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This is the theory of everything:

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The theory cannot have any axioms, the theory cannot refer to any material quantities and the theory cannot refer to laws because all of these are to be explained by the theory. Their origin and reason for being must be explained by the theory.

 

https://www.livescience.com/65628-theory-of-everything-millennia-away.html

In 1925, Einstein went on a walk with a young student named Esther Salaman. As they wandered, he shared his core guiding intellectual principle: "I want to know how God created this world. I'm not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are just details."
...
To give a sense of the chasm between current theories and a theory of everything, if we represented the energies of particles we can detect as the width of a cell membrane, the Planck energy is the size of Earth. While it is conceivable that someone with a thorough understanding of cell membranes might predict other structures within a cell — things like DNA and mitochondria — it is inconceivable that they could accurately predict the Earth. How likely is it that they could predict volcanoes, oceans or Earth's magnetic field?

Seems pretty simple, no?

 

https://www.livescience.com/65628-theory-of-everything-millennia-away.html


Seems pretty simple, no?

That's interesting.. What do you mean it is simple, what is simple? Is it predicting the earth from fundamental particles?

 

That's interesting.. What do you mean it is simple, what is simple? Is it predicting the earth from fundamental particles?

For mere humans, even Einstein it's not so simple. Even a TOE is unlikely to predict a earth as we know it from fundamental particles and interactions.

 

 

It is my (luxuriously naïve) opinion that physical reality is information. This after working with IT (Information Theory) researchers, examining thermodynamics and Shannon, and reading this paper and others like it.

As it turns out, the validity of the assertion in that paper of the application to the classical world was proven by an undergrad at my institution and published in a Japanese peer-reviewed journal. It had to be because journals in the US and Europe (the reviewers) had decided it was a settled case that it only applied to quantum physics due to an "important" person's opinion.

Landauer's idea is amazingly insightful. In the end I became convinced that it is Information Theory and not physics that is the ultimate study of the nature of the universe. It's a beautiful idea and fits so many things so well.

 

IMO (also luxuriously naïve) opinion I don't see information as the ultimate constructor of the universe. Shannon's Information Theory, has to do with describing observations, not "being" them in the sense of the universe processes information.

Information likely is just another emergent expression (like the laws of physics) of something more fundamental (law, force, ...). What's deeper is currently beyond our capability to understand or express as information.

 

It is my (luxuriously naïve) opinion that physical reality is information. This after working with IT (Information Theory) researchers, examining thermodynamics and Shannon, and reading this paper and others like it.

As it turns out, the validity of the assertion in that paper of the application to the classical world was proven by an undergrad at my institution and published in a Japanese peer-reviewed journal. It had to be because journals in the US and Europe (the reviewers) had decided it was a settled case that it only applied to quantum physics due to an "important" person's opinion.

Landauer's idea is amazingly insightful. In the end I became convinced that it is Information Theory and not physics that is the ultimate study of the nature of the universe. It's a beautiful idea and fits so many things so well.

I scanned through the paper, perhaps too quickly. I did not quite see what it was postulating though. We can obviously model reality computationally but that doesn't then prove that reality is computational or algorithmic in any sense. (I don't know if the paper is saying that either).

 

I scanned through the paper, perhaps too quickly. I did not quite see what it was postulating though. We can obviously model reality computationally but that doesn't then prove that reality is computational or algorithmic in any sense. (I don't know if the paper is saying that either).

Well, it has nothing to do with computation. It has three main ideas:

• There are no unavoidable energy costs per step in a computer. That is to say that it is only losing information that causes energy usage, so deleting a bit has an energy cost but if you avowing deletions, you don't use per step energy. There is actually a particular minimum energy for a bit.

• It is possible to construct gates that do not delete bits.for example, a conventional NOT gate has two inputs and one output. A bit (information) is lost when the gate is used. If the gate is constructed in such a way that when two bits go in both bits come out of it (one result and one "garbage" bit) there is no cost of deletion. In such a computer the energy cost is the same as the frictional cost of "pushing the bits" like a hydraulic system, so if you can afford to push slowly, you can minimize energy consumption.

A fascinating side effect of this is "reversible computation". That is, when running a program the output is the results and a number of "garbage bits". It is possible to take those two and run them backwards through the gates resulting in the initial data and program. This makes the energy usage very low. You can also just delete the bits and take hit still resulting in a much greater efficiency.

• And, the big one: Information is Physical. That is to say you can not have information without a physical embodiment of some kind.

It is this last one that suggests information and the physical world are not separate, and that perhaps the physical is information in the same way as information is physical.

 

https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=3327

Is “information is physical” contentful?

“Information is physical.”

This slogan seems to have originated around 1991 with Rolf Landauer. It’s ricocheted around quantum information for the entire time I’ve been in the field, incanted in funding agency reports and popular articles and at the beginnings and ends of talks.

But what the hell does it mean?

There are many things it’s taken to mean, in my experience, that don’t make a lot of sense when you think about them—or else they’re vacuously true, or purely a matter of perspective, or not faithful readings of the slogan’s words.

For example, some people seem to use the slogan to mean something more like its converse: “physics is informational.” That is, the laws of physics are ultimately not about mass or energy or pressure, but about bits and computations on them. As I’ve often said, my problem with that view is less its audacity than its timidity! It’s like, what would the universe have to do in order not to be informational in this sense? “Information” is just a name we give to whatever picks out one element from a set of possibilities, with the “amount” of information given by the log of the set’s cardinality (and with suitable generalizations to infinite sets, nonuniform probability distributions, yadda yadda). So, as long as the laws of physics take the form of telling us that some observations or configurations of the world are possible and others are not, or of giving us probabilities for each configuration, no duh they’re about information!
...
In summary, our laws of physics are structured in such a way that even pure information often has “nowhere to hide”: if the bits are there at all in the abstract machinery of the world, then they’re forced to pipe up and have a measurable effect. And this is not a tautology, but comes about only because of nontrivial facts about special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, and thermodynamics. And this is what I think people should mean when they say “information is physical.”

