Essay Abstract

I draw analogies between symmetry and randomness as both being about ambiguity or incompleteness. The meaning behind words comes not from the words themselves, but how they map to or receive from other words. I trace the roots of quantum physics back to the work of Galois and Klein on group theory, and still further back to Huygens principle as the idea behind linearity or distributivity. I also comment on artificial intelligence, natural language, finance, and the state of the modern world.

Author Bio

I am a theoretical physicist at University College London working on the mathematics of quantum computing. This is my third career, having also worked in the areas of machine learning and finance (algorithmic trading).

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8 days later

during my year of study at bachelor level studying chemistry (wich i falied to pass for not knowing the periodic table) ... i was trying to learn it , and i found an article wich gives an formula for generating the shape of it and there is a line where if i remember corectly you could make a periodic table for 2 atoms 3 atoms etc so by generalisation people are like big atoms, there is someone else in this contest that says that chemistry is more valuable for quantum mechanics than phyisics- also someoene else taliking about dark mater wich sounds dangereous , at first i was trying to make an argument about posible states and numbers anyway good drawings.

In quantum computation or qubit used, what contexts should we simulate? About 400 qubits, you claimed that we could simulate the universe. I think that this specific contexts are underlying.

Yutaka

    8 days later

    Dear Simon,

    Thank you for writing this enjoyable and very original essay. I have some comments.

    Regarding your contraposition of symmetry vs structure, I believe that when people say that if there is symmetry then there is more structure, they mean that they understand something more of the system, in particular that something is conserved. For example they would say that a sponge has no structure at all, meaning that it has no symmetry.

    I am also not so convinced that entropy and information are opposites to each other. I feel like they may stand in a more complicated relationship.

    You also talk about Artificial Intelligence, in particular in relation to its shortcoming to predict outlier events such as an earthquake. If I am not mistaken, you are basically saying that AI is based on inference: it is trained on examples and it generalises that knowledge to other cases. But this will never work to predict genuinely new phenomena, or "outliers". David Deutsch has written an essay where he argues that Artificial General Intelligence (not existing yet) should be formulated differently, namely as the capability of proposing conjectures and critically pondering them. His AGI would embody the epistemology proposed by Popper.

    I agree with you that language, numbers, etc ... perhaps originated as maps, but they are so much more than that. Consider any fiction novel, or poem, or any abstract enough area of mathematics.

    You also say "If you understand that the meaning of a word is the totality of the context that word appears in". As I understand, this is precisely the vector-based model of meaning in natural language.

    You also say that "The value is all the things you can get in exchange for it. Value is possibility." This reminds me very much of the concept of energy: it quantifies everything that a physical object can become -- how much velocitiy it can acquire, how many photons it can send, how hot it can become, etc.

    Thanks again, and all the best,

    Gemma

      Hi Yutaka, using qubits to simulate the universe is the opposite of what I consider in this essay. I was specifically thinking about using the classical universe to simulate 400 qubits. Going the other way seems to be much more complicated, but it's a very interesting question to think about.

      Simon.

      Hi Gemma, Thanks for your generous comments!

      "when people say that if there is symmetry then there is more structure"

      Yes that is what we get from a physics education. I am saying that this is upside-down. It comes from a fundamental missunderstanding of the nature of mathematics, and perhaps reality itself. I only learnt about this from hanging around the mathematician James Dolan, he is the one that explained all this to me. When a physicist says 'spontaneous symmetry breaking', they should really be saying 'spontaneous structure creating'.

      "I am also not so convinced that entropy and information are opposites to each other. I feel like they may stand in a more complicated relationship."

      Right, I was using the technical definition of information, from Shannon's theory. Strangely enough the only place I could find that explicitly stated that "information is the negative of entropy" was from a quote by Norbert Weiner.

      "you are basically saying that AI is based on inference" - yes

      "David Deutsch has written an essay..." - This sounds interesting, thankyou.

      "I agree with you that language, numbers, etc ... perhaps originated as maps, but they are so much more than that."

