Thoughts please? A theory of everything is necessarily a theory of nothing

[koti]

5 hours ago, Jack Egerton said:

Thus, I propose the following theory of everything that describes the physical laws of the real universe: 

0 = 0

Did you get that peer reviewed? /sarcasm

Quote

...Solipsism is the only way to truly understand the universe.

Why am I not surprised at this after seeing your other threads/posts. 

[Phi for All]

25 minutes ago, Jack Egerton said:

If I am lucky, this will be the last we need to say on this particular matter, but the reason I sound impassioned is because we all should be for our interests and pursuits. I was hoping for some genuine intellectual countering or input from people here. Maybe I have asked the wrong questions or asked them in the wrong way, but I seem to have exhausted my methods for doing so....

I prefer to use my passion to bolster my critical thinking. I think it's important to use reason first, so you can trust the explanations you believe in, and then become passionate about THAT. You gotten nothing but "intellectual countering" (I don't quote to show I'm offended - I quote to show these were your words) from the thread so far, but because you're only responding passionately, it's hard to defend against the reason others are using.

25 minutes ago, Jack Egerton said:

Seeing that you seemed to take offence to 'you folks'. I intended that because of how fundamentally differently we seem to think and view the world, which is partially interesting, partially bemusing.

I think you've unnecessarily put up a fence between you and us folks. This is a science discussion site. Isn't that why you came here, to discuss your idea with people who've studied science a lot more than you have? I'm not a professional, but you've had responses from working scientists who follow scientific methods on a daily basis. I don't understand why you'd want to come here to discuss science if you think of it fundamentally differently than the rest of the people who study it. Science is one of our greatest tools because it provides consistency and predictability, so of course we're going to apply that filter when analyzing your idea. 

You asked for our thoughts, and the consensus was that you hadn't adequately considered specific details in supporting your argument. Now you seem to be saying it's our fault for not understanding you because you view the world in a better way. You're bemused that we're promoting science? Do you see why there is some confusion here?

[Jack Egerton]

Bit late to the party, koti -- check out the other comments, I would suggest. I have done all I can to explain myself to yourselves.

Phi for All, thank you for attempting to add depth and context. I believe I have justified my opinions to the fullest and quite broadly, so shall not here, unless I see real reason to do so.

Edited April 23, 2018 by Jack Egerton

[koti]

15 minutes ago, Jack Egerton said:

Bit late to the party, koti -- check out the other comments, I would suggest. I have done all I can to explain myself to yourselves.

Phi for All, thank you for attempting to add depth and context. I believe I have justified my opinions to the fullest and quite broadly, so shall not here, unless I see real reason to do so.

I was about to respond to you something along the lines of maybe trying to start over after your unfortunate entrance to the forum but then I saw your response to Phi above...Jack, you’re obviously a smart and knowledgeable guy but you need to cut down on the condenscending tone. You’re going to drive people nuts with this regardless of how well educated and knowledgeable you are. Take that as the second thing you learned on this forum.

[swansont]

5 hours ago, Jack Egerton said:

swansont: I did not mention a situation in which one does not understand the whole universe in which they exist and I shall not, for it is not relevant to the scenario I proposed: a universe in which someone understood fully the laws describing nature in the universe in which they exist. Practical limitations such as data storage are limitations not preventions and so are also not relevant to imaging whether something is 'not impossible' as I stated.

When I say limitation I mean they reduce the probability of something being possible and when I say prevention I mean that possibility is zero percent. A limitation can never become a prevention via that definition.

Having the information available to run a simulation is not relevant to being able to run a simulation?

Sorry, I don't understand how that can be true.

 

[Phi for All]

43 minutes ago, Jack Egerton said:

I believe I have justified my opinions to the fullest and quite broadly, so shall not here, unless I see real reason to do so.

Nobody is talking about things you offered as opinion. I'm talking about the assertions you've made, and the requests for clarity about them that you've ignored.

6 hours ago, Strange said:

Can you explain that "consequently" as I don't see the connection.

6 hours ago, Jack Egerton said:

I am glad you comprehended what I said, unless you missed that 'not a theory of anything' is the same as 'a theory of nothing', that you may well see in the title of this thread  

See what I mean? You didn't address the call for clarity, you just plowed right over it. And that's the way you've been responding to anyone who questions your concept.

