The Mathematical Universe
The Mathematical Universe
Max Tegmark
Dept. of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
(Dated: Submitted to Found. Phys. April 7 2007, revised September 6, accepted September 30)
I explore physics implications of the External Reality Hypothesis (ERH) that there exists an
external physical reality completely independent of us humans. I argue that with a sufficiently
broad definition of mathematics, it implies the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis (MUH) that our
physical world is an abstract mathematical structure. I discuss various implications of the ERH
and MUH, ranging from standard physics topics like symmetries, irreducible representations, units,
free parameters, randomness and initial conditions to broader issues like consciousness, parallel
universes and Gödel incompleteness. I hypothesize that only computable and decidable (in Gödel’s
sense) structures exist, which alleviates the cosmological measure problem and may help explain why
our physical laws appear so simple. I also comment on the intimate relation between mathematical
structures, computations, simulations and physical systems.
I. INTRODUCTION
The idea that our universe is in some sense mathemat-
ical goes back at least to the Pythagoreans, and has been
extensively discussed in the literature (see, e.g., [2–25]).
Galileo Galilei stated that the Universe is a grand book
written in the language of mathematics, and Wigner re-
flected on the “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics
in the natural sciences” [3]. In this essay, I will push this
idea to its extreme and argue that our universe is math-
ematics in a well-defined sense. After elaborating on this
hypothesis and underlying assumptions in Section II, I
discuss a variety of its implications in Sections III-VII.
This paper can be thought of as the sequel to one I wrote
in 1996 [12], clarifying and extending the ideas described
therein.
II. THE MATHEMATICAL UNIVERSE
HYPOTHESIS
A. The External Reality Hypothesis
In this section, we will discuss the following two hy-
potheses and argue that, with a sufficiently broad defi-
nition of mathematical structure, the former implies the
latter.
External Reality Hypothesis (ERH):
There exists an external physical reality com-
pletely independent of us humans.
Mathematical Universe Hypothesis
(MUH): Our external physical reality is a
mathematical structure.
Although many physicists subscribe to the ERH and ded-
icate their careers to the search for a deeper understand-
∗Partly based on a talk given at the symposium “Multiverse and
String Theory: Toward Ultimate Explanations in Cosmology” held
on 19-21 March 2005 at Stanford University and on the essay [1].
ing of this assumed external reality, the ERH is not uni-
versally accepted, and is rejected by, e.g., metaphysical
solipsists. Indeed, adherents of the Copenhagen inter-
pretation of quantum mechanics may reject the ERH on
the grounds that there is no reality without observation.
In this paper, we will assume that the ERH is correct
and explore its implications. We will see that, although
it sounds innocuous, the ERH has sweeping implications
for physics if taken seriously.
Physics theories aim to describe how this assumed ex-
ternal reality works. Our most successful physics theories
to date are generally regarded as descriptions of merely
limited aspects of the external reality. In contrast, the
holy grail of theoretical physics is to find a complete de-
scription of it, jocularly referred to as a “Theory of Ev-
erything”, or “TOE”.
The ERH implies that for a description to be complete,
it must be well-defined also according to non-human sen-
tient entities (say aliens or future supercomputers) that
lack the common understanding of concepts that we hu-
mans have evolved, e.g., “particle”, “observation” or in-
deed any other English words. Put differently, such a
description must be expressible in a form that is devoid
of human “baggage”.
B. Reducing the baggage allowance
To give a few examples, Figure 1 illustrates how var-
ious theories can be crudely organized in a family tree
where each might, at least in principle, be derivable
from more fundamental ones above it. All these theo-
ries have two components: mathematical equations and
“baggage”, words that explain how they are connected
to what we humans observe and intuitively understand.
Quantum mechanics as usually presented in textbooks
has both components: some equations as well as three
fundamental postulates written out in plain English. At
each level in the hierarchy of theories, new concepts (e.g.,
protons, atoms, cells, organisms, cultures) are introduced
because they are convenient, capturing the essence of
what is going on without recourse to the more funda-
http://arXiv.org/abs/0704.0646v2
Biology
Mechanical
Engineering
Psychology
Sociology
Medicine
Chemistry
Classical
Mechanics
Electrical
Engineering
Quantum
Field
Theory
Electro-
magnetism
Computer
Science
Special
Relativity
General
Relativity
Nuclear
Physics
Nonrelativistic
Quantum
Mechanics
Hydro-
dynamics
Solid State
Physics
Thermo-
dynamics
Mechanics
of solids
Earth
Science
Astrophysics
Evolution
Particle
phenomenology
Atomic
Physics
Electric 
properties
of solids
Statistical
Mechanics
?hg0 Gg0
Gg0 cg
FIG. 1: Theories can be crudely organized into a family tree
where each might, at least in principle, be derivable from more
fundamental ones above it. For example, classical mechanics
can be obtained from special relativity in the approximation
that the speed of light c is infinite, and hydrodynamics with
its concepts such as density and pressure can be derived from
statistical mechanics. However, these cases where the arrows
are well understood form a minority. Deriving biology from
chemistry or psychology from biology appears unfeasible in
practice. Only limited and approximate aspects of such sub-
jects are mathematical, and it is likely that all mathematical
models found in physics so far are similarly approximations
of limited aspects of reality.
mental theory above it. It is important to remember,
however, that it is we humans who introduce these con-
cepts and the words for them: in principle, everything
could have been derived from the fundamental theory at
the top of the tree, although such an extreme reductionist
approach appears useless in practice. Crudely speaking,
the ratio of equations to baggage decreases as we move
down the tree, dropping near zero for highly applied fields
such as medicine and sociology. In contrast, theories near
the top are highly mathematical, and physicists are still
struggling to articulate the concepts, if any, in terms of
which we can understand them. The MUH implies that
the TOE indicated by the question mark at the top is
purely mathematical, with no baggage whatsoever.
As an extreme example of a “theory”, the descrip-
tion of external reality found in Norse mythology involves
a gigantic tree named Yggdrasil, whose trunk supports
Earth. This description all on its own is 100% baggage,
since it lacks definitions of “tree”, “Earth”, etc. Today,
the baggage fraction of this theory could be reduced by
describing a tree as a particular arrangement of atoms,
and describing this in turn as a particular quantum field
theory state. Moreover (see, e.g., [3]), physics has come
to focus on the way the external reality works (described
by regularities known as laws of physics) rather than on
the way it is (the subject of initial conditions).
However, could it ever be possible to give a description
of the external reality involving no baggage? If so, our
description of entities in the external reality and relations
between them would have to be completely abstract, forc-
ing any words or other symbols used to denote them to be
mere labels with no preconceived meanings whatsoever.
A mathematical structure is precisely this: abstract en-
tities with relations between them. Familiar examples
include the integers and the real numbers. We review
detailed definitions of this and related mathematical no-
tions in Appendix A. Here, let us instead illustrate this
idea of baggage-free description with simple examples.
Consider the mathematical structure known as the group
with two elements, i.e., addition modulo two. It involves
two elements that we can label “0” and “1” satisfying the
following relations:
0 + 0 = 0
0 + 1 = 1
1 + 0 = 1
1 + 1 = 0
The two alternative descriptions
e × e = e
e × a = a
a × e = a
a × a = e
Even and even make even
Even and odd make odd
Odd and even make odd
Odd and odd make even
look different, but the identification “0”→“e”→“even”,
“1”→“a”→“odd”, “+”→“×”→“and”,
“=”→“=”→“make” shows that they describe ex-
actly the same mathematical structure, since the
symbols themselves are mere labels without intrinsic
meaning. The only intrinsic properties of the entities
are those embodied by the relations between them.
Equation (2) suggests specifying the relations more
compactly as a multiplication table. Alternatively, us-
ing the notation of equation (1), a tabulation of the val-
ues of the function “+” for all combinations of the two
arguments reads
. (4)
Table 1 – Any finite mathematical structure can be encoded as a
finite string of integers, which can in turn be encoded as a single
bit string or integer. The same applies to computable infinite
mathematical structures as discussed in Appendix A.
Mathematical structure Encoding
The empty set 100
The set of 5 elements 105
The trivial group C1 11120000
The polygon P3 113100120
The group C2 11220000110
Boolean algebra 11220001110
The group C3 1132000012120201
In Appendix A, we give our convention for encoding
any finite mathematical structure, involving arbitrarily
many entities, entity types and relations, as a finite se-
quence of integers. Our present example corresponds to
“11220000110”, and Table 1 lists a few other simple ex-
amples. Appendix A also covers infinite mathematical
structures more relevant to physics, e.g., vector fields
and Lie Groups, and how each of these can be encoded
as a finite-length bit string. In all cases, there are many
equivalent ways of describing the same structure, and a
particular mathematical structure can be defined as an
equivalence class of descriptions. Thus although any one
description involves some degree of arbitrariness (in no-
tation, etc.), there is nothing arbitrary about the math-
ematical structure itself.
Putting it differently, the trick is to “mod out the bag-
gage”, defining a mathematical structure by a description
thereof modulo any freedom in notation. Analogously,
the number 4 is well-defined even though we humans have
multiple ways of referring to it, like “IV”, “four”, “cua-
tro”, “fyra”, etc.
C. Implications for a Mathematical Universe
In summary, there are two key points to take away
from our discussion above and in Appendix A:
1. The ERH implies that a “theory of everything” has
no baggage.
2. Something that has a baggage-free description is
precisely a mathematical structure.
Taken together, this implies the Mathematical Universe
Hypothesis formulated on the first page of this article,
i.e., that the external physical reality described by the
TOE is a mathematical structure.1
1 In the philosophy literature, the name “structural realism” has
been coined for the doctrine that the physical domain of a true
theory corresponds to a mathematical structure [4], and the name
“universal structural realism” has been used for the hypothesis
Before elaborating on this, let us consider a few histor-
ical examples to illustrate what it means for the physical
world to be a mathematical structure:
1. Newtonian Gravity of point particles: Curves
in R4 minimizing the Newtonian action.
2. General Relativity: A 3+1-dimensional pseudo-
Riemannian manifold with tensor fields obeying
partial differential equations of, say, Einstein-
Maxwell-theory with a perfect fluid component.
3. Quantum Field Theory: Operator-valued fields
on R4 obeying certain Lorentz-invariant partial dif-
ferential equations and commutation relationships,
acting on an abstract Hilbert space.
(Of course, the true mathematical structure isomorphic
to our world, if it exists, has not yet been found.)
When considering such examples, we need to distin-
guish between two different ways of viewing the external
physical reality: the outside view or bird perspective of a
mathematician studying the mathematical structure and
the inside view or frog perspective of an observer living in
A first subtlety in relating the two perspectives in-
volves time. Recall that a mathematical structure is an
abstract, immutable entity existing outside of space and
time. If history were a movie, the structure would there-
fore correspond not to a single frame of it but to the
entire videotape. Consider the first example above, a
world made up of classical point particles moving around
in three-dimensional Euclidean space under the influence
of Newtonian gravity. In the four-dimensional spacetime
of the bird perspective, these particle trajectories resem-
ble a tangle of spaghetti. If the frog sees a particle moving
with constant velocity, the bird sees a straight strand of
uncooked spaghetti. If the frog sees a pair of orbiting
particles, the bird sees two spaghetti strands intertwined
like a double helix. To the frog, the world is described by
Newton’s laws of motion and gravitation. To the bird,
it is described by the geometry of the pasta, obeying the
mathematical relations corresponding to minimizing the
Newtonian action.
A second subtlety in relating the two perspectives in-
volves the observer. In this Newtonian example, the
frog (a self-aware substructure, or “SAS”) itself must be
merely a thick bundle of pasta, whose highly complex in-
tertwining corresponds to a cluster of particles that store
and process information. In the General Relativity ex-
ample above, the frog is a tube through spacetime, a
thick version of what Einstein referred to as a world-
line. The location of the tube would specify its position
that the physical universe is isomorphic to a mathematical struc-
ture [22].
2 Related ideas on “observation from inside/outside the universe”
(albeit in a less mathematical context) trace back to Archimedes
and the 18th century physicist B. J. Boskovic — see [26–28].
in space at different times. Within the tube, the fields
would exhibit complex behavior corresponding to storing
and processing information about the field-values in the
surroundings, and at each position along the tube, these
processes would give rise to the familiar sensation of self-
awareness. The frog would perceive this one-dimensional
string of perceptions along the tube as passage of time.
In the Quantum Field Theory example above, things be-
come more subtle because a well-defined state of an ob-
server can evolve into a quantum superposition of subjec-
tively different states. If the bird sees such deterministic
frog branching, the frog perceives apparent randomness
[29, 30]. Fundamental randomness from the bird’s view
is by definition banished (Section IVB 3)
D. Description versus equivalence
Let us clarify some nomenclature. Whereas the cus-
tomary terminology in physics textbooks is that the ex-
ternal reality is described by mathematics, the MUH
states that it is mathematics (more specifically, a mathe-
matical structure). This corresponds to the “ontic” ver-
sion of universal structural realism in the philosophical
terminology of [14, 22]. If a future physics textbook con-
tains the TOE, then its equations are the complete de-
scription of the mathematical structure that is the exter-
nal physical reality. We write is rather than corresponds
to here, because if two structures are isomorphic, then
there is no meaningful sense in which they are not one
and the same [19]. From the definition of a mathemati-
cal structure (see Appendix A), it follows that if there is
an isomorphism between a mathematical structure and
another structure (a one-to-one correspondence between
the two that respects the relations), then they are one
and the same. If our external physical reality is isomor-
phic to a mathematical structure, it therefore fits the
definition of being a mathematical structure.
If one rejects the ERH, one could argue that our uni-
verse is somehow made of stuff perfectly described by a
mathematical structure, but which also has other proper-
ties that are not described by it, and cannot be described
in an abstract baggage-free way. This viewpoint, corre-
sponding to the “epistemic” version of universal struc-
tural realism in the philosophical terminology of [14, 22],
would make Karl Popper turn in his grave, since those
additional bells and whistles that make the universe non-
mathematical by definition have no observable effects
whatsoever.
E. Evidence for the MUH
Above we argued that the ERH implies the MUH, so
that any evidence for the ERH is also evidence for the
MUH. Before turning to implications of the MUH, let us
briefly discuss additional reasons for taking this hypoth-
esis seriously.
In his above-mentioned 1967 essay [3], Wigner argued
that “the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the nat-
ural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious”,
and that “there is no rational explanation for it”. The
MUH provides this missing explanation. It explains the
utility of mathematics for describing the physical world
as a natural consequence of the fact that the latter is
a mathematical structure, and we are simply uncovering
this bit by bit. The various approximations that consti-
tute our current physics theories are successful because
simple mathematical structures can provide good approx-
imations of certain aspects of more complex mathemati-
cal structures. In other words, our successful theories are
not mathematics approximating physics, but mathemat-
ics approximating mathematics.
