LHC - the last chance for all theories of everything?

[Adrian59]

The LHC is probably the last of the large accelerators so should the main contenders for the title of the theory of everything (if such a thing exists) now, at the dawn of the LHC start up, clearly state what findings would a) prove their theory b) support their theory & c) eliminate their theory? Physics, after all, is still an empirical science & at some point even the most elegant mathematical theories need to connect with experimental fact.

 

[Finbar]

The LHC is probably the last of the large accelerators so should the main contenders for the title of the theory of everything (if such a thing exists) now, at the dawn of the LHC start up, clearly state what findings would a) prove their theory b) support their theory & c) eliminate their theory? Physics, after all, is still an empirical science & at some point even the most elegant mathematical theories need to connect with experimental fact.

I don't think it will be the last. Why do you think this? The LHC is unlikely to find conclusive evidence for any theory of everything. Of coarse one would like to prove or disprove theories but in reality this isn't likely. Finding support for a theory such as strings is probably the best we can hope for. For conclusive evidence we will have to wait for a larger accelerator or some novel way of testing fundamental physics that has not yet been thought up. Another hope would be more cosmological data that supports theories.

I think the things that the LHC should be able to prove or disprove, at least to some degree, is the Higgs boson and supersymmetry. And even if in these cases there may well be ways out if they don't find them at the energy levels of the LHC (theorists who love SUSY will just claim its at a higher energy scale). All we can really do is hope that they find something significant so that governments continue to fund fundamental physics experiments otherwise we may enter an age where there is relatively little empirical evidence to guide new theories.

 

[marcus]

... an age where there is relatively little empirical evidence to guide new theories.

A lot of evidence is coming from astrophysics.
This was part of the message in a recent talk that Edward Witten gave at Cern, called something like "Physics away from the high energy frontier".

The notes are on line. If you move away from the collider energy frontier, you still have high energy phenomena to observe. Cosmic rays, astrophysical gamma radiation. Some interesting things can be deduced from such data.

 

[Naty1]

All we can really do is hope that they find something significant so that governments continue to fund fundamental physics experiments

Yes. Don't forget that perhaps something totally UNEXPECTED may arise...Wouldn't that be most exciting of all possibilities!...something to set science off in new directions, perhaps towards a different theory of everything from current forms. Something that really alters our perceptions...like Hubbles work, or the discovery of dark energy and dark matter...

 

[Adrian59]

I don't think it will be the last. Why do you think this?QUOTE]

I thought it is unlikely that anything to match the LHC will happen soon especially after the Superconducting Super Collider was cancelled. I admit implying never was an overstatement but I would contend that nothing remotely as powerful is likely in even the medium term.

 

[marcus]

Adrian the future of bigger colliders is in part a political question.
There are alternative ways of deducing facts about the universe (Witten discussed a bunch, but one sees evidence of this all the time) so who builds the next big machine, and when they build it, is likely to be determined at least as much by politics---somewhat like the race to the moon there is an element of national prestige and proving to the world one's command of the most challenging technologies.

So I would say that you have to think about the aspirations of the Chinese People's Republic.
Think what it would mean to the Chinese if they could build a more successful collider than the French and Swiss! It would demonstrate scientific, economic, and engineering strength of major proportions. And also would make China the center of particle physics activity and the host to a great international collaboration of minds.

Given the political motives, I would imagine that it is almost certain that a post-LHC collider will be built, regardless of the strictly scientific need for it, and that it will very likely be reliable ("with a vengeance" so to speak). That is, will experience a less eventful start-up than LHC.

Just a guess though.

 

[Naty1]

So I would say that you have to think about the aspirations of the Chinese People's Republic.

Sounds quite possible. In fact, it would not be surprising to see India and China in a race to build the most powerful collider.

 

[marcus]

National aspirations can be achieved within the context of international collaboration. How about an International Collider which the Chinese manage to get built on their soil. This would be an amazing boost to their universities, technology companies, and scientific establishment. Also their prestige in the EastAsian region. Doubtless there is an initiative to do this and they are already working on it. I wonder if something like that will happen.

 

[humanino]

So if we do not build large colliders anymore, Science will have to wait for powerful tabletop accelerators. We'll not see that in our lifetime, but there is no reason why it should be impossible in principle.

 

[marcus]

In case anyone wants to look at it, here are slides for Witten's talk about the prospects of physics "away from the high energy frontier":
http://indico.cern.ch/getFile.py/ac...onId=1&resId=0&materialId=slides&confId=51128
And here is a video of the talk itself:
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1176909/
It is in the first session of the workshop, which is the default. And it is minute 4:30 to minute 32:20 (followed by questions from audience until 37:30)
So you just start the first session and drag the button to 4:30 to skip the chairman's introduction.
A lot of the talk is about how to get new physics out of astrophysical observation and cosmology, without relying on colliders or high energy machines in general.

 

[RUTA]

Has anyone knowledge of a unification approach that doesn't require larger accelerators? I saw a popular program last week about superstring theory in which they said we'd need an accelerator as big as the galaxy to find evidence of strings. I'm not aware of a GUT or SUT that doesn't require much larger accelerators. Have you?

