9 Compelling Pieces Of Evidence That The Universe Is A Simulation
6. You Can Get Complexity From Simplicity
So if the universe is a simulation, it must be an immensely powerful and complex one, right? You might even think that the universe is far too intricate to be the result of a simple string of ones and zeros.
In fact, it's really not that difficult to give rise to an immense, even infinite, amount of complexity from a relatively simple set of rules. John Conway's Game of Life is an elegant demonstration of this.
This game, which was programmed in the seventies, has only four simple rules, but is capable of producing complexity, stability, annihilation and even infinity. Altering those rules also produces some incredible results, there's even a tumblr dedicated to it.
Now, nobody is implying that every time you play this game, you create a simulated universe, but it goes to show that complexity can indeed arise from relative simplicity.
Some digital physicists are even inclined to see the parallels to this in particle interaction in our universe. At our most fundamental level, the universe arises from some very simple "building blocks" that are governed by relatively few laws.