The MUH makes the testable prediction that further
mathematical regularities remain to be uncovered in na-
ture. This predictive power of the mathematical universe
idea was expressed by Dirac in 1931: “The most powerful
method of advance that can be suggested at present is to
employ all the resources of pure mathematics in attempts
to perfect and generalize the mathematical formalism
that forms the existing basis of theoretical physics, and
after each success in this direction, to try to interpret the
new mathematical features in terms of physical entities”
[2]. After Galileo promulgated the mathematical uni-
verse idea, additional mathematical regularities beyond
his wildest dreams were uncovered, ranging from the mo-
tions of planets to the properties of atoms. After Wigner
had written his 1967 essay [3], the standard model of par-
ticle physics revealed new “unreasonable” mathematical
order in the microcosm of elementary particles and in the
macrocosm of the early universe. I know of no other com-
pelling explanation for this trend than that the physical
world really is completely mathematical.
F. Implications for Physics
The notion that the world is a mathematical structure
alters the way we view many core notions in physics.
In the remainder of this paper, we will discuss numerous
such examples, ranging from standard topics like symme-
tries, irreducible representations, units, free parameters
and initial conditions to broader issues like parallel uni-
verses, Gödel incompleteness and the idea of our reality
being a computer simulation.
III. PHYSICS FROM SCRATCH
Suppose we were given mathematical equations that
completely describe the physical world, including us, but
with no hints about how to interpret them. What would
we do with them?3
Specifically, what mathematical analysis of them would
reveal their phenomenology, i.e., the properties of the
world that they describe as perceived by observers?
Rephrasing the question in the terminology of the previ-
ous section: given a mathematical structure, how do we
compute the inside view from the outside view? More
precisely, we wish to derive the “consensus view”4.
This is in my opinion one of the most important ques-
tions facing theoretical physics, because if we cannot an-
swer it, then we cannot test a candidate TOE by con-
fronting it with observation. I certainly do not purport
to have a complete answer to this question. This subsec-
tion merely explores some possibly useful first steps to
take in addressing it.
By construction, the only tools at our disposal are
purely mathematical ones, so the only way in which fa-
miliar physical notions and interpretations (“baggage”)
3 The reader may prefer a TOE that includes such human-language
hints even if they are in principle redundant. Indeed, the conven-
tional approach in the philosophy of science holds that a theory of
mathematical physics can be broken down into (i) a mathemati-
cal structure, (ii) an empirical domain and (iii) a set of correspon-
dence rules which link parts of the mathematical structure with
parts of the empirical domain. In our approach, (i) is the bird’s
view, (ii) is the frog’s view, and the topic of the present section
is how to derive both (ii) and (iii) from (i) alone. Analogously,
given an abstract but complete description of a car (essentially
the locations of its atoms), someone wanting practical use of this
car may be more interested in a hands-on user’s manual describ-
ing which are the most important components and how to use
them. However, by carefully examining the original description
or the car itself, she might be able to figure out how the car
works and write her own manual.
4 As discussed in [16], the standard mental picture of what the
physical world is corresponds to a third intermediate viewpoint
that could be termed the consensus view. From your subjec-
tively perceived frog perspective, the world turns upside down
when you stand on your head and disappears when you close
your eyes, yet you subconsciously interpret your sensory inputs
as though there is an external reality that is independent of your
orientation, your location and your state of mind. It is strik-
ing that although this third view involves both censorship (like
rejecting dreams), interpolation (as between eye-blinks) and ex-
trapolation (say attributing existence to unseen cities) of your
inside view, independent observers nonetheless appear to share
this consensus view. Although the inside view looks black-and-
white to a cat, iridescent to a bird seeing four primary colors,
and still more different to a bee seeing polarized light, a bat using
sonar, a blind person with keener touch and hearing, or the latest
robotic vacuum cleaner, all agree on whether the door is open.
The key current challenge in physics is deriving this semiclas-
sical consensus view from the fundamental equations specifying
the bird perspective. In my opinion, this means that although
understanding the detailed nature of human consciousness is an
important challenge in its own right, it is not necessary for a
fundamental theory of physics, which, in the case of us humans,
corresponds to the mathematical description of our world found
in physics textbooks. It is not premature to address this question
now, before we have found such equations, since it is important
for the search itself — without answering it, we will not know if
a given candidate theory is consistent with what we observe.
can emerge are as implicit properties of the structure
itself that reveal themselves during the mathematical in-
vestigation. What such mathematical investigation is
relevant? The detailed answer clearly depends on the
nature of the mathematical structure being investigated,
but a useful first step for any mathematical structure S
is likely to be finding its automorphism group Aut (S),
which encodes its symmetries.
A. Automorphism definition and simple examples
A mathematical structure S (defined and illustrated
with examples in Appendix A) is essentially a collection
of abstract entities with relations (functions) between
them [31]. We label the various sets of entities S1, S2, ...
and the functions (which we also refer to as relations5)
R1, R2, .... An automorphism of a mathematical struc-
ture S is defined as a permutation σ of the elements of S
that preserves all relations. Specifically, Ri = R
i for all
functions with 0 arguments, R(a′) = R(a)′ for all func-
tions with 1 argument, R(a′, b′) = R(a, b)′ for all func-
tions with 2 argument, etc., where ′ denotes the action
of the permutation. It is easy to see that the set of all
automorphisms of a structure, denoted Aut (S), form a
group. Aut (S) can be thought of as the group of sym-
metries of the structure, i.e., the transformations under
which the structure is invariant. Let us illustrate this
with a few examples.
The trivial permutation σ0 (permuting nothing) is of
course an automorphism, so σ0 ∈ Aut (S) for any struc-
ture. Mathematical structures which have no non-trivial
automorphisms (i.e., Aut (S) = {σ0}) are called rigid
and exhibit no symmetries. Examples of rigid structures
include Boolean algebra (Section A2 a), the integers and
the real numbers. At the opposite extreme, consider a
set with n elements and no relations. All n! permuta-
tions of this mathematical structure are automorphisms;
there is total symmetry and no element has any features
that distinguishes it from any other element.
For the simple example of the 3-element group de-
fined by equation (A3), there is only one non-trivial
automorphism σ1, corresponding to swapping the two
non-identity elements: e′ = e, g′1 = g2, g
2 = g1, so
Aut (S) = {σ0, σ1} = C2, the group of two elements.
B. Symmetries, units and dimensionless numbers
For a more physics-related example, consider the math-
ematical structure of 3D Euclidean space defined as a
5 As discussed in Appendix A, this is a slight generalization of the
customary notion of a relation, which corresponds to the special
case of a function mapping into the two-element (Boolean) set
{0, 1} or {False, T rue}.
vector space with an inner product as follows:6
• S1 is a set of elements xα labeled by real numbers
• S2 is a set of elements yr labeled by 3-vectors r,
• R1(xα1 , xα2) = xα1−α2 ∈ S1,
• R2(xα1 , xα2) = xα1/α2 ∈ S1,
• R3(yr1 , yr2) = yr1+r2 ∈ S2,
• R4(xα, yr) = yαr ∈ S2,
• R5(yr1 , yr2) = xr1·r2 ∈ S1.
Thus we can interpret S1 as the (rigid) field of real num-
bers and S2 as 3D Euclidean space, specifically the vector
space R3 with Euclidean inner product. By combining
the relations above, all other familiar relations can be
generated, for example the origin R1(xα, xα) = x0 and
multiplicative identity R2(xα, xα) = x1 in S1 together
with the additive inverse R1(R1(xα, xα), xα) = x−α and
the multiplicative inverse R2(R2(xα, xα), xα) = xα−1 , as
well as the 3D origin R4(R1(xα, xα), yr) = y0. This
mathematical structure has rotational symmetry, i.e., the
automorphism group Aut (S) = O(3), parametrized by
3 × 3 rotation matrices R acting as follows:
x′α = xα, (5)
= yRr. (6)
To prove this, one simply needs to show that each gen-
erating relation respects the symmetry:
) = yRr1+Rr2 = yR(r1+r2) = R3(yr1 , yr2)
) = yαRr = yRαr = R4(xα, yr)
) = x(Rr1)·(Rr2) = xr1·r2 = R5(yr1 , yr2)
This simple example illustrates a number of points rel-
evant to physics. First of all, the MUH implies that any
symmetries in the mathematical structure correspond to
physical symmetries, since the relations R1, R2, ... ex-
hibit these symmetries and these relations are the only
properties that the set elements have. An observer in
a space defined as S2 above could therefore not tell the
difference between this space and a rotated version of it.
Second, relations are potentially observable, because
they are properties of the structure. It is therefore crucial
to define mathematical structures precisely, since seem-
ingly subtle differences in the definition can make a cru-
cial difference for the physics. For example, the manifold
R, the metric space R, the vector space R and the number
field R are all casually referred to as simply “R” or “the
6 A more careful definition would circumvent the issue that
R2(x0, x0) is undefined. We return to the issue of Gödel-
completeness and computability for continuous structures in Sec-
tion VII.
reals”, yet they are four different structures with four
very different symmetry groups. Let us illustrate this
with examples related to the mathematical description of
our 3-dimensional physical space, and see how such con-
siderations can rule out many mathematical structures
as candidates for corresponding to our universe.
The 3D space above contains a special point, its origin
y0 defined by R4(R1(xα, xα), yr) above, with no appar-
ent counterpart in our physical space. Rather (ignoring
spatial curvature for now), our physical space appears to
have a further symmetry, translational symmetry, which
this mathematical structure lacks. The space defined
above thus has too much structure. This can be remedied
by dropping R3 and R4 and replacing the 5th relation by
R5(yr1 , yr2) = x|r1−r2|, (7)
thereby making S2 a metric space rather than a vector
space.
However, this still exhibits more structure than our
physical space: it has a preferred length scale. Herman
Weyl emphasized this point in [32]. Lengths are mea-
sured by real numbers from S1 which form a rigid struc-
ture, where the multiplicative identity x1 is special and
singled out by the relation R2(xα, xα) = x1. In contrast,
there appears to be no length scale “1” of special signifi-
cance in our physical space. Because they are real num-
bers, two lengths in the mathematical structure can be
multiplied to give another length. In contrast, we assign
different units to length and area in our physical space
because they cannot be directly compared. The general
implication is that quantities with units are not real num-
bers. Only dimensionless quantities in physics may cor-
respond to real numbers in the mathematical structure.
Quantities with units may instead correspond to the 1-
dimensional vector space over the reals, so that only ra-
tios between quantities are real numbers. The simplest
mathematical structure corresponding to the Euclidean
space of classical physics (ignoring relativity) thus in-
volves three sets:
• S1 is a set of elements xα labeled by real numbers
• S2 is a set of elements yα labeled by real numbers
• S3 is a set of elements zr labeled by 3-vectors r,
• R1(xα1 , xα2) = xα1−α2 ∈ S1,
• R2(xα1 , xα2) = xα1/α2 ∈ S1,
• R3(yα1 , yα2) = yα1+α2 ∈ S2,
• R4(xα1 , yα2) = yα1α2 ∈ S2,
• R5(zr1 , zr2 , zr3) = y(r2−r1)·(r3−r1) ∈ S2.
Here S1 is the rigid field of real numbers R, S2 is the
1-dimensional vector space R (with no division and no
preferred length scale) and S3 is a metric space (corre-
sponding to physical space) where angles are defined but
lengths are only defined up to an overall scaling. In other
words, three points define an angle, and two points define
a distance via the relation R5(zr1 , zr2 , zr2) = y|r2−r1|2 ∈
The most general automorphism of this structure cor-
responds to (proper or improper) rotation by a matrix
R, translation by a vector a and scaling by a nonzero
constant λ:
x′α = xα,
y′α = yλ2α,
= zλRr+a.
For example,
= y[(λRr2+a)−(λRr1+a)]·[(λRr3+a)−(λRr1+a)]
= yλ2(r2−r1)·(r3−r1) = R5(zr1 , zr2 , zr3)
The success of general relativity suggests that our
physical space possesses still more symmetry whereby
also relations between widely separated points (like R5)
are banished. Instead, distances are defined only be-
tween infinitesimally close points. Note, however, that
neither diffeomorphism symmetry nor gauge symmetry
correspond to automorphisms of the mathematical struc-
ture. In this sense, these are not physical symmetries,
and correspond instead to redundant notation, i.e., no-
tation transformations relating different equivalent de-
scriptions of the same structure. For recent reviews of
these subtle issues and related controversies, see [33, 34].
If it were not for quantum physics, the mathemat-
ical structure of general relativity (a 3+1-dimensional
pseudo-Riemannian manifold with various “matter” ten-
sor fields obeying certain partial differential equations)
would be a good candidate for the mathematical struc-
ture corresponding to our universe. A fully rigorous def-
inition of the mathematical structure corresponding to
the SU(3) × SU(2) × U(1) quantum field theory of the
standard model is still considered an open problem in ax-
iomatic field theory, even aside from the issue of quantum
gravity.
C. Orbits, subgroups and further steps
Above we argued that when studying a mathematical
structure S to derive its physical phenomenology (the
“inside view”), a useful first step is finding its symme-
tries, specifically its automorphism group Aut (S). We
will now see that this in turn naturally leads to further
analysis steps, such as finding orbit partitions, irreducible
actions and irreducible representations.
For starters, subjecting Aut (S) to the same analysis
that mathematicians routinely perform when examining
any group can reveal features with a physical flavor. For
example, computing the subgroups of Aut (S) for our
last example reveals that there are subgroups of four
qualitatively different types. We humans have indeed
coined names (“baggage”) for them: translations, rota-
tions, scalings and parity reversal. Similarly, for a mathe-
matical structure whose symmetries include the Poincaré
group, translations, rotations, boosts, parity reversal and
time reversal all emerge as separate notions in this way.
Moreover, the action of the group Aut (S) on the
elements of S partitions them into equivalence classes
(known in group theory as “orbits”), where the orbit of
a given element is defined as the set of elements that
Aut (S) can transform it into. The orbits are therefore in
principle observable and distinguishable from each other,
whereas all elements on the same orbit are equivalent by
symmetry. In the last example, any 3D point in S3 can
be transformed into any other point in S3, so all points in
this space are equivalent. The scaling symmetry decom-
poses S2 into two orbits (0 and the rest) whereas each
element in S1 is its own orbit and hence distinguishable.
In the first example above, where Aut (S) is the rotation
group, the three-dimensional points separate into distinct
classes, since each spherical shell in S2 of fixed radius is
its own orbit.
