Okay, here it goes... this is my theory of the universe!

[bascule]

I'm going to try this. I've seen so many people try, and so many fail. It's hard, and what's more, it's hard to remain empirical enough while filling in all the details with fundamental assumptions which are always going to be hard for others to accept. So I'm going to try to remain empirical as possible and hopefully I won't run into the trap of discrediting myself with any kind of novice-level misunderstandings.

 

And uhh, yeah, I hope if I actually stumble onto something the forum will be enough of a historical record to get me some credit but really I don't care, if I can actually put this together I'd rather just give it away... trying to be selfish about it is stupid.

 

So, what is this? Well, this is my best guess as to the framework which the quantum gravity people should be trying to reduce their models to. I don't proport to know anything about the intricate details of Loop Quantum Gravity, String Theory, Supersymmetry, etc. but it seems like they're all trying to get to a common destination, a single type of mathematical expression which all their systems are presently approximating but that's the problem, they're all just approximations and are thus far more complicated than the relatively simple underlying system.

 

So, let's start with the first law of thermodynamics and how that applies to the true "atoms" of the universe, whatever they may be. This specifies that there must be a 1:1 mapping of these objects for any given timeframe.

 

These objects are interconnected in a web/ontological (in the computer science) configuration. Each of these objects has an internal state, and is also interconnected to every other one of these objects in the entire universe. They pass a fixed amount of state information between other at a fixed rate, a "universal timestep" if you will, and thus the entire system is synchronous.

 

When a timestep begins, an object averages the state information it receives from all other objects. What is this state information? Well, it's an integer, vector, or matrix, but it's discrete and fixed size. I'm really not sure exactly how that needs to be structured.

 

But let's look at it on a higher level for a second. What these objects are doing is passing waveforms to each other. Each object receives a fixed amount of waveform in each timestep, and it doles out what it gets to all the other objects in the universe.

 

So yeah, the first law of thermodynamics... there's a fixed amount of this "waveform intensity" in the universe and the fundamental state constructs of the universe, which I have been describing as objects, are passing it between each other. But the objects don't just divide up the state information equally, they give it out in highly variadic amounts. The amounts of "waveform intensity" they give to other objects varies per timestep as well.

 

Okay, let's step up another level. What ends up happening is that these objects quickly become highly selective about what other objects they pass their information to. They form into little resonance groups so that a large amount of state is passed between a small number of objects. That's what strings are made out of. Strings aren't the true "atoms" of the universe, it's really these resonance "clumps" of objects... but they pass off their state information in graduating amounts, and this is what gives the appearance of distance. When these clumps start resonating more and more with other nearby clumps, they are drawn together.

 

I mean, bottom line, what you're trying to reduce gauge theory to is an ontology... a graph. It's all just one big structure, made of multiple "frames" of state transferrence of every object in the universe to every other, and all these frames together form spacetime.

 

Wow, this is hard. I think I need a break, then I'll reread what I wrote later and see if anyone actually responded, then decide if I was crazy or if I was actually onto something. And uhh, cut me some slack please, I did better than some of the other "I have a theory of the entire universe!!!" people, didn't I? I hope...

[blike]

Your hypothesis, you mean.

[bascule]

Your hypothesis, you mean.

 

Yes, my metaphysical extrapolative hypotheis, but yes...

[Martin]

Yes, my metaphysical extrapolative hypothesis, but yes...

 

you deserve applause for having the quixotic courage to offer a extended metaphor for existence like this, especially since it is couched in descriptive imagery rather than equations.

 

As you undoubtably know, theory professionals traditionally build their models of the universe, or of sections of the universe, out of equations------even if they talk about their mathematical models using visual imagery and words like "loop" and "string" you can't rely on that being what their theories are really about.

 

I judge from your hat and flower---and the expensive calfskin gloves---that you are intelligent and a good shot with a pistol, have an excellent sense of humor but little or no education in physics.

 

I am trying to think if there is some mathematical model of spacetime and matter which would be at the same time clever enough to appeal to you and simple enough for you to understand and use. Cant think of one at the moment.

[Locrian]

You might want to ask yourself what observation you are trying to predict with your theory that current theories cannot predict. Although there are many areas of science dealing with observation that is not found in theory, I don't actually see how your theory relates to any of them. Maybe you could clarify?

