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Having listened to a dozen YT videos and podcasts on the subject, I am kind of an expert (just kidding). But I can relay one view a few brilliant people investe

Having listened to a dozen YT videos and podcasts on the subject, I am kind of an expert (just kidding). But I can relay one view a few brilliant people invested into the subject have about the issue: that reality is a set of all possible states. Of what states? Well literally anything. Imagine a wave that can at any point oscillate up or down. If it does both and splits, it eventually will create all possible states of anything imaginable. Some of the waves become more and more complex, until in very rare cases structure and rules form within the wave function itself. Akin to Conway’s Game of Life. So universes with (seemingly) deterministic laws of any kind are just extremely rare sub-trees of this wave of ”every possible wavestate”. All the peculiarities like dimensions are illusions the same way a multidimensional array to a computer is ultimately just one-dimensional, with logic to treat it as multi-dimensional. I also like the explanation that concept of nothingness is categorically invalid because there clearly is existence (or is there? Maybe this is the ultimate ”nothing”?), but the theory of all possible states sounds even better. Definitely not claiming this is true but intuitively feels like the best explanation for this existence… that this universe with all its laws is a rare sub-tree of all possible states of a simple oscillator. Other universes with other laws exist further up the tree in its other branches. In between, voids and vacuums and undeterministic universes

themodelplumber 4y ago
This all-states model has a lot of impact in relevance to claims like "belief systems generally have a knob you can turn to point at (and accommodate) any desired outcome/belief". It seems like a good idea to move away from such a reality model in that case. Ideally to replace it with either several good plugins or a new metamodel which can encompass its strengths and weaknesses. I.e. reality can be a helpful term to describe "I found a new and helpful perspective for looking at a thing." That's a big strength and one commonly seen as people migrate between beliefs.
trebbble 4y ago
Looks like an appeal to the divine, in that it doesn't explain anything but does push the question up a level. "Why does something exist?" "God did it." "Uh, ok, why does God exist?" "Dunno, just does." <- sure seems like you could have simply applied that last answer to the first question and it'd be exactly as useful and valid. "Why does something exist?" "The set of all possible wave states exists and behaves such-and-such way" "OK, but why does that exist and why does it do that?" "Dunno, just does". <- Ditto.
- yes_man 4y ago
  I guess you are right. Maybe it’s more of a way to get in sane terms with the question. On that note though it definitely feels more logical and harmonious concept than ”God did it”. But I do get your point
- function_seven 4y ago
  There is something about this that at least partially satisfies the question, in that it simplifies as you go one level up. With the "God did it" explanation, something vastly more complex and inscrutable is required (i.e. God) to make the explanation work. With this explanation, there is but a simple wave that splits on its possible oscillations. Our existence is on one of these. No explanation will ever find the "bottom turtle." There will always be space for another "why?" question. The interesting part is probably more to do with the "asker" this question rather than the answer to it. That we have this capacity to think abstractly about this is, to me, more mind-blowing than the nature of existence itself.
- tshaddox 4y ago
  The only thing problematic about “appeals to the divine” or other explanations that “push the question up a level” is if part of the explanation is the prohibition of “where did that thing come from?” or “why is it this way and not some other way?” But pushing things up a level is actually the only option we have for good explanations. For any explanation about anything whatsoever, you should always be able to ask “why is it this way rather than some other way?” It’s not some paradox or contradiction that there will never be an end to this series of explanations and questions, and any claim that there is an end is the bad kind of “appeal to the divine”!!
  - breuleux 4y ago