D. Group actions and irreducible representations
Complementing this “top-down” approach of mathe-
matically analyzing S, we can obtain further hints for
useful mathematical approaches by observing our inside
view of the world around us and investigating how this
can be linked to the underlying mathematical structure
implied by the MUH. We know empirically that our
mathematical structure contains self-aware substructures
(“observers”) able to describe some aspects of their world
mathematically, and that symmetry considerations play
a major role in these mathematical descriptions. In-
deed, when asked “What is a particle?”, many theoret-
ical physicists like to smugly reply “An irreducible rep-
resentation of the Poincaré group”. This refers to the
famous insight by Wigner and others [3, 35–38] that any
mathematical property that we can assign to a quantum-
mechanical object must correspond to a ray representa-
tion of the group of spacetime symmetries. Let us briefly
review this argument and generalize it to our present
context.
As discussed in detail in [3, 39], the observed state
of our physical world (“initial conditions”) typically ex-
hibits no symmetry at all, whereas the perceived regular-
ities (“laws of physics”) are invariant under some sym-
metry group G (e.g., the Poincaré symmetry for the case
of relativistic quantum field theory). Suppose we can
describe some aspect of this state (some properties of a
localized object, say) by a vector of numbers ψ. Letting
′ = ρσ(ψ) denote the description after applying a sym-
metry transformation σ ∈ G, the transformation rule ρσ
must by definition have properties that we will refer to
as identity, reflexivity and transitivity.
1. Identity: ρσ0(ψ) = ψ for the identity transforma-
tion σ0 (performing no transformation should not
change ψ).
2. Reflexivity: ρσ−1(ρσ(ψ)) = ψ (transforming and
then un-transforming should recover ψ).
3. Transitivity: If σ2σ1 = σ3, then ρσ2(ρσ1(ψ)) =
ρσ3(ψ) (making two subsequent transformations
should be equivalent to making the combined trans-
formation).
In other words, the mapping from permutations σ to
transformations ρσ must be a homomorphism.
Wigner and others studied the special case of quan-
tum mechanics, where the description ψ corresponded
to a complex ray, i.e., to an equivalence class of com-
plex unit vectors where any two vectors were defined as
equivalent if they only differed by an overall phase. They
realized that for this case, the transformation ρσ(ψ) must
be linear and indeed unitary, which means that it satis-
fies the definition of being a so-called ray representation
(a regular unitary group representation up to a complex
phase) of the symmetry group G. Finding all such rep-
resentations of the Poincaré group thus gave a catalog
of all possible transformation properties that quantum
objects could have (a mass, a spin=0, 1/2, 1, ..., etc.),
essentially placing an upper bound on what could exist
in a Poincaré-invariant world. This cataloging effort was
dramatically simplified by the fact that all representa-
tions can be decomposed into a simple list of irreducible
ones, whereby degrees of freedom in ψ can be partitioned
into disjoint groups that transform without mixing be-
tween the groups. This approach has proven useful not
only for deepening our understanding of physics (and of
how “baggage” such as mass and spin emerges from the
mathematics), but also for simplifying many quantum
calculations. Wigner and others have emphasized that
to a large extent, “symmetries imply dynamics” in the
sense that dynamics is the transformation corresponding
to time translation (one of the Poincaré symmetries), and
this is in turn dictated by the irreducible representation.
For our case of an arbitrary mathematical structure,
we must of course drop the quantum assumptions. The
identity, reflexivity and transitivity properties alone then
tell us merely that ρσ is what mathematicians call a group
action on the set of descriptions ψ. Here too, the notion
of reducibility can be defined, and an interesting open
question is to what extent the above-mentioned represen-
tation theory results can be be generalized. In particular,
since the ray representations of quantum mechanics are
more general than unitary representation and less general
than group actions, one may ask whether the quantum
mechanics case is in some sense the only interesting group
action, or whether there are others as well. Such a group
action classification could then be applied both to the
exact symmetry group Aut (S) and to any effective or
partial symmetry groups G, an issue to which we return
below.
E. Angles, lengths, durations and probabilities
Continuing this approach of including empirical obser-
vations as a guide, our discussion connects directly with
results in the relativity and quantum literature. Using
the empirical observation that we can measure consen-
sus view quantities we call angles, distances and dura-
tions, we can connect these directly to properties of the
Maxwell equations etc. in our mathematical structure.
Pioneered by Einstein, this approach produced the the-
ory of special relativity, complete with its transformation
rules and the “baggage” explaining in human language
how these quantities were empirically measured. The
same approach has been successfully pursued in the gen-
eral relativity context, where it has proven both subtle
and crucial for dealing with gauge ambiguities etc. Even
in minimal general relativity without electromagnetism,
the above-mentioned empirical properties of space and
time can be analogously derived, replacing light clocks
by gravitational wave packets orbiting black holes, etc.
There is also a rich body of literature pursuing the
analogous approach for quantum mechanics. Starting
with the empirical fact that quantum observers perceive
not schizophrenic mental superpositions but apparent
randomness, the baggage corresponding to the standard
rule for computing the corresponding probabilities from
the Hilbert space quantities has arguably been derived
(see, e.g., [40] and references therein).
F. Approximate symmetries
Although the above analysis steps were all discussed
in the context of the exact symmetries of the mathemat-
ical structure that by the MUH is our universe, they can
also be applied to the approximate symmetries of math-
ematical structures that approximate certain aspects of
this correct structure. Indeed, in the currently popular
view that all we have discovered so far are effective the-
ories (see, e.g., [41]), all physical symmetries studied to
date (except perhaps CPT symmetry) are likely to be
of this approximate status. Such effective structures can
exhibit either more or less symmetry than the underly-
ing one. For example, the distribution of air molecules
around you exhibits no exact symmetry, but can be well
approximated by a continuous gas in thermal equilibrium
obeying a translationally and rotationally invariant wave
equation. On the other hand, even if the quantum su-
perposition of all field configurations emerging from cos-
mological inflation is a translationally and rotationally
invariant state, any one generic element of this superpo-
sition, forming our classical “initial conditions”, will lack
this symmetry. We return to this issue in Section IVB.
In addition, approximate symmetries have proven use-
ful even when the approximation is rather inaccurate.
Consider, for example, a system governed by a La-
grangian, where one term exhibits a symmetry that is
broken by another subdominant term. This can give rise
to a natural decomposition into subsystems and an emer-
gence of attributes thereof. For charged objects mov-
ing in an electromagnetic field, the energy-momentum
4-vectors of the objects would be separately conserved
(by Noether’s theorem because these terms exhibit sym-
metry under time and space translation) were it not for
the object-field interaction terms in the Lagrangian, so
we perceive them as slowly changing property of the
objects themselves. In addition, the full Lagrangian
has spacetime translational symmetry, so total energy-
momentum is strictly conserved when we include the
energy-momentum of the electromagnetic field. These
two facts together let us think of momentum as grad-
ually flowing back and forth between the objects and
the radiation. More generally, partial symmetries in the
Lagrangian provide a natural subsystem/subsector de-
composition with quantities that are conserved under
some interactions but not others. Quantities that are
conserved under faster interactions (say the strong in-
teraction) can be perceived as attributes of objects (say
atomic number Z) that evolve because of a slower inter-
action (say the weak interaction).
IV. IMPLICATIONS FOR SYMMETRY,
INITIAL CONDITIONS, RANDOMNESS AND
PHYSICAL CONSTANTS
Above we explored the “physics from scratch” prob-
lem, i.e., possible approaches to deriving physics as we
know it from an abstract baggage-free mathematical
structure. This has a number of implications for foun-
dational physics questions related to symmetry, initial
conditions and physical constants.
A. Symmetry
The way modern physics is usually presented, symme-
tries are treated as an input rather than an output. For
example, Einstein founded special relativity on Lorentz
symmetry, i.e., on the postulate that all laws of physics,
including that governing the speed of light, are the same
in all inertial frames. Likewise, the SU(3)×SU(2)×U(1)
symmetry of the standard model is customarily taken as
a starting assumption.
Under the MUH, the logic is reversed. The mathemat-
ical structure S of our universe has a symmetry group
Aut (S) that manifests itself in our perceived physical
laws. The laws of physics being invariant under Aut (S)
(e.g., the Poincaré group) is therefore not an input but
rather a logical consequence of the way the inside view
arises from the outside view.
Why do symmetries play such an important role in
physics? The points by Wigner and others regarding
their utility for calculations and insight were reviewed
above. The deeper question of why our structure S has
so much symmetry is equivalent to the question of why
Fundamental laws
Effective laws
(“Bylaws”, “initial conditions”)
* Planets are spherical
* Orbits are circular
Initial matter distribution 
(Aµ, Jµ, ψ, ...)
Kepler,
Newton
Classical
physics
Landscape 
+ inflation
* SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1) symmetry
* Dimensionality of space
* Constants (α, ρΛ,  ...)
TOE equations
Level IV
multiverse?
FIG. 2: The shifting boundary (horizontal lines) between fun-
damental laws and environmental laws/effective laws/initial
conditions. Whereas Ptolemy and others had argued that
the circularity of planetary orbits was a fundamental law of
nature, Kepler and Newton reclassified this as an initial con-
dition, showing that the fundamental laws also allowed highly
non-circular orbits. Classical physics removed from the fun-
damental law category also the initial conditions for the elec-
tromagnetic field and all other forms of matter and energy
(responsible for almost all the complexity we observe), leaving
the fundamental laws quite simple. A TOE with a landscape
and inflation reclassifies many of the remaining “laws” as ini-
tial conditions, since they can differ from one post-inflationary
region to another, but since inflation generically makes each
such region infinite, it can fool us into misinterpreting these
environmental properties as fundamental laws. Finally, if the
MUH is correct and the Level IV multiverse of all mathemati-
cal structures (see Section V) exists, then even the “theory of
everything” equations that physicists are seeking are merely
local bylaws in Rees’ terminology[42], differing across the en-
semble.
we find ourselves on this particular structure rather than
another one with less symmetry. It is arguably not sur-
prising considering that symmetry (i.e., Aut (S) 6= {σ0})
appears to be more the rule than the exception in math-
ematical structures. However, an anthropic selection ef-
fect may be at play as well: as pointed out by Wigner,
the existence of observers able to spot regularities in the
world around them probably requires symmetries [3]. For
example, imagine trying to make sense of a world where
the outcome of experiments depended on the spatial and
temporal location of the experiment.
B. Initial conditions
The MUH profoundly affects many notions related to
initial conditions. The traditional view of these matters
is eloquently summarized by e.g. [3, 39] as splitting our
quantitative description of the world into two domains,
“laws of physics” and “initial conditions”. The former we
understand and hail as the purview of physics, the latter
we lack understanding of and merely take as an input to
our calculations.
1. How the MUH banishes them
As illustrated in Figure 2, the borderline between these
two domains has gradually shifted at the expense of ini-
tial conditions. Newton’s orbital calculations focused on
how our solar system evolved, not on how it came into ex-
istence, yet solar system formation is now a mainstream
research area. Gradually pushing the frontier of our ig-
norance further back in time, scientists have studied the
formation of galaxies billions of years ago, the synthesis of
atomic nuclei during the first few minutes after our Big
Bang and the formation of density fluctuations during
an inflationary epoch many orders of magnitude earlier
still. Moreover, a common feature of much string theory
related model building is that there is a “landscape” of
solutions, corresponding to spacetime configurations in-
volving different dimensionality, different types of funda-
mental particles and different values for certain physical
“constants” (see Table 1 in [43] for an up-to-date list of
the 32 parameters specifying the standard models of par-
ticle physics and cosmology), some or all of which may
vary across the landscape. Eternal inflation transforms
such potentiality into reality, actually creating regions of
space realizing each of these possibilities. However, each
such region where inflation has ended is generically infi-
nite in size, potentially making it impossible for any in-
habitants to travel to other regions where these apparent
laws of physics are different. If the MUH is correct and
the Level IV multiverse of all mathematical structures
(see Section V) exists, this historical trend is completed:
even the “theory of everything” equations that physicists
are seeking are an environmental accident, telling us not
something fundamental about reality, but instead which
particular mathematical structure we happen to inhabit,
like a multiversal telephone number.
In other words, this would entail a crushing complete
defeat of fundamental physical laws. However, contrary
to how it may at first appear, it would not constitute
a victory for initial conditions in the traditional sense.
There is nothing “initial” about specifying a mathemat-
ical structure. Whereas the traditional notion of initial
conditions entails that our universe “started out” in some
particular state, mathematical structures do not exist in
an external space or time, are not created or destroyed,
and in many cases also lack any internal structure re-
sembling time. Instead, the MUH leaves no room for
“initial conditions”, eliminating them altogether. This
is because the mathematical structure is by definition a
complete description of the physical world. In contrast, a
TOE saying that our universe just “started out” or “was
created” in some unspecified state constitutes an incom-
plete description, thus violating both the MUH and the
2. How they are a useful approximation
We humans may of course be unable to measure certain
properties of our world and unable to determine which
mathematical structure we inhabit. Such epistemologi-
cal uncertainty is clearly compatible with the MUH, and
also makes the notion of initial conditions a useful ap-
proximation even if it lacks a fundamental basis. We will
therefore continue using the term initial conditions in this
limited sense throughout this paper.
To deal with such uncertainty in a quantitative way,
we humans have invented statistical mechanics and more
general statistical techniques for quantifying statistical
relations between observable quantities. These involve
the notion that our initial conditions are a member of
a real or hypothetical ensemble of possible initial con-
ditions, and quantify how atypical our initial conditions
are by their entropy or algorithmic complexity (see, e.g.,
[44, 45]).
3. How the MUH banishes randomness
By insisting on a complete description of reality, the
MUH banishes not only the classical notion of initial con-
ditions, but also the classical notion of randomness. The
traditional view of randomness (viewed either classically
or as in the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum me-
chanics) is only meaningful in the context of an external
time, so that one can start with one state and then have
something random “happen”, causing two or more possi-
ble outcomes. In contrast, the only intrinsic properties of
a mathematical structure are its relations, timeless and
unchanging. In a fundamental sense, the MUH thus im-
plies Einstein’s dictum “God does not play dice”.
This means that if the MUH is correct, the only way
that randomness and probabilities can appear in physics
is via the presence of ensembles, as a way for observers
to quantify their ignorance about which element(s) of the
ensemble they are in. Specifically, all mathematical state-
ments about probability can be recast as measure theory.