[bascule]

you deserve applause for having the quixotic courage to offer a extended metaphor for existence like this, especially since it is couched in descriptive imagery rather than equations.

 

Well, it's actually more like a little too much to drink than any innate courage

 

As you undoubtably know, theory professionals traditionally build their models of the universe, or of sections of the universe, out of equations------even if they talk about their mathematical models using visual imagery and words like "loop" and "string" you can't rely on that being what their theories are really about.

 

Yeah, I agree 100% completely... needs more math. I'm currently mucking my way through An Elementary Primer for Gauge Theory.

 

I judge from your hat and flower---and the expensive calfskin gloves---that you are intelligent and a good shot with a pistol, have an excellent sense of humor but little or no education in physics.

 

You're correct in my physics education. I approach it at a 99% conceptual level because, well, I kind of lost interest in complex mathematics so quantum physics is this world I try to peek inside but don't really know anything about the intricate details at all.

 

Also, the picture isn't of me, it's of Bob Dylan...

 

I am trying to think if there is some mathematical model of spacetime and matter which would be at the same time clever enough to appeal to you and simple enough for you to understand and use. Cant think of one at the moment.

 

Well, I'm trying to get to where I might have some capacity of understanding the basics of any of these models (mainly the Standard Model) by trying to study gauge theory. I think that's a good way to get a start in trying to understand the level in the system I'm really wanting to understand... do you?

 

You might want to ask yourself what observation you are trying to predict with your theory that current theories cannot predict. Although there are many areas of science dealing with observation that is not found in theory, I don't actually see how your theory relates to any of them. Maybe you could clarify?

 

I don't think this can be directly related to any observation. I think my best bet is to construct a model, and try to generate any kind of output which might correlate with existing models. If I could generate numbers anywhere close to anything any of the quantum gravity people are doing, especially if I could generate numbers which are similar to more than one of the quantum gravity models, I think it might be a good indicator I'm onto something.

 

I mean, basically, I have a pretty good idea in my head of a system which gauge theory-based models of the universe might be reducible to, and obviously trying to explain this on a conceptual level is complete failure.

 

So yeah, thanks for reading this anyone, and hopefully if I have any trouble with gauge theory someone here can steer me in the right direction. What forum should I be asking gauge theory questions about in, anyway?

[Martin]

You might want to ask yourself what observation[/i'] you are trying to predict with your theory that current theories cannot predict. Although there are many areas of science dealing with observation that is not found in theory, I don't actually see how your theory relates to any of them. Maybe you could clarify?

 

Locrian, I feel a kindred spirit with you! You also want to respond to Bascule constructively although it is baffling how to do it, because his model is incorrigibly unmathematical.

 

 

Actually Bascule is doing what Seth Lloyd of MIT and a bunch of other

"computational spacetime" and "logic-network-spacetime" people are also doing. I will explain:

 

Bascule is obsessed by the prevalence of MEMES in collective human behavior. Without telling us, he has invented a model of spacetime in which the "atom" or fundamental unit of spacetimematterenergy is a MEME. but he being very subtle has concealed this by not mentioning the word. So he describes how an atom of spacetimematterenergy should look and be and act assuming that it is a meme-----or a metaphor for a meme, or a meme is a metaphor for it. Ahhhhhhh! :-) What a nice model that makes!

 

Now why is this similar to what Seth Lloyd does?

Because Seth Lloyd and all those computational spacetime people are obsessed, not with memes or anything like that but, with LOGIC GATES, the kind of integrated circuit stuff they played with as kids or discovered when they took a hardware computer science course. And so there is a big active school of people developing and writing papers where they model spacetime as a web of computational elements.

 

I will get a link to Seth Lloyd papers, but he is only one of many now. He actually got his crazy ideas published in Science journal, which you know is a very good journal and quite selective.

 

here is one of them

http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0501135

[Martin]

...Also' date=' the picture isn't of me, it's of Bob Dylan...

[/quote']

 

Well it's your avatar, that says something.

 

I am not sure gauge theory is the thing for you.

 

I am not ready to recommend anything yet and will just wait and see for a while.