    From a mathematical/algorithmic point of view, you could define a good explanation as a sort of compression process: on one hand, you have observations, data to explain, totalling a certain number of bits. On the other hand, you have a process or algorithm that can generate these observations, and if that process can be described in less bits than the original observations, then you have a "good explanation". For example, our current theories for the laws of physics are excellent explanations, because they can explain a virtually infinite number of real observations from finite information. On the other hand, if the observations are truly random, then in general no shorter process can produce them, so there can be no good explanation for them. And the interesting thing is that if every good explanation compresses the original observations at least one bit further (otherwise they would not be good), there must be a point where the result is as short as it could possibly be. At this point, the series of good explanations would have to end (although I believe that it is undecidable to know when the end is reached). It is also always possible for something that has a good explanation to actually be a brute fact, like the idea that the Earth was created with the appearance of old age: the good explanation would be that it aged, but the truth would be that it didn't.
DantesKite 4y ago
Stephen Wolfram actually wrote an article suggesting that that's basically it although he frames it as the set of all possible formal rules interacting with each other: "So how does this help us understand why the universe exists? We’re starting from all possible rules. And basically we’re saying that having a universe that operates in the way we perceive ours to operate is an inevitable consequence of there being all these possible rules. Or, in other words, if these rules “exist” then it follows that so will our universe. But what does it mean for rules to “exist”, and in particular for all possible rules to exist? The key point, I believe, is that it’s in a sense an abstract necessity. The set of all possible rules is something purely formal. It can be represented in an infinite number of ways. But it’s always there, existing as an abstract thing, completely independent of any particular instantiation. It’s crucial that we’re talking about all possible rules. If we were talking about particular rules, then we’d need to specify which rules those are, and we’d need a whole language and structure for doing that. But that’s not our situation. We’re talking about all possible rules. We can construct some explicit symbolic representation for these rules, but the deductions we make ultimately won’t depend on this; they would work the same whatever representation we chose to construct. We might have assumed that to get our universe we’d need some definite input, some specific information. But what we’re discovering is that our universe is in some sense like a tautology; it’s something that has to be the way it is just because of the definition of terms. In effect, it exists because it has to, or in a sense because everything about it is a “logical inevitability”, with no choice about anything." https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/04/why-does-the-universe-exist-some-perspectives-from-our-physics-project/ https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/04/why-does-the-uni...
- humanistbot 4y ago
  The part positing the existence of a hypothetical set of all possible formal rules sounds a lot like the cosmological argument for the existence of God.
  - arrow7000 4y ago
    How so?
ashtonbaker 4y ago
Ever since I read this xkcd comic https://xkcd.com/505/ https://xkcd.com/505/ I've suspected something like this - once you abstract a simulation of the universe this far, if you can accept that a person inside this simulation would not be able to tell that they were in a simulation, then it kind of raises the question of whether actually performing the simulation is necessary. I can't see why it would be. If that's the case, then it follows that "reality" is merely an expression of one possible consistent set of rules. Which solves a lot of mysteries, I think.
enw 4y ago
> So universes with (seemingly) deterministic laws of any kind are just extremely rare sub-trees of this wave of ”every possible wavestate”. Wow! This is very similar to what I experienced when I accidentally ingested a large amount of psilocybin (and went to ER just in case, it was the most terrifying experience of my life). This is what I wrote in my notes post the bad trip: "I felt a disconnection from my self and could see the fabric of existence, that life is an inconceivably large tree of choices that forms the current state of the universe among an infinite amount of universes (for each infinitesimal choice)" e.g. I "felt" that there is a sibling branch in this tree of choices in which the universe is a slight modification of the current one. But curiously even when my whole personality disassociated from my "self", there was a "foundation" of my consciousness always attached to the current existence, and to it all parts of my personality that form my consciousness (id/superego/whatever) eventually converged once I got back normal.
- thatswrong0 4y ago
  Yeah, I've had a few experiences that resulted in an extremely similar train of thought (minus the ER). Terrifying but pretty interesting.