      I guess this is the distinction between control and reason. Or the duality between syntax and semantics.

      "the vector-based model of meaning in natural language." - yes

      "the concept of energy: it quantifies everything that a physical object can become"

      Ok, that's a very interesting way of thinking about energy. In my essay I tried to avoid writing about dynamics, energy, time, thinking only of kinematics. So many mysteries to ponder...

      Simon.

      Hi Simon,

      Thanks a lot for your reply. I agree with your comments and I look forward to discussing them further in some occasion.

      >>"I agree with you that language, numbers, etc ... perhaps originated as maps, but they are so much more than that."

      >>I guess this is the distinction between control and reason. Or the duality between syntax and semantics.

      I would really like to discuss this further! I am fascinated with the idea of maps that free themselves from what they are supposed to represent. This is what words do. You argue that this is also what numbers do - I would agree. Yet, intuitively at least, I don't think that this is the distinction between syntax and semantics. Consider a poem, which for the purposes of this text is analogous to some abstract mathematical theory (like some aspect of category theory that you might be familiar with). The poem is syntactically correct, and it also makes some sense - not any grammatical combination of words is a valid, or interesting poem. Yet these words have freed themselves from the original map of the world that gave birth to them in the first place. They will be drawing a new world via metaphors. A similar thing may happen with the mathematics example.

      I don't quite understand your comment regarding control and reason - I would definitely like to discuss this.

      >> "the concept of energy: it quantifies everything that a physical object can become"

      >> Ok, that's a very interesting way of thinking about energy. In my essay I tried to avoid writing about dynamics, energy, time, thinking only of kinematics. So many mysteries to ponder...

      Yes, I think that energy is something truly odd. It's a label that every physical object carries and that quantifies how much it is and how much it can become. This is all condensated in a number with units. This number with units is more the identity of an object than the object itself: a photon can become two photons, if the energy permits, or a living body can become whatever other forms of energy when it dies.

      I hope we have the chance of continuing this discussion live some other time :) Thanks again for your interesting contribution.

      All the best,

      Gemma

      Dear Simon,

      I greatly appreciated your work and discussion. I am very glad that you are not thinking in abstract patterns.

      While the discussion lasted, I wrote an article: "Practical guidance on calculating resonant frequencies at four levels of diagnosis and inactivation of COVID-19 coronavirus", due to the high relevance of this topic. The work is based on the practical solution of problems in quantum mechanics, presented in the essay FQXi 2019-2020 "Universal quantum laws of the universe to solve the problems of unsolvability, computability and unpredictability".

      I hope that my modest results of work will provide you with information for thought.

      Warm Regards, `

      Vladimir

      >>> I am fascinated with the idea of maps that free themselves from what they are supposed to represent.

      When maps take flight. I like the sound of this!

      >>> I hope we have the chance of continuing this discussion live some other time

      Yes, me too.

      Simon.

      Hi Simon,

      I like your essay very much. Different from the others I have read. I like the humour in it as well as the seriousness of what you address, such as the importance of context. What stays the same while changing? (Being facetious, i'd say...) a swimmer.The answer does of course depend on what is meant by 'changing', being changed or changing something else '. How much continuity is necessary to be called the same? Also what categories can be utilized as the what? An arithmetic symbol stays the samec

      while changing. .

        An arithmetic symbol stays the same while 'changing' what it operates on to give a output of the procedure it denotes. That can be thought of abstractly or concretely, such as using the coloured blocks that fit together, used in primary school.That allows the change to be seen as material happening.

        Hi Georgina,

        thankyou for your kind words. I had a look at your essay, about elephants! I think there is an analogy to be made between the function of humour and quantum physics. The surprise of a joke, and the surprise of a quantum measurement. The sudden shift in context... Something like that. :-)

        Simon.

        Hi Simon, thank you for taking a look. Its not about elephants, they are just in there as a lighthearted'vehicle' And giving some continuity in a very diverse discussion.

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