4 hours ago, Jack Egerton said:

Strange: your opinions on the matter seem fair, yet I stick to mine. Noting, that I have not had the time to consider whether any of your statements were both in contradiction with my own and also seem true -- as that would be required to falsify mine in my own mind. I agree that searching for a theory of everything is akin to a religious pursuit, yes.

4 hours ago, Strange said:

That is not what I said, and not what I intended. Pursuing a theory of everything is (for suitable definitions of "everything") a reasonable pursuit.

Here again you fail to address the criticism, and it's even mentioned that you misinterpreted what was said. You never cleared this up, but instead went on to claim: "I highly doubt anything you could say would change my understanding of that, though I am keen to hear what you would suggest. I suppose you have said all you want to on the subject though -- I understand your position."

Clearly, you don't understand the position of your critics, and have no intention of letting any of their reasoning penetrate your current understanding. You are, in essence, soapboxing your idea on a science forum. 

[Strange]

Is Randall Munroe following this discussion ...

Quote

"But there are seven billion people in the world! I can't possibly stop to consider how ALL of them might interpret something!"

"Ah, yes, there's no middle ground between 'taking personal responsibility for the thoughts and feelings of every single person on Earth' and 'covering your eyes and ears and yelling logically correct statements into the void.' That's a very insightful point and not at all inane."

https://xkcd.com/1984/

[Lasse]

"Thoughts please? A theory of everything is necessarily a theory of nothing"

For the theory of everything you can not avoid the theory/hypotheses of Nothing.

Nothing had been(lowest possible physical state) and nothing never can be again, ever since anything exist.

How does your theory handle the sense of Nothing-0?

What is the written expression of nothing?

How would you prove mathematically the consistency natural numbers has, if you know the definition of 0?

I will try to show some functions of Nothing(0) what I recognized it has:

0+0=0,0

0*0=0,0

0-0=0,0

0/0=0,0

Can I say 0 is a Natural number?

Edited April 23, 2018 by Lasse

[Velocity_Boy]

On 4/23/2018 at 8:00 AM, Strange said:

That is not what I said, and not what I intended. Pursuing a theory of everything is (for suitable definitions of "everything") a reasonable pursuit.

I said that trying to distinguish "reality" from a simulation is impossible. We can only build models (i.e. do science) based on what we observe. There is no way of distinguishing between simulation, solpsism, naive realism, or any other philosophical stance. So I suggested that arguing for a simulated universe is a quasi-religious belief.

The only things I have read by him are when he gets quoted on science forums by people promoting crackpot ideas. I get the impression he is one of those people more interested in making impressive sounding statements than communicating science accurately. (Michio Kaku appears to be similar.)

How you can claim Tyson isn't interested in, or even highly adept at communicating science accurately is beyond me. I think he's the best out there for relating cosmological facts and theories to the general public since Carl Sagan. Whom he was mentored by, in fact. His Netflix docs are outstanding. He's a smart man and a skilled speaker, with a great voice to boot. And to me, he never comes across as overly arrogant to where he tends to turn people off, right out of the box, like Kaku or Dawkins.

By contrast, a poor communicator or person who cannot or won't explain things but just pastes links all the time would be, in my opinion, a poor communicator as well as someone who just wants to be seen as being right.

Just my dos centavos.

On 4/23/2018 at 12:21 PM, koti said:

I was about to respond to you something along the lines of maybe trying to start over after your unfortunate entrance to the forum but then I saw your response to Phi above...Jack, you’re obviously a smart and knowledgeable guy but you need to cut down on the condenscending tone. You’re going to drive people nuts with this regardless of how well educated and knowledgeable you are. Take that as the second thing you learned on this forum.

Wow.

You're really lecturing someone on being condescending?

Pot.......meet kettle.

 

 

Edited May 11, 2018 by Velocity_Boy

[Strange]

5 hours ago, Velocity_Boy said:

How you can claim Tyson isn't interested in, or even highly adept at communicating science accurately is beyond me. I think he's the best out there for relating cosmological facts and theories to the general public since Carl Sagan. Whom he was mentored by, in fact. His Netflix docs are outstanding. He's a smart man and a skilled speaker, with a great voice to boot. And to me, he never comes across as overly arrogant to where he tends to turn people off, right out of the box, like Kaku or Dawkins.

