A Universe Made of Stories by Philip Gibbs

Philip Gibbs

Thank you Christian, I have read and commented on your essay.

On the subject of the quote you picked from my essay, I smile when I hear physicists talk about the beauty of Einstein's geometric theory of gravity. Some talk about "Angel of Geometry vs. the Demon of Algebra." they say that quantum mechanics needs to be geometrised to unify it with gravity. I think pure mathematicians have long-since realised that algebra is more fundamental, in fact geometry is just a nice example of algebra. The beauty of algebra is harder to appreciate because it does not provide us with such lovely pictures, but in my opinion its beauty is both superior and far more extensive and I am far from being expert enough to understand the work of some of the great algebraists. If general relativity is about geometry then quantum theory is about algebra, but the full beauty and power of algebra has not yet been incorporated into physics to the same extent as geometry has.

Philip Gibbs

Pete, I see information as a key characteristic of emergence. I agree that it emerges from different possibilities that are realised, such as the different snowflakes or the different outcomes of a quantum measurement. Information is what distinguishes your reality from mine. This information is not just the knowledge in our brain it is also the information about the universe around us that is consistent with our experience. So actually the information that defines your experience of reality is mostly the same as mine.

No information can come from outside the universe. When the whole is considered there is no information, it is just a collection of all possible experiences with no information to distinguish one from another. Your experience of reality requires information to distinguish it from all the other possibilities. It's a random. selection constrained by the requirement that the information we have must be consistent and comprehensible. In summary then, information is just the result of a random selection from all possible experiences.

I am not sure I can be more specific about the mathematics here. That would require writing a long paper the details of which are not yet worked out.

Gary Hansen

Hello Philip,

A belated read of your essay reveals confirmation of my own fundamental thoughts concerning 'What is "Fundamental"?' As you note, 'The universe exists, so there must be answers.'

Such was my own conclusion: the prerequisite for all that 'is' - is Existence.

'Everything is nothing in the absence of Existence'. Amen.

If you have a moment to read, comment and rank my essay at this, the eleventh hour, I would much appreciate it. I am aware that there is 'ice' on the slope today moving ranking scores downwards, in my case from 6.8 to 6.3!

Go well and good luck in the final assessment.

Gary.

Philip Gibbs

Thanks to everyone for the comments and comparisons with your own essays. This has helped me advance my ideas a little further. Sorry if I did not have time to comment on everyone's essay. I did read a lot and rated the ones I liked. I wish you all good luck for the judging but it is the exchange of ideas that really counts.

Sylvia Wenmackers

Dear Philip,

My experience in reading your essay was that it was really nice locally, though somewhat hard to navigate as a whole. I liked your discussion of the geometry problem best, though I suspect it does less for your case than you suggest. In the example, the symmetries were an epistemically helpful ladder to the solution, which can be kicked away in the end (though you can learn from how others climbed it). Yet, for physics, you suspect to find symmetry in a fundamental theory beyond those we have now. Isn't that in tension, or did I misinterpret this?

The batch of entries I selected to read includes the essay by Ilja Schmelzer: section IV addresses the loss of symmetry across symmetry change. I think it would be interesting if you two could discuss this directly.

Best wishes,

Sylvia - Seek Fundamentality, and Distrust It

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