Anyway, if this was all obvious to you, I apologize for having wasted your time! But in my defense, it was never explained to me quite this way, nor was it sorted out in my head until recently—even though it seems like one of the most basic and general things one can possibly say about physics.

 

https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=3327

Is “information is physical” contentful?

This is a common objection. There is a camp that simply doesn’t accept it and then finds reasons why. They are the ones who by personal incredulity suppressed research into the idea of bit energy cost with the hand waving that it simply doesn’t apply to the classical world, it is only quantum. But finally it was experimental shown to be true because the experiment did not require funding and so could be done by someone with no fear of career problems—an electrical engineering undergrad.

The other trouble is that the idea that the fundamental nature of the physical world is informational does not require computation which is a particular manipulation. I feel that people that use that straw man really don’t understand what people who get it are on about.

Landauer was brilliant. He made some revolutionary observations. The fact that he can say “seem to have originated with Landauer” is very strange. I clearly did. There is no confusion. Also, Landauer was not concerned strictly with quantum scale phenomena, he was every interesting in the classical effect of bit energy cost. I don’t really see how you can read that paper and wave away the ideas (not other people‘s possibly confused interpretations of them). They really do demand serious consideration which, from the tone and content of what you posted, the author hasn’t felt the need to do.

 

This is a common objection. There is a camp that simply doesn’t accept it and then finds reasons why. They are the ones who by personal incredulity suppressed research into the idea of bit energy cost with the hand waving that it simply doesn’t apply to the classical world, it is only quantum. But finally it was experimental shown to be true because the experiment did not require funding and so could be done by someone with no fear of career problems—an electrical engineering undergrad.

The other trouble is that the idea that the fundamental nature of the physical world is informational does not require computation which is a particular manipulation. I feel that people that use that straw man really don’t understand what people who get it are on about.

Landauer was brilliant. He made some revolutionary observations. The fact that he can say “seem to have originated with Landauer” is very strange. I clearly did. There is no confusion. Also, Landauer was not concerned strictly with quantum scale phenomena, he was every interesting in the classical effect of bit energy cost. I don’t really see how you can read that paper and wave away the ideas (not other people‘s possibly confused interpretations of them). They really do demand serious consideration which, from the tone and content of what you posted, the author hasn’t felt the need to do.

I would only say that the guy has earned his opinion on this subject. To be in his camp is very reasonable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Aaronson

Scott Joel Aaronson (born May 21, 1981)[1] is an American theoretical computer scientist and David J. Bruton Jr. Centennial Professor of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin. His primary areas of research are quantum computing and computational complexity theory.

https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/npcomplete.pdf
https://blogs.scientificamerican.co...ery-ridiculously-big-question-i-throw-at-him/

Scott Aaronson Answers Every Ridiculously Big Question I Throw at Him

 

 

My favorite answer to why the universe exists is because it has to. I don't think there is some grand architect (God) out there but I do suspect the universe is forever bound by parameters that may or may not change. These parameters are likely to have always existed and will continue to exist and the question of "why" (causality) is not inherent to the function.

The two classical arguments for the genesis of the universe are God exists and God does not exist. Upon analysis, both assertions become invalid because they enter into a cognitive loop (how can God spontaneously exist and how can the universe come from nothing). I suspect there is a third option that is incomprehensible which I find comfort in because I do not care for assumptions. Furthermore, there is now way to prove (to my satisfaction) that any one one theory is 100% true as this would require a knowledge of all things for the duration of all time. The question remains an entertaining thought experiment whatever your biases include.

 

Which came first, the Chicken or the Egg ?
Neither one,
"Cause" came first.

Material objects cannot create their own "Cause",
nor generate Energy, without some sort of "outside influence".

Something "Non-Material" ( Cause ),
had to come up with the concept of material items, before material items existed.
The same source also created the concept of "Time".

There's no such thing as "Spontaneous-Self-Creation" of a material-object.
"Stuff" was organized into a material-object by an "other" influence.

Talk amongst Yourselves,
and try to come to a consensus as to how to describe what the "other" "influence" might be,
and try to not get too Superstitious about it, practicality is what we need in this matter.

People come up with some pretty wild speculations as to what "form" and "intent" that "Cause" might have.
They usually assign and "project" their own ideas into the description of any non-obvious, "unknown".
.
.
.

 

I would only say that the guy has earned his opinion on this subject. To be in his camp is very reasonable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Aaronson

https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/npcomplete.pdf
https://blogs.scientificamerican.co...ery-ridiculously-big-question-i-throw-at-him/

Scott Aaronson Answers Every Ridiculously Big Question I Throw at Him

No doubt he had a lot of merit and is in good company. My objection is that the waving off doesn't seem to be based on research but on the idea that it is wrong on its face. IF that is the case, he hasn't considered the work the has been done by those who didn't simply reject it. I personally know researchers with very distinguished records who do thing there is something there that needs more investigation.

So, in the end, from where i sit, it turns into a coin toss, but you have to look before you can see is there is or is not something to see.

 

It doesn't exist. I'm a pan-dimensional energy being and "the universe" is a figment of my imagination.