The Complete Reality Audit Project

This proposal seeks funding for a coordinated, multi-institutional research program to test whether the observable universe exhibits measurable features expected from certain classes of simulated, discretized, or computationally constrained realities. The central aim is not to defend a philosophical slogan, but to convert a vague metaphysical claim into a disciplined empirical program. The simulation hypothesis, in its strongest form, is not automatically a scientific hypothesis. A perfectly hidden simulation is empirically indistinguishable from non-simulated reality. However, many concrete implementations of a simulation would leave traces: preferred directions, ultraviolet cutoffs, Lorentz-invariance violations, computational bottlenecks, discretization artifacts, finite-information bounds, or anomalous correlations in quantum and spacetime measurements. This proposal identifies those traces, ranks them by plausibility and observability, and specifies the experiments needed to search for them. The project is organized into six workstreams: 1. Search for spacetime discreteness or lattice artifacts 2. Search for Lorentz-symmetry breaking, anisotropy, and preferred-frame effects 3. Search for quantum-geometric noise and spacetime jitter 4. Stress-test quantum mechanics for computational or collapse-like departures 5. Probe extreme-energy and extreme-precision frontiers for resource-limit signatures 6. Develop formal statistical criteria for when evidence would count for or against simulation-like models The output is a ranked portfolio of tests using existing and near-term platforms: the Large Hadron Collider, ultrahigh-energy cosmic-ray observatories, gamma-ray and neutrino observatories, optical clock networks, precision interferometers, and macroscopic quantum-superposition experiments. CERN’s LHC is currently operating at 13.6 TeV collision energy in Run 3, while CTAO, IceCube, LIGO-class interferometers, Fermilab’s Holometer program, and state-of-the-art optical clocks already provide relevant infrastructure for key parts of this program. The core deliverable is not a sensational declaration that “we proved the Matrix.” It is a defensible scientific result of one of two kinds: • positive evidence for departures from continuous Lorentz-invariant quantum field theory and general relativity, in a pattern consistent with a discretized/computational substrate, or • stringent exclusion bounds showing that broad classes of simulation-like implementations are inconsistent with observation.