 

[marcus]

Has anyone knowledge of a unification approach that doesn't require larger accelerators? ...

Ruta, why don't you watch the first few minutes of Witten's talk? He is talking about unification (GUTs) almost every slide, but the focus is on what can be discovered and tested away from the high energy frontier. That is by other means than machines like the LHC.

I think it is unrealistic to imagine that there will not be some development of colliders beyond LHC. But it is also unrealistic to suppose that the whole progress in fundamental physics depends on making larger and larger colliders. Listen to the talk, which is number one talk in a well-attended CERN workshop. It illustrates that there are already clever people thinking about how physics can advance by other avenues.

 

[MTd2]

I would just like to know if there is any progress towards using high temperature superconductors for the magnets in particle accelerators.

 

[humanino]

The Qweak experiment at Jefferson Lab will run around 1 GeV, but measuring parity violation with precision and provide orthogonal (complementary)to very high energy colliders constraints on physics BSM.

High precision parity violation is not new, it just can be done better today, and it's quite sensitive to tiny vacuum fluctuations.

 

[RUTA]

Ruta, why don't you watch the first few minutes of Witten's talk? He is talking about unification (GUTs) almost every slide, but the focus is on what can be discovered and tested away from the high energy frontier. That is by other means than machines like the LHC.

I think it is unrealistic to imagine that there will not be some development of colliders beyond LHC. But it is also unrealistic to suppose that the whole progress in fundamental physics depends on making larger and larger colliders. Listen to the talk, which is number one talk in a well-attended CERN workshop. It illustrates that there are already clever people thinking about how physics can advance by other avenues.

Thanks much, Marcus. Of course I've been hearing about low energy predictions of GUTs and SUTs, but these, as you know, are not definitive given the extremely high unification energies. I'm not asking for indirect, secondary consequences of high energy unification schemes. I'm wondering if someone has any ideas which don't entail high energies to unify physics in the first place.

 

[Adrian59]

In case anyone wants to look at it, here are slides for Witten's talk about the prospects of physics "away from the high energy frontier":
QUOTE]

Thanks Marcus. I watched the video & looked at the lecture notes. The bit about low frequency strings appeared interesting. However, one area I was trying to invite comment about when starting this thread was the exact evidence needed to support any current GUT or TOE. For instance what do we expect supersymetry will look like & if we do see it can we be sure it is supersymetry & not some unexpected exotic particle?

 

[tom.stoer]

I think the things that the LHC should be able to prove or disprove, at least to some degree, is the Higgs boson and supersymmetry. And even if in these cases there may well be ways out if they don't find them at the energy levels of the LHC (theorists who love SUSY will just claim its at a higher energy scale). All we can really do is hope that they find something significant so that governments continue to fund fundamental physics experiments otherwise we may enter an age where there is relatively little empirical evidence to guide new theories.

That's the very core of the discussion. The LHC can find evidence for entities like Higgs, SUSY, etc. iff they are in the LHC's energy range.

For the SM Higgs it's pretty clear: if the LHC does not prove its existence it automatically disproves the SM. For all other topics it can only push the limits of their "existence" to higher energies.

So that automatically means the LHC will be absolutely mute about any "ToE". It can support theories with respect to their low energy regime, but nothing else.

For example string theory (with small extra dimensions): as its low energy limit is a certain SUGRA, the LHC cannot distinguish between the two scenarios "ST is the ToE" and "SUGRA is the ToE".

My conclusion is that something like a ToE cannot exist in a physical sense:
a) you can only "prove", support or disprove a theory in a very restricted sense = in certain regimes
b) a ToE should be able to tell you why it is the ToE; I don't think that ST does only because it is allowed to exist in a 10-D spacetime: it does not tell you why other approaches must fail
c) in a certain sense the discussions regarding duality show that there may be not one fundamental theory but only certain dual descriptions of something we like to call "reality" - whatever that means;
look at QFT: what are the fundamental entities of a "quantum ontology"? state vectors in Fock space and field operators - or path integrals and "trajectories in field configuration space";
look at ST: there are dualities between very different string theories, compactifications etc.
so in terms of ontology this question is undecidable;
d) any mathematical approach to a ToE is not able to prove why this approach must be mathematical at all

 

[marcus]

Tom
How does your perspective compare with the one Weinberg presented towards the end of his 6 July Cern talk?

I expect you may have watched it but in case not I'll get the link.
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1188567/

I mentioned in this 11 July post
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=2268482#post2268482
that to save time you can drag the time button to minute 58 (if you want to skip the historical part) and get to the core message
which is in the last 12 minutes.

The slides are here:
http://itpworkshop.unibe.ch/MaKaC/getFile.py/access?contribId=126&sessionId=19&resId=0&materialId=slides&confId=2

There was further discussion here:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=324841

The title of the Cern talk was "The Quantum Theory of Fields--Effective or Fundamental?"

 

[tom.stoer]

Marcus, which statement or perspective do you mean?

The first one regarding the LHC energy range?

The LHC can find evidence for entities like Higgs, SUSY, etc. iff they are in the LHC's energy range.

