10 ms·

Chaos Makes the Multiverse Unnecessary

55 points by dnetesn 8y ago

willio58 8y ago
Sure, unnecessary. Just like life.
keyle 8y ago
This reads more like a mad man's ramble "hear me out for a minute" than an interesting point of view.
deckar01 8y ago
I rationize the multiverse theory this way: There may be events that are purely chaotic. If you could rewind the universe, the outcome would change following a probability. If our universe started, then it is possible for a different universe to start. The initial conditions for any universe may be a set of chaotic events. If it was possible for an infinite number of universes to start, then maybe there is at least one universe for every possible chaotic event that could have occurred in our universe, and infinitely more that could not have occurred in our universe.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  >There may be events that are purely chaotic. If you could rewind the universe, the outcome would change following a probability. Chaos is not the same thing as randomness. Chaos is defined as "completely deterministic, but a small change in the state at one time will produce a large and rapidly growing change in the state at later times," which implies that if you knew today perfectly you could predict the future forever, but if you are even a little bit wrong it will be magnified, eventually, in to being totally wrong.
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago
    So chaos is like a cryptographic hash function where a given input always produces the same output, but even a slight change in the input produces massive changes in the output?
    - whatshisface 8y ago
      That sounds right to me. Many things computers do are chaotic because one little bit flip can flip a whole lot of other bits down the line...
    - Doxin 8y ago
      Chaotic is definitely a good property for a hash function to have. I'm not so sure if the relation works the other way though.
miopa 8y ago
> "Symmetry of time means that the outcomes of experiments should not depend on when the experiment took place." I don't think that this is correct.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  You're right that it's not exactly complete. Time-translation symmetry is what would make an experiment "not depend on when the experiment took place," but time-reversal symmetry, another "time symmetry," would mean that it did not matter whether a VCR tape of the experiment was playing forwards or in reverse, so that both directions appeared to be completely reasonable events. (For example a car driving forwards is just as reasonable as a car driving in reverse.) Time translation symmetry appears in real life, but time reversal in general does not.
- krastanov 8y ago
  On the contrary, it is a pretty fundamental assumption in all of our fundamental theories (with some bows and whistles). A point of confusion might be that the surroundings of the experiment might influence it and the surroundings would depend on whether it is a workday or a weekend, etc. But this is a bad experiment. The correct interpretation is "if my experiment is isolated so that external events do not influence it (like all good experiments), then I will get the same results no matter whether I do it today or wait until tomorrow". Another way to phrase it is "there is no dependence on the variable 't' in the fundamental laws".
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- empath75 8y ago
  This is correct and leads to conservation of energy — to see why, imagine a frictionless pendulum. If you prove that it returns to original position once, you know that it will swing for eternity because if the system is in the same state and only the time has changed, it do exactly what it did previously. Which is to say that the energy of the system will remain constant.
shiburizu 8y ago
What is the productive meaning of this article? Evidently, the universe does not upload her laws into ArXiv for us to read and link on HN and for that reason people have poured their lives into certain perceptions and publish their findings in hope it carries some productive weight. The idea that our established views in math and physics are all selective and narrow is certainly correct but I'd like to see where the alternative is. Feels like nihilist rambling.
- ryacko 8y ago
  We miss the planet for the forest and the trees?
- mratzloff 8y ago
  It's in the title.
jamesrcole 8y ago
"These laws of nature appear fine-tuned to bring about life, and in particular, intelligent life." The "to" implies purpose, and there's no evidence of this. That fact that we exist could only happen in a universe that we can exist in, but this says nothing about why the universe is like that. "One answer to some of these questions is Platonism (or its cousin Realism). This is the belief that the laws of nature are objective and have always existed" Platonism is a type of Realism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism) And the idea that the laws of nature are objective and have always existed does not equate to Platonism. It doesn't mean they are therefore Platonic Forms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonism "The multiverse is another answer that has recently become quite fashionable. This theory is an attempt to explain why our universe has the life-giving laws that it does" It's really misleading to present the multiverse notion as an attempt to explain a universe suitable for life. There are many other reasons people have proposed it. For example, in the Many-worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation "...while the multiverse would answer some of the questions we posed if it existed, who says it actually exists? Since most believe that we