I really don't know how good a science communicator he is. I assume he is very good. As I say, my impression is based on the very misleading statements made by people presenting their "personal theories" on forums like this. That is more likely to be because they have misunderstood what he said or, perhaps, because they are misrepresenting it to make it fit with their own ideas.

[koti]

5 hours ago, Velocity_Boy said:

You're really lecturing someone on being condescending?

Pot.......meet kettle.

 

 

I think you got the context wrong, I wasn’t lecturing nor being condenscending, actually I was trying to do the opposite - be sincere and try to point out that a kind, not self centered attitude would render a lot more effective for Jack on this forum (or any forum) 

[swansont]

7 hours ago, Velocity_Boy said:

 Wow.

You're really lecturing someone on being condescending?

Pot.......meet kettle.

!

Moderator Note

Knock this crap off right now. It's off-topic and more so because you were not involved in the discussion and the comment was not directed at you. Post to discuss the topic of the thread or not at all.

 

[Velocity_Boy]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

!

Moderator Note

Knock this crap off right now. It's off-topic and more so because you were not involved in the discussion and the comment was not directed at you. Post to discuss the topic of the thread or not at all.

 

Yes sir...sorry.

[Sensei]

On 23.04.2018 at 2:03 PM, swansont said:

I disagree. We don't fully comprehend how nature behaves, and it's easy to imagine that a simulated universe is indeed impossible. The amount of information that would need to be stored would take more space than is available with what we have in the universe, since the data of the state of everything in the universe would have to be stored.

If you can show otherwise, please do so. The bald assertion is not sufficient.

You made assumption that simulated Universe, and the "upper level" Universe, are ruled by the same physical laws, which might not be true.

Analogy, you can simulate 8 bit Atari with Motorola 6502 with 1.77 MHz pretty efficiently on any 32 bit+ PC with at least Intel 486 100 MHz (maybe 386 would be sufficient). They have completely different architecture, completely different instruction set. (but you can't reverse their roles. Can't simulate Intel 486 on Motorola 6502.. It'll be too slow, too few memory). But on Atari you could simulate '80 years calculator.. and it'll be working faster than original version.

On 23.04.2018 at 2:03 PM, swansont said:

The amount of information that would need to be stored would take more space than is available with what we have in the universe, since the data of the state of everything in the universe would have to be stored.

To store information about black hole you don't need to store the all particles of the all stars and dust which was ever sucked by BH in its entire billions of years lifetime. Just a few bytes of data.

To store information about e.g. solid crystal you don't need to store the all particles just index to compound, position, velocity etc., and macroscopic shape. The more uniform object the less data needed to store the all needed information.

 

Playing game (like mentioned in Elon Musk videos) is slightly different than simulation of entire Universe.. The first one requires simulation of only what players see by their eyes, and hear by their ears. While the second requires everything.

Edited May 11, 2018 by Sensei

[swansont]

27 minutes ago, Sensei said:

 

To store information about black hole you don't need to store the all particles of the all stars and dust which was ever sucked by BH in its entire billions of years lifetime. Just a few bytes of data.

To store information about e.g. solid crystal you don't need to store the all particles just index to compound, position, velocity etc., and macroscopic shape. The more uniform object the less data needed to store the all needed information.

You need to know the quantum state of every particle in every atom to do a proper simulation.

So for an electron you need to know its energy state and spin state. It's true, as you point out, that some compression is possible. If both electrons of a level are occupied, then you might be able to save some information. But there's a limit to that. And then you have the atom (or molecule) as a whole, which has up to six degrees of freedom, and you need the information about that. You need information about the fields in place that would be affecting the particles. etc., etc.

[koti]

46 minutes ago, Sensei said:

You made assumption that simulated Universe, and the "upper level" Universe, are ruled by the same physical laws, which might not be true.

Analogy, you can simulate 8 bit Atari with Motorola 6502 with 1.77 MHz pretty efficiently on any 32 bit+ PC with at least Intel 486 100 MHz (maybe 386 would be sufficient). They have completely different architecture, completely different instruction set. (but you can't reverse their roles. Can't simulate Intel 486 on Motorola 6502.. It'll be too slow, too few memory). But on Atari you could simulate '80 years calculator.. and it'll be working faster than original version.

To store information about black hole you don't need to store the all particles of the all stars and dust which was ever sucked by BH in its entire billions of years lifetime. Just a few bytes of data.

