Theory of everything

[Dave]

Theory of everything says universe is a transformer

§ New Scientist, 16:27 06 November 2012 by Douglas Heaven
§ www.newscientist.com/article/dn22469-theory-of-everything-says-universe-is-a-transformer.html


Solving the mysteries of the universe is usually about finding the best answer to a question. But what if we are not even asking the right questions?

A pioneer in quantum computation, University of Oxford physicist and best-selling author David Deutsch has spent most of his career working towards a new way of asking questions about the universe. Deutsch's vision for this "theory of everything" ties together ideas in cosmology, computation, philosophy and evolution to describe the nature of reality.

It has been suggested that his long-awaited theory could account for several fundamental mysteries, such as why time flows in only one direction – a property that is not required by most physical laws

Transformations rule

According to Deutsch, the problem with current theories is that they do not adequately explain why some transformations between states of being are possible and some are not.

Deutsch proposes a framework built on the transformations themselves, rather than the components. Called Constructor Theory, this model defines a constructor as anything that causes transformations in physical systems without itself being altered, rather like a chemical catalyst. Deutsch then asks which transformations must be ruled out to achieve a particular result, regardless of the constructor that caused it

Deutsch's vision can be seen as a generalisation of the second law of thermodynamics, says Vlatko Vedral, also at Oxford. This law encompasses the property of entropy, which says that order leads to disorder in a closed system. Entropy, in turn, implies that we cannot rewind time, because that would involve disordered matter moving towards order.

In Constructor Theory, the key would be figuring out why such a transformation would not be allowed. In asking those types of questions, Deutsch seems to want to apply the notion that some states are simply inaccessible from others to all physical laws, Vedral says.

Laying that groundwork might explain, for instance, why the laws of quantum mechanics are so strict, says Vedral. Small variations in the way we describe quantum laws can lead to contradictions, such as a violation of the speed of light. "As soon as you modify quantum mechanics, something goes wrong," he says. "Why is this? It's a puzzle." If Constructor Theory can show which transformations are permitted and which are not, that would explain the very underpinnings of quantum mechanics, says Vedral.

Stated intent

"It's tricky to see what this would look like," he admits. And for now, the new paper on Constructor Theory is only a statement of intent, says Vedral. "It's not yet at the level where you can recover existing physics." But he is excited about the possibilities.

What Deutsch seems to be reaching for is a theory that goes beyond a computational view of the universe, says Seth Lloyd at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. Such a theory might not only help unify relativity and quantum mechanics, it might also show that they are necessary parts of the universe, answering the troubling philosophical question of why things are the way they are, he says.

Journal reference: arxiv.org/abs/1210.7439 Cornell University online library
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I thought of posting the entire essay, but it is a very long winded exercise in using the biggest words possible. But here is the point:

1- There seems to be some type of unexplainable force that “Transforms” energy into mass.
2- This transformation “Constructs” physical reality.
3- David Deutsch a University of Oxford physicist calls this force the “Constructor”

I don’t know about you, but I thank the “Constructor” for my life every morning, in prayer.

Attachments:

[Richard]

As we try to decide for ourselves: what is true, what are facts, what should I believe; and as we decide for ourselves: what is not real, or what is a lie; we need first to decide for ouselves what is reality!




Reality: The definition

New Scientist, Magazine issue 2884, 01 October 2012, Jan Westerhoff
www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528840.500-reality-the-definition.html


Even trying to define what we mean by "reality" is fraught with difficulty

Read more: "Special issue: What is reality?"

WHAT DO we actually mean by reality? A straightforward answer is that it means everything that appears to our five senses - everything that we can see, smell, touch and so forth. Yet this answer ignores such problematic entities as electrons, the recession and the number 5, which we cannot sense but which are very real. It also ignores phantom limbs and illusory smells. Both can appear vividly real, but we would like to say that these are not part of reality.

We could tweak the definition by equating reality with what appears to a sufficiently large group of people, thereby ruling out subjective hallucinations. Unfortunately there are also hallucinations experienced by large groups, such as a mass delusion known as koro, mainly observed in South-East Asia, which involves the belief that one's genitals are shrinking back into one's body. Just because sufficiently many people believe in something does not make it real.