have no contact with possible other universes, the question of the existence of the multiverse is essentially metaphysics." I think that's misleading - there are stronger theoretical grounds for hypothesising it than what this suggests. I'm not saying there's evidence for it, I'm saying that the quoted statement misleadingly makes it out be an empty speculation. "Some people say that science studies all physical phenomena. This is simply not true. Who will win the next presidential election and move into the White House is a physical question that no hard scientists would venture to give an absolute prediction. Whether or not a computer will halt for a given input can be seen as a physical question and yet we learned from Alan Turing that this question cannot be answered. Scientists have classified the general textures and heights of different types of clouds, but, in general, are not at all interested in the exact shape of a cloud. Although the shape is a physical phenomenon, scientists don’t even attempt to study it. Science does not study all physical phenomena. Rather, science studies predictable physical phenomena. It is almost a tautology: science predicts predictable phenomena." I don't agree with that characterisation. Just because it can't give complete predictions of phenomena does not justify saying it doesn't study those phenomena. Just because we can't predict halting doesn't mean we don't study halting at all. The fact that we know for certain that we can't predict halting demonstrates that we study, and have a certain level of understanding of, that phenomenon. ...and I've run out of time to read more of the article.
whatshisface 8y ago
>Noson S. Yanofsky has a Ph.D. in mathematics from The Graduate Center of The City University of New York. He is a professor of computer science at Brooklyn College of The City University of New York. Remember the old stereotype[0] of physicists that thought that because they understood physics, they were automatically experts in every field - and so began dispensing "wisdom" to all of the actual experts? I guess physicists aren't the only ones who are susceptible to this. [0] http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-03-21 http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-03-21
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  I'm not following your point. Are you saying you think the author is not qualified to write about the article's topic?
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    I'm pointing out the humor in the fact that the tables have turned on physicsts that do what the author is doing, because now someone is doing it to them.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- nyc111 8y ago
  Thanks for sharing this cartoon! This phenomenon is not limited to physicists either, it is pretty much true for all professionals and famous people. But also, physicists claim that they do not deal in philosophy, yet the main subject matter of theoretical physics is a collection of old philosophical subjects such as time, space, the cosmos and absolute beginnings of things. There is a confusion here. This article makes important points about the relation of physics and mathematics. I agree that physicists pick and choose "smooth" and solvable system and then claim to reveal the secrets of the universe.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
intralizee 8y ago
Chaos is just a word, created by humans to provide a human expression to another and for me it describes a system that is too complicated at the current moment in time to unravel into a deterministic system. I enjoy the multiverse theory because of how it makes infinity more imaginable for me and how time does not need to align between universes to recreate the current moment in one universe. The current moment in this universe can even theoretically happen again in the exact same universe when understanding infinity with all the variables aligning again. Fatalism is how I view reality. If there is a deity, that being is deterministic as well and could effect our lives but still would make it fatalism for us. Although, I fundamentally think Spinoza is correct on the logic & philosophy of god and thus I think there is no deity(s).
- whatshisface 8y ago
  >Chaos is just a word, created by humans to provide a human expression to another and for me it describes a system that is too complicated at the current moment in time to unravel into a deterministic system. For what it's worth, chaos is defined to mean something specific in physics: a system that is deterministic, but where a small change in today will grow in to a very big change in tomorrow, to the point where any error in your knowledge will eventually grow in to being completely wrong. To reiterate, chaotic systems are all deterministic. If you're not talking about the world but are instead talking about your experience of the world then chaos means whatever it means in that field of study, I guess. But if you want to understand the universe then physicists are the people you'll want to listen to, so you should know what chaos means.
  - intralizee 8y ago
    I find your last paragraph an attempt at dismissing what I wrote? The interpretation I gave is based on how physicists interpret chaos.
    - whatshisface 8y ago
      Chaos isn't interpreted in physics, it's defined in physics, and it happens to be deterministic by definition. Many chaotic systems have already been "unraveled in to deterministic systems," including the double pendulum and weather models.
empath75 8y ago
I found this article incredibly thought provoking, particularly the jettisoning of axioms necessary to understand more and more phenomena.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

