[HN Gopher] John Wheeler saw the tear in reality
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John Wheeler saw the tear in reality
Author : rbanffy
Score : 140 points
Date : 2024-09-30 08:58 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.quantamagazine.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.quantamagazine.org)
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Having every 'observer' also 'participate' seems to just make it
| even more intractably complex? Since presumably 'participators'
| can influence each other simultaneously.
|
| So I just don't see how any of these theories are attractive
| prospects, the infinite regress seems even more severe than
| superdeterminism theories.
|
| It's quite a shame this man got stuck on something that may be
| literally impossible to prove.
| mistermann wrote:
| Understandability to era-bound humans is not a prerequisite for
| existence luckily.
| ko27 wrote:
| It's not like we are any closer to resolving the measurement
| problem today. I wouldn't be quick to dismiss Wheeler, all
| alternative theories for this problem are radical or
| "unattractive".
| svachalek wrote:
| It's not like being radical or unattractive has anything to
| do with validity though.
| kps wrote:
| There is no other kind of observation. You observe a photon
| when it and your retina (or device) participate in a physical
| interaction.
| Finnucane wrote:
| It also seems a little narcissistic to assume that humans are
| the only 'observers' or 'participants' who are determinative.
| akira2501 wrote:
| Observe is bad language. It implies a conscious act.
| "Incident" or "Interact" seem like better roots but the
| conjugations are even more overloaded in terms of human
| meaning.
| nzzn wrote:
| Quanta is such a great resource! High value spend from Jim Simons
| vast pool of dollars.
|
| I came across MTW's "Gravitation" as a student in the 70's and it
| inspired a positively unreasonable desire to own a copy just
| because it looked so beautiful. Couldn't afford the doorstop of a
| book at that time but happily it is still in print 50 years
| later.
| oersted wrote:
| They are good at framing advanced science as intuitive and
| engaging stories, context is always appreciated.
|
| Although, frankly, whenever I see the Quanta URL I tend to skip
| straight to the comments. It's too verbose to my taste, I just
| want to understand what the discovery is about, get an
| understanding of the substantive details without too much
| prerequisite knowledge, and understand the impact on other
| research and possibly on applications. But I start reading the
| article, and it always reads like a biography. The writing is
| excellent, but I'm afraid I don't always have the time for the
| literary angle. I am willing to spend a while understanding it
| but focusing on the meat of the science, the peripheral story
| comes after if I'm curious.
| piva00 wrote:
| I tend to save Quanta's articles for my "slow reading" part
| of the day.
|
| Exactly because of the more literary prose that I know I will
| enjoy but need the time to appreciate. Also, I don't think
| I've ever had to spend more than 10 minutes to read one of
| their articles, it's time well spent, or maybe I'm just
| nostalgic for longer-form magazines that I miss from my
| younger years.
| hypertexthero wrote:
| "Hope produces space and time?"
|
| The longer I live the more I appreciate Kurt Godel's proof that
| we can never know everything about the universe.
|
| https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-godels-proof-works-202007...
| rbanffy wrote:
| You'd need something bigger than the universe to represent
| everything in the universe.
| 0xdeadbeefbabe wrote:
| It would be funny to find this out empirically. Like in the
| tower of Babel?
| rbanffy wrote:
| According to the legend, they didn't find it amusing.
| bumbledraven wrote:
| Not if compression is involved.
| qingcharles wrote:
| This is why I have a totally unhinged belief that it might
| be possible to emulate the universe inside the universe
| itself.
| joseph_b wrote:
| Everything sounds so simple until we try to explain it.
|
| If the emulation is contained inside the universe being
| emulated, do you think the emulated universe includes the
| emulation contained within it? Does the emulation now
| contain another emulation? If so, now many emulations?
| TuringTourist wrote:
| And if that is the case, the odds are basically 0 that we
| happen to be the first of an infinite number of universes
| emulating themselves
| ridgeguy wrote:
| Pretty sure it's emulations all the way down.
| phkahler wrote:
| I don't think that's unhinged. One might think the
| emulation must contain a subset of the state variables of
| the universe. But if there are no state variables that
| problem goes away. I have reason to believe there are no
| state variables.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| I don't think there's any reason you couldn't but the
| simulation might move so slowly that it's not useful.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| It's frankly not all that clear what this even means.
| When cosmologists talk about the "universe," the
| generally mean the observable universe, which is all
| events that have ever happened in the past light-cone of
| the observer. Since space is expanding, that is
| constantly changing, with the expectation being that at
| some point, from the perspective of anything in our
| current galactic supercluster, everything else will
| become causally disconnected when the expansion rate
| exceeds the speed of light and will no longer be in "our"
| observable universe, where even then it isn't clear what
| "our" means as it's also likely by then that black holes
| will be the only baryonic matter still in existence, and
| there will no longer be humans, life, planets, or even
| light most of the time.
