Ways of Looking Part 1: Introduction
A theory for deriving physics from groundlessness
This is the first part of a series of posts. See the table of contents for more information.
Abstract
Any theory is correct to the degree that its assumptions are correct and that the theorems are derived without mistake. If we start with no assumptions at all and succeed in deriving theorems, then the theory is guaranteed to be correct. What I’ll present here is the project of following this logic in order to derive the laws of physics a priori. It is not yet complete, but an outline of how to get there. Not by reinventing all of physics, but by showing how existing theories are part of the same bigger picture - patches of a jigsaw puzzle that can be connected once you know what the final image should look like.
If there are no assumptions to constrain what can exist, then ultimate reality must be the superposition of all possible worlds. These worlds are in relation to each other, which forms an overall structure. Each world is a possible “perspective” looking at this structure and is itself included within the structure.
There is no objective outside view. Each possible perspective is a boundary between what is known and what is not known. Understanding how they relate to each other connects to the many-worlds interpretation of QM, the arrow of time, spacetime, and gravity. How boundaries are nested leads to the holographic principle and string theory. The subjective view of each perspective gives rise to the principle of stationary action. Mathematical consistency constraints on observations give rise to the particles and forces of the standard model. The anthropic principle should ideally only be applied once to explain how this general structure is broken to give the apparently fine-tuned physics that allows for sentient observers.1
This theory bridges physics, math, philosophy, and spiritual insight.2 Spirituality comes into the picture through the recognition of the absolute, unknowable reality as well as an explanation for the existence of subjective experience (solving the hard problem of consciousness). To break out of an objective-only description of physics is a strictly necessary and long overdue paradigm shift. Theoretical physics will remain stuck unless it recognizes that the objective world is a fabrication by conscious beings to explain their subjective experience of the absolute.
This can be summed up in three main principles which will inform the following theory:
Absolute: Accept no truth as given. All assumptions have to be deconstructed.
Subjective: Reality can only be known from within.
Objective: Any “objective” description of the world is the consensus of subjective views on the absolute.
Dedication
This theory is named “Ways of Looking” in memory of Rob Burbea, whose recorded teachings allowed me to see reality as it is. If he had lived just a few more years, I’m certain he would have loved to see - or be part of - this unification of spirituality and science.
At the same time, the name is a reminder3 of the highest realization and very core of this theory. If you don’t understand Rob’s ways of looking, you don’t understand the ways of looking at physics.
Ways of Looking
There are many ways of looking at reality. Some are more useful in that they allow you to make accurate predictions. Some allow more, some less freedom from suffering. But none are more fundamental than the others. There is no definite answer for how and what reality “really” is.
You can see this in your experience right now. The meaning of this text is something constructed in your mind. Words and sentences are thoughts derived from sensory information. One way of looking is that in the world you experience right now there are only sensory signals and reactions to these signals. They are based on stored patterns and some self-sustaining process. On the other hand, you might say that there has to be a physical world to inform this experience - including a screen where these words appear and a person reading them. But the screen is made of separate pixels, each consisting of three colored lights, made of electronics, made of atoms, made of particles, which are fuzzy clouds of probability (until measured) in fields that can be described by mathematical symmetries. To think that below these fields is a definite foundational substrate is an (often unquestioned) metaphysical assumption.
The quantum field view, however, cannot explain why prose, for example, can cause the experience of qualia in humans. The narratives, images, and beliefs that shape our lives and give them purpose are not more or less real than the story of quarks and gluons. At some point simulating the effects of one level of description from a finer one becomes equivalent to actually doing the experiment - letting the world happen as it already does.
The way you see the world in each moment is always your subjective view. Any way you imagine the world to be, independent of your experience, is still made of thoughts in your mind. If you’d let go of everything subjective, then there would be nothing left to experience. You cannot not have a way of looking at the world. Yet there is an exception: You know for sure that your subjective experience objectively exists - that you are conscious.
What way of looking is optimal depends on your intention, the context, and the scales involved. The phenomenon of emergence reflects how different theories are most efficient at different scales of description. Some symmetries may only become apparent at higher levels of abstraction.
For example, water can be described as a fluid with a certain viscosity. But to explain why it has a lower density when it freezes requires you to look at the molecular structure. Yet other properties are relevant to explain the influence of water vapor on the formation of rainbows.
Different effective theories in physics describe different limited aspects of reality. Fields of mathematics similarly provide different constrained views. Yet every constraint is itself part of it. What a theory describes is correct in the light of the axioms that constrain it. One of the important insights here is that these assumptions are part of reality. They exist as mathematical entities like the structures they allow us to describe. By deconstructing assumptions we break the distinction between fundamental and derived entities. Physical laws and mathematical theorems aren’t absolute, but depend on the constraints that make them up.4 Emergence goes both ways - neither level is more fundamental than the other. The whole is made up of parts and parts exist as constrained versions of the whole.
The reason this theory requires a radical perspective shift is that, usually, math and physics start with individual objects or observations and then draw the connections between them - to find order in chaos. Here I go in the other direction. I start with pure symmetry (order) and explore how structure emerges through distinctions (chaos).
This new way of approaching the question explains why no theory of everything has been found and why I (as an amateur) am confident that I can contribute something substantial to the discussion.
So far science has been concerned with finding a formal system, based on axioms and some logic, which would generate the diversity of reality. But impossibility results (Gödel, Tarski, Church & Turing, Lawvere, Chaitin) show that no such definite theory is possible. No limited theory can capture all of reality. Reality, rather, is both inconsistent and contains all coherent structures. What we experience as the physical world is at the edge between being coherent enough to allow for persistent structure and incoherent enough to not be stuck in any particular configuration. The probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics is literally where coherent structures break down. We experience change and time because the world is not fully predictable.
Math and physics arise together. For this reason I take the freedom to do in-formal math in this series.
“There is neither source nor end, for all things are in the Center of Time. As all the stars may be reflected in a round raindrop falling in the night: so too do all the stars reflect the raindrop. There is neither darkness nor death, for all things are, in the Light of the Moment, and their end and their beginning are one.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
While the general constraints given by mathematical consistency gives the overall structure, it would be an absurd coincidence if it could also allow for the emergence of life. A minimum divergence is required for this. I suspect it enters in the selection of the Higgs VEV, in conjunction with the expansion rate of the universe as a “multiverse generator”. ↩
To break them up into separate faculties that hardly talk to each other is a quite recent mistake that coincides with the crisis in physics. Worth a rant for another time. But note that when I say “unify” I don’t mean to subsume spirituality and philosophy into math or science. Today’s physics has an implicit materialist metaphysics that’s not always acknowledged as such. When people think they don’t have a metaphysical view on the world, then they are usually just unconsciously copying the cultural average they grew up with. ↩
I try to avoid catchy but empty titles like “Grand Unification” for the reason that they only make claims. Anyone can claim anything. Only those who understand can put the essence of it into the name. ↩
See also: optimality theory ↩