To store information about e.g. solid crystal you don't need to store the all particles just index to compound, position, velocity etc., and macroscopic shape. The more uniform object the less data needed to store the all needed information.

 

Playing game (like mentioned in Elon Musk videos) is slightly different than simulation of entire Universe.. The first one requires simulation of only what players see by their eyes, and hear by their ears. While the second requires everything.

So not only the universe is simulated but also state of the art compression algorithms are used to keep a real time database of...everything  That sounds far fetched even for Elon Musk’s thinking. Assuming physics still works in the simulated universe, we’d also need energy for the ”storage” - lots of energy,  more than the whole universe contains. Lets assume a crazy idea that theres a high speed connection between every particle in the universe and spacetime serves as the infrastructure providing the connection and bandwidth - how do you setup a distributed database working in real time containig data about everything without anybody noticing it? Plus how would you explain what/who built the simulation? These simulation ideas get more and more far fetched in my opinion.

Edited May 11, 2018 by koti

[swansont]

1 hour ago, koti said:

Assuming physics still works in the simulated universe

That's an interesting point. Is that a reasonable assumption? We can certainly make simulations (of varying levels of sophistication) that modify the rules of physics. And if our rules don't apply we can't say for sure what is going on.

But in the end that's an unsatisfying scenario to invoke, since it's essentially saying that it's magic.

[koti]

1 minute ago, swansont said:

That's an interesting point. Is that a reasonable assumption? We can certainly make simulations (of varying levels of sophistication) that modify the rules of physics. And if our rules don't apply we can't say for sure what is going on.

But in the end that's an unsatisfying scenario to invoke, since it's essentially saying that it's magic.

I think its reasonable. My take on this is that whatever we don’t know has to correlate directly with what we already know. An analogy would be Newton and later Einstein - both models are correct but the later is fuller and more accurate. We can’t just say that Newton was wrong. It wouldn’t be logical in my opinion to assume that this Newton->Einstein mechanism doesn’t apply to other aspects of nature which we don’t have yet insight on. Unless the universe changes its rules to decieve us there is no reason to believe that we can’t know whats going on. Complexity is a different ballgame though, there might be so much of it that we will never get all the answers. As for the simulation theory, as far as I know it stems from the holographic principle by Hawking and Thorne in the 70’s and 80’s later twisted into this weird mixture of mumbo jumbo we get now from Elon Musk and other celebraties trying to build fuss around their high profiles. Deepak Chopra and alikes love to thrive on this kind of „science”, frankly I have enough of „simulation” and „quantum” in all the popscience around, it’s just getting more and more deceiving. 

[dimreepr]

20 minutes ago, koti said:

I think its reasonable. My take on this is that whatever we don’t know has to correlate directly with what we already know. An analogy would be Newton and later Einstein - both models are correct but the later is fuller and more accurate. We can’t just say that Newton was wrong. It wouldn’t be logical in my opinion to assume that this Newton->Einstein mechanism doesn’t apply to other aspects of nature which we don’t have yet insight on. Unless the universe changes its rules to decieve us there is no reason to believe that we can’t know whats going on. Complexity is a different ballgame though, there might be so much of it that we will never get all the answers. As for the simulation theory, as far as I know it stems from the holographic principle by Hawking and Thorne in the 70’s and 80’s later twisted into this weird mixture of mumbo jumbo we get now from Elon Musk and other celebraties trying to build fuss around their high profiles. Deepak Chopra and alikes love to thrive on this kind of „science”, frankly I have enough of „simulation” and „quantum” in all the popscience around, it’s just getting more and more deceiving. 

But it's not a simulation, in this context, it's an approximation; IOW sometimes Newton is right and sometimes Einstein is right and sometimes both are wrong, <insert magic>.  

[koti]

39 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

But it's not a simulation, in this context, it's an approximation; IOW sometimes Newton is right and sometimes Einstein is right and sometimes both are wrong, <insert magic>.  