|
| As those black holes degrade via Hawking radiation over
| however many quadrillions of quadrillions of year,
| without gravitationally bound superstructures of any
| kind, eventually all fundamental particles will be
| causally disconnected from all others, permanently.
|
| What then does it mean to "emulate the universe inside
| the universe itself?" How do you emulate a single
| fundamental particle with only a single fundamental
| particle? What is the distinction between the emulation
| and the real thing? The real thing has nothing else to
| interact with, so it can't compute. It's state can't be
| measured because there is nothing to measure with.
|
| In short, I hesitate to speculate about what can and
| can't be done with the universe because what the universe
| even is will change quite drastically over long enough
| spans of time.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Why would you think it's not already? What we see is the
| observable state, not it's underlying representation.
| yreg wrote:
| Is that necessarily true for all universes?
|
| I suppose an empty universe represents itself. Or you could
| have a universe with matter distributed in the shape of
| https://xkcd.com/688/
| xpl wrote:
| Can there _be_ an empty universe? I suppose there is no
| "self" to represent then.
| rbanffy wrote:
| An empty universe would not have any information, or
| state change, and wouldn't trigger any computation,
| therefore, it wouldn't exist.
| titzer wrote:
| Well, Quine is a thing.
| minism wrote:
| Right, but isn't it a problem that a quine also requires
| the information contained in the language's
| compiler/interpreter to be fully meaningful? This would be
| "outside the universe" so to speak.
| akira2501 wrote:
| Compilers are just translators. Which is why it's not too
| hard to write a compiler in the language that the
| compiler itself implements.
|
| An assembly quine is an odd thing to even ponder.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Sort of. The very first compiled binary of any new
| language has to first be written in a language that
| already has a compiler, and the very first compiler of
| any high-level language at all had to be written in
| assembler.
|
| Ultimately, if you can't write a Quine directly in logic
| gates, which you can't because no microprocessor can
| output another microprocessor, you need something
| external to the "universe" of the language.
| wslh wrote:
| We don't know if the Universe is finite or infinite, and also
| if it works in a completely logical way.
| flatline wrote:
| Obligatory: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/real-3
| ordu wrote:
| I laughed at the inscription on the blackboard (the photo in
| the article) "Godel's proof -- too important to be left to
| mathematicians".
| m0llusk wrote:
| Going from pregeometry to spacetime as information with observer
| participation might in ways relate to the law of increasing
| functional complexity. What if observers start as other particles
| but join together to iterate in increasingly large combinations
| in order to generate increasing complexity in spacetime
| phenomena? Exotic particles in space might be kind of like
| interesting minerals forming in comets and so on.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > It is not a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon.
|
| It's more palatable when we consider not the observation, but the
| information that was collapsed out of the superimposed states at
| the time of the observation. The universe uses lazy evaluation,
| and things only happen when they have effects on other things,
| and what we see as past depends on what we observe now, as both
| need to be consistent with each other.
| ricksunny wrote:
| If I'm not mistaken some gaming physics engines work this way
| too, am I mistaken? Something akin to avoiding calculating the
| details of a voxel until it is observed by the gamer?
| codetrotter wrote:
| Which raises the question, if a tree falls in-game, but only
| non-playable characters are there. Does the falling tree make
| a sound when it hits the ground?
| mabster wrote:
| In most games I would suspect the tree doesn't fall.
| Philosophy bypassed!
| inopinatus wrote:
| Not quite like voxels, because that implies some higher
| existence defining a grid. Avoiding that requires a more
| local definition of existence in terms of adjacency.
|
| I've always encoded it thus:
|
| _"All matter is information, all information is functional,
| and perception is therefore the lazy evaluation of the
| universe."_
|
| In the Greg Egan edition of this thesis, the speed of light
| emerges as a property of evaluative propagation through a
| functional universe, and new forms of consciousness are
| encountered living within the algebraic structure of the
| cosmos.
| avaldez_ wrote:
| Not specifically physics engines but graphics engines use
| "hidden surface determination" to avoid rendering what's
| outside the camera view. Frustrum culling, occlusion culling,
| LOD optimization, space-partition based clipping, etc. This
| video does an amazing job explaining some of those.
| https://youtu.be/C8YtdC8mxTU (highly recommended channel too)
| krunck wrote:
| > The universe uses lazy evaluation
|
| Brilliant.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Thank you. I doubt I'm the first, however.
| layer8 wrote:
| The observer being part of the universe suggests that the
| observer becomes entangled with the superimposed states as well
| by the observation, and that nothing collapses.
|
| > The universe uses lazy evaluation [...]
|
| That's only a sensible notion if you assume that time exists
| outside of the universe instead of being part of it. Wheeler's
| idea of space-time being non-fundamental suggests the latter.