The second one regarding the low energy limit?

So that automatically means the LHC will be absolutely mute about any "ToE". It can support theories with respect to their low energy regime, but nothing else.

Or my general conclusion regarding possible existence (or non-existence) of a ToE

My conclusion is that something like a ToE cannot exist in a physical sense: ...

 

[marcus]

Tom I often find your informed opinion on things very helpful but in this case what you say does not make sense to me and I contrast it with the cautious optimism in Weinberg's talk.

...
My conclusion is that something like a ToE cannot exist in a physical sense:
a) you can only "prove", support or disprove a theory in a very restricted sense = in certain regimes
b) a ToE should be able to tell you why it is the ToE; I don't think that ST does only because it is allowed to exist in a 10-D spacetime: it does not tell you why other approaches must fail
c) in a certain sense the discussions regarding duality show that there may be not one fundamental theory but only certain dual descriptions of something we like to call "reality" - whatever that means;
look at QFT: what are the fundamental entities of a "quantum ontology"? state vectors in Fock space and field operators - or path integrals and "trajectories in field configuration space";
look at ST: there are dualities between very different string theories, compactifications etc.
so in terms of ontology this question is undecidable;
d) any mathematical approach to a ToE is not able to prove why this approach must be mathematical at all

I think Weinberg was using a very pragmatic idea of a ToE when he referred to "how nature is". Talking about a predictive theory that appears good to arbitrary high energy.
The commonsense view of science as a process and a community---not as an ultimate.
A theory is a ToE if it acts like a ToE and most of the community accepts it provisionally as such.
And he was saying that string may be irrelevant. String may not turn out to be "how nature is". He suggested an alternative line he is currently pursuing based on asymsafe qg and quantum field theory.

Therefore I think your references to string theory (ST) in your quote may be irrelevant and distracting. Maybe I will take them out and look at the bare bones skeleton of the argument, minus the flesh of that example.

==skeleton argument==
My conclusion is that something like a ToE cannot exist in a physical sense:
a) you can only "prove", support or disprove a theory in a very restricted sense = in certain regimes

b) a ToE should be able to tell you why it is the ToE

c) in a certain sense the discussions regarding duality show that there may be not one fundamental theory but only certain dual descriptions of something we like to call "reality" - whatever that means;
look at QFT: what are the fundamental entities of a "quantum ontology"? state vectors in Fock space and field operators - or path integrals and "trajectories in field configuration space"

d) any mathematical approach to a ToE is not able to prove why this approach must be mathematical at all
==end of excerpt==

Let me think a bit about this
d) is right of course. physical theories are mathematical. the fact that math works to describe regularity in nature is a mystery. but we do not have to address that. A ToE is just a physical theory that works predictively to arbitrary high energy, it does not have to explain all the mysteries.
Like "why does existence exist?" That is a good question but ToE does not have to address it.

c) does not have to worry us. There can be alternative equivalent formulations of the regularities in nature. Sometimes we eventually find that one is better. Sometimes we find a more general mathematics that comprehends both. It is OK. There can still be a ToE even if it comes in several equivalent formulations.

b) pragmatically, I do not see why any physical theory has to explain why it is an adequate theory. If something works and acts like a ToE then it is a ToE.
It does not have to contain a "theory of theories". Science is a communal process governed in part by tradition---and the tradition says that a theory is accepted provisionally until and if a better one is found. That is as good as it gets, in the tradition. All acceptance by the community is provisional. No acceptance is ultimate. So b) is no problem.

a) What you say here is absolutely right, except that we do not know in advance the ultimate limit that we can probe empirically.
Clever ways of testing a model may be invented which surprise us and which go beyond the domain of verifiability that we would have expected.
Pragmatically, the meaning of infinity is "way beyond what anybody expected".
If an theory predicts accurately way beyond what anybody ever thought we would be able to test, because of some clever ways to test that people think up, then it will be acting like a ToE. Predictive out to arbitrarily high energies. It's possible that humans will get such a theory. I don't think that on purely logical grounds you can deny us the possibility.

But I like your argument and think that it is one worth making.

 

[tom.stoer]

Marcus,

thanks for the very first sentence of you post :-)

Of course I will try to respond carefully. First of all I was trying to go beyond a purely physical (positivistic) concept of a theory. If we restrict the meaning of ToE to "it predicts experimental results accurately" the all you comments are right - or the other way round - my comments a) to d) are somehow irrelevant.

What I was trying to do is to enlarge the concept of a ToE towards an ontology. That does not mean that we must decsribe nature in terms of things, objects and so an, but at least in terms of structures, laws, relations etc. So w/o knowing in detail what a quantum object "really is", we have a gut feeling, that there is some underlying "quantum ontology".

However quantum mechanics does not tell us what this really is and why it is as it is.

The only theory that tries to go into that direction is string theory. It provides a rather large (and rather un-explored) theoretical framework, which allows one to restrict its application due to certain consistency conditions. Of course there is still a long way to go - and to be honest I doubt that string theory will do the job - but is is definately the first theory that at least tries to answer such questions.