Thats the crux of my analogy, I think they’re never wrong and they never will be wrong. When Einstein came up with GR it didn’t render Newton wrong, GR openned another door which just enabled a broader view. When we open a new door (which Im sure we will) it will not render GR wrong. As for the simulation „theory” its so unsatisfying that its really unlikely its more than a glitch in the mind of physics (or rather philosophy)

Edited May 11, 2018 by koti

[swansont]

2 hours ago, koti said:

I think its reasonable. My take on this is that whatever we don’t know has to correlate directly with what we already know. An analogy would be Newton and later Einstein - both models are correct but the later is fuller and more accurate. We can’t just say that Newton was wrong. It wouldn’t be logical in my opinion to assume that this Newton->Einstein mechanism doesn’t apply to other aspects of nature which we don’t have yet insight on. Unless the universe changes its rules to decieve us there is no reason to believe that we can’t know whats going on. Complexity is a different ballgame though, there might be so much of it that we will never get all the answers. As for the simulation theory, as far as I know it stems from the holographic principle by Hawking and Thorne in the 70’s and 80’s later twisted into this weird mixture of mumbo jumbo we get now from Elon Musk and other celebraties trying to build fuss around their high profiles. Deepak Chopra and alikes love to thrive on this kind of „science”, frankly I have enough of „simulation” and „quantum” in all the popscience around, it’s just getting more and more deceiving. 

I don't see how that applies. We can't possibly know what happens outside of our universe (or simulation, if that's what this is)

If someone had their powers within the a simulation (like all the things Neo could do in The Matrix), but had no way to get out of the simulation, how would they be able to deduce what the real laws of physics were?  

[Sensei]

10 hours ago, swansont said:

So for an electron you need to know its energy state and spin state. It's true, as you point out, that some compression is possible.

- in "game theory", you need to know states of quantum particles only exclusively when some player is looking at them some way..

- in "simulation theory", you don't need to treat each bound electron, each bound proton and neutron as independent particle, but join them together. e.g. CO₃^2- ,NO₃^-, each molecule, each ion, could have their own compound index, plus additional flag/mask/index for state (same index to state = the same state for the all compounds worldwide). The most common compounds have to have the shortest possible indices.

The one which are the most common isotopes. So it's actually 1x C-12 and 3x O-16, or 1x N-14 and 3x O-16.... C-13, C-14 isotopes are rare, so there is no sense keeping them in short-fully-compressed version.

In uncompressed version of CO₃^2- (C-12, O-16)  you would have to deal with 30 protons, 30 neutrons, and 32 electrons, 92 quantum particles in total.

 

Edited May 11, 2018 by Sensei

[koti]

6 hours ago, swansont said:

I don't see how that applies. We can't possibly know what happens outside of our universe (or simulation, if that's what this is)

If someone had their powers within the a simulation (like all the things Neo could do in The Matrix), but had no way to get out of the simulation, how would they be able to deduce what the real laws of physics were?  

I agree. My gripe is with this being a simulation at least in the Neo/Matrix sense, it's hard for me to accept that nature would go into so much trouble to create such a construct - reality which we observe is much more elegant.

[swansont]

40 minutes ago, Sensei said:

- in "game theory", you need to know states of quantum particles only exclusively when some player is looking at them some way..

But you need to be consistent, too, so you need to know even when nobody is looking.

If someone determines that an electron is spin up, this could have implications for a later interaction. So you would need to keep track of the information. If particles are entangled, you need to keep track of the correlation. It's not just when you are looking.

[Sensei]

49 minutes ago, swansont said:

But you need to be consistent, too, so you need to know even when nobody is looking.

In typical modern game, e.g. tree can be generated, using just one initial random seed value. The same seed, every time the same output (pseudo-random numbers) will be generated (triangulated full of detail object). Like fractal, the same input, always the same output, regardless of zoom and position. If player is walking through the world, through forest, everything can be generated just-in-time, a few seconds prior visit of player. But if player interacted with tree e.g. cut it, damaged it, to keep changes of object, tree should be e.g. triangulated, and kept that way for longer time. Older super efficient optimization of tree (generation on demand) is replaced by the real geometry, which is indeed memory and time consuming.

49 minutes ago, swansont said:

If someone determines that an electron is spin up, this could have implications for a later interaction. So you would need to keep track of the information.

Only quantum physicists play with electrons from 7.6 billions of people on this world.. and could notice it and appreciate it..

Is it game for quantum scientists.. ?

49 minutes ago, swansont said:

If particles are entangled, you need to keep track of the correlation. It's not just when you are looking.

After interaction entanglement is broken, isn't?

ps. I am not definitely saying that this world/Universe is game or simulation.  Just describing options and how to achieve certain effects..

 

Edited May 12, 2018 by Sensei