 

[AFTERTHOUGHT]: take a look at Figure 4 in

THE UNIVERSE FROM SCRATCH

http://www.arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0509010

 

they get universes to assemble themselves in the computer

the universes are quantum--- random to some extent---but on the average and in large scale they obey classic Gen Rel.

 

think about it. when you perfect your model you should be able to run it in a computer simulation and have universes create themselves according to your rules, and

they should turn out to be 4D at macroscopic human scale and behave in a recognizable way, expand, bend according to gravity etc.

 

think about it. Renate Loll uses triangles and she gets the computer simulations to work.

she doesnt use gauge theory or string-baloney or any abstract stuff, she just has figured out how to shuffle and deal triangles. it is now the state of the art and it sets the bar.

 

It's mathematical, in that you input numbers like the gravitational constant to it, and you derive numbers that you can (at least in principle) compare with reality, but it is more basic---less abstract gradschool level machinery

 

you dont like triangles you like squiggles or meme-lets

but you have the same SELF-ORGANIZING COMPLEX SYSTEMS slant as many other people do now

 

they are not doing gauge theory or very highlevel math. this kind of thing is at a very early stage of development. but watch the figures in Loll's papers as they mature (the first Figure 4 image only came out in 2004)

[bascule]

Wow Martin, thank you very very much for all of that information. That's awesome.

[bascule]

And yes, I'm obsessed with trying to express everything as self-organizing graph structures... especially when these graph structures are continuously transformed in a temporal context

[gib65]

Wow' date=' this is hard. I think I need a break, then I'll reread what I wrote later and see if anyone actually responded, then decide if I was crazy or if I was actually onto something. And uhh, cut me some slack please, I did better than some of the other "I have a theory of the entire universe!!!" people, didn't I? I hope...[/quote']

 

Well, it certainly sounds like you have a clear idea of what you're talking about. I've read a lot of those "I have a theory..." posts as well, and the one thing that keeps reappearing and destroys them before they even get half way through their first paragraph, is how tangled and convoluted their statements get. Contradictions, meaningless jargon, and even terrible typos and grammar abound. The only thing that they succeed in getting across to the reader is that they are scatter brains. It's actually kind of sad because, who knows, maybe there was a truly sound idea behind the mess of words, but no one would ever know.

 

My raw impression of your writing is that you seem to have a handle on the clarity and consistency of your idea. I still don't understand it though. This is undoubtedly partly because of my pour understanding of gauge theory and most quantum mechanical models, but I also get the impress your writing is making giant leaps in some parts and huge assumption that the reader is following right behind you all the way. I think you would do well to slow down and elaborate at a few points. For example, I got lost at this point:

 

This specifies that there must be a 1:1 mapping of these objects for any given timeframe.

 

A mapping onto what? On one timeframe onto another? On one object to another? I don't know what the first law of thermodynamics is, so this may be the problem. Do you feel that someone who is well versed in the laws of thermodynamics would have no problem understanding the above statement?

 

Obviously, it would be inappropriate to write a novel in these forums (it might even pass as abuse), so if it really requires a lengthy exposition to get across, maybe science forums aren't the best place to post them. Have you ever looked into developing your own website? You could do that and then post a link to it here.

 

PS - I know what MEMES are. Was Martin right about this? Is this your idea? Even if it is, I'm guessing this is not the whole story.

[bascule]

I got lost at this point:

 

This specifies that there must be a 1:1 mapping of these objects for any given timeframe.

 

A mapping onto what? On one timeframe onto another?

 

Yes' date=' that the number of nodes that exist in the graph in any given timestep is always the same. Furthermore the state data they pass to each other is quantifiable and constant throughout the system.

 

I don't know what the first law of thermodynamics is, so this may be the problem.

 

Conservation of matter/energy... it can't be created or destroyed, only transformed.

 

Obviously, it would be inappropriate to write a novel in these forums (it might even pass as abuse), so if it really requires a lengthy exposition to get across, maybe science forums aren't the best place to post them.

 

I'm doing it wrong. I think I can explain this a lot more simply.

 

Let's think about a closed system of n particles. These particles are constantly exchanging forces with each other... or more to the point, every particle in the system is emitting forces which are affecting the state of every other particle in the system. At the same time, that particle is being affected by the forces of every other particle in the system.