Regarding the details:

... Weinberg was using a very pragmatic idea of a ToE when he referred to "how nature is". Talking about a predictive theory that appears good to arbitrary high energy.

OK; here Weinberg restricts himself more than I would prefer; Of course he is right in terms of a scientific program, but I would not call the result a "ToE".

And he was saying that string may be irrelevant. String may not turn out to be "how nature is". ...
Therefore I think your references to string theory (ST) in your quote may be irrelevant and distracting.

see above

d) is right of course ... but ToE does not have to address it.

OK; let's drop d) as it may be too metaphysical and focus on a) - c)

c) does not have to worry us. There can be alternative equivalent formulations of the regularities in nature. Sometimes we eventually find that one is better. Sometimes we find a more general mathematics that comprehends both. It is OK. There can still be a ToE even if it comes in several equivalent formulations.

That's not the point. In terms of purely physical applications you are right, but not in terms of a more fundamental ontology. Look at Maxwells equations: let us assume for a moment that the 4D Minkowski formulation is not known. Then assume that somebody explores the 4D formulation together with Lorentz symmetry, fieldstrength tensor, 4-potentials and gauge symmetry. I would call that a step towards the knowledge what "nature really is".

b) pragmatically, I do not see why any physical theory has to explain why it is an adequate theory. If something works and acts like a ToE then it is a ToE.
It does not have to contain a "theory of theories".

See above; it's especially here where my comments regarding ST apply. As another example I could use Bell's theorem; it is negative in the sense that it tells was what "nature not is". But it reveales some deeper knowledge about the classical and the quantum world and excludes a huge set of "theoretical approaches".

a) What you say here is absolutely right, except that we do not know in advance the ultimate limit that we can probe empirically.

Here we have to be rather careful. If we believe in a theory to be the ToE just because of its support from the LHC, than our belief goes beyond the experimental knowledge.

Assume for a moment that we do not know that GR + QFT are incompatible. Then we could call GR + SM a ToE, simply because all experimental predictions are correct (the problem with 3 generations, Higgs etc. does not apply in the context of argument a). Nevertheless it is no ToE, because:
- we will find inconsistencies at higher energies (argument a)
- it does not explain the particle content, symmetry etc. (arguments b - c)

Of course the LHC could provide mechanisms to test the theory beyond the LHC's energy scale, e.g. due to loop effects that already allowed us to restrict the allowed mass range of the Higgs even if this range is not covered my already operating accelerators. That is not my point.



Predictive out to arbitrarily high energies is a very good starting point. For such a theory I would agree to call it a ToE (of course still with some limitations from b - c). So I think we can agree on a common understanding of a ToE restricted to a pragmatic perspective.

Nevertheless I would like to go beyond that perspective. I know that this is a fundamental clash within the community.
A) we all "agree" that we should use the QM / QFT framework in a pragmatic way - and must not / cannot try to describe nature "as it really is"; photons "are" not the lines within Feynman diagrams, ...
B) All researches trying to understand (e.g.) how QCD works are true believers that quarks, gluons etc. are "real physical entities" - whatever that means - and I am sure sure they would deny that these entities are only mathematical tools to describe scattering cross sections w/o any underlying realistic interpretation.

Of course nobody as of today knows what these "quantum entities / quantum ontology really is", but nevertheless all major research programs are driven by the idea to "understand more about their existence / being".

 

[marcus]

I think I understand what you are saying.
There is no clear connection that I can point to, but it made me think of the philosophical seriousness of the physicists of the 1900-1925 generation. What would some of them say to you, if you could talk with them?

There is a tradition of wanting more from physics than a predictive mathematical model and wanting an ontology, which says what really is really there, really.

This is an appealing quest, and probably as old as Anaximander. There is no cure for this desire. I hope there will always people who want this. I am happy to differ with you as to the basic goal and admit you have a good idea.

I will simply tell you mine, for comparison.
If it were possible I would like to see an accurate nonsingular testable dynamics of geometry-and-matter.

In this dynamics, geometry and matter would be (different aspects of) the same thing. So it would be completely natural that they interact and influence each other.

This dynamics would not break down or blow up at singularities. It would continue on through.

I am unprejudiced as to what "dynamics" means. For me, I do not care what the mathematical formalism is. Mathematics evolves in a kind of Darwinian way to meet the needs of physicists and satisfy the rational demands of mathematicians. It mutates, proliferates, survives---the future course of its evolution is not predictable. I do not insist on a Lagrangian although that would be nice. There will be some adequate formalism.

And I find that I do not care if such a thing is final. I kind of hope it is not. And that the people who have it will not see it as final or complete.

For me there is only one revolution, and that is the one we are in. I would love to see it finally carried through, and I relish every step along the way. But since scientific revolutions are so much fun, I trust that this one will not be the last.

 

[tom.stoer]

Hey Marcus,

I don't think we disagree; we are just discussing on different levels. I fully agree with your concepts and requirements for a ToE. But as soon as the dust settles I would like to understand more about the Why - not only the How.

Why is spacetime a 4D manifold with SO(3,1)?
What is the reason / origin for the gauge symmetries of the SM
What are the reasons for three fermion generations, flavour symmetry and Higgs?
What are the underlying / unifying concepts?
Why is it This way - and not That way?