| inopinatus wrote:
| This may be reconciled by defining the speed of light in
| terms of the latency of evaluation.
| dustingetz wrote:
| which experiment proves the universe uses lazy evaluation? this
| seems like interpretation
| martin-adams wrote:
| I would guess the double-slit experiment to fit this analogy.
| akira2501 wrote:
| Wheeler suggested to expand the observations of the "double
| slit apparatus" into the "delayed choice experiment" which
| was then itself expanded into the "delayed choice quantum
| eraser experiment." From the Wikipedia article:
|
| "Wheeler pointed out that when these assumptions are applied
| to a device of interstellar dimensions, a last-minute
| decision made on Earth on how to observe a photon could alter
| a situation established millions or even billions of years
| earlier."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed-choice_quantum_eraser
|
| That's not to say that this is "proof" but I think this is
| where the notion is most directly apprehended.
| SilasX wrote:
| Which, to be clear, then invalidates at least one of the
| assumptions, right?
| wholinator2 wrote:
| It is an interpretation, the Copenhagen interpretation. There
| are other possibilities and nobody knows the real ground
| truth yet. All our speculations are just that
| bwood wrote:
| I've been compiling a list of ways in which physical reality is
| similar to game engines or mechanical simulation in general.
| Here's my list so far:
|
| - The observer effect, quantum entanglement and wavefunction
| collapse --> lazy evaluation
|
| - Speed of light --> speed of causality to resolve the object
| interaction problem O(n^2)
|
| - Quanta of energy, Planck's length --> discretization of
| reality to limit computational precision
|
| - Unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics --> reality is
| implemented with mathematics
|
| - Parsimonious physics --> simple physical rules are less
| computationally expensive to evaluate
|
| - Entropy --> stability of the simulation and a guaranteed
| "wind down"
| szvsw wrote:
| For speed of light, a more direct analogue (though your
| example still makes sense) would be what is often called the
| "speed of sound" in numerical methods (like the finite
| difference method, aka FDM), which is often closely related
| to both temporal and spatial discretization schemes and can
| lead to numerical instability (cf. CFL condition, Von Neumann
| stability analysis, etc). It's also related to things like
| stiff problems. It essentially has to do with how fast
| computational information propagates through the simulated
| domain. Note that it is still called "the speed of sound"
| even when you are not simulating the wave equation! (At least
| by my profs)
| codesnik wrote:
| all the wavefunction collapses only needed to compute
| future/far away collapses, we are all just thunks, evaluated
| because we needed for the final compute.
| excalibur wrote:
| Seriously, this article brings to mind the classic short story
| about a simulated universe: https://qntm.org/responsibility
|
| And also the wildly speculative conjecture that our universe will
| be retroactively created by a super intelligent AI in the precise
| manner necessary to facilitate its own existence, from which it
| follows that we exist for the express purpose of creating it. (If
| anybody knows the source I might have stolen this one from please
| let me know.)
| collingreen wrote:
| There is a dark version of this (with some pascal's wager
| thrown in) called Roko's basilisk. Maybe that's what you're
| thinking of?
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk
| pnut wrote:
| Maybe "the last question"?
| https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~gamvrosi/thelastq.html
| andraz wrote:
| Stanislaw Lem, The Star Diaries, where Tichy at the same time
| apologizes and brags about how he retroactively tried to
| create/fix the world and how he failed.
| jrussino wrote:
| Funny, one of my first thoughts upon seeing this article was
| that the protagonist of the story "There Is No Antimimetics
| Division" (by the same author) is named "Marion Wheeler" and I
| wondered if there was an intentional connection.
|
| https://qntm.org/scp
| its_bbq wrote:
| On the blackboard he and his students wrote "Godel's Proof -- too
| important to be left to the mathematicians."
|
| As a mathematician, I'd love if anyone here knew the context
| floatrock wrote:
| Not a mathematician and it's been a number of years since I
| read GEB, but my rough takeaway of the incompleteness is self-
| referential systems are magical because they can create
| statements that can't be proven in that system. "This sentence
| is false" or "Can God create a burrito so hot He cannot eat it"
| and all that.
|
| So if Wheeler is saying the universe comes out of quantum
| observation, then the connection seems to be a self-referential
| Strange Loop of consciousness/observation/participation along
| the lines of "we're just the universe observing itself"
| swifthesitation wrote:
| > His incompleteness theorems meant there can be no
| mathematical theory of everything, no unification of what's
| provable and what's true. What mathematicians can prove depends
| on their starting assumptions, not on any fundamental ground
| truth from which all answers spring[0].
|
| So why leave it solely to the mathematicians.
|
| [0] https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-godels-proof-
| works-202007...
