-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Russell Standish Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2015 11:38 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From quantum theory to dialectics?
On Sun, Jan 04, 2015 at 02:10:51PM -0800, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: > > > > Russell’s observation that “The ultimate theory of everything is just a > theory of nothing.” seems intuitively correct to me… though I have no > rigorous proof for this sense of it ringing true for me. > > > > I was in ignorance that Russell had written a book on this; and just > downloaded the pdf – so thanks Liz for bringing it to attention. Beginning to > read it now…. > > Another excellent passage: “Something is the “inside view” of Nothing”. Nice! > And this view from the inside looks so infinitely full of all manner of > emergent stuff. I agree with the premise that perspective is paramount in > coming to terms with and to understand the spooky weird nature of quantum > reality; perspective also provides a powerful tool to explain the “something > from nothing paradox”. Something does seem like it could be how Nothing looks > from the perspective of being within itself – as opposed to the bird’s eye > view from outside -- Max Tegmark uses Bird’s Eye view to describe this > outside privileged perspective… looking down on the examined system from an > outside perspective (even if that system, is everything that is… it is still > valuable as an intellectual tool to be able to view this from the outside > perspective as well).. but I digress, back to the book. > > > > One question for Russell, wonder what his thoughts are on the continued > viability of Quantum Loop Gravity hypothesis – which you mention as being one > of the contenders along with String Theory – for the unification of all the > fundamental forces into a single theory -- given the findings of the ESA > experiment that has showed that spacetime must be smooth down to scales > trillions of times smaller than the Planck scale. > >>Thanks for your kind words. Actually as to whether loop gravity or string >>theory or something else is the way to go, I really don't have a dog in the >>fight. I was merely commenting on my confidence that gravity will ultimately >>be unified with electro-weak-strong forces in some manner, but being agnostic >>as to how. I have a dog, but he is not in any fight. Was just curious about any insights etc. >>My personal opinion is that measured values are constrained to be rational - >>there can only ever be a countable number of distinct observer moments. Yet >>this down not imply space is "quantised" or discrete in any way. It is quite >>possible there is no lower bound to the difference between two measurements. >>So it doesn't surprise me that space ends up being smooth at scales far >>smaller than the planck length. I would be more suprised at the opposite >>conclusion, as it implies a lack of symmetry (grids are not rotationally >>symmetric, except at specific angles). Okay... nice thought about the lack of rotational symmetry of grids. Why do we think in terms of grids. Look at the sand on a beach, trillions and trillions of grains of sand, compacted into a close to optimally packed density. The grains are not ordered by any grid, it is a chaotic probabilistic ordering, driven by outside forces waves, wind etc., evolving into the densely packed sand beach (or dune). The grid is a handy mathematical tool, but nature is a sand beach. One can certainly apply a grid over the 3-D space occupied by the sand to impose a grid based ordering (though how many grains would lie across grid cell boundaries is certainly very significant), but that would be an artificial ordering -- though possibly very useful as well. Not sure if I am making any sense. If space were granular, I would expect it to be more like a sand beach made from whatever Planck or sub-Planck scale "sand grains" elements fit the bill than pixels ordered on some easily addressable grid. As for unification of GR and QM, one wildly speculative thought I've had is that matter is due to knots in space-time, and that the different types of particle relate to the different types of knots possible in a 4D Riemannian manifold. Some knots are easier to undo than others, explaining different particle lifetimes. Mass appears as curvature of space, so the knots have mass due to the twist they impart on spacetime. But importantly, matter does not "curve spacetime", as is typically said, but matter is more of a topological defect. I have no idea if this idea has legs - I don't currently have the mathematical chops to work it through, and unfortunately also insufficient interest to acquire the necessary mathematical skills. Yeah the math sounds extremely challenging. Since I read this a few days past have been mulling it over for a bit. When you say "knots in space-time" at first read it seemed like you were describing string like entities forming these knots existing in space-time, but I on second read I think you literally mean "knots in space-time" itself. I like the description of matter as being a kind of topological defect in space-time. And how everything emerges from the structure of space-time itself -- without needing strings or branes. Or am I way off the mark here? -Chris -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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