For example, if an observer has used a symmetric quan-
tum random number generator to produce a bit string
written out as a real number like ”.011011011101...”, and
if quantum mechanics is unitary so that the final state is
a superposition of observers obtaining all outcomes, then
in the limit of infinitely many bits, almost all observers
will find their bit strings to appear perfectly random and
conclude that the conventional quantum probability rules
hold. This is because according to Borel’s theorem on
normal numbers [46, 47], almost all (all except for a set
of Borel measure zero) real numbers have binary decimals
passing the standard tests of randomness.7 A convincing
demonstration that there is such a thing as true random-
ness in the laws of physics (as opposed to mere ensembles
where epistemological uncertainty grows) would therefore
refute the MUH.
4. Cosmic complexity
There is an active literature on the complexity of our
observable universe and how natural it is (see, e.g., [48–
55] and references therein), tracing back to Boltzmann
[56] and others. The current consensus is that the initial
conditions (shortly before Big Bang nucleosynthesis, say)
of this comoving volume of space (our so-called Hubble
volume) were both enormously complex and yet surpris-
ingly simple. To specify the state of its ∼ 1078 massive
particles (either classically in terms of positions and ve-
locities, or quantum-mechanically) clearly requires a vast
amount of information. Yet our universe is strikingly sim-
ple in that the matter is nearly uniformly distributed on
the largest scales, with density fluctuations only at the
10−5 level. Because of gravity, clumpier distributions are
exponentially more likely. Even on small scales, where
gravitational effects are less important, there are many
regions that are very far from thermal equilibrium and
heat death, e.g., the volume containing your brain. This
has disturbed many authors, including Boltzmann, who
pointed out that a possible explanation of both his past
perceptions and the arrow of time was that he was a
disembodied brain that had temporarily assembled as a
thermal fluctuation, with all his memories in place. Yet
this was clearly not the case, as it made a falsifiable pre-
diction for his future perceptions: rapid disintegration
towards heat death.
The most promising process to emerge that may help
resolve this paradox is eternal cosmological inflation [57–
61]. It makes the generic post-inflationary region rather
homogeneous just as observed, thereby explaining why
the entropy we observe is so low.8 Although this has been
less emphasized in the literature [49], inflation also ex-
7 It is interesting to note that Borel’s 1909 theorem made a strong
impression on many mathematicians of the time, some of whom
had viewed the entire probability concept with a certain suspi-
cion, since they were now confronted with a theorem in the heart
of classical mathematics which could be reinterpreted in terms
of probabilities [47]. Borel would undoubtedly have been inter-
ested to know that his work demonstrated the emergence of a
probability-like concept “out of the blue” not only in mathemat-
ics, but in physics as well.
8 Because of issues related to what, if anything, preceded infla-
tion, it is still hotly debated whether eternal inflation completely
solves the problem or is merely an ingredient of a yet to be dis-
covered solution [52, 62–64].
plains why the entropy we observe is so high: even start-
ing with a state with so low complexity that it can be de-
fined on a single page (the Bunch-Davies vacuum of quan-
tum field theory), decoherence produces vast numbers of
for all practical purposes parallel universes that generi-
cally exhibit complexity comparable to ours [49, 65–67].
Boltzmann’s paradox becomes very clear in the con-
text of the MUH. Consider, for example, the mathemat-
ical structure of classical relativistic field theory, i.e., a
number of classical fields in spatially and temporally infi-
nite Minkowski space, with no initial conditions or other
boundary conditions specified. This mathematical struc-
ture is the set of all solutions to the field equations. These
different solutions are not in any way connected, so for
all practical purposes, each constitutes its own parallel
universe with its own “initial conditions”. Even if this
mathematical structure contains SAS’s (“observers”), it
is ruled out as a candidate for describing our world, in-
dependently of the fact that it lacks quantum mechan-
ical and general relativity effects. The reason is that
generic solutions are a high-entropy mess, so that generic
observers in this structure are of the above-mentioned
disembodied-brain type, i.e., totally unstable. The gen-
eral unease that Boltzmann and others felt about this is-
sue thus sharpens into a clear-cut conclusion in the MUH
context: this particular mathematical structure is ruled
out as a candidate for the one we inhabit.
The exact same argument can be made for the math-
ematical structure corresponding to classical general rel-
ativity without a matter component causing inflation.
Generic states emerging from a Big-Bang like singularity
are a high-entropy mess, so that almost all observers in
this structure are again of the disembodied-brain type.
This is most readily seen by evolving a generic state
forward until a gigantic black hole is formed; the time-
reversed solution is then “a messy big bang”. In contrast,
a mathematical structure embodying general relativity
and inflation may be consistent with what we observe,
since generic regions of post-inflationary space are now
quite uniform.9
5. How complex is our world?
Figure 3 illustrates the four qualitatively different an-
swers to this question, depending on the complexity of a
complete description of the frog’s (inside) view and the
bird’s (outside) view.
As mentioned above, the frog complexity is, taken at
face value, huge. However, there is also the logical possi-
bility that this is a mere illusion, just as the Mandelbrot
set and various patterns generated by cellular automata
9 Rigorously defining “generic” in the context of eternal inflation
with infinite volumes to compare is still an open problem; see,
e.g., [68–72] for recent reviews.
       Low                                         High
Bird complexity
Simple
doomed
Physics
automaton
fractal, effective
Multiverse
FIG. 3: The four qualitatively different possibilities regarding
the cosmic complexity of the world. If a (bird’s view) theory
of everything can be described by fewer bits than our (frog’s
view) subjectively perceived universe, then we must live in a
multiverse.
[18] can appear complex to the eye even though they
have complete mathematical descriptions that are very
simple. I personally view it as unlikely that all the ob-
served star positions and other numbers that character-
ize our universe can be reduced to almost nothing by a
simple data compression algorithm. Indeed, cosmological
inflation explicitly predicts that the seed fluctuations are
distributed like Gaussian random variables, for which it
is well-known that such dramatic compression is impos-
sible.10
The MUH does not specify whether the complexity of
the mathematical structure in the bird perspective is low
or high, so let us consider both possibilities. If it is ex-
tremely high, our TOE quest for this structure is clearly
doomed. In particular, if describing the structure re-
quires more bits than describing our observable universe,
it is of course impossible to store the information about
the structure in our universe. If it is high but our frog’s
view complexity is low, then we have no practical need
10 The quantum fluctuations generated by inflation have a multi-
variate Gaussian distribution, which means that transforming to
the eigenbasis of the covariance matrix and scaling by the square
roots of its eigenvalues converts the data into independent Gaus-
sian variables with zero mean and unit standard deviation. This
implies that after transforming these Gaussian variables to ones
with a uniform distribution, no further data compression is pos-
sible, so that the total complexity of the initial conditions is huge
and in the same ballpark as one would naively guess.
for finding this true mathematical structure, since the
frog description provides a simple effective TOE for all
practical purposes.
A widely held hope among theoretical physicists is that
the bird complexity is in fact very low, so that the TOE is
simple and arguably beautiful. There is arguably no ev-
idence yet against this simplicity hypothesis [49]. If this
hypothesis is true and the bird complexity is much lower
than the frog complexity, then it implies that the mathe-
matical structure describes some form of multiverse, with
the extra frog complexity entering in describing which
parallel universe we are in. For example, if it is estab-
lished that a complete (frog’s view) description of the
current state of our observable universe requires 10100
bits of information, then either the (bird’s view) math-
ematical structure requires ≥ 10100 bits to describe, or
we live in a multiverse. As is discussed in more detail in,
e.g., [17, 23, 49], an entire ensemble is often much sim-
pler than one of its members. For instance, the algorith-
mic information content [44, 45] in a number is roughly
speaking defined as the length (in bits) of the shortest
computer program which will produce that number as
output, so the information content in a generic integer
n is of order log2 n. Nonetheless, the set of all integers
1, 2, 3, ... can be generated by quite a trivial computer
program, so the algorithmic complexity of the whole set
is smaller than that of a generic member. Similarly, the
set of all perfect fluid solutions to the Einstein field equa-
tions has a smaller algorithmic complexity than a generic
particular solution, since the former is characterized sim-
ply by giving the Einstein field equations and the latter
requires the specification of vast amounts of initial data
on some spacelike hypersurface. Loosely speaking, the
apparent information content rises when we restrict our
attention to one particular element in an ensemble, thus
losing the symmetry and simplicity that was inherent in
the totality of all elements taken together. The complex-
ity of the whole ensemble is thus not only smaller than
the sum of that of its parts, but it is even smaller than
that of a generic one of its parts.
C. Physical constants
Suppose the mathematical structure has a finite com-
plexity, i.e., can be defined with a finite number of bits.
This follows from the Computable Universe Hypothesis
proposed in Section VII, but also follows for any other
“elegant universe” case where the TOE is simple enough
to be completely described on a finite number of pages.
This supposition has strong implications for physical
constants. In traditional quantum field theory, the La-
grangian contains dimensionless parameters that can in
principle take any real value. Since even a single generic
real number requires an infinite number of bits to specify,
no computable finite-complexity mathematical structure
can have such a Lagrangian. Instead, fundamental pa-
rameters must belong to the countable set of numbers
that are specifiable with a finite amount of information,
which includes integers, rational numbers and algebraic
numbers. There are therefore only two possible origins
for random-looking parameters in the standard model La-
grangian like 1/137.0360565: either they are computable
from a finite amount of information, or the mathematical
structure corresponds to a multiverse where the parame-
ter takes each real number in some finitely specifiable set
in some parallel universe. The apparently infinite amount
of information contained in the parameter then merely
reflects there being an uncountable number of parallel
universes, with all this information required to specify
which one we are in. The most commonly discussed situ-
ation in the string landscape context is a hybrid between
these two: the parameters correspond to a discrete (finite
or countably infinite) set of solutions to some equation,
each set defining a stable or metastable vacuum which is
for all practical purposes a parallel universe.
V. IMPLICATIONS FOR PARALLEL
UNIVERSES
Parallel universes are now all the rage, cropping up in
books, movies and even jokes: “You passed your exam in
many parallel universes — but not this one.” However,
they are as controversial as they are popular, and it is
important to ask whether they are within the purview
of science, or merely silly speculation. They are also a
source of confusion, since many forget to distinguish be-
tween different types of parallel universes that have been
proposed, whereas [15, 16] argued that the various pro-
posals form a natural four-level hierarchy of multiverses
(Figure IVC) allowing progressively greater diversity: .
• Level I: A generic prediction of cosmological in-
flation is an infinite “ergodic” space, which con-
tains Hubble volumes11 realizing all initial condi-
tions [15, 73] — including an identical copy of you
about 1010
m away [15].
• Level II: Given the mathematical structure corre-
sponding to the fundamental laws of physics that
physicists one day hope to capture with equations
on a T-shirt, different regions of space can exhibit
different effective laws of physics (physical con-
stants, dimensionality, particle content, etc.) cor-
responding to different local minima in a landscape
of possibilities.
• Level III: In unitary quantum mechanics [29, 30],
other branches of the wave function add nothing
qualitatively new, which is ironic given that this
level has historically been the most controversial.
• Level IV: Other mathematical structures give dif-
ferent fundamental equations of physics for that T-
shirt.
The key question is therefore not whether there is a mul-
tiverse (since Level I is the rather uncontroversial cosmo-
logical standard model), but rather how many levels it
A. Physics or philosophy?
The issue of evidence and whether this is science or
philosophy has been discussed at length in the recent
literature — see, e.g., [15, 16, 42, 72, 74–84]. The key
point to remember is that parallel universes are not a
theory, but a prediction of certain theories. For a theory
to be falsifiable, we need not be able to observe and test
11 Our Hubble volume is defined as the spherical region from which
light has had time to reach us during the 14 billion years since our
big bang. This sphere is also referred to as our horizon volume
or simply our universe.
all its predictions, merely at least one of them. Consider
the following analogy:
General Relativity Black hole interiors
Inflation Level I parallel universes
Inflation+landscape Level II parallel universes
Unitary quantum mechanics Level III parallel universes
MUH Level IV parallel universes
Because Einstein’s theory of General Relativity has suc-
cessfully predicted many things that we can observe,
we also take seriously its predictions for things we can-
not observe, e.g., that space continues inside black hole
event horizons and that (contrary to early misconcep-
tions) nothing funny happens right at the horizon. Like-
wise, successful predictions of the theories of cosmologi-
cal inflation and unitary quantum mechanics have made
some scientists take more seriously their other predic-
tions, including various types of parallel universes.
B. Levels I, II and III
Level I, II and III parallel universes are all part of the
same mathematical structure, but from the frog perspec-
tive, they are for all practical purposes causally discon-
nected. Level II, is currently a very active research area.
The possibility of a string theory “landscape” [85–89],
where the above-mentioned potential has perhaps 10500
different minima, may offer a specific realization of the
Level II multiverse which would in turn have four sub-
levels of increasing diversity:
• IId: different ways in which space can be compact-
ified, which can allow both different effective di-
mensionality and different symmetries/elementary
articles (corresponding to different topology of the
curled up extra dimensions).
• IIc: different “fluxes” (generalized magnetic fields)
that stabilize the extra dimensions (this sublevel is
where the largest number of choices enter, perhaps
10500).
• IIb: once these two choices have been made, there
may be multiple minima in the effective supergrav-
ity potential.
• IIa: the same minimum and effective laws of
physics can be realized in many different post-
inflationary bubbles, each constituting a Level I
multiverse.
Level I is relevant to our discussion above in Section IVB,
since the density fluctuations from cosmological inflation
realize all initial conditions with a well-defined statis-
tical distribution. Level III is relevant to the details
of this generation process, since the quantum superpo-
sition of field configurations decoheres into what is for
all practical purposes an ensemble of classical universes
with different density fluctuation patterns. Just as in all
cases of spontaneous symmetry breaking, the symmetry
is never broken in the bird’s view, merely in the frog’s
view: a translationally and rotationally quantum state
(wave functional) such as the Bunch-Davies vacuum can
decohere into an incoherent superposition of states that
lack any symmetry. I suspect that we would be much less
confused by Everett’s Level III ideas if we were comput-
ers and familiar with the subjective aspects of routinely
making and deleting copies of ourselves.
In summary, many mathematical structures contain de
facto parallel universes at levels I through III, so the pos-
sibility of a multiverse is a direct and obvious implication
of the MUH. We will therefore not dwell further on these
levels, and devote the remainder of this section to Level
C. Motivation for Level IV
If the TOE at the top of Figure 1 exists and is one day
discovered, then an embarrassing question remains, as
emphasized by John Archibald Wheeler: Why these par-
ticular equations, not others? Could there really be a fun-
damental, unexplained ontological asymmetry built into
the very heart of reality, splitting mathematical struc-
tures into two classes, those with and without physical
existence? After all, a mathematical structure is not
“created” and doesn’t exist “somewhere”. It just ex-
ists.12
As a way out of this philosophical conundrum, I have
suggested [12]) that complete mathematical democracy
holds: that mathematical existence and physical exis-
tence are equivalent, so that all mathematical structures
have the same ontological status. This can be viewed as a
form of radical Platonism, asserting that the mathemati-
cal structures in Plato’s realm of ideas, the Mindscape of
Rucker [6], exist “out there” in a physical sense [9], cast-
ing the so-called modal realism theory of David Lewis [92]
in mathematical terms akin to what Barrow [7, 8] refers
to as “π in the sky”. If this theory is correct, then since
it has no free parameters, all properties of all parallel
universes (including the subjective perceptions of SAS’s
in them) could in principle be derived by an infinitely
intelligent mathematician.