Another possible mark of reality we could focus on is the resistance it puts up: as the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick put it, reality is that which, if you stop believing in it, does not go away. Things we just make up yield to our wishes and desires, but reality is stubborn. Just because I believe there is a jam doughnut in front of me doesn't mean there really is one. But again, this definition is problematic. Things that we do not want to regard as real can be stubborn too, as anyone who has ever been trapped in a nightmare knows. And some things that are real, such as stock markets, are not covered by this definition because if everyone stopped believing in them, they would cease to exist.

There are two definitions of reality that are much more successful. The first equates reality with a world without us, a world untouched by human desires and intentions. By this definition, a lot of things we usually regard as real - languages, wars, the financial crisis - are nothing of the sort. Still, it is the most solid one so far because it removes human subjectivity from the picture.

The second equates reality with the most fundamental things that everything else depends on. In the material world, molecules depend on their constituent atoms, atoms on electrons and a nucleus, which in turn depends on protons and neutrons, and so on. In this hierarchy, every level depends on the one below it, so we might define reality as made up of whatever entities stand at the bottom of the chain of dependence, and thus depend on nothing else.

This definition is even more restrictive than "the world without us" since things like Mount Everest would not count as part of reality; reality is confined to the unknown foundation on which the entire world depends. Even so, when we investigate whether something is real or not, these final two definitions are what we should have in mind.

Jan Westerhoff is a philosopher at the University of Durham and the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies, both in the UK, and author of Reality: A very short introduction (Oxford University Press, 2011)

[Dave]

Reality: Is matter real?

New Scientis, Magazine issue 2884, 02 October 2012, by Jan Westerhoff
www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528840.700-reality-is-matter-real.html

It's relatively easy to demonstrate what physical reality isn't. It is much harder to work out what it is

NOTHING seems more real than the world of everyday objects, but things are not as they seem. A set of relatively simple experiments reveals enormous holes is our intuitive understanding of physical reality. Trying to explain what goes on leads to some very peculiar and often highly surprising theories of the world around us.

Here is a simple example. Take an ordinary desk lamp, a few pieces of cardboard with holes of decreasing sizes, and some sort of projection screen such as a white wall. If you put a piece of cardboard between the lamp and the wall, you will see a bright patch where the light passes through the hole in the cardboard. If you now replace the cardboard with pieces containing smaller and smaller holes, the patch too will diminish in size. Once we get below a certain size, however, the pattern on the wall changes from a small dot to a series of concentric dark and light rings, rather like an archery target. This is the "Airy pattern" - a characteristic sign of a wave being forced through a hole.

In itself, this is not very surprising. After all, we know that light is a wave, so it should display wave-like behaviour.

But now consider what happens if we change the set-up of the experiment a bit. Instead of a lamp, we use a device that shoots out electrons, like that found in old-fashioned TV sets; instead of the wall, we use a plate of glass coated with a phosphor that lights up when an electron strikes it. We can therefore use this screen to track the places where the electrons hit. The results are similar: with sufficiently small holes we get an Airy pattern.

This now seems peculiar: electrons are particles located at precise points and cannot be split. Yet they are behaving like waves that can smear out across space, are divisible, and merge into one another when they meet.

Perhaps it is not that strange after all. Water consists of molecules, yet it behaves like a wave. The Airy pattern may just emerge when enough particles come together, whether they are water molecules or electrons.

A simple variant of the experiments shows, however, that this cannot be right. Suppose we reduce the output of the electron gun to one particle each minute. The Airy pattern is gone, and all we see is a small flash every minute. Let's leave this set-up to run for a while, recording each small flash as it occurs. Afterwards, we map the locations of all the thousands of flashes.

Surprisingly, we do not end up with a random arrangement of dots, but with the Airy pattern again. This result is extremely strange. No individual electron can know where all the earlier and later electrons are going to hit, so they cannot communicate with each other to create the bullseye pattern. Rather, each electron must have travelled like a wave through the hole to produce the characteristic pattern, then changed back into a particle to produce the point on the screen. This, of course, is the famous wave-particle duality of quantum mechanics.