So this can be seen as a second level with explanations, restrictions, consistency conditions etc.

Maybe we should not focus on ontology, or rather restrict it to a negative approach telling us what nature Not is.

 

[Dmitry67]

Why is it This way - and not That way?

Do you know how Max Tegmark answered that question?

 

[tom.stoer]

no; please explain!

 

[Dmitry67]

no; please explain!

http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0646

Stephen Hawking famously asked “what is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?” [93]. In the context of the MUH, there is thus no breathing required, since the point is not that a mathematical structure describes a universe, but that it is a universe

...

As a way out of this philosophical conundrum, I have suggested [12]) that complete mathematical democracy holds: that mathematical existence and physical existence
are equivalent, so that all mathematical structures have the same ontological status. This can be viewed as a form of radical Platonism, asserting that the mathematical
structures in Plato’s realm of ideas, the Mindscape of Rucker [6], exist “out there” in a physical sense [9], casting the so-called modal realism theory of David Lewis [92]
in mathematical terms akin to what Barrow [7, 8] refers to as “ in the sky”. If this theory is correct, then since it has no free parameters, all properties of all parallel universes (including the subjective perceptions of SAS’s in them) could in principle be derived by an infinitely
intelligent mathematician.

 

[tom.stoer]

OK, I did neither study nor understand the paper within a few hours, but one first comment is in order: personally I do not think that mathematical and physical "existence" have the same ontological status nor do I believe that (all) pure mathematical entities are physically real. Example: I would not say that the SU(3) "exists" and that this can be proved or derived from QCD.

All I believe is that there is "something out there" independent from our mind - a "physical reality" - simply because of the fact that we all agree on some fundamental experiences / phenomena / measurements which is hardly thinkable with radical idealism = w/o any mind-independent entities or structures. Why should totally independent human minds agree on some structures if not because a mind-independent reality? We all agree on the SU(3) structure fundamental to QCD because there is "something" = a "quark" that forces a human brain to form an "SU(3) idea". We cannot neither separate the physical existence of "quarks" from the "SU(3) idea", nor can we identify them.

I do not know what a quark really "is", nor do I know what the ontological status of the SU(3) "is". I just think that the "physical existence of quarks" is represented by the human mind (or brain - if you want to avoid another discussion regarding mind :-) by something like an "SU(3) structure".

 

[Dmitry67]

I strongly recommend reading it. Last summer I was really shocked... I was thinking about it over and over again...

Regarding the "physical reality". Even the either is gone, people are still trying to find tooth wheels behind the curtain. Max Tegmarks hypothesis is not only that ALL mathematical systems have the same physical existence (and therefore an answer to the famous question “Did God have a choice when he created a Universe" is negative) but also that TOE can be expressed in a form of pure equations, it is a pure mathematical system. Everything: the number of dimensions, space, time, particles must emerge from these formulas. No words are required.

 

[tom.stoer]

Before I start reading: one central question is if and how the ToE explains its own uniqueness.

Assume for a moment that the SM + a UV complete version of GR would be the ToE. How would this theory e.g. explain the SU(3) symmetry of QCD? the 3 families of fermions? the Higgs boson? Why not SU(4)? why not 4 generations? ...

So if the ToE is a mathematical framework - why is she exactly THIS framework and not something else?

Or do you say that all mathematical structures have the same "degree of existence". Then why do we observe in our universe an SU(3) structure and not SU(4)? Doesn't this idea of structures "having equal rights" lead to something like a mathematical multiverse w/o any explanation which structure comes to "true physical existence"?

 

[marcus]

Bee Hossenfelder's comment on Tegmark MathUniverse idea:
http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2007/09/imaginary-part.html

If you are looking to understand the reason why NORDITA institute at Stockholm University hired Bee Asst. Prof. right out of Perimeter postdoc,
then you just have to read that one blog post. Even without other reasons it is enough by itself.

 

[Finbar]

Bee Hossenfelder's comment on Tegmark MathUniverse idea:
http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2007/09/imaginary-part.html

If you are looking to understand the reason why NORDITA institute at Stockholm University hired Bee Asst. Prof. right out of Perimeter postdoc,
then you just have to read that one blog post. Even without other reasons it is enough by itself.

Pretty funny. Tegmart seems to be arguing for dualism...

There exists an external physical reality completely
independent of us humans.

On one hand you have "us humans" on the othere "an external physical reality".

This is retarded. What!? No really? What?

 

[tom.stoer]

There exists an external physical reality ... completely independent of us humans.

I would agree, except for the "completely independent ...". There is definately a physical reality, but if it is independent from any perception is not clear to me. Especially in quantum mechanics it's o longer clear how to make a cut and define exactly this external physical reality.

Compare this to a rainbow: a rainbow somehow exists independent from our perception of the rainbow, but the independent existence reduces the rainbow to a collection of raindrops, light rays and geometrical concepts. This collection could be called its reality / existence, but it can hardly be called rainbow ...