In the context of the MUH, the existence of the Level
IV multiverse is not optional. As was discussed in de-
12 This paper uses the term “mathematics” as defined by the for-
malist school of mathematicians, according to which it is by con-
struction human-independent and hence has the Platonic prop-
erty of being “out there” out be discovered rather than invented.
It is noteworthy that there is a long history of contention among
matematicians and philosophers as to which is the most appro-
priate definition of mathematics for mathematicians to use (see
[90, 91] for recent updates).
tail in Section II D, the MUH says that a mathematical
structure is our external physical reality, rather than be-
ing merely a description thereof. This equivalence be-
tween physical and mathematical existence means that if
a mathematical structure contains a SAS, it will perceive
itself as existing in a physically real world, just as we do
(albeit generically a world with different properties from
ours). Stephen Hawking famously asked “what is it that
breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for
them to describe?” [93]. In the context of the MUH,
there is thus no breathing required, since the point is not
that a mathematical structure describes a universe, but
that it is a universe.
D. The “anything goes” critique
The Level IV multiverse idea described in [12] has been
extensively discussed in the recent literature (see, e.g.,
[17, 23, 75–78, 82, 94–111]), and has been criticized on
several grounds which we will now discuss.
One common criticism asserts that it implies that all
imaginable universes exist, and therefore makes no pre-
dictions at all. Variations of this have also been used as
a theological argument, e.g., “All imaginable universes
exist, so there’s at least one with an omnipotent God
who, since he’s omnipotent, can insert himself into all
other structures as well. Therefore God exists in our
universe.” Milder claims are also common, e.g., “at least
some of these universes will feature miraculous events -
water turning into wine, etc.” [82].
The MUH and the Level IV multiverse idea does cer-
tainly not imply that all imaginable universes exist. We
humans can imagine many things that are mathemati-
cally undefined and hence do not correspond to mathe-
matical structures. Mathematicians publish papers with
existence proofs and demonstrating the mathematical
consistency of various mathematical structures precisely
because this is difficult and not possible in all cases.
A closely related misconception relates to the issue of
“baggage” described in Section II B. If a mathematical
structure is objects with relations between them, then is
not any theory a mathematical structure? The answer is
no: unless it can be defined in the form specified in Ap-
pendix A, with tableaus or algorithms explicitly defining
all relations, it is not a mathematical structure. Consider
the proposition “God created Adam and Eve”, where
there are entities “God”, “Adam” and “Eve” linked by
a relation denoted “created”. When we humans read
this proposition, words like “God” come with baggage,
i.e., additional properties and connotations not explic-
itly spelled out. To distill this proposition into a mathe-
matical structure, we need to clear the names of the set
elements and relations of any intrinsic meaning, so it is
equivalent to saying simply that there is a set S with
three elements si and a relation such that R(si, sj) holds
if and only if i = 1 and j ≥ 2. To us humans, this
latter description has a very different feel to it, since s1
has no connotations of omnipotence, “ability to create
universes”, etc. An English language statement involv-
ing relations is thus not a mathematical structure unless
we either sacrifice all connotations or add further entities
and relations that somehow encode them.
Regarding the above-mentioned water-into-wine issue
[82], the known Poincaré-invariant laws of physics allow
“miraculous” events to occur via thermal fluctuations or
quantum tunneling, but with exponentially small prob-
abilities that for all practical purposes preclude us from
observing them. It is far from obvious that there ex-
ist other mathematical structures where such “miracles”
are common while regularities remain sufficient to sup-
port the evolution of sentient observers, especially con-
sidering the fact that the cosmological measure problem
[68–72] (of how to compute what is common and rare in
an inflationary landscape) remains unsolved; we return
to this issue below.
E. Other critique
A separate critique of the Level IV idea has recently
been leveled by Page [81], who argues that it is “logi-
cal nonsense to talk of Level IV in the sense of the co-
existence of all mathematical structures”. This criticism
appears to be rooted in a misconception of the notion of
mathematical structure, as [81] goes on to say “Different
mathematical structures can be contradictory, and con-
tradictory ones cannot co-exist. For example, one struc-
ture could assert that spacetime exists somewhere and an-
other that it does not exist at all. However, these two
structures cannot both describe reality.” Being baggage
free, mathematical structures of course “assert” nothing.
Different structures are, by definition, different, so one
may contain Minkowski space while another does not,
corresponding to two very different Level IV parallel uni-
verses. Page also postulates that “There must be one
unique mathematical structure that describes ultimate
reality.” [81]. As we will see in the following section, this
is less inconsistent with Level IV than it may sound, since
many mathematical structures decompose into unrelated
substructures, and separate ones can be unified.
Interesting potential problems related to Gödel incom-
pleteness and measure have been raised by Vilenkin [84]
and others, and we will devote the entire Section VII be-
low to this fascinating topic. Here we merely note that
since the measure problem has not even been solved at
Level II yet [68–72], it can hardly be considered a proven
show-stopper specifically for Level IV at this point.
F. Disconnected realities
The definition of a mathematical structure S as ab-
stract entities with relations between them (see Appendix
A for mathematical details) leads to a natural decompo-
sition. Let us define a mathematical structure S as re-
ducible if its entities can be split into two sets T and U
with no relations relating the two. For example, there
must be no relations like R(ti) = uj or R(ti, uj) = tk
for any elements ti, tk ∈ T and uj ∈ U . Then T and
U individually satisfy the definition of a mathematical
structure. Since the relations are the only properties that
the set elements have, and the elements of the structures
U and T are by definition unrelated, these mathematical
structures U and T are parallel Level IV universes as far
as an observer in either of them is concerned.
As a trivial example, consider the mathematical struc-
ture corresponding to the set of n elements with no re-
lations. This decomposes into n structures that are the
set of one element. In contrast, most mathematical struc-
tures discussed in Appendix A (e.g., Boolean algebra, the
integers, and Euclidean space) are irreducible, i.e., can-
not be decomposed. The minimal mathematical struc-
ture containing the Level I, Level II and Level III multi-
verses is also irreducible. For example, there are math-
ematically defined relations between points in causally
separated Hubble volumes (generated by relations be-
tween topologically neighboring points) even though they
are inaccessible to observers. Similarly, there are math-
ematically defined relations such as the inner product
between pairs of states in a quantum Hilbert space even
though decoherence renders them for all practical pur-
poses parallel Level III universes.
Given two mathematical structures, one can always de-
fine a third one that unifies them: the reducible structure
consisting of the union of all elements from both, with
their corresponding relations. Thus any finite number of
Level IV parallel universes can be subsumed within one
single mathematical structure, along the lines of Page’s
above-mentioned preference [81]. We will discuss sub-
tleties related to infinite numbers of structures below in
Section VII. The inside view of a given irreducible math-
ematical structure is thus the same regardless of whether
it is defined alone or as part of a larger reducible math-
ematical structure. The only instance when this distinc-
tion might matter is if some sort of measure over the
Level IV multiverse is involved, an issue to which we re-
turn in Section VII.
As pointed out by Linde [75], one can implement even
as a single Level III multiverse the subset of the Level
IV multiverse corresponding to mathematical structures
that are similar to ours in being described by Lagra-
grangians: one simply defines a single Lagrangian which
is the sum of Lagrangians in disjoint variables.
VI. IMPLICATIONS FOR THE SIMULATION
ARGUMENT
Long a staple of science fiction, the idea that our ex-
ternal reality is some form of computer simulation has
gained prominence with recent blockbuster movies like
The Matrix.
A. Are we simulated?
Many scientists have argued that simulated minds are
both possible and imminent (e.g., [112–115]), and, e.g.,
Tipler [116], Bostrom [117] and Schmidhuber [13, 17]
have gone as far as discussing the probability that we are
simulated (this further complicates the above-mentioned
measure problem). On the other hand, McCabe has pre-
sented an argument for why a self-aware being can never
be simulated by any form of digital computer [118].13
This raises a question emphasized by Penrose [119, 120]:
is it possible to build a human impersonator that passes
the Turing test, yet is in no sense sentient?
Lloyd has advanced the intermediate possibility that
we live in an analog simulation performed by a quantum
computer, albeit not a computer designed by anybody
— rather, because the structure of quantum field the-
ory is mathematically equivalent to that of a spatially
distributed quantum computer [11]. In a similar spirit,
Schmidhuber [17], Wolfram [18] and others have explored
the idea that the laws of physics correspond to a classical
computation. Below we will explore these issues in the
context of the MUH.
B. The time misconception
Suppose that our universe is indeed some form of com-
putation. A common misconception in the universe sim-
ulation literature is that our physical notion of a one-
dimensional time must then necessarily be equated with
the step-by-step one-dimensional flow of the computa-
tion. I will argue below that if the MUH is correct, then
computations do not need to evolve the universe, but
merely describe it (defining all its relations).
The temptation to equate time steps with computa-
tional steps is understandable, given that both form a
one-dimensional sequence where (at least for the non-
quantum case) the next step is determined by the current
state. However, this temptation stems from an outdated
classical description of physics: there is generically no
natural and well-defined global time variable in general
relativity, and even less so in quantum gravity where time
emerges as an approximate semiclassical property of cer-
tain “clock” subsystems (e.g., [122]). Indeed, linking frog
perspective time with computer time is unwarranted even
within the context of classical physics. The rate of time
flow perceived by an observer in the simulated universe
13 It is noteworthy that computations in our brains are discrete
to the extent that neuron firings are, and that even binary-like
representations appear to be employed in some contexts. For
example, so-called grid cells roughly speaking record our posi-
tion modulo a fixed reference length [121], so a collection of grid
cell layers whose reference lengths vary by powers of two would
effectively store the binary digits of our position coordinates.
is completely independent of the rate at which a com-
puter runs the simulation, a point emphasized in, e.g.,
[12, 17, 123]. Moreover, as emphasized by Einstein, it is
arguably more natural to view our universe not from the
frog perspective as a 3-dimensional space where things
happen, but from the bird perspective as a 4-dimensional
spacetime that merely is. There should therefore be no
need for the computer to compute anything at all — it
could simply store all the 4-dimensional data, i.e., encode
all properties of the mathematical structure that is our
universe. Individual time slices could then be read out
sequentially if desired, and the “simulated” world should
still feel as real to its inhabitants as in the case where
only 3-dimensional data is stored and evolved [12]. In
conclusion, the role of the simulating computer is not to
compute the history of our universe, but to specify it.
How specify it? The way in which the data are stored
(the type of computer, data format, etc.) should be ir-
relevant, so the extent to which the inhabitants of the
simulated universe perceive themselves as real should be
invariant under data compression. The physical laws that
we have discovered provide great means of data compres-
sion, since they make it sufficient to store the initial data
at some time together with the equations and an integra-
tion routine. As emphasized in [49] and Section IVB 4
above, the initial data might be extremely simple: quan-
tum field theory states such as the Hawking-Hartle wave
function or the inflationary Bunch-Davies vacuum have
very low algorithmic complexity (since they can be de-
fined in quite brief physics papers), yet simulating their
time evolution would simulate not merely one universe
like ours, but a vast decohering ensemble corresponding
to the above-mentioned Level III multiverse. It is there-
fore plausible that our universe could be simulated by
quite a short computer program [12, 17, 49].
C. A different sort of computation
The above example referred to our particular math-
ematical structure. More generally, as we have dis-
cussed, a complete description of an arbitrary mathe-
matical structure S is by definition a specification of the
relations between the elements of S. For finite structures,
this specification can take the form of finite tableaus of
numbers akin to generalized multiplication tables. More
generally, they are functions whose arguments take in-
finitely many values and hence cannot be tabulated. For
these relations to be well-defined, all these functions must
be computable, i.e., there must exist a computer program
that will take (some bit string encoding of) the arguments
as input and, in a finite number of computational steps,
output the (bit string encoding of) the function value.
Each relation of the mathematical structure is thus de-
fined by a computation. In other words, if our world is a
well-defined mathematical structure in this sense, then it
is indeed inexorably linked to computations, albeit com-
putations of a different sort than those usually associated
FIG. 5: The arrows indicate the close relations between math-
ematical structures, formal systems, and computations. The
question mark suggests that these are all aspects of the same
transcendent structure (the Level IV multiverse), and that we
still have not fully understood its nature.
with the simulation hypothesis: these computations do
not evolve the universe, but define it by evaluating its
relations.
D. The transcendent structure
Above we discussed how mathematical structures and
computations are closely related, in that the former are
defined by the latter. On the other hand, computa-
tions are merely special cases of mathematical struc-
tures. For example, the information content (mem-
ory state) of a digital computer is a string of bits, say
“1001011100111001...” of great but finite length, equiva-
lent to some large but finite integer n written in binary.
The information processing of a computer is a determin-
istic rule for changing each memory state into another
(applied over and over again), so mathematically, it is
simply a function f mapping the integers onto them-
selves that gets iterated: n 7→ f(n) 7→ f(f(n)) 7→ ....
In other words, even the most sophisticated computer
simulation is merely a special case of a mathematical
structure, hence included in the Level IV multiverse.
Figure 5 illustrates how computations and mathemat-
ical structures are related not only to each other, but
also to formal systems, which formally describe them. If
a formal system describes a mathematical structure, the
latter is said to be a model of the former [31]. Moreover,
computations can generate theorems of formal systems
(indeed, there are algorithms computing all theorems for
the class of formal systems known as recursively enumer-
able). For mathematical structures, formal systems, and
computations alike, there is a subset with an attractive
property (being defined, decidable and halting, respec-
tively), and in Section VII below, we will see that these
three subsets are closely related.
I have drawn a question mark in the center of the tri-
angle to suggest that the three mathematical structures,
formal systems, and computations are simply different
aspects of one underlying transcendent structure whose
nature we still do not fully understand. This structure
(perhaps restricted to the defined/decidable/halting part
as hypothesized in Section VII below) exists “out there”,
and is both the totality of what has mathematical ex-
istence and the totality of what has physical existence,
i.e., the Level IV multiverse.
