Neurons

[dominant_monad]

I would say they would also be describeable via the previous theory of everything since they are just a function of physical things and the passing of time.

[paulhanke]

Originally Posted by dominant_monad

I would say they would also be describeable via the previous theory of everything since they are just a function of physical things and the passing of time.

... it sounds like we're heading straight for "ultimates" though ... what is the ultimate cause of this sentence I am writing? - the Big Bang; what is the ultimate description of consciousness? - the TOE ... are either of those answers practically useful? ... or is there more to "Everything" than just (to use an outdated analogy) billiard balls?

[eternalstudent2]

Originally Posted by paulhanke

... so if the "Theory of Everything" is a phrase that has already been taken to describe just the unification of current theories regarding the fundamental action forces of nature, what phrase can we use to describe a theory that takes that into account plus the "emergent" action forces of nature that suddenly appear when you bring together large populations of "agents" under conditions of disequilibrium? ...

I suppose that would be "reality itself". The question is, if physics is able to reconcile and unify the basic known forces, if it is able to state a unified force / particle theory, one fully consistent with what is observed at Fermilab and CERN, and by the radiotelescopes and space probes, does that fulfill Laplace's dream of a block universe? Could we then know every possible future state of the universe given enough information and computing capacity? (Hypothetically, even if not practically.) If not, is the problem that there exist some further laws and patterns in the universe; or is it just noisy randomness, as per the Copenhagen quantum interpretation?

I don't pretend to know the answer. I do think it to be a legitimate question. Newtonian physics gave Laplace the notion of complete determinism; but Newton's ideas were actually too small, and were eclipsed by Einstein's relativity and by quantum dynamics. Deeper understandings of reality were realized, and yet we still discovered chaos, emergent phenomenon and other examples of large population / disequilibrium dynamics that don’t appear to supervene simply to the collective behaviors of elementary particles acting according to already-known physical laws. New mathematical theories based on studies of large-scale dynamic system effects (chaotic attractors, emergent effects, etc.) seem to be shedding light on this particular "level of scale" of the universe (i.e, the level we are familiar with in our daily lives). But are these theories and equations strictly implied by and derivable from our present laws of basic physical interactions; and if not, would they be from the TOE?

My admittedly limited layman's understanding is that complexity / chaos concepts and math are not entirely tied to quantum chromodynamics and relativity. Will those concepts and math be fully consistent with, and strictly implied by, the TOE once it is realized, once the quantum and relativistic are reconciled? And as to quantum randomness – we're still not completely sure that it is fully random; hidden variables and orders are disfavored, but IIRC they have not been completely ruled out. My rough impression is that even if our physicists manage to finally state a consistency between gravity and the small-scale fields, forces and particles, there will still remain a good many vexing questions regarding the ultimate nature of reality. We may not simply be able to say "here are the formulas, everything else is noise". And even if we were able, some wise guy is bound to ask, "why is there noise?" We just never get comfortable with the notion "this is the end of human knowledge, ask no further questions".

So, the "theory of everything" may not really be a good way of describing what physicists currently seek with regard to field unification. For now, it's probably a good P.R. tool, good for fundraising and grant applications. But when they finally get there, I bet that the physicists will suggest that we forget that term (although I might not live long enough to collect on that bet, barring an unforeseen breakthrough in either physics or longevity medicine). They could then get back to work.

Jim G.

[paulhanke]

Originally Posted by eternalstudent2

My admittedly limited layman's understanding is that complexity / chaos concepts and math are not entirely tied to quantum chromodynamics and relativity.

... let's take that idea and run with it ... if complexity / chaos concepts are not tied to quantum / relativistic concepts, then we should expect to find examples of complexity / chaos that are grounded completely in the macro-world - that is, we should expect to find complex/chaotic systems whose fundamental agents are macro-world entities that are statistically uninfluenced by quantum/relativistic effects ... is the stock market a reasonable example? - a system that you can't consistently predict more than a few hours out and whose fundamental agents are individual investors? ... or maybe the hive-mind of an ant colony whose fundamental agents are individual ants? ... for the moment, let's assume that these are valid examples and that we have shown that yes, indeed, the mathematics and formulas of complexity / chaos are independent of quantum / relativity - does that mean that (from a complexity / chaos perspective) quantum / relativistic effects can be tossed in the "everything else is noise" bin?!