Unfortunately for the physical reality of quantum objects we are not able to say what corresponds to the raindrops, light rays etc. Atoms? quarks? fields? quanta? operators and Hilbert spaces?

 

[Finbar]

I would agree, except for the "completely independent ...". There is definately a physical reality, but if it is independent from any perception is not clear to me. Especially in quantum mechanics it's o longer clear how to make a cut and define exactly this external physical reality.

Compare this to a rainbow: a rainbow somehow exists independent from our perception of the rainbow, but the independent existence reduces the rainbow to a collection of raindrops, light rays and geometrical concepts. This collection could be called its reality / existence, but it can hardly be called rainbow ...

Unfortunately for the physical reality of quantum objects we are not able to say what corresponds to the raindrops, light rays etc. Atoms? quarks? fields? quanta? operators and Hilbert spaces?

external to what?

There is only one reality; not two.

There is no cut.

 

[tom.stoer]

Do you know the concept of radical idealism?

Kant claimed that there is a "thing-in-itself" which is independend from the human mind, but inaccessible in terms of phenomenology. Nevertheless this "thing-in-itself" is the core of his ontology. Kant was already on the way to idealism.

Other philosophers claimed that there does not exist any mind-independent reality. Berkeley for example claimed that there is no mind-independent reality. For Berkeley there is no existence that is not held by the mind. All existence boils down to "being poerceived". The continuous existence of the universe is guarantueed due to its continuous perception by god.

Please answer the following question: "Does the moon exist even if nobody looking at it?"

If you answer is "yes", then you tend to a realist ontology which means that you believe in a reality that is external and more ore less independent to you. That does not automatically mean that the moon you are talking about (you perception of the moon) and the "moon-in-itself" are the same entity. They are not!

If your answer is "no" then you tend to an idealist ontology which means that you believe in the moon's existence basically within your mind. Radical idealism droped the idea of a "moon-in-itself", not only as accessible but even as existing. So the moon is reduced to a collection of thoughts.

(Radical) positivism is not so different from radical idealism. It says that all reasoning is based on experience and perception and that you cannot go beyond that experience to some metaphysical concept like a "thing-in-itself", ontology, existence etc. Positivism is often seen as a philosophical interpretation of quantum mechanics. Q.M. is then seen as a science that makes physical predictions about measurements, but not about existence, ontology etc. If you take Feynman's reasoning about philosophy seriously ("should up and calculate") you tend towards positivism / idealism.

Now the problem for me is that even if I deny that q.m. can tell us anything regarding "reality", I have the feeling that there is something behind this "empirical film" of the world. The reason is very simple: I believe that all physicists (not only here on earth) come to more or less the same conclusions if they study physical experiments. But as their minds are independent entities (you can study Bell's inequality and Aspects experiments together with Axpect's group here on Earth and you can do it in the Andromeda galaxy) this identical conclusions on the meaning of q.m. is a hint towards a mind-independent "reality" beyond the different "empirical films".

This mind-independent reality is not (necessarily) same same as the mind-dependent one. In terms of Kant I would say that the mind-dependent reality is something like an (entangled) world of Hilbert state vectors. Mind-independent reality is inaccesible to us as we cannot avoid the filtering of the reality by our "mind-internal processes".

So if you can roughly agree that the moon exists even if you are not looking at it then you agree that there is an external reality - the moon-in-itself. This external reality has an independent existence - it will stay as it is even if all physicists stop looking at it and thinking about it. And it is the very entity that guarantuees that if we re-start looking at it that we will again see the "same moon".

I agree that the term "cut" is problematic. It's more a paradigm shift when you try to move from the q.m. description of the world to the thing-in-itself (or whatever you prefer; I would not call it that way as it seems that I tend to Kantianism).

The next problem is that I do not know to which entity the external q.m. reality boils down if I start to remove the "empirical film". I know that the rainbow reduces to something like a collection of raindrops etc - but as I said this is no longer a rainbow the very concept of a rainbow must include its perception.

Now we come to the problem of the q.m. meaning of "external". Assume for a moment that the mind-dependent reality of the q.m. world is the Hibert space. Then it's unclear how to define "external to us" as I would agree that we are of course part of a larger Hilbert space (the Hilbert space of the observed q.m. entity plus the laboratory plus the physicist).

Now look at an object that was hidden beyond the particle horizon of the universe and that becomes visible right NOW caused by the expansion of the universe (neglect inflation = neglect the fact that the object was visible some times earlier). I truly believe that this object (as it is perceived by us) has a mind-independent existence external to you and me - and "is" therefore a real physical entity (thing-in-itself). Its causal history is independent, it is not entangled with "our sector of the Hilbert space", it has never been perceived by us.

So my conclusion is a) that there is a mind-independent, external reality but b) that we cannot even know about the very concept / meaning / notion of its existence. We do not know to what the "rainbow" reduces - but we are definately sure that its reduction causes it to lose its "rainbowness".

 

[Dmitry67]

Before I start reading: one central question is if and how the ToE explains its own uniqueness.

Assume for a moment that the SM + a UV complete version of GR would be the ToE. How would this theory e.g. explain the SU(3) symmetry of QCD? the 3 families of fermions? the Higgs boson? Why not SU(4)? why not 4 generations? ...

