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  • Post #60

Edwin,

I don't want to impose on Brian by posting off topic in his forum, so I'll make any further comment, after this, in your forum when I get a chance to read your paper.

I'll look at the Bohr paper, though I don't expect to see new insight into the Bohr planetary model, which I among others consider obsolete. It's of historical and didactic interest, certainly, but its utility is limited.

When Einstein called a theory "incomplete" he meant _mathematically_ incomplete. The special and general theory of relativity are mathematically complete theories because they start with first principles (invariance of light speed, Minkowski spacetime) and proceed to closed form judgments on physical results. Einstein had a love for mathematical beauty, elegance, symmetry. The mathematics of quantum mechanics in contrast is "ugly" as Einstein said -- indeed, even today it's a dog's breakfast. The reason is mostly historical. QM does not start with first principles; theorists were forced to explain the results of 2-slit experiment (Young)rather than predicting them in a mathematically complete theory from first principles. So it's still incomplete in that respect. However, the standard model of particle physics is highly successful and complete in reconciling physical results with the mathematics.

There's nothing wrong with Bell's theorem. So I disagree with you and Joy Christian -- and I would be very surprised if Florin doesn't accept Bell's theorem. I'll argue that with you in another forum. That said, though, I think that Christian's method might well be a significant contribution to a mathematically complete theory of quantum mechanics, which would lessen the importance of Bell's theorem but not obviate it. It might dovetail some way into topological quantum field theory (Witten) which I don't think many people know much about yet.

Yes, I expect to enter an essay here in the next day or two.

Tom

5 days later

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  • Post #61

Brian,

What a pleasure to read your essay!

Are you making any new virtual reality games?

Please let me know.

Don Limuti

    Dear Brian,

    I have read your essay. It is very clearly expressed and nicely illustrated. I think I would have enjoyed it but due to my own opinion on the nature of reality I experienced discomforting cognitive dissonance through out. I wanted to immediately protest at some of the assumptions and arguments made.

    I do not think it would be constructive to go into lengthy debate of our differences of opinion here. I can understand why you would propose this VR conjecture from your biography. My background is biology and therefore the sensory detection and interpretation of reality by the organism has a greater priority in my thinking. Just a few questions...

    What makes something real? Analogy ... Is the software more real than the screen display, the avatars that enact the game, and the visual experience of the player or are they all real in their own way?

    Do you count all observation and experience of the world through the senses as unreal? Where does that leave practical science and the scientific method?

    In a way you have sidestepped the contest question by making a conjecture and saying if it is true then reality is digital.It only considers an underlying reality, which leaves out a vast amount of "otherness" that could potentially also be regarded as reality. However it is an original and creative answer to the contest question because of your approach.

    Good luck to you.

      Dear Brian,

      You say: if the mind creates the body as in a dream, why can't I dream the body I want?

      The mind do not create the body but it does create an image of the body. I propose a simple answer given by Hoffman in his Interface Theory of Perception:

      The shape of an icon doesn't reconstruct the true shape of the file; the position of an icon doesn't reconstruct the true position of the file in the computer.

      I don't take the icon literally, as though it resembles the real file. But I do take it seriously. My actions on the icon have repercussions for the file.

      When a file icon is dragged to the trash and disappears from the screen, is the file itself destroyed, or is it still intact and just inaccessible to the user interface?

      We shall distinguish the reality and H, Sapiens' perception of the reality. It means that our imagination is an interface that evolved to perceive some aspects of reality and it does not mean that our imagination can create the reality.

      If you are not satisfied, try "The Interface Theory of Perception" by Hoffman [link:www.veronadesign.biz/interface.pdf].

      Below I try to address your ten reasons using my speculative spacetime deformations concept (some details you can find in my essay). My comments begin with --.

      Ten reasons to suspect that the physical world is a simulation

      1. The big bang. That our universe arose from "nothing" in an initial time zero event makes no sense for an objective reality, but every virtual reality boots up from nothing in itself. -- Assuming the Universe is a wavepacket travelling through the conformally flat spacetime ("nothing") it is possible and it means there is no initial zero time.

      2. The speed of light. An objective reality has no reason for a maximum speed, but every simulation screen has a maximum refresh rate that limits local transfers. -- Assuming the spacetime is an elastic medium the speed of light would be limited due to the bulk modulus of the spacetime representing the possibility of the spacetime deformation.

      3. Planck limits. An objective space has no reason to be discrete, as our world seems to be at the Planck level, but a virtual space must be so. -- The reason can be the evolution process - a special case of more general law of survival of the stable.