E. Does a simulation really need to be run?
A deeper understanding of the relations between math-
ematical structures, formal systems, and computations
would shed light on many of the issues raised in this
paper. One such issue is the above-mentioned measure
problem, which is in essence the problem of how to deal
with annoying infinities and predict conditional proba-
bilities for what an observer should perceive given past
observations.
For example, since every universe simulation corre-
sponds to a mathematical structure, and therefore al-
ready exists in the Level IV multiverse, does it in some
meaningful sense exist “more” if it is in addition run on
a computer? This question is further complicated by the
fact that eternal inflation predicts an infinite space with
infinitely many planets, civilizations, and computers, and
that the Level IV multiverse includes an infinite number
of possible simulations. The above-mentioned fact that
our universe (together with the entire Level III multi-
verse) may be simulatable by quite a short computer pro-
gram (Section VI B) calls into question whether it makes
any ontological difference whether simulations are “run”
or not. If, as argued above, the computer need only de-
scribe and not compute the history, then the complete
description would probably fit on a single memory stick,
and no CPU power would be required. It would appear
absurd that the existence of this memory stick would
have any impact whatsoever on whether the multiverse
it describes exists “for real”. Even if the existence of the
memory stick mattered, some elements of this multiverse
will contain an identical memory stick that would “recur-
sively” support its own physical existence. This would
not involve any Catch-22 “chicken-and-egg” problem re-
garding whether the stick or the multiverse existed first,
since the multiverse elements are 4-dimensional space-
times, whereas “creation” is of course only a meaningful
notion within a spacetime.
We return to the measure problem in Section VII F,
and issues related to the algorithmic complexity of math-
ematical structures, formal systems and computations.
VII. THE COMPUTABLE UNIVERSE
HYPOTHESIS
In this section, we will explore the consequences of aug-
menting the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis with a
second assumption:
Computable Universe Hypothesis
(CUH): The mathematical structure that
is our external physical reality is defined by
computable functions.
By this we mean that the relations (functions) that de-
fine the mathematical structure as in Appendix A 1 can
all be implemented as computations that are guaranteed
to halt after a finite number of steps.14 We will see that
the CUH places extremely restrictive conditions on math-
ematical structures, which has attractive advantages as
well as posing serious challenges.
A. Relation to other hypotheses
Various related ideas have been discussed in the liter-
ature — for an excellent overview, see [23]. Schmidhu-
ber has hypothesized that all halting programs (together
with certain non-halting ones) correspond to physical re-
alities [13, 17], and related ideas have also been explored
by, e.g., [7]. Note that the CUH is a different hypothe-
sis: it requires the description (the relations) rather than
the time evolution to be computable. In other words,
in terms of the three vertices of Figure 5, the universe
is a mathematical structure according to the MUH, as
opposed to a computation according to the simulation
hypothesis.
In addition, Barrow has suggested that only structures
complex enough for Gödel’s incompleteness theorem to
apply can contain self-aware observers [8]. Below we will
see that the CUH in a sense postulates the exact opposite.
14 This is not to be confused with another common usage of the
term “computable function”, as functions that can be approx-
imated to any desired accuracy in a finite number of steps (as
opposed to computed exactly as in our definition). To distinguish
these two usages, we can refer to our definition as an “exactly
computable function” and to the alternative usage as an “ap-
proximately computable function”. Exact computability implies
approximate computability, but the converse is not true. For
example, if a real-valued function f with no arguments (a con-
stant) is approximately computable and we keep computing it
to be consistent with zero to ever greater accuracy, we still do
not know whether f < 0, f = 0 or f > 0. As described below,
functions of a real variable are never exactly computable, and
there are interesting complications even for functions of integers.
B. Mathematical structures, formal systems, and
computations
Before exploring the implications of the CUH, let us
discuss the motivation for it.
I have long wondered whether Gödel’s incompleteness
theorem in some sense torpedos the MUH, and concerns
along these lines have also been raised by Vilenkin [84]
and others. Indeed, this worry is somewhat broader, ex-
tending to all three vertices of Figure 5 above. This figure
illustrates that mathematical structures, formal systems,
and computations are closely related, suggesting that
they are all aspects of the same transcendent structure
(the Level IV multiverse), whose nature we have still not
fully understood. The figure also illustrates that there
are potential problems at all three vertices of the tri-
angle: mathematical structures may have relations that
are undefined, formal systems may contain undecidable
statements, and computations may not halt after a finite
number of steps. Let us now revisit the relation between
these three issues in more detail than we did above in
Section VI.
The relations between the three vertices with their cor-
responding complications are illustrated by six arrows.
Since different arrows are studied by different special-
ists in a range of fields from mathematical logic to com-
puter science, the study of the triangle as a whole is
somewhat interdisciplinary. The connection between for-
mal systems and mathematical structures is the subject
of the branch of mathematics known as model theory
(see, e.g., [31]). The use of computations to automati-
cally prove theorems of formal systems is actively stud-
ied by computer scientists, and arbitrary computations
are in turn special cases of mathematical structures that
are described by formal systems. Finally, as we have
discussed, mathematical structures can be explicitly de-
fined by computations that implement their relations.
Further discussion of the relation between mathemati-
cal structures and computations can be found in, e.g.,
[12, 16, 124].
Note that the correspondence between the three ver-
tices is not one-to-one. There are often many mathemat-
ical structures that are described by (“are models of”)
a given formal system; for example, all specific groups
are models of the formal system containing only the
group axioms. Conversely, several formal systems may be
equivalent descriptions of the same mathematical struc-
ture — e.g. [12] gives examples of this. Only a subset of
all mathematical structures can be interpreted as com-
putations, simple examples include certain integer map-
pings (which can be interpreted as defining a Universal
Turing Machine or other digital computer [125]). Our
world can also be thought of as a sort of computation
[11], since it allows computers to be built within it. It
appears not to support universal computation, however,
as it lacks both unlimited storage capacity and time for
an unlimited number of computational steps (c.f. [116]).
Finally, many different sets of computations can de-
fine the same mathematical structure as detailed in Ap-
pendix A1, by implementing equivalent choices of gener-
ating relations and/or by corresponding to different la-
belings of the set elements.
C. Undefined, undecidable and uncomputable
Bearing these correspondences in mind, let us now dis-
cuss the Gödel-inspired worry mentioned above: that
the MUH makes no sense because our universe would be
somehow inconsistent or undefined. If one accepts David
Hilbert’s dictum that “mathematical existence is merely
freedom from contradiction” [126], then an inconsistent
structure would not exist mathematically, let alone phys-
ically as in the MUH.
Our standard model of physics includes everyday
mathematical structures such as the integers (defined by
the Peano axioms) and real numbers. Yet Gödel’s second
incompleteness theorem [127] implies that we can never
be 100% sure that this everyday mathematics is consis-
tent: it leaves open the possibility that a finite length
proof exists within number theory itself demonstrating
that 0 = 1.15 Using this result, every other well-defined
statement in the formal system could in turn be proven
to be true and mathematics as we know it would collapse
like a house of cards [127].
Gödel’s theorems refer to the top vertex in Figure 5,
i.e., formal systems, and we must understand how this
relates to lower left (the mathematical structures of the
MUH) and the lower right (the computations that de-
fine the structures). Consider the example of number
theory with predicate calculus, where Gödel’s first in-
completeness theorem shows that there are undecidable
statements which can neither be proved nor refuted. Fol-
lowing the notation of Appendix A, the corresponding
mathematical structure involves two sets:
1. The two-element (Boolean) set S1 ≡ {0, 1} which
we can interpret as {False, T rue} and
2. the countably infinite set S2 ≡ Z which we can
interpret as the integers.
15 Note that it is not the inability of Peano Arithmetic (PA) to
prove its own consistency that is the crux: proving the con-
sistency of PA using PA would still leave open the possibility
that PA was inconsistent, since an inconsistent theory implies
all statements. David Hilbert was of course well aware of this
when he posed as his famous “second problem” to prove the
consistency of PA, hoping instead that such a proof may be pos-
sible starting with a simpler (preferably finitistic) formal system
whose consistency skeptics might be more likely to accept on
faith. Gödel’s work torpedoed this hope, since one can only
prove the consistency of PA using even stronger (and arguably
still more suspect) axiom systems, involving, e.g., transfinite in-
duction or Zermelo-Frankel Set Theory, and consistency proofs
for these systems require still stronger axiom systems. The in-
terpretation of these facts remains controversial — see [128, 129]
for two different viewpoints.
Standard logical operations such as ∼ (“not”) and &
(“and”) are Boolean-valued functions of Boolean vari-
ables (for example, & maps S1 × S1 7→ S1). Opera-
tions such as + and · map integers into integers (+ maps
S2 × S2 7→ S2). So-called predicates are functions map-
ping into Booleans that can mix the two sets by also
taking integers as arguments. A simple example is <
(“less than”), mapping S2 ×S2 7→ S1. In number theory,
the quantifiers ∀ and ∃ allow the construction of more
interesting functions, such as the predicate P mapping
S2 7→ S1 which is true if its argument is prime:
P (n) ≡ (∀a)(∀b)[[a > 1]&[b > 1] ⇒ a · b 6= n]. (8)
This function P (n) is undeniably well-defined in the sense
that it is computable: there exists a simple computer pro-
gram that takes an arbitrary integer n (represented as a
bit string) as input, computes the single bit representing
P (n) in a finite number of steps, and then halts. How-
ever, for the predicate T (n) defined by
T (n) ≡ (∃a)[(a > n)&P (a)&P (a + 2)], (9)
no such halting algorithm for its computation has yet
been discovered, since it corresponds to the statement
that there are twin primes larger than n. One can write
a simple computer program that loops and tests a =
n+1, n+2, ... and halts returning 1 if it finds a and a+2
to be prime, and this program is guaranteed to correctly
evaluate T (n) as long as n < 2003663613×2195000−1, cor-
responding to the record twin prime as of writing. How-
ever, since the existence of infinitely many twin primes
is a famous open question, the program might not halt
for all n, and no halting algorithm for evaluating T (n) is
currently known. Equivalently, there is no known halting
algorithm for evaluating the Boolean constant (function
with no arguments)
T ≡ (∀n)(∃a)[(a > n)&P (a)&P (a + 2)], (10)
which equals 1 if there are infinitely many twin primes,
zero otherwise.
It may turn out that a halting algorithm for computing
T exists, and that we humans simply have not discov-
ered it yet. In contrast, statements in the formal system
that are undecidable statements in Gödel’s first incom-
pleteness theorem correspond to, in this mathematical
structure, predicates similar to that of equation (10) that
cannot be computed by any halting algorithm, and are
thus undefined in a computational sense. Despite this,
these Boolean functions are similar to equation (10) in
being mere statements about integers; the twist is that
the quantifiers are used in an insidious way that can be
interpreted as self-referencing, so that any halting com-
putation of the function would lead to a contradiction.
This is intimately linked to the famous halting problem
in computer science [130, 131]. The proofs by Church and
Turing that no halting algorithm can determine whether
an arbitrary program will halt uses an analogous self-
reference and quantification over all programs to reach
its conclusion. Indeed, a slightly weaker form of Gödel’s
first incompleteness theorem is an easy consequence of
the undecidability of the halting problem.
The results of Gödel, Church and Turing thus show
that under certain circumstances, there are questions
that can be posed but not answered16. We have seen
that for a mathematical structure, this corresponds to
relations that are unsatisfactorily defined in the sense
that they cannot be implemented by computations that
are guaranteed to halt.
D. Levels of mathematical relatity
So how well-defined do mathematical structures need
to be to be real, i.e., members of the Level IV multi-
verse? There is a range of interesting possibilities for
what structures qualify:
1. No structures (i.e., the MUH is false).
2. Finite structures. These are trivially computable,
since all their relations can be defined by finite look-
up tables.
3. Computable structures (whose relations are defined
by halting computations).
4. Structures with relations defined by computations
that are not guaranteed to halt (i.e., may require
infinitely many steps), like the example of equa-
tion (9). Based on a Gödel-undecidable statement,
one can even define a function which is guaranteed
to be uncomputable, yet would be computable if
infinitely many computational steps were allowed.
5. Still more general structures. For example, math-
ematical structures with uncountably many set
elements (like the continuous space examples in
Section III B and virtually all current models of
physics) are all uncomputable: one cannot even in-
put the function arguments into the computation,
since even a single generic real number requires in-
finitely many bits to describe.
16 Note that what is striking about Gödel’s first incompleteness
theorem is not the existence of undecidable statements per se.
For example, if one takes a simple decidable formal system such
as Boolean algebra or Euclidean geometry and drops one of the
axioms, there will be statements that can neither be proved nor
refuted. A first remarkable aspect of the theorem is that even
statements within the heart of standard mathematics (number
theory) are undecidable. A second impressive fact is that one
cannot merely blame weak axioms and inference rules for the
failure, since the incompleteness theorem applies to any suffi-
ciently powerful formal system. In other words, adding more
firepower does not help: if you add more tools to allow you to
answer the undecidable questions, these same tools allow you to
pose new questions that you cannot answer.
The CUH postulates that (3) is the limit. If the CUH is
false, then an even more conservative hypothesis is the
Computable Finite Universe Hypothesis (CFUH) that
(2) is the limit.
It is interesting to note that closely related issues have
been hotly debated among mathematicians without any
reference to physics (see [90, 91] for recent updates). Ac-
cording to the finitist school of mathematicians (which
included Kronecker, Weyl and Goodstein [132]), repre-
senting an extreme form of so-called intuitionism and
constructivism, a mathematical object does not exist un-
less it can be constructed from natural numbers in a finite
number of steps. This leads directly to (3).
E. Conceptual implications of the CUH
According to the CUH, the mathematical structure
that is our universe is computable and hence well-defined
in the strong sense that all its relations can be computed.
There are thus no physical aspects of our universe that
are uncomputable/undecidable, eliminating the above-
mentioned concern that Gödel’s work makes it somehow
incomplete or inconsistent. In contrast, it remains un-
clear to what extent the above-mentioned alternatives (4)
and (5) can be defined in a rigorous and self-consistent
By drastically limiting the number of mathematical
structures to be considered, the CUH also removes po-
tential paradoxes related to the Level IV multiverse. A
computable mathematical structure can by definition be
specified by a finite number of bits. For example, each
of the finitely many generating relations can be specified
as a finite number of characters in some programming
language supporting arbitrarily large integers (along the
lines of the Mathematica, Maple and Matlab packages).
Since each finite bit string can be interpreted as an inte-
ger in binary, there are thus only countably many com-
putable mathematical structures. The full Level IV mul-
tiverse (the union of all these countably infinitely many
computable mathematical structures) is then not itself
a computable mathematical structure, since it has in-
finitely many generating relations. The Level IV mul-
tiverse is therefore not a member of itself, precluding
Russell-style paradoxes, which addresses a concern raised
in [22, 81].