 

However, the intensity with which another particle's forces affect another generally varies with distance... ala the inverse square law. So the forces a particle emits affect certain particles in the system more than others. The amount of state which is transferred is dependent on how close the particles are to each other. Particles which come in contact with each other transfer a large amount of state to each other; particles which are far away may seemingly transfer no state at all to each other.

 

If we could somehow magically throw away the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and get a gestalt view of the entire system for a certain amount of time, we should be able to build, as a graph, a big map of how all the particles in the system affected all of the other ones.

 

So what I'm really saying is that all of space is made of these "nodes" which are interconnected as a big graph, and particles have internal states which are altered by the combined action of every other particle in the universe. All of this incoming state change information is mixed with the internal state of the particle and sent out again to every other particle in the universe. But you can think of each particle as possessing some kind of matrix which defines what percentage of the incoming state is passed onto all the other particles in the universe, and for all intents and purposes this is going to be zero for the majority of the system and a very large percentage for a very small number of "neighbor" particles.

 

If this is the case, we can begin looking at the graph structure as just being data, and come up with a transform which will simultaneously recompute the states of every node within it since they're all interdependent on each other.

 

So, that's it, the universe is a big graph of particles which exchange wave-like state information between each other, this state is mixed with the internal state including this sort of "intensity table" which controls how the flow of state information is redistributed. This all starts out very chaotic but eventually groups of these particles form which exhibit patterns as the state begins oscillating around inside the group and stabilizes.

 

If that makes any more sense...

 

PS - I know what MEMES are. Was Martin right about this? Is this your idea? Even if it is, I'm guessing this is not the whole story.

 

Yeah, to tell you the truth memes are exactly what I was thinking about when I came up with this. I was thinking of humans as a big graph of state exchangers/transformers and I thought "Well, why can't the entire universe work like that?"

 

I'm into this idea of resonances, that things that work well do because they're in resonance with the underlying system.

 

Life works so well because we're made of big groups of cells which are in many ways isolated and self-contained yet are constantly exchanging all sorts of other things with their neighbors.

 

Our brains are made of cells like this, which each have their own internal state made of proteins and nucleic acids and so forth, and are constantly exchanging state information between each other which in turn alters the state of everything else.

 

Humans work like this... we have our collective memories of the world which we constantly share with others, and our memory is constantly being added to so our internal state is always changing. And we alter the states of other people by saying things to them.

 

And now we have computers which are little more than finite state machines (with very complex states nowadays), but now they're all linked together, in a giant graph, and alter each others' states by sending and receiving information from each other.

 

I think all these things work as well as they do because of similarities they each bear to the underlying system. After reading Consciousness Explained, it's really easy to see that the way we think is a lot like the way humans think collectively. I'd like to describe this as each process being resonant with the underlying system, but I think it's just more that they have similari properties of graphs.

 

You can throw object oriented programming in here as well... that's all you're really building is a big graph of state management structures. And I guess I'd just like to think that everything can be expressed as big graphs of state management structures which undergo continuous change with time.

 

I just glanced over some information about Seth Lloyd and yeah, it seems like he's definitely onto the same thing, only his ideas are a lot more developed than mine...

[cpwmatthews]

I've read a lot of those "I have a theory..." posts as well, and the one thing that keeps reappearing and destroys them before they even get half way through their first paragraph, is how tangled and meaningless jargon, and even terrible typos and grammar abound. .

 

I too am one with little or no knowlege of science but I think you are wrong to write us off. I agree I did not understand all of Bascule's hypothosis but do we not learn more sometimes by dreaming if you like about subjects? Science did not automaticaly appear and say here are the rules, people had to use guess work and contemplate on things they had only thought of. So give us newbies a break, I'll follow any suggested reading articles and maybe one day catch up

[gib65]

I too am one with little or no knowlege of science but I think you are wrong to write us off. I agree I did not understand all of Bascule's hypothosis but do we not learn more sometimes by dreaming if you like about subjects? Science did not automaticaly appear and say here are the rules, people had to use guess work and contemplate on things they had only thought of. So give us newbies a break, I'll follow any suggested reading articles and maybe one day catch up

 

You misunderstand me. I don't mean to knock new and imaginative ideas. My criticism is geared towards a style of writing that comes across more as an ideological vomit rather that an elegantly put proposal. Have you ever taken a look at someone's vomit? Can you tell what they ate? How much more easy would it be to tell by looking at their plate before they ate it? It might even look appetizing! That's what these budding geniuses have to do. They have to resist the urge to spew it all out onto the forum in one breath. If it's really worth telling, they have to do it more justice than that. They have to figure out how to articulate their thoughts in such a way that it is easy for the reader to digest. That's all I'm saying.