      4. Non-locality. Effects that instantly affect entities anywhere in the universe, like entanglement and quantum collapse, are impossible in an objective reality, but a program can alter pixels anywhere on a screen, even on one as big as our universe. -- The concept of deformed spacetime assumes that the entities in question have never been spatially separated as they have been entangled since the creation moment as two halves of an apple taken away (they are travellig waves).

      5. Malleable space-time. Mass and movement should not alter time or space in an objective reality, but a massive body could use up local processing to dilate time and curve space. -- see my comment to the point 2.

      6. Randomness. If every physical event is predicted by others, a random quantum event is an impossible "uncaused cause", but a processor creating a virtual world can be its cause. -- Let us assume that the universe is a dissipative coupled system that exhibits self-organized criticality.

      7. Empty space is not empty. In an objective reality empty space is "nothing at all", but space as null processing can spawn the virtual particles of the Casimir effect. -- An absolute vacuum in the meaning of not deformed spacetime does not exist because all spacetime deformations have non limited range. The vacuum differs from the matter only with spacetime density gradient and shape.

      8. Superposition. Objective entities cannot spin in two directions at once as quantum entities do, but a program can divide itself to do this. -- Do they really behave like that acc. to QM?

      9. Equivalence. That every electron in our world is exactly like every other is untenable for an objective world, but simulations typically use entity templates. -- see my comment to the point 3.

      10. Quantum tunnelling. An electron "tunnelling" through an impenetrable field barrier, like a coin popping out of a perfectly sealed glass bottle, is impossible if objects continuously exist, but not if they are discrete event frames. -- The size, gradient and shape of spacetime deformations travelling as a wave can naturally do that.

      Best regards,

      Jace

        Dear Brian,

        Your essay is fascinating throughout. It seems unique in its description of processing and programs. There are some things that could be argued but I think those would naturally go away as the model is refined with more specific detail on how it works. The concepts of local processing, how it is used up, and the rip are interesting and seem to ask for more definition. What I found the most interesting is the photon program or the Planck program. Do you have any thoughts of defining pseudocode for this program? It seems a code definition would help tighten up and logically define the ideas described. Could it be written in a standard programming language and simulated with a standard computer? I am interested in seeing a possible way it would work.

        Thank you for a fascinating essay. Kind regards, Russell

          Hello My Friend,

          This essay does not disappoint. Both your stated premise and your methods of describing it keep getting better and better. I am truly impressed. This work is deeply meaningful, whether it turns out to be 'spot on' or not. Your proposal that we need a theory that is 'background independent' and 'foreground independent' may also be historic.

          I think the section on the 'Planck program' is somewhat reminiscent of papers and talks by B.G. Sidharth, but by and large what you are presenting is highly original. You are to be commended. I could go so far as to say I agree with almost everything you say, except the very last sentence. I think there is a bias toward the idea that computers are digital, by nature, but a universal quantum computer that lives 'outside the universe?' Well maybe.

          I must say that you make a convincing argument which suggests that if Godel and Chaitin are correct, about the limitations of what's knowable, the computer that generates the universe must live outside it.

          Good luck!

          Regards,

          Jonathan

            Hi Ted

            Thanks for your comment. The term Mind/Consciousness is not currently well defined, so people take it to mean whatever they want it to, without due consideration. In contrast the Buddha explicitly denied any reference to what he called the discriminating mind, which processes the senses. Equally, Hui Neng who founded Chan/Zen Buddhism spoke of Essence of Mind, not our ordinary minds. Yet current thought on consciousness is typically founded on qualia that derive from the senses, e.g. I see "redness", or I feel happy. So it is not in the same tradition. The topic must be addressed properly. Simplistic and inconsistent overviews, like Amit Goswami's book, just raise dust on the road.

            all the best

            Brian

            Dear Don

            Well if we already have one that has run successfully for fifteen billion years, why bother?

            Brian

            Dear Georgina,

            You probably well describe how many feel when they read this - even me had I not written it! Yet unsettling as it is, the question deserves consideration because people are asking it.

            Re what is reality, your example is telling. A computer game can be "real" to one so involved in it they see nothing else. It is a local reality, a world real within itself, even though from outside, it is not real. So what is real can arise from the unreal, e.g. in a Japan, an assault court case arose because in an online game, a player lent his special sword to another avatar in the game, who then sold it on e-bay! So was the sword that was stolen real? Or take the classic case of Mr. Bungle (actually a group of NYU undergraduates) in LamdaMOO, a text based virtual reality, who hacked a voodoo power, to control other players, and used it to violently "rape" several female characters, making them respond as if they enjoyed it (Dibbell, 1993). There was no "real" rape, as there was no physical contact, and no laws were broken, but there was outrage. Or if a wife's husband commits virtual adultery in a game room, should she leave him? Was it real?

