilities of observation-ally testing this prediction are considered. The possibility of testing the computer program hypothesis with the value of the density parameter Ω0 is also analysed. The informational requirements for a computer to repre-sent a universe exactly and completely are considered. Consequent doubt is thrown upon Tipler’s claim that if a hierarchy of computer universes exists, we would not be able to know which ‘level of implementation ’ our universe exists at. It is then argued that a digital computer simulation of a universe cannot exist as a universe. However, the paper concludes with the acknowledgement that an analog computer simulation can be objectively related to the thing it represents, hence an analog computer simulation of a universe could, in principle, exist as a universe