So if the ToE is a mathematical framework - why is she exactly THIS framework and not something else?

Or do you say that all mathematical structures have the same "degree of existence". Then why do we observe in our universe an SU(3) structure and not SU(4)? Doesn't this idea of structures "having equal rights" lead to something like a mathematical multiverse w/o any explanation which structure comes to "true physical existence"?

Max's article is full of interesting ideas, for example, that WHOLE is simpler then a part of it. Like number 488583299394839304 is more complicated then the set of ALL integers.

So, returning to your question, there are several levels of TOE. *ANY* mathematical system IS a Universe (he calls it Level 4 Multiverse) For example, Conway game of Life IS a Universe. Including ours. There is nothing special about SU(3). Why not SU(4)? Well, may be there is a Universe with SU(4), other types of particles, different types of beings there. But more likely almost all other universes are sterile, because they can not generate intelligent life - we know how many conditions must be satisfied to create us, humans.

It leads to a very interesting question. Is TOE of our universe the simplest non-sterile universe?

 

[tom.stoer]

*ANY* mathematical system IS a Universe (he calls it Level 4 Multiverse) For example, Conway game of Life IS a Universe. Including ours.

I would agree if we talk about platonism where all mathematical structures have an own existence. The material world = our universe is a manifestation of this existence. Plato thought that the material world is a kind of image or shadow of the ideal world. But Plato never thought - and I would not agree - that (the other way round) all ideal worlds must have a physical manifestation. (This is only a remark and not really required in our discussion).

There is nothing special about SU(3).

Of course there is something special about SU(3). It's the the only symmetry structure for which a physical manifestation in strong interaction is KNOWN. SU(4) might be possible and might be realized in "other universes", but that is SPECULATION.

Why not SU(4)? Well, may be there is a Universe with SU(4), other types of particles, different types of beings there. But more likely almost all other universes are sterile, because they can not generate intelligent life - we know how many conditions must be satisfied to create us, humans.

QCD with a different number of colors (e.g. N_C=2) is qualitatively identical to our world with N_C=3. Many lattice gauge simulations use two or three flavors (N_F=2,3) only and are able to reproduce the hadron spectrum within a few percent. As far as I know QCD with N_F=8 which corresponds to a heavy fourth fermion generation cannot be ruled out experimentally.

Is TOE of our universe the simplest non-sterile universe?

What do you mean by simple?


It seems to me that instead of a physical multiverse (in the context of string theories) a new speculation of mathematical multiverses and their physical manifestations is proposed. I would say that a candidate for a ToE should do something like that: propose a kind of framework for theories and deduce an idea how "nature" selectes one possibility. From what I understand the selection principle is missing - and this defect is promoted to a feature of the whole approach.

Imagine that pure QCD + UV completion of GR is the ToE. Then I would expect that within some framework, e.g. SU(N_C) with N_F plus UV completion of SO(D-1,1), one can answer the questions "why is N_C=3?", "why is N_F=6?" and "why is spacetime four-dimensional, i.e. D=4)".(Of course this candidate theory is wrong as it predicts the non-existence of electro-weak interactions.) Theories as we know them today are not able to answer these "why-questions". String theory tried for two decades but surrenders now by proposing the idea of the landscape or multiverse.

And this is my point: If you (or Tegmark) replace the ontological meaningless idea of physical multiverses by the (even more) meaningless idea of mathematical multiverses plus their possible physical manifestation w/o any idea for a selection principle, then the whole discussion is "void". If nobody can tell me why nature selected SU(3)_C, then it is no answer to say "nature did not select anything but realized all SU(N)_C-universes in a random and democratic way - and eventually casted me into one of them where N_C=3." This is metaphysical speculation and has nothing to do with science.

Don't get me wrong: I like the multiverse(s) as a set of candidate theories, but I expect some kind of framework plus selection principle to answer the "why-questions". If the latter does not exist or emerge, then the whole approach is meaningless and useless.

Remark: My impression is that the "why-questions" were not so important for a couple of decades because physicists hat a lot of work to do after the QM revolution (inventing QFT, renormalization, current algebra, soft pions, standard model, chiral perturbation theory, lattice gauge theory, ...) - and perhaps these "why-questions" have simply been ignored; therefore we are not used to ask and to answer them. But as we now try to figure out what a ToE is, how it can look like (logically, mathematically, physically, ontologically?), what the requirements and preconditions are etc., we must focus again on these questions and cope with them, otherwise we are lead astray.

 

[Finbar]

Do you know the concept of radical idealism?

Kant claimed that there is a "thing-in-itself" which is independend from the human mind, but inaccessible in terms of phenomenology. Nevertheless this "thing-in-itself" is the core of his ontology. Kant was already on the way to idealism.
...
".

I just think that there is only one reality. That which constitutes matter also constitutes experience.