F. Physics implications of the CUH
Many authors have puzzled over why our physical laws
appear relatively simple. For example, we could imag-
ine replacing the standard model gauge group SU(3) ×
SU(2) × U(1) by a much more complicated Lie group,
and more generally reducing the symmetries of nature
such that way more than 32 dimensionless parameters
[43] were required to describe the laws. It is tempting to
speculate that the CUH contributes to this relative sim-
plicity by sharply limiting the complexity of the Level IV
multiverse. By banishing the continuum altogether, per-
haps the CUH may also help downsize the inflationary
landscape [85–89], and resolve the cosmological measure
problem, which is in large part linked to the ability of
a true continuum to undergo exponential stretching for-
ever, producing infinite numbers of observers [68–72]. It
is unclear whether some sort of measure over the Level IV
multiverse is required to fully resolve the measure prob-
lem, but if this is the case and the CUH is correct, then
the measure could depend on the algorithmic complexity
of the mathematical structures, which would be finite.
Labeling them all by finite bit strings s interpreted as
real numbers on the unit interval [0, 1) (with the bits
giving the binary decimals), the most obvious measure
for a given structure S would be the fraction of the unit
interval covered by real numbers whose bit strings be-
gin with strings s defining S. A string of length n bits
thus gets weight 2−n, which means that the measure re-
wards simpler structures. The analogous measure for
computer programs is advocated in [17]. A major con-
cern about such measures is of course that they depend
on the choice of representation of structures or computa-
tions as bit strings, and no obvious candidate currently
exists for which representation to use.
As long as the number of bits required to describe our
(bird’s view) mathematical structure is smaller than re-
quired to describe our (frog’s view) observed universe,
the mathematical structure must contain parallel uni-
verses as discussed in Section IVB 5. In particular, if
the frog’s view description involves any real numbers,
parallel universes are guaranteed, since their description
requires infinitely many bits while CUH guarantees that
the mathematical structure can be described by finitely
many bits.
Penrose has suggested that the laws of physics must
involve mathematics triggering Gödel’s incompleteness
theorems because we humans are able to prove theorems
regarding undecidable statements etc. However, the fact
that we can talk about the uncomputable clearly does not
violate the consistency of our universe being computable
(this point is also emphasized in [17]).
Barrow has suggested that if our universe is a com-
puter program, then all the laws of physics must involve
approximately computable functions [7]. As emphasized
by [118], this would only be required if the computer
is computing the time-evolution. It would not neces-
sarily be required if the computer merely stores the 4-
dimensional history or defines it in some other way, say
by computationally implementing all relations.
G. Challenges for the CUH
Above we focused on attractive features of the CUH
such as ensuring that the Level IV multiverse is rigorously
defined and perhaps mitigating the cosmological measure
problem by limiting what exists. However, the CUH also
poses serious challenges that need to be resolved.
A first concern about the CUH is that it may sound
like a surrender of the philosophical high ground, effec-
tively conceding that although all possible mathematical
structures are “out there”, some have privileged status.
However, my guess is that if the CUH turns out to be
correct, if will instead be because the rest of the mathe-
matical landscape was a mere illusion, fundamentally un-
defined and simply not existing in any meaningful sense.
Another challenge involves our definition of a math-
ematical structure as an equivalence class of descrip-
tions. Since the problem of establishing whether two
halting computations define the same function may be
uncomputable, we lack a general algorithm for establish-
ing whether two descriptions belong to the same equiv-
alence class. If this matters in any observable way, it
would presumably be via the measure problem, in case
it makes a difference whether two equivalent descriptions
are counted separately or only once. The more conserva-
tive CFUH mentioned in Section VII D is free from this
ambiguity, since a simple halting algorithm can deter-
mine whether any two finite mathematical structures are
equivalent.
A more immediate challenge is that virtually all histor-
ically successful theories of physics violate the CUH, and
that it is far from obvious whether a viable computable
alternative exists. The main source of CUH violation
comes from incorporating the continuum, usually in the
form of real or complex numbers, which cannot even
comprise the input to a finite computation since they
generically require infinitely many bits to specify. Even
approaches attempting to banish the classical spacetime
continuum by discretizing or quantizing it tend to main-
tain continuous variables in other aspects of the theory
such as field strengths or wave function amplitudes. Let
us briefly discuss two different approaches to this contin-
uum challenge:
1. Replacing real numbers by a countable and com-
putable pseudo-continuum such as algebraic num-
bers.
2. Abandoning the continuum altogether, deriving the
apparent physical continuum as an effective theory
in some appropriate limit.
In the first approach, algebraic numbers and algebraic
functions17 are perhaps the best contenders. There are
only countably many of them, all defined by polynomi-
als with integer coefficients. An algebraic number x is
defined by a univariate polynomial P through P (x) = 0,
a univariate algebraic function y(x) is defined by a bi-
variate polynomial through P (x, y) = 0, a bivariate alge-
braic function z(x, y) is defined by a trivariate polynomial
17 Here we use the phrase “algebraic numbers” as shorthand for
the special case of algebraic numbers over the field of rational
numbers.
through P (x, y, z) = 0, and so on. Algebraic functions
have some very attractive features. They are closed un-
der addition, multiplication, composition, differentiation,
and even equation solving. Moreover, all of these oper-
ations on algebraic functions, as well as Boolean-valued
functions like = and <, can be implemented by halting
computations, making them a computable mathematical
structure. In contrast, rational numbers and functions
are not closed under equation solving (x2 = 2 having
no rational solution). In the broader class of approx-
imately computable functions, which includes algebraic
functions, π, sin x and virtually all other constants and
functions taught in introductory mathematics courses,
the Boolean-valued functions = and < cannot be im-
plemented by computations that are guaranteed to halt.
Algebraic functions are, however, not closed under in-
tegration, which wreaks havoc with attempts to solve
the differential equations of classical physics. It is also
unclear how to formulate gauge invariance without the
exponential function.
In the second approach, one abandons the continuum
as fundamental and tries to recover it as an approxima-
tion. We have never measured anything in physics to
more than about 15 significant digits, and no experi-
ment has been carried out whose outcome depends on
the hypothesis that a true continuum exists, or hinges
on Nature computing something uncomputable 18 It is
striking that many of the continuum models of classical
mathematical physics (like the wave equation, diffusion
equation and Navier-Stokes equation for various media)
are known to be mere approximations of an underlying
discrete collection of atoms. Quantum gravity research
suggests that even classical spacetime breaks down on
very small scales. We therefore cannot be sure that quan-
tities that we still treat as continuous (like the metric,
field strengths, and quantum amplitudes) are not mere
approximations of something discrete. Indeed, difference
equations, lattice models and other discrete computable
structures can approximate our continuum physics mod-
els so well that we use them for numerical computations,
leaving open the questions of whether the mathematical
structure of our universe is more like the former or more
like the latter. Some authors have gone as far as suggest-
ing that the mathematical structure is both computable
and finite like a cellular automaton [17, 18]. Adding fur-
ther twists, physics has also produced examples of how
something continuous (like quantum fields) can produce
a discrete solution (like a crystal lattice) which in turn
appears like a continuous medium on large scales, which
in turns has effective discrete particles (say phonons).
Such effective particles may even behave like ones in our
standard model [134, 135], raising the possibility that we
18 We can of course program a computer to check if there are in-
finitely many twin primes, say, but if this is provably undecidable,
then it would require an infinite amount of time (and memory)
to provide an answer
may have multiple layers of effective continuous and dis-
crete descriptions on top of what is ultimately a discrete
computable structure.
VIII. CONCLUSIONS
This paper has explored the implications of the Math-
ematical Universe Hypothesis (MUH) that our external
physical reality is a mathematical structure (a set of ab-
stract entities with relations between them). I have ar-
gued that the MUH follows from the external reality hy-
pothesis (ERH) that there exists an external physical re-
ality completely independently of us humans, and that it
constitutes the opposite extreme of the Copenhagen in-
terpretation and other “many words interpretations” of
physics where human-related notions like observation are
fundamental.
A. Main results
In Section III, we discussed the challenge of deriving
our perceived everyday view (the “frog’s view”) of our
world from the formal description (the “bird’s view”) of
the mathematical structure, and argued that although
much work remains to be done here, promising first
steps include computing the automorphism group and
its subgroups, orbits and irreducible actions. We dis-
cussed how the importance of physical symmetries and
irreducible representations emerges naturally, since any
symmetries in the mathematical structure correspond to
physical symmetries, and relations are potentially observ-
able. The laws of physics being invariant under a par-
ticular symmetry group (as per Einstein’s two postulates
of special relativity, say) is therefore not an input but
rather a logical consequence of the MUH. We found it im-
portant to define mathematical structures precisely, and
concluded that only dimensionless quantities (not ones
with units) can be real numbers.
In Section IV, we saw that since the MUH leaves no
room for arbitrariness or fundamental randomness, it
raises the bar for what constitutes an acceptable theory,
banishing the traditional notion of unspecified initial con-
ditions. This makes it challenging to avoid some form of
multiverse. Our frog’s view of the world appears to re-
quire a vast amount of information (perhaps 10100 bits)
to describe. If this is correct, then any complete theory
of everything expressible with fewer bits must describe
a multiverse. As discussed in Section V, to describe the
Level I multiverse of Hubble volumes emerging from infla-
tion with all semiclassical initial conditions may require
only of order 103 bits (to specify the 32 dimensionless pa-
rameters tabulated in [43] as well as some mathematical
details like the SU(3) × SU(2) × U(1) symmetry group
— the rest of those Googol bits merely specify which
particular Hubble volume we reside in. To describe the
larger Level II multiverse may require even less informa-
tion (say 102 bits to specify that our mathematical struc-
ture is string theory rather than something else). Finally,
the ultimate ensemble of the Level IV multiverse would
require 0 bits to specify, since it has no free parameters.
Thus the algorithmic complexity (information content)
of a multiverse is not only smaller than for the sum of
its parts, but even smaller than for a generic one of its
parts. Thus in the context of the Level I multiverse, eter-
nal inflation explains not only why the observed entropy
of our universe is so low, but also why it is so high.
Staying on the multiverse topic, we defined and exten-
sively discussed the Level IV multiverse of mathematical
structures. We argued that the existence of this Level IV
multiverse (and therefore also Levels I, II and III as long
as inflation and quantum mechanics are mathematically
consistent) is a direct consequence of the MUH.
In Section VI, we revisited the widely discussed idea
that our universe is some sort of computer simulation.
We argued that, in the MUH context, it is unjustified to
identify the 1-dimensional computational sequence with
our 1-dimensional time, because the computation needs
to describe rather than evolve the universe. There is
therefore no need for such computations to be run.
In Section VII, we explored how mathematical struc-
tures, formal systems, and computations are closely re-
lated, suggesting that they are all aspects of the same
transcendent structure (the Level IV multiverse) whose
nature we have still not fully understood. We explored
an additional assumption: the Computable Universe Hy-
pothesis (CUH) that the mathematical structure that is
our external physical reality is defined by computable
functions. We argued that this assumption may be
needed tor the MUH to make sense, as Gödel incom-
pleteness and Church-Turing uncomputability will oth-
erwise correspond to unsatisfactorily defined relations in
the mathematical structure that require infinitely many
computational steps to evaluate. We discussed how, al-
though the CUH brings severe challenges for future explo-
ration, it may help with the cosmological measure prob-
B. The MUH and the Philosophy of science
If the MUH is correct, then a number of hotly debated
issues in the philosophy of science are cast in a different
light.
As mentioned in Section III, the conventional approach
holds that a theory of mathematical physics can be bro-
ken down into (i) a mathematical structure, (ii) an empir-
ical domain and (iii) a set of correspondence rules which
link parts of the mathematical structure with parts of the
empirical domain. If the MUH is correct, then (ii) and
(iii) are redundant in the sense that they can, at least
in principle, be derived from (i). Instead, they can be
viewed as a handy user’s manual for the theory defined
by (i).
Since the MUH constitutes an extreme form of what is
known as structural realism in the philosophy literature
[14, 22], let us briefly comment on how it addresses three
traditional criticisms of structural realism [22, 143].
The first issue is known as “Jones under-
determination”, and occurs when different formulations
of a theory involve different mathematical structures
[142, 143], yet are empirically equivalent. In the above-
mentioned philosophical context with three theoretical
domains, it has been questioned to what extent the
mathematical structure of our world can be said to
be real if it might not is be unique. From the MUH
perspective, such non-uniqueness is clearly not a prob-
lem, as the mathematical structure alone defines the
theory. If many different mathematical structures look
the same to their inhabitants, this merely complicates
the above-mentioned measure problem.
The second issue involves the possibility of a theory
with a fixed mathematical structure possessing more than
one realist interpretation [143]. Since there is nothing
ambiguous about domain (ii) and how observers perceive
their world, this is more an issue with traditional defini-
tions of “realist interpretation”.
The third issue, known as the “Newman problem”, is
of a more technical nature. As discussed in [143], the
concern is that any structure can be embedded into oth-
ers involving larger (typically infinite) cardinality, and
that this arguably collapses structural realism into em-
piricism, invalidating claims that science is in some way
latching onto reality beyond the phenomena. With the
definition of mathematial structures used in the present
paper (using the left circle in Figure 5, whereas Lady-
man and others have emphasized the top circle), this
becomes a non-issue. Replacing a mathematical struc-
ture by a larger one that contains it as a substructure
may or may not have effects observable in the frog per-
spective (directly or via measure issues). Either way, the
mathematical structure — domain (i) — constitutes the
theory.
In summary, all of these issues hinge on differing con-
ventions for what to mean by baggage words like “the-
ory”, “realism”, etc.
C. Outlook
If the MUH is correct, if offers a fresh perspective on
many hotly debated issues at the foundations of physics,
mathematics and computer science. It motivates further
interdisciplinary research on the relations illustrated in
Figure 5. This includes searching for a computable math-
ematical structure that can adequately approximate our
current standard model of physics, dispensing with the
continuum.
Is the MUH correct, making such efforts worthwhile?
One of its key predictions is that physics research will
uncover mathematical regularities in nature. As men-
tioned above, the score card has been amazing in this
regard, ever since the basic idea of a mathematical uni-
verse was first articulated by the Pythagoreans, prompt-
ing awestruck endorsements of the idea from Galileo,
Dirac [2], Wigner [3] and others even before the stan-
dard models of particle physics and cosmology emerged.
I know of no other compelling explanation for this trend
other than that the physical world really is mathematical.