This strange behaviour is shared by any sufficiently small piece of matter, including electrons, neutrons, photons and other elementary particles, but not just by these. Similar effects have been observed for objects that are large enough in principle to be seen under a microscope, such as buckyballs.

In order to explain the peculiar behaviour of such objects, physicists associate a wave function with each of them. Despite the fact that these waves have the usual properties of more familiar waves such as sound or water waves, including amplitude (how far up or down it deviates from the rest state), phase (at what point in a cycle the wave is), and interference (so that "up" and "down" phases of waves meeting each other cancel out), what they are waves in is not at all transparent. Einstein aptly spoke of a "phantom field" as their medium.

For a wave in an ordinary medium such as water, we can calculate its energy at any one point by taking the square of its amplitude. Wave functions, however, carry no energy. Instead, the square of their amplitude at any given point gives us the probability of observing the particle if a detector such as the phosphor-coated screen is placed there.

Clearly, the point where an object switches from being a probability wave, with its potential existence smeared out across space, and becomes an actual, spatially localized object is crucially important to understanding whether matter is real. What exactly happens when the wave function collapses - when among the countless possibilities where the particle could be at any moment, one is chosen, while all the others are rejected?


The Duality of our Reality

Wave vrs particle
Spirit vrs biology
The thing built from the basic non-thing

Attachments:

[Dave]

Reality: How does consciousness fit in?

New Scientist, Magazine issue 2884, 26 September 2012’ by Michael Brooks
www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528841.000-reality-how-does-consciousness-fit-in.html

Some theories hold that reality and consciousness are one and the same. Is the universe really all inside your head

DESCARTES might have been onto something with "I think therefore I am", but surely "I think therefore you are" is going a bit far? Not for some of the brightest minds of 20th-century physics as they wrestled mightily with the strange implications of the quantum world.

According to prevailing wisdom, a quantum particle such as an electron or photon can only be properly described as a mathematical entity known as a wave function. Wave functions can exist as "superpositions" of many states at once. A photon, for instance, can circulate in two different directions around an optical fibre; or an electron can simultaneously spin clockwise and anticlockwise or be in two positions at once.

When any attempt is made to observe these simultaneous existences, however, something odd happens: we see only one. How do many possibilities become one physical reality?

This is the central question in quantum mechanics, and has spawned a plethora of proposals, or interpretations. The most popular is the Copenhagen interpretation, which says nothing is real until it is observed, or measured. Observing a wave function causes the superposition to collapse.

However, Copenhagen says nothing about what exactly constitutes an observation. John von Neumann broke this silence and suggested that observation is the action of a conscious mind. It's an idea also put forward by Max Planck, the founder of quantum theory, who said in 1931, "I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness."

That argument relies on the view that there is something special about consciousness, especially human consciousness. Von Neumann argued that everything in the universe that is subject to the laws of quantum physics creates one vast quantum superposition. But the conscious mind is somehow different. It is thus able to select out one of the quantum possibilities on offer, making it real - to that mind, at least.

Henry Stapp of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California is one of the few physicists that still subscribe to this notion: we are "participating observers" whose minds cause the collapse of superpositions, he says. Before human consciousness appeared, there existed a multiverse of potential universes, Stapp says. The emergence of a conscious mind in one of these potential universes, ours, gives it a special status: reality.

There are many objectors. One problem is that many of the phenomena involved are poorly understood. "There's a big question in philosophy about whether consciousness actually exists," says Matthew Donald, a philosopher of physics at the University of Cambridge. "When you add on quantum mechanics it all gets a bit confused."

Donald prefers an interpretation that is arguably even more bizarre: "many minds". This idea - related to the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum theory, which has each outcome of a quantum decision happen in a different universe - argues that an individual observing a quantum system sees all the many states, but each in a different mind. These minds all arise from the physical substance of the brain, and share a past and a future, but cannot communicate with each other about the present.

Though it sounds hard to swallow, this and other approaches to understanding the role of the mind in our perception of reality are all worthy of attention, Donald reckons. "I take them very seriously," he says.