themodelplumber 4y ago

This all-states model has a lot of impact in relevance to claims like "belief systems generally have a knob you can turn to point at (and accommodate) any desired outcome/belief". It seems like a good idea to move away from such a reality model in that case. Ideally to replace it with either several good plugins or a new metamodel which can encompass its strengths and weaknesses. I.e. reality can be a helpful term to describe "I found a new and helpful perspective for looking at a thing." That's a big strength and one commonly seen as people migrate between beliefs.

trebbble 4y ago

Looks like an appeal to the divine, in that it doesn't explain anything but does push the question up a level. "Why does something exist?" "God did it." "Uh, ok, why does God exist?" "Dunno, just does." <- sure seems like you could have simply applied that last answer to the first question and it'd be exactly as useful and valid. "Why does something exist?" "The set of all possible wave states exists and behaves such-and-such way" "OK, but why does that exist and why does it do that?" "Dunno, just does". <- Ditto.

yes_man 4y ago
I guess you are right. Maybe it’s more of a way to get in sane terms with the question. On that note though it definitely feels more logical and harmonious concept than ”God did it”. But I do get your point
function_seven 4y ago
There is something about this that at least partially satisfies the question, in that it simplifies as you go one level up. With the "God did it" explanation, something vastly more complex and inscrutable is required (i.e. God) to make the explanation work. With this explanation, there is but a simple wave that splits on its possible oscillations. Our existence is on one of these. No explanation will ever find the "bottom turtle." There will always be space for another "why?" question. The interesting part is probably more to do with the "asker" this question rather than the answer to it. That we have this capacity to think abstractly about this is, to me, more mind-blowing than the nature of existence itself.
tshaddox 4y ago
The only thing problematic about “appeals to the divine” or other explanations that “push the question up a level” is if part of the explanation is the prohibition of “where did that thing come from?” or “why is it this way and not some other way?” But pushing things up a level is actually the only option we have for good explanations. For any explanation about anything whatsoever, you should always be able to ask “why is it this way rather than some other way?” It’s not some paradox or contradiction that there will never be an end to this series of explanations and questions, and any claim that there is an end is the bad kind of “appeal to the divine”!!
- breuleux 4y ago
  From a mathematical/algorithmic point of view, you could define a good explanation as a sort of compression process: on one hand, you have observations, data to explain, totalling a certain number of bits. On the other hand, you have a process or algorithm that can generate these observations, and if that process can be described in less bits than the original observations, then you have a "good explanation". For example, our current theories for the laws of physics are excellent explanations, because they can explain a virtually infinite number of real observations from finite information. On the other hand, if the observations are truly random, then in general no shorter process can produce them, so there can be no good explanation for them. And the interesting thing is that if every good explanation compresses the original observations at least one bit further (otherwise they would not be good), there must be a point where the result is as short as it could possibly be. At this point, the series of good explanations would have to end (although I believe that it is undecidable to know when the end is reached). It is also always possible for something that has a good explanation to actually be a brute fact, like the idea that the Earth was created with the appearance of old age: the good explanation would be that it aged, but the truth would be that it didn't.

DantesKite 4y ago

Stephen Wolfram actually wrote an article suggesting that that's basically it although he frames it as the set of all possible formal rules interacting with each other: "So how does this help us understand why the universe exists? We’re starting from all possible rules. And basically we’re saying that having a universe that operates in the way we perceive ours to operate is an inevitable consequence of there being all these possible rules. Or, in other words, if these rules “exist” then it follows that so will our universe. But what does it mean for rules to “exist”, and in particular for all possible rules to exist? The key point, I believe, is that it’s in a sense an abstract necessity. The set of all possible rules is something purely formal. It can be represented in an infinite number of ways. But it’s always there, existing as an abstract thing, completely independent of any particular instantiation. It’s crucial that we’re talking about all possible rules. If we were talking about particular rules, then we’d need to specify which rules those are, and we’d need a whole language and structure for doing that. But that’s not our situation. We’re talking about all possible rules. We can construct some explicit symbolic representation for these rules, but the deductions we make ultimately won’t depend on this; they would work the same whatever representation we chose to construct. We might have assumed that to get our universe we’d need some definite input, some specific information. But what we’re discovering is that our universe is in some sense like a tautology; it’s something that has to be the way it is just because of the definition of terms. In effect, it exists because it has to, or in a sense because everything about it is a “logical inevitability”, with no choice about anything." https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/04/why-does-the-universe-exist-some-perspectives-from-our-physics-project/ https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/04/why-does-the-uni...

humanistbot 4y ago
The part positing the existence of a hypothetical set of all possible formal rules sounds a lot like the cosmological argument for the existence of God.
- arrow7000 4y ago
  How so?

ashtonbaker 4y ago

Ever since I read this xkcd comic https://xkcd.com/505/ https://xkcd.com/505/ I've suspected something like this - once you abstract a simulation of the universe this far, if you can accept that a person inside this simulation would not be able to tell that they were in a simulation, then it kind of raises the question of whether actually performing the simulation is necessary. I can't see why it would be. If that's the case, then it follows that "reality" is merely an expression of one possible consistent set of rules. Which solves a lot of mysteries, I think.

enw 4y ago

> So universes with (seemingly) deterministic laws of any kind are just extremely rare sub-trees of this wave of ”every possible wavestate”. Wow! This is very similar to what I experienced when I accidentally ingested a large amount of psilocybin (and went to ER just in case, it was the most terrifying experience of my life). This is what I wrote in my notes post the bad trip: "I felt a disconnection from my self and could see the fabric of existence, that life is an inconceivably large tree of choices that forms the current state of the universe among an infinite amount of universes (for each infinitesimal choice)" e.g. I "felt" that there is a sibling branch in this tree of choices in which the universe is a slight modification of the current one. But curiously even when my whole personality disassociated from my "self", there was a "foundation" of my consciousness always attached to the current existence, and to it all parts of my personality that form my consciousness (id/superego/whatever) eventually converged once I got back normal.

thatswrong0 4y ago
Yeah, I've had a few experiences that resulted in an extremely similar train of thought (minus the ER). Terrifying but pretty interesting.