            Lets define reality as whatever is the "end of the causal line", i.e. uncaused. In The Matrix, the construct world was created by machines in another world, where Neo is a body in a vat, so is unreal. In contrast, the physical world of Zion is real because it is not caused by anything else. The VR conjecture is NOT The Matrix because it asks if that physical world is self-sufficient, given the big bang, quantum randomness etc. Whether the physical world is an objective reality, that exists entirely in and of itself, is a question science can address, because it is about the physical world.

            You ask if virtual reality is compatible with science? Suppose one day the processing behind the virtual online world The Sims allowed some Sims avatars to "think". To practice science, they would only need information to test theories against, which the virtual reality could provide. If they found a world like ours, e.g. with malleable space and time, they could conclude their world was virtual from how it behaved. So not only does science allow the virtual reality conjecture, but a virtual reality could also allow science.

            Finally, to conjecture the world is virtual (p1) then say it is digital (p9) would sidestep the contest question, but in between are seven pages on why this is possible and how it could be so. What then about the many other things not covered? Well it is currently just about the physics, not psychological or philosophical implications. If you are wondering if it supports new age ideas of telepathy, psychokinesis, aliens, crop circles, etc, I dont think so, as why should a simulation let its avatars change their programs? Yet equally, it does not deny that possibility. It is just Tegmark's "physics from scratch" approach where processing is the only initial assumption.

            all the best and thanks for your comment

            Brian Whitworth

            Hi Jace,

            Thanks for Hoffman's paper. As originally a psychologist, I accept that the brain constructs reality, rather than veridically reflecting reality. Yet as you rightly say, this doesnt mean that we create reality, as some assume. Yet quantum mechanics implies just that, as Wheeler observes:

            "To the extent that it {a photon} forms part of what we call reality ... we have to say that we ourselves have an undeniable part in shaping what we have always called the past." (Davies & Brown, 1999) p67

            So physics and psychology are two different levels of looking at things. I am not sure that they are easily connected - see this paper LINK.

            all the best

            Brian

            Hi Russel,

            You are right, running programs is the way forward. Physicists seek simple static formulae, but Nature doesnt work that way. It is dynamic and efficient. We should use simple recursive programs, like Mandelbrot's, and a language like Lisp, to reflect it.

            This model uses a rotating discrete circle. Moving it gives a sine wave formula, Schroedingers equation is an expanding spherical wave, and after that the formulas get too hard. But simulations can still run such "unsolvable" problems, e.g. traffic simulations, given valid simplifying assumptions. But we are like the man looking for his keys under a lamp post, who when asked where he lost them said "In the bushes, but the light is better here", e.g. we assume a flat 3D Euclidian space when we know space curves; we assume triangular spin networks when even war gamers use hexagons not squares, to get more movement directions; we assume static links when even New York cell phone networks dynamically reorganize links under load. Yet it is possible, e.g. Bruce Maiers simulations using "boxel" cubes, see LINK .

            Can we do on classical computers what nature does with quantum computing? Prime numbers that supercomputers take hundreds of years to find take only seconds on a quantum computer. Yet the model does suggest simplifying assumptions, e.g. that there are only four dimensions, that all node transfers use planar channels, with a finite capacity exactly equal to the total processing of any photon. The theory also explains why it is so hard to simulate even what a single photon does - because it distributes its processing to literally travel every possible path, even though it restarts at a node point when detected (See LINK Ch3, p19, The law of least action). I am jumping ahead a bit, but consider why the mass of an electron or neutrino etc is always a value range, but their charge is an exact value. In this model, the charge processing remainder after a channel overload is exact, while the mass is the processing the node does before it overloads varies with channel processing order effects.

            So I think yes, it is possible, but realistically we are not too far down that track at present.

            all the best

            Brian

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            • Post #71

            Brian,

            Are you sure it is just one running? Could it be several running simultaneously?

            Don Limuti

            Hi Don

            How can several run simultaneously given only one observer at each moment? If many observers "see" different views, is that not the same as several? By Occam's razor, if one suffices (for us), why postulate more? Everett invented a fantastic multiverse machine around the quantum ghost to exorcize it, but to just accept quantum reality and give up physical reality is the simpler option. Yet you are right, as if our universe is simulation running on the inner surface of a hyper-space bubble expanding into a larger bulk, there could be many other such bubbles we dont know of. A system that creates one simulation could indeed create others. Who knows?