55 points by dnetesn 8y ago

willio58 8y ago

Sure, unnecessary. Just like life.

keyle 8y ago

This reads more like a mad man's ramble "hear me out for a minute" than an interesting point of view.

deckar01 8y ago

I rationize the multiverse theory this way: There may be events that are purely chaotic. If you could rewind the universe, the outcome would change following a probability. If our universe started, then it is possible for a different universe to start. The initial conditions for any universe may be a set of chaotic events. If it was possible for an infinite number of universes to start, then maybe there is at least one universe for every possible chaotic event that could have occurred in our universe, and infinitely more that could not have occurred in our universe.

whatshisface 8y ago
>There may be events that are purely chaotic. If you could rewind the universe, the outcome would change following a probability. Chaos is not the same thing as randomness. Chaos is defined as "completely deterministic, but a small change in the state at one time will produce a large and rapidly growing change in the state at later times," which implies that if you knew today perfectly you could predict the future forever, but if you are even a little bit wrong it will be magnified, eventually, in to being totally wrong.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago
  So chaos is like a cryptographic hash function where a given input always produces the same output, but even a slight change in the input produces massive changes in the output?
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    That sounds right to me. Many things computers do are chaotic because one little bit flip can flip a whole lot of other bits down the line...
  - Doxin 8y ago
    Chaotic is definitely a good property for a hash function to have. I'm not so sure if the relation works the other way though.

miopa 8y ago

> "Symmetry of time means that the outcomes of experiments should not depend on when the experiment took place." I don't think that this is correct.

whatshisface 8y ago
You're right that it's not exactly complete. Time-translation symmetry is what would make an experiment "not depend on when the experiment took place," but time-reversal symmetry, another "time symmetry," would mean that it did not matter whether a VCR tape of the experiment was playing forwards or in reverse, so that both directions appeared to be completely reasonable events. (For example a car driving forwards is just as reasonable as a car driving in reverse.) Time translation symmetry appears in real life, but time reversal in general does not.
krastanov 8y ago
On the contrary, it is a pretty fundamental assumption in all of our fundamental theories (with some bows and whistles). A point of confusion might be that the surroundings of the experiment might influence it and the surroundings would depend on whether it is a workday or a weekend, etc. But this is a bad experiment. The correct interpretation is "if my experiment is isolated so that external events do not influence it (like all good experiments), then I will get the same results no matter whether I do it today or wait until tomorrow". Another way to phrase it is "there is no dependence on the variable 't' in the fundamental laws".
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
empath75 8y ago
This is correct and leads to conservation of energy — to see why, imagine a frictionless pendulum. If you prove that it returns to original position once, you know that it will swing for eternity because if the system is in the same state and only the time has changed, it do exactly what it did previously. Which is to say that the energy of the system will remain constant.

shiburizu 8y ago

What is the productive meaning of this article? Evidently, the universe does not upload her laws into ArXiv for us to read and link on HN and for that reason people have poured their lives into certain perceptions and publish their findings in hope it carries some productive weight. The idea that our established views in math and physics are all selective and narrow is certainly correct but I'd like to see where the alternative is. Feels like nihilist rambling.

ryacko 8y ago
We miss the planet for the forest and the trees?
mratzloff 8y ago
It's in the title.