 

PS - Bascule's theory is a lot more clear to me now. I don't know if I agree or disagree with it, but it's interesting.

[bascule]

The other thing I may not have properly articulated is that particles/nodes/objects as I have described them are merely holders of state, and "particles" as we understand them in the Standard Model would merely be contructs manifsted in that state.

 

The particles/nodes/objects in my model would be space, which holds a state, and matter/energy as we know it is that state which can flow freely between particles/nodes/objects.

 

I mean, doesn't this explain relativity, that calculating things like distance travelled over time and so forth can only be performed relative to an observer's frame of reference really indicate that all of space is referrential? Wouldn't the inherent state propagation limit of c originate from an inherent limit at which "space" can pass state information over distance?

 

So I'm proposing that c as a causality propagation limit comes from the rate at which these sort of spatial state container objects can pass state from one to the other, which is, fundamentally, once per universal "timestep"

[gib65]

The other thing I may not have properly articulated is that particles/nodes/objects as I have described them are merely holders of state, and "particles" as we understand them in the Standard Model would merely be contructs manifsted in that state.

 

Yes, I would say this is a very important point. So how do you conceive of "states". Is it at all like the POV I hear now and then in the phsyics community grape vine that fundamental particals might be more accurately understood as information? Do you have an idea for what this information is? Is it equivalent to conscious experience, or more like an inanimate abstract entity that can be interpretated to mean something by conscious and intellegence beings like ourselves?

[bascule]

Yes, I would say this is a very important point. So how do you conceive of "states". Is it at all like the POV I hear now and then in the phsyics community grape vine that fundamental particals might be more accurately understood as information[/i']?

 

That's exactly what I'm proposing. Movement through the system would take place in the form of the wave-like state information being transferred from one node to the other, setting a fixed fundamental limit of one node per timestep (similar to the way light can travel only one Planck length per Planck time)

 

The "distribution table" for the input wave energy would eventually settle onto more or less fixed values with only slight variation, much like a Markov chain. I suppose, to put it more bluntly, I'm saying that the entire universe can be modeled as one gigantic Markov chain.

 

Do you have an idea for what this information is?

 

Only that it's wave-like...

 

Is it equivalent to conscious experience, or more like an inanimate abstract entity that can be interpretated to mean something by conscious and intellegence beings like ourselves?

 

I don't really know how to answer that, or innumerable other questions such as...

 

If the number of nodes in the system is fixed, then what determined how many there were to begin with? What set the initial state? What kind of underlying structure is the whole thing built out of?

[gib65]

Good questions.

[bascule]

Okay, I can state this even more succinctly... into one sentence at that:

 

"Space is the ultimate state holder/computer which must be atomized into its underlying structure in order to have a unified theory of the universe." (Please note that's not a criticism to the quantum gravity theories at all, because as far as I can tell that's exactly what they're working on.)

 

This seems to mesh well with Seth Lloyd's conjecture in his "computational universe" model.

 

I'm suggesting it can be quantitized into a graph-like data structure to which successive transformations are applied. The system starts out with a "random" state and progressively normalizes towards values which remain largely fixed once established.

 

The reality we experience is the system normalizing itself around its final ultimate structure. We see the system remains relatively static at this point (compared to the immense state flux of the big bang/inflation and before) and what we experience are the final normalizations of the system, when complex structures can finally arise from constructions of the normalized values of the previously chaotic system... and that's what gave rise to abiogenesis... we are at a point where resonances in the graph structure came together to create a replicating pattern, and that gave rise to all life as we know it.

 

Anyway... there you have it. That's what I believe.

 

So Martin, I saw your post on the Loops '05 conference, and it's my understanding that loop quantum gravity is a discrete and background independent theory of the universe.

 

Would it be possible for you to try to give me a layman's description of how loop quantum gravity has quantitized space? (provided my understanding is correct)