            Brian

            Thanks Jonathan

            Yes you are right, who knows what the "other" is, as we can only know this world that we can see and register, as positivists rightly state. Yet science could still conclude (from what we see) that the physical world is a simulation. The argument was just that this if the physical world we see is created by processing, then physical world must be digital, by definition. All the best with your essay!

            kind regards

            Brian

            Brian,

            If one assumes that the 'processor' is 'otherworldly', as you do, I don't know why one wouldn't assume the existence of 'perfect' components used to build the processor, and, in that case, there is no reason that is obvious to me that the processing could not be analog, and not digital.

            It's not even certain that so-called 'quantum processing' is not essentially analog in nature. If each 'node' on your 'grid' is an analog processor, suitably connected to other nodes, there is no evident reason, other than current technology and economics biases, to assume digital. Many of the 'oscillations' you concern yourself with come quite naturally to analog elements. And one need not assume 2-D processors that favor the logic 'layouts' and construction techniques used for today's semi-conductor processing. An 'otherworldly' processor should be implementable as a 3-D structure, in which case analog processing may be the preferred implementation.

            Problems with analog processing were based on connectivity and on imperfect building blocks and on cost factors (among other things). I am not aware of any analysis that limits what can be achieved in principle with analog processing.

            So your conclusion, "The argument was just that this if the physical world we see is created by processing, then physical world must be digital, by definition" seems unwarranted.

            Edwin Eugene Klingman

            Edwin Eugene Klingman

            Hi Eugene,

            I didnt use the word "otherworldy" as your quote marks imply, but the word "other". It is not my word but Fredkin's (the computer scientist who began the VR idea twenty years ago).

            To say the VR conjecture assumes processing in another world misrepresents it. It asks a question of the physical world, namely, is it a virtual reality? Science is a way to ask questions of the world, not a set of assumptions about it, so it allows the question. I then assume it is true, as a hypothesis, in order to check its implications against the world we see. One of these is that a virtual reality needs a containing reality, as a system cannot output itself, just as a printer cannot print itself out. So that there is an "other" is a conjecture conclusion, not a conjecture assumption.

            Hence the VR conjecture doesn't specify that "other", except to give it the properties of processing. It is you who are specifying it. However speculations of what it is made of or does, including yours, are idle if they dont link to the world we know, e.g. that our universe could be "saved" and "restored" (Schmidhuber, 1997), that one virtual reality could create another (Bostrom, 2002), that every quantum event creates a new universe (Everett), etc. This is science fiction not science. In contrast, that the physical world is created by processing, as we understand it, has definable implications for how it behaves.

            Yes processing could be analogue, as Jonathan also says, but the VR conjecture applies to a processing output. The situation is that Processing generates an information Output. Shannon and Weaver define information using a choice between a number of options. If that number is infinite, the options cannot be enumerated to choose between. So information, and its processing changes, must always be finite. Indeed, in no case do our processors output infinite values and in every case their output is digital. In this argument, a qubit is just as digital as a bit, as the choices are equally finite. So the conclusion that if the physical world is a processing output, it must be digital, seems fine to me. It follows from the definition of an information output.

            kind regards

            Brian Whitworth

            Brian,

            Your essay is impressive in its comprehensive arguments, professional presentation and a seeming objectivity.

            One can never dispute a well-argued thesis, when reality can't be known. My view is simpler but still wedded to modeling assumption and characteristics.

            Thanks for the read.

            Jim Hoover

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            • Post #77

            Brian,

            Just to let you know how impressed I was with your argument, I cited it in my essay ("Can we see reality from here?"). I'm convinced now -- process and reality are not differentiable.

            Tom

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            • Post #78

            Brian,

            I was not thinking of parallel universes, but I am glad you responded as you did. I was thinking of this reality (one observer) being a stew of multiple virtual realities running that bump into each other.....but this is probably would be just one reality.

            Some Nitpicking: I do not agree with all your evidence, in particular 4. Non-locality and 8. Superposition. I believe that they are misinterpretations. Also your list of philosophical options is wimpy: a) Physicalism b) Solipsism c) Dualism and of course Virtualism.

            There are many good essays in this contest. This is the only one that I will read again.

            What is, is. What is not, is not.

            Thanks,

            Don L.

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            • Post #79

            Dear Dr. Brian Whitworth,

            I have a few questions while I continue to read your essay:

            "Nor is this solipsism, that the physical world is just a dream, which Dr Johnson is said to have refuted by stubbing his toe on a stone, saying "I disprove it thus"."

            Is it your position that George Berkeley believed the world to be a dream?

            "Randomness. If every physical event is predicted by others, a random quantum event is an impossible "uncaused cause", but a processor creating a virtual world can be its cause."

            I assume you are using 'random' to have a technical meaning. In other words, not meaninglessness.

            James