[Holiday20310401]

Reality is dualistic and actuality is monistic?

And I'd say that if we could know every piece of information of the environment, know every bit of potential of the environment, the environment would be linear, thus we'd know the future.

Chaos is only a point of view I thought, subjective. However with randomness, I see the universe becomes more random as we reach the quantum side, thus more linear. (ex. entanglement, because particles acting the same way are not very chaotic, but at the same time they are in undefined states)

Maybe it is because we know less of the environment of the quantum side that it appears random. So, what causes us to understand less? Other dimension, perhaps M theory; even though I hate the theory.

I'd rather say that forces, causality; that which allows perception to seek order; are of less potential in the quantum side so the quantum side appears random. But this is only the case with gravity, the other forces have a stronger effect, I think, when we get to those little particles. lol.

Perhaps gravity is the only force that really can subjectively provide perception of order, rather than the other forces, because of its link to space time. We rely upon those for perception thus causality, and order is proportional to the influence of the force of gravity on the gauge of perception. (Being that of micro, macro).

I have to admit, its a pretty weak statement and I don't agree with my thoughts here. lol. Any ideas as to why?

[paulhanke]

Originally Posted by Holiday20310401

And I'd say that if we could know every piece of information of the environment, know every bit of potential of the environment, the environment would be linear, thus we'd know the future.

... it sounds like we mean different things when we talk about "linearity" ... when I use the word, I refer to mathematical linearity - that is, linear equations ... this is in contrast to nonlinear equations ... if a system's dynamics is best described by nonlinear equations, simply obtaining every piece of information you can about it and its environment will not all of a sudden make it best described by linear equations ... as well, the future of a deterministic nonlinear system can be predicted with perfect accuracy if you have perfect information - it's that "perfect" qualification that makes nonlinear systems seem random (whereas prediction error remains proportional to measurement error in linear systems, prediction error grows exponentially with respect to measurement error in nonlinear systems) ...

Originally Posted by Holiday20310401

Chaos is only a point of view I thought, subjective.

... deterministic chaos is a mathematical property of a certain class of dynamics ... there has been some question as to whether or not deterministic chaos is a mathematical monster akin to fractals and as such doesn't exist in a "pure" form in nature (is the coast of Great Britain a "pure" fractal? is turbulence "pure" deterministic chaos?) ... but even should it turn out to be the case that there is no such thing as "pure" deterministic chaos in nature, the mathematics of deterministic chaos may still provide an excellent model for the "near" deterministic chaos that does occur ...

[Holiday20310401]

Originally Posted by paulhanke

when I use the word, I refer to mathematical linearity

Oops, .


Sweet!!!! Some new terms.

Ok I haven't studied non linear systems yet, can you give me an example, though being dualistic perhaps it would piece a profound thought object together if you gave me two?

Or one of each, lol.

Wait so a superposition of variables meaning, to me anyways offhand, that you can understand the system even if not all the variable are accounted for is existent in a linear system. This is because having one piece of the puzzle has correlations to the other pieces in that variables are related to the system rather congruently?

And in a non linear system, such patterns are not attainable because that would require linearity the way I defined it, (our definitions merge); so all variables must be accounted for.

To be fair I'll look them up.

[paulhanke]

Originally Posted by Holiday20310401

Ok I haven't studied non linear systems yet, can you give me an example, though being dualistic perhaps it would piece a profound thought object together if you gave me two?

... the classic example is the Lorenz equations:

... and rather than being two distinct examples, this is two examples in one - not only is this an example of a nonlinear system of equations, but this is also an example of a nonlinear system of equations that exhibit deterministic chaos!

... of course, we mustn't forget the obligatory Wikipedia reference: Lorenz attractor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Holiday20310401]

Ah I understand now..... So is it possible to have a 4D linear system? (Spatially speaking).

[paulhanke]

Originally Posted by Holiday20310401

Ah I understand now..... So is it possible to have a 4D linear system? (Spatially speaking).

... in mathematics, anything is possible - the creative part is proving that certain mathematical statements bear some resemblance to the real world ... so you could have a 40D linear system of equations - but is there anything in the real world that that system of equations would resemble? ...