jamesrcole 8y ago

"These laws of nature appear fine-tuned to bring about life, and in particular, intelligent life." The "to" implies purpose, and there's no evidence of this. That fact that we exist could only happen in a universe that we can exist in, but this says nothing about why the universe is like that. "One answer to some of these questions is Platonism (or its cousin Realism). This is the belief that the laws of nature are objective and have always existed" Platonism is a type of Realism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism) And the idea that the laws of nature are objective and have always existed does not equate to Platonism. It doesn't mean they are therefore Platonic Forms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonism "The multiverse is another answer that has recently become quite fashionable. This theory is an attempt to explain why our universe has the life-giving laws that it does" It's really misleading to present the multiverse notion as an attempt to explain a universe suitable for life. There are many other reasons people have proposed it. For example, in the Many-worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation "...while the multiverse would answer some of the questions we posed if it existed, who says it actually exists? Since most believe that we have no contact with possible other universes, the question of the existence of the multiverse is essentially metaphysics." I think that's misleading - there are stronger theoretical grounds for hypothesising it than what this suggests. I'm not saying there's evidence for it, I'm saying that the quoted statement misleadingly makes it out be an empty speculation. "Some people say that science studies all physical phenomena. This is simply not true. Who will win the next presidential election and move into the White House is a physical question that no hard scientists would venture to give an absolute prediction. Whether or not a computer will halt for a given input can be seen as a physical question and yet we learned from Alan Turing that this question cannot be answered. Scientists have classified the general textures and heights of different types of clouds, but, in general, are not at all interested in the exact shape of a cloud. Although the shape is a physical phenomenon, scientists don’t even attempt to study it. Science does not study all physical phenomena. Rather, science studies predictable physical phenomena. It is almost a tautology: science predicts predictable phenomena." I don't agree with that characterisation. Just because it can't give complete predictions of phenomena does not justify saying it doesn't study those phenomena. Just because we can't predict halting doesn't mean we don't study halting at all. The fact that we know for certain that we can't predict halting demonstrates that we study, and have a certain level of understanding of, that phenomenon. ...and I've run out of time to read more of the article.

whatshisface 8y ago

>Noson S. Yanofsky has a Ph.D. in mathematics from The Graduate Center of The City University of New York. He is a professor of computer science at Brooklyn College of The City University of New York. Remember the old stereotype[0] of physicists that thought that because they understood physics, they were automatically experts in every field - and so began dispensing "wisdom" to all of the actual experts? I guess physicists aren't the only ones who are susceptible to this. [0] http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-03-21 http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-03-21

throwawaymath 8y ago
I'm not following your point. Are you saying you think the author is not qualified to write about the article's topic?
- whatshisface 8y ago
  I'm pointing out the humor in the fact that the tables have turned on physicsts that do what the author is doing, because now someone is doing it to them.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
nyc111 8y ago
Thanks for sharing this cartoon! This phenomenon is not limited to physicists either, it is pretty much true for all professionals and famous people. But also, physicists claim that they do not deal in philosophy, yet the main subject matter of theoretical physics is a collection of old philosophical subjects such as time, space, the cosmos and absolute beginnings of things. There is a confusion here. This article makes important points about the relation of physics and mathematics. I agree that physicists pick and choose "smooth" and solvable system and then claim to reveal the secrets of the universe.
- whatshisface 8y ago

intralizee 8y ago

Chaos is just a word, created by humans to provide a human expression to another and for me it describes a system that is too complicated at the current moment in time to unravel into a deterministic system. I enjoy the multiverse theory because of how it makes infinity more imaginable for me and how time does not need to align between universes to recreate the current moment in one universe. The current moment in this universe can even theoretically happen again in the exact same universe when understanding infinity with all the variables aligning again. Fatalism is how I view reality. If there is a deity, that being is deterministic as well and could effect our lives but still would make it fatalism for us. Although, I fundamentally think Spinoza is correct on the logic & philosophy of god and thus I think there is no deity(s).

whatshisface 8y ago
>Chaos is just a word, created by humans to provide a human expression to another and for me it describes a system that is too complicated at the current moment in time to unravel into a deterministic system. For what it's worth, chaos is defined to mean something specific in physics: a system that is deterministic, but where a small change in today will grow in to a very big change in tomorrow, to the point where any error in your knowledge will eventually grow in to being completely wrong. To reiterate, chaotic systems are all deterministic. If you're not talking about the world but are instead talking about your experience of the world then chaos means whatever it means in that field of study, I guess. But if you want to understand the universe then physicists are the people you'll want to listen to, so you should know what chaos means.
- intralizee 8y ago
  I find your last paragraph an attempt at dismissing what I wrote? The interpretation I gave is based on how physicists interpret chaos.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    Chaos isn't interpreted in physics, it's defined in physics, and it happens to be deterministic by definition. Many chaotic systems have already been "unraveled in to deterministic systems," including the double pendulum and weather models.

empath75 8y ago

I found this article incredibly thought provoking, particularly the jettisoning of axioms necessary to understand more and more phenomena.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]