A second testable prediction of the MUH is that the
Level IV multiverse exists, so that out of all universes
containing observers like us, we should expect to find
ourselves in a rather typical one. Rigorously carrying out
this test requires solving the measure problem, i.e., com-
puting conditional probabilities for observable quantities
given other observations (such as our existence) and an
assumed theory (such as the MUH, or the hypothesis that
only some specific mathematical structure like string the-
ory or the Lie superalgebra mb(3|8) [144] exists). Further
work on all aspects of the measure problem is urgently
needed regardless of whether the MUH is correct, as this
is necessary for observationally testing any theory that
involves parallel universes at any level, including cosmo-
logical inflation and the string theory landscape [68–72].
Although we are still far from understanding selection ef-
fects linked to the requirements for life, we can start test-
ing multiverse predictions by assessing how typical our
universe is as regards dark matter, dark energy and neu-
trinos, because these substances affect only better under-
stood processes like galaxy formation. Early such tests
have suggested (albeit using questionable assumptions)
that the observed abundance of these three substances is
indeed rather typical of what you might measure from a
random stable solar system in a multiverse where these
abundances vary from universe to universe [43, 136–141].
It is arguably worthwhile to study implications of the
MUH even if one subscribes to an alternative viewpoint,
as it forms a logical extreme in a broad spectrum of philo-
sophical interpretations of physics. It is arguably extreme
in the sense of being maximally offensive to human van-
ity. Since our earliest ancestors admired the stars, our
human egos have suffered a series of blows. For starters,
we are smaller than we thought. Eratosthenes showed
that Earth was larger than millions of humans, and his
Hellenic compatriots realized that the solar system was
thousands of times larger still. Yet for all its grandeur,
our Sun turned out to be merely one rather ordinary
star among hundreds of billions in a galaxy that in turn
is merely one of billions in our observable universe, the
spherical region from which light has had time to reach
us during the 14 billion years since our big bang. Then
there are more (perhaps infinitely many) such regions.
Our lives are small temporally as well as spatially: if this
14 billion year cosmic history were scaled to one year,
then 100,000 years of human history would be 4 minutes
and a 100 year life would be 0.2 seconds. Further deflat-
ing our hubris, we have learned that we are not that spe-
cial either. Darwin taught us that we are animals, Freud
taught us that we are irrational, machines now outpower
us, and just last year, Deep Fritz outsmarted our Chess
champion Vladimir Kramnik. Adding insult to injury,
cosmologists have found that we are not even made out
of the majority substance. The MUH brings this human
demotion to its logical extreme: not only is the Level
IV Multiverse larger still, but even the languages, the
notions and the common cultural heritage that we have
evolved is dismissed as “baggage”, stripped of any fun-
damental status for describing the ultimate reality.
The most compelling argument against the MUH
hinges on such emotional issues: it arguably feels coun-
terintuitive and disturbing. On the other hand, placing
humility over vanity has proven a more fruitful approach
to physics, as emphasized by Copernicus, Galileo and
Darwin. Moreover, if the MUH is true, then it consti-
tutes great news for science, allowing the possibility that
an elegant unification of physics, mathematics and com-
puter science will one day allow us humans to understand
our reality even more deeply than many dreamed would
be possible.
Acknowledgements: The author wishes to thank
Anthony Aguirre, Angélica de Oliveira-Costa, Greg
Huang, Kirsten Hubbard, Bihui Li, Gordon McCabe,
Bruno Marchal, George Musser, David Raub, Ross
Rosenwald, Jürgen Schmidhuber, Jan Schwindt, Lee
Smolin, John Tromp, David Vogan, Charles Waldman
and especially Harold S. Shapiro for helpful comments,
and the John Templeton Foundation for sponsoring the
symposium “Multiverse and String Theory: Toward Ul-
timate Explanations in Cosmology” held on 19-21 March
2005 at Stanford University, which inspired part of this
work. This work was supported by NASA grant NAG5-
11099, NSF grants AST-0134999 and AST-0708534, a
grant from the John Templeton foundation and fellow-
ships from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and
the Research Corporation.
APPENDIX A: WHAT IS A MATHEMATICAL
STRUCTURE?
This Appendix gives a discussion of mathematical
structures at a more technical level, written primarily
with physicists and mathematicians in mind. The math-
ematics described here falls within the subject known as
model theory. For an introductory textbook on the sub-
ject that is reasonably accessible to physicists, see [31].
There are two common ways of introducing mathemat-
ical structures: as relations between abstract entities (as
in Section II) or via formal systems (as in, e.g., [12]).
The two are intimately linked: in model theory termi-
nology, the former is said to be a model of the latter.
Although I emphasized the latter in [12], I have centered
the discussion in this paper around the former, both for
pedagogical reasons and because it is more closely linked
to our discussion of issues such as symmetry and com-
putability.
This Appendix is organized as follows. After a defi-
nition of the concept of a mathematical structure, this
is illustrated with examples of a few simple finite ones.
We then give examples of infinite ones, and discuss
various subtleties related to units, observability, Gödel-
incompleteness and Church-Turing incomputability.
1. Mathematical structures
We define a mathematical structure as a set S of ab-
stract entities and relations R1, R2, ... between them
Specifically, let us define the entities and relations of a
mathematical structure as follows:
Given a finite number of sets S1, S2, ..., Sn,
1. the set of entities is the union S = S1∪S2∪ ...∪Sn,
2. the relations are functions on these sets, specifically
mappings from some number of sets to a set: Si1 ×
Si2 × ... × Sik 7→ Sj .
For a Boolean-valued function R, (a function whose range
Sj = {0, 1}) we say that “the relation R holds” for those
variables where R = 1. Functions that are not Boolean-
valued can readily be interpreted as relations as well —
for instance, we say that the relation R(a, b) = c holds
if the function R maps (a, b) to c.20 A mathematical
structure typically has a countably infinite number of
relations. It is defined by
1. specifying the entities,
2. specifying a finite set of relations (“generating re-
lations”), and
3. the rule that composition of any two relations gen-
erates a new relation.
19 Throughout this paper, I have tried to conform to the standard
mathematical terminology as closely as possible without obscur-
ing physical intuition. Unless explicitly specified, the usage is
standard. The mathematical structure definition given here dif-
fers from the common one of e.g. [31] in two ways:
1. It allows multiple types (corresponding to the different sets
Si), much like different data types (Boolean, integer, real,
etc.) in a programming language, because this greatly sim-
plifies the definition of more complex structures cropping up
in physics.
2. It defines a mathematical structure by all its relations. This
means that one only needs to specify generators, a finite set
of relations that generate all others.
20 The reader preferring to start without assuming the defini-
tion of a function can begin with Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory
alone and define relations as subsets of product sets of the type
Si1 ×Si2 × ...×Sik . Subsets are equivalent to Boolean functions:
one says that the relation R(a1, a2, ..., an) holds (and that the
Boolean function R(a1, a2, ..., an) is true) if (a1, a2, ..., an) ∈ R,
false otherwise. Non-Boolean functions are definable by in-
terpreting a relation R as an Sik -valued function and writing
R(a1, a2, ..., an−1) = an if for any values of the first n − 1 vari-
ables, there is one and only one value an of the last variable such
that the relation R(a1, a2, ..., an) is true.
This means that there are typically infinitely many equiv-
alent ways of defining a given mathematical structure,
the most convenient one often being the shortest. We
say that one mathematical structure definition generates
another if its generating relations generate all generat-
ing relations of the other, so two structure definitions are
equivalent if they generate each other. There is a simple
halting algorithm for determining whether any two finite
mathematical structure definitions are equivalent.
2. Mathematical structures examples
Let us clarify all of this with a few examples, starting
with finite mathematical structures (ones where there are
only a finite number of sets Si with a finite number of
elements).
a. Example: Boolean algebra
This example corresponds to the case of a single set
with only two elements, with the generating relations in-
dicated by the following tableaus:
, R1 = 0 , R2 = 1 , R3 =
, R4 =
, R6 =
, R7 =
, R8 =
. (A1)
The 2 × 2 boxes specify the values of functions with
two arguments analogously to the multiplication table
of equation (4), and the smaller boxes analogously define
functions taking zero or one arguments. These eight re-
lations are normally denoted by the symbols F , T , ∼, &,
, ⇒, ⇔ and |, respectively, and referred to as “false”,
“true”, “not”, “and”, “or”, “implies”, “is equivalent to
(xor)” and “nand”.
As an illustration of the idea of equivalent definitions,
note that
, R =
defines the same mathematical structure as equa-
tion (A1). This is because the single relation R (“nand”,
also known as Sheffer symbol |) generates all the relations
of equation (A2):
R1 = R(R(X, R(X, X)), R(X, R(X, X))),
R2 = R(X, R(X, X)),
R3(X) = R(X, X),
R4(X, Y ) = R(R(X, Y ), R(X, Y )),
R5(X, Y ) = R(R(X, X), R(Y, Y )),
R6(X, Y ) = R(X, R(Y, Y )),
R7(X, Y ) = R(R(X, Y ), R(R(X, X), R(Y, Y ))),
R8(X, Y ) = R(X, Y ),
or, in more familiar notation,
F = (X |(X |X))|(X |(X |X)),
T = X |(X |X),
∼ X = X |X,
X&Y = (X |Y )|(X |Y ),
Y = (X |X)|(Y |Y ),
X ⇒ Y = X |(Y |Y ),
X ⇔ Y = (X |Y )|((X |X)|(Y |Y )),
X |Y = X |Y.
(Note that the parentheses are needed since, whereas &,
and ⇔ are associative, | is not.) Not or (“nor”) gen-
erates the same mathematical structure as “nand”. An-
other popular choice of generators for Boolean algebra,
employed by Gödel, is using only R3 and R5 (∼ and
from equation (A1).
Not only the relations of equation (A1), but all possi-
ble Boolean functions of arbitrarily many (not just zero,
one or two) variables can be expressed in terms of the
Sheffer relation | alone. This means that the mathemat-
ical structure of Boolean algebra is simply all Boolean
functions.
This simple example also illustrates why we humans
create “baggage”, symbols and words with implied mean-
ing, like “or”. Of all of the infinitely many equivalent
definitions of Boolean algebra, Equation (A2) is clearly
the most economical, with only a single generating rela-
tion. Why then is it so common to define symbols and
names for more? Because this provides convenient short-
hand and intuition when working with Boolean algebra
in practice. Note that we humans have come up with fa-
miliar names for all nonary, unary and binary relations:
There are 22
= 2 nonary ones (F & T ), 22
= 4 unary
ones (F , T , the identity relation and ∼, the last one be-
ing the only one deserving a new symbol) and 22
binary ones (F , T , X , ∼ X , Y , ∼ Y , X&Y , ∼ (X&Y ),
Y , ∼ (X
Y ), X ⇔ Y , ∼ (X ⇔ Y ), X ⇒ Y ,
∼ (X ⇒ Y ), Y ⇒ X , ∼ (Y ⇒ X).
b. Example: the group C3
As another very simple example of a finite mathemat-
ical structure, consider the 3-element group defined by
, R1 = 0 , R2 =
, R3 =
0 1 2
1 2 0
2 0 1
. (A3)
The usual notation for these relations is R1 = e, R2(g) =
g−1, R3(g1, g2) = g1g2. In the above-mentioned Boolean
algebra example, there were many equivalent choices of
generators. The situation is similar for groups, which
can be defined with a single generating relation R(a, b) =
ab−1, in terms of which the three relations above can all
be reexpressed:
R1 = R(a, a) = e,
R2(a) = R(R(a, a), a) = a
R3(a, b) = R(a, R(R(b, b), b)) = ab. (A4)
The specific example of equation (A3) thus has the fol-
lowing simpler equivalent definition:
, R =
0 2 1
1 0 2
2 1 0
Note that the identity element can be read off as the
diagonal element(s) of this “division table” and that the
inverses can be read off from the first row.
c. Encoding finite mathematical structures
Since the generating relations of a finite mathematical
structure can be specified by simply tabulating all their
values as in equations (A1) and (A2), it is straightforward
to encode the structure definition as a finite string of
integers. Here is a simple example of such an encoding
scheme:
〈# of sets〉〈# of relations〉〈set def. 1〉...〈rel. def. 1〉...
Here each set definition is simply an integer giving the
number of elements in the set. Each relation (function)
definition has the following structure:
〈# of args〉〈arg type 1〉...〈output type〉 〈value array〉
For each of the arguments as well as for the output re-
turned by the relation, the type is simply one of the previ-
ously defined sets, numbered 0, 1, 2, .... The value tensor
simply lists all the values as an array (0-dimensional, 1-
dimensional, 2-dimensional, etc. depending on the num-
ber of arguments, looping over earlier arguments first in
the same way that computer languages such as Fortran
store arrays. Elements of the output set are numbered 0,
1, ....
Table 1 illustrates how this works for a number of sim-
ple examples. The two equivalent definitions of Boolean
algebra corresponding to equations (A1) and (A2) corre-
spond to the strings
s1 = {182000001100012000000120000111
200010112000100120001110},
s2 = {11220001110}
respectively; the latter is clearly more economical.
Such an explicit encoding scheme allows mathemati-
cal structures to be defined in a way more amenable to
computers. We say that an encoding s1 generates an en-
coding s2 if s1 contains all the sets of s2 and all relations
in s2 are generated by relations in s1. We say that two
encodings s1 and s2 are equivalent if s1 generates s2 and
s2 generates s1. In our example above, s1 and s2 are
equivalent, since they generate each other.
If one wishes to catalog and enumerate all finite math-
ematical structures, it is convenient to order them by
some measure of their complexity. There are many ways
of doing this. For example, one could define the com-
plexity H(s) (measured in bits) of an encoding s =
{k1, k2, ..., kn} of a mathematical structure as
H(s) =
log2(2 + ki). (A7)
Then the integers 0, 1 and 2 add complexities of 1 bit,
log2(3) ≈ 1.6 bits and 2 bits, respectively, and the two
above encodings of Boolean algebra have complexities
of H(s1) = 72 bits and H(s2) = 16 bits, respectively,
whereas the empty set in Table 1 has 3.6 bits.
This allows us to explicitly define a finite mathemat-
ical structure as an equivalence class of encodings. We
label it by the encoding that has the lowest complexity,
using lexicographical ordering to break any ties, and we
define the complexity of the mathematical structure as
the complexity of this simplest encoding. In other words,
this provides an explicit scheme for enumerating all finite
mathematical structures.
d. Infinite mathematical structures
The more general case of infinite mathematical struc-
tures is discussed at length in Section VII. The key point
is that there are only countably many computable ones
(which include all the countably many finite structures),
and that to enumerate them all, the encoding scheme
above must be replaced by one that defines the relations
not by explicit tabulation, but by providing an algorithm
or computer program that implements them.
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