| defgeneric wrote:
| I don't know the context, but Claus Kiefer was on the Physics
| Frontiers podcast recently talking about this paper:
|
| https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.07331
|
| Godel's undecidability theorems and the search for a theory of
| everything
|
| "I investigate the question whether Godel's undecidability
| theorems play a crucial role in the search for a unified theory
| of physics. I conclude that unless the structure of space-time
| is fundamentally discrete we can never decide whether a given
| theory is the final one or not. This is relevant for both
| canonical quantum gravity and string theory."
| openrisk wrote:
| The really tough problems require minds that are wired
| differently and John Wheeler's mind was definitely a thing apart.
| Its the sort of unique mental fingerprint or aesthetic that
| characterizes great talents in this space (Feynman and Penrose
| are other examples of this trait, imho).
|
| Compare Gravitation (the bible) and its boldness, inventiveness
| and playfulness with the sterile presentation of most theoretical
| physics textbooks before and after.
|
| Anyway, he failed to bring on a new paradigm for "deep" physics.
| The intersection of geometry and quantum mechanics seems to be as
| elusive and mysterious as ever. But hope produced all our mental
| breakthroughs and, who knows, it may do so again.
| pvg wrote:
| _Compare Gravity_
|
| Total pedantipoint but the book's title is _Gravitation_ of
| which he was one of three authors.
| Thrymr wrote:
| > he was one of three authors
|
| Indeed, but the other two (Charles Misner and Kip Thorne)
| were Wheeler's former students.
| pvg wrote:
| Sure, but Thorne once bought me pizza so he's the most
| important co-author.
| zombiwoof wrote:
| God gives hope
| ricksunny wrote:
| It's interesting we have such receptivity in the HN community
| here on physicist-proposed metaphysics (yay!), yet in an entirely
| similar light - an article covering physicist Roger Penrose's
| 'microtubules' on HN a couple days ago, we get the reflexive "but
| experts say this is bunk' treatment.
|
| Personally I don't know from Sam on either hypothesis. I'm just
| wondering for all things seeming equal, when do we get
| receptivity from the HN community and when to anticipate the
| knives coming out? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41696559
| PTOB wrote:
| The real question - which I do not intend to answer - is, "Are
| the same HN users who are receptive to the metaphysics here
| _also_ providing the 'experts disagree' retorts?" If we were
| to categorize the different mindsets of HN users and study
| their reactions, we might be able to treat the whole as an
| organism and the different groups as organelles. Then we poke
| it with sticks for science!
| szvsw wrote:
| Or even bodies without organs... uh oh, shhh, no Deleuze
| allowed on here I think!
| szvsw wrote:
| It can be pure chance. Who commented first, who happened to
| click the article, the time of day it was posted, the style of
| the website the article was hosted on, etc etc. it's easy to
| get sucked into the illusion that the commenting population is
| a stationary distribution when in fact it might be highly
| multimodal and each thread is not a representative sample of
| the overall population.
|
| Having said that, your question still stands, I suppose I'm
| just thinking it ought to be phrased differently? why does one
| article trigger more engagement than others, and why does one
| article trigger more engagement with certain subsets of the HN
| population? (Whereas your phrasing could seem to suggest there
| are monolithic grand narratives that describe what "The HN
| community thinks")
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Wonder if the movie Interstellar was inspired by Wheeler.
| dcminter wrote:
| Not exactly, but they had Kip Thorne as their science advisor
| and Wheeler was his Phd supervisor!
| westurner wrote:
| /? "Wheeler's bags of gold"
| https://www.google.com/search?q=wheelers+bags+of+gold
|
| Holographic principle:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle :
|
| > _The existence of such solutions conflicts with the holographic
| interpretation, and their effects in a quantum theory of gravity
| including the holographic principle are not yet fully
| understood._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Archibald_Wheeler
| hcarnot wrote:
| The source of his confusion is believing that all observers must
| share a single reality. This is not the case: as an observer of
| event A=a, you only share the same reality as all other observers
| who also measure A=a (or anything downstream of A=a). If some
| observer comes along and measures A=b, they split away from your
| reality. Only the version of that observer that saw A=a stays
| with you.
|
| There is no "remote synchronization" mechanism between observers.
| All observations are independent, and when an observation is
| made, the other outcomes _are not discarded_ , they continue
| "running in parallel" until another observer comes along. That is
| to say, from the perspective of other observers, _you_ and your
| measures are also an observation they have to make (and thereby
| collapse).
| bamboozled wrote:
| How can there be a tear in reality, surely, what's behind the
| tear is more...reality?
| PTOB wrote:
| It's PhD philosophy dissertations all the way down.
| grishka wrote:
| Who said that consciousness _is_ "private property"? What if it's
| actually shared between people, like a field of some sort or
| another dimension, but everyone somehow gets their very own part
| of it? We know nothing about the nature of consciousness, so
| let's not assume anything about it. It might arise from the
| physical processes in the brain and be bounded by our known
| physics, sure, but it might just as well be something else
| entirely.
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