Physics then should be a description of this single reality. Now its almost certainly the case that any mathematical description of this reality will be incomplete. If it was complete then this would mean that Tegart is right and that dualism is correct. I think however we already have evidence that our physical theories are incomplete descriptions of reality. For instance the uncertainty principle could be interpreted as saying that any attempt to write a theory that accurately describes reality will have uncertainties. Thus the uncertainty is in the description and not in reality itself. I'm not really sure where I stand in terms of realism/idealism/positivism. I'm a realist in the sense that I think the moon exsistence regardless of whether I look at it. But the same time I take a hardline to any idea of a independent internal/external reality. My experience of the moon and the moon are only spatially separated hence they are different phenomena in the same reality.


I really think this dualist view is a stain in the philosophy of too many physicists. I think the positive view of "shut up and calculate" is the best approach to physics(in most cases). But when Tegmart write's a paper with clearly retarded philosophical assumptions its a little annoying.

 

[Dmitry67]

1
Of course there is something special about SU(3). It's the the only symmetry structure for which a physical manifestation in strong interaction is KNOWN. SU(4) might be possible and might be realized in "other universes", but that is SPECULATION.

2
As far as I know QCD with N_F=8 which corresponds to a heavy fourth fermion generation cannot be ruled out experimentally.

3
What do you mean by simple?

4
From what I understand the selection principle is missing - and this defect is promoted to a feature of the whole approach.

1,4
I believe you have the same misconception people usually have about MWI. People tend to say “ok, there are different branches, but why *I* am in this particular branch?” while all branches are symmetric and “you” in all branches are asking the variations of the same question “why I am in this branch?”

Exactly the same we have here. What do we call “real”? I take an apple. I touch the surface, I sense its smell and taste. It is all about the correlations between output signals from my brain (I give command to muscles to take an apple) and input signals (smell, taste).

Now imagine structures in different non-sterile Universes. Intelligent being there would definitely call their environments “real” for the very reasons I described above. They will also call other worlds “imaginary”. Finally these beings will ask your question: why my world is SU(3)? Or why my world is 93-dimensional? Why my geometry is non-commutative? Or why space in my world is made of pixels (is asking some creature living in the Conway’s game of life world)

So I not only refuse to answer your question about the selection rule, but I (after Max Tegmark) insist that there should not be any selection rule!

2
I’ve heard that neutrino oscillation experiments had ruled out the 4th generation

3
Lets say the total length of all formulas. I know, it is not perfect as it depends on the mathematical language used.

 

[tom.stoer]

Regarding 1,4:
If you insist in this mathematical mutiverse w/o any selection rule then we have to agree that we don't agree :-)

Regarding 2:
This argument is forbidden I am my ToE since it does not contain neutrinos and weak interactions :-)
Seriously: thanks for the information; do you have a reference?

Regarding 3:
After having discussed 1 and 4 this is no longer important :-)

 

[tom.stoer]

Finbar,

I agree that there is only one physical reality. I don't like the dualist view. Dualism with mind-independent reality is awkward since it does not allow us to describe the interaction of mind and matter (or whatever the two entities are). As soon as we are able to decsribe this interaction we are forced towards monism.

But nevertheless there seem to be different layers of what we call reality; one layer is our mind.

Look at the rainbow; you have three different "views":
(a) the rainbow as it is perceived
(b) the physical constituents of the rainbow = the raindrops, lighrays etc.
(c) the mathematical description in terms of geometry etc.

(a) is unthinkable without YOU!
(b) is rather clear for the rainbow but not known for the real quantum world; our all-days language is no longer suitable for describing the quantum reality
(c) does "exist" even if you and the raindrops does not.

Now let's assume for a moment that the mathematical Hilbert space is not only a description of the reality but IS the reality (bad idea: we immediately face the problem of the collapse of the wave funtion which is not described in terms of quantum mechanics; so this reality is incomplete). In that case we agree that there is one reality which IS the Hilbert space - done!

I think the major step forward is that we agree that there is a reality and that we do not insist on idealism or positivism. The problem then is that we do not know what this reality IS.

If we would instead think of the q.m. formalism as a pure description only and if we say that there IS nothing else but this description (no external reality), then we omit the measurement problem, but we are left with the situation that after all we cannot answer the question "why do all physicists use the same description?".

In the very end I believe that every physicist tends to realism. After all calculations are done and after the experimental data have been analyzed he/she wants to know what there really IS (including himself/herself)

 

[Fra]

Tegemark's reasoning is not appealing to me either and I didn't follow this discussion but I just jump in with a comment on one thing, a simple response to one specific question from my point of view.

All I believe is that there is "something out there" independent from our mind - a "physical reality" - simply because of the fact that we all agree on some fundamental experiences / phenomena / measurements which is hardly thinkable with radical idealism = w/o any mind-independent entities or structures. Why should totally independent human minds agree on some structures if not because a mind-independent reality?

IMHO because what you think of as observer/mind independent structures, is emergent as a result of observers/minds/systems are interacting. As a form of negotiation process.

The why and HOW this process occurs, and what the result is would I think answer a lot of the previous questions as to "why this symmetry and not that one". There is no currently available argument but the lineout is along the lines that, what equilibrium structures would be expected on a market where the players are rational to the extent possible?

In such a game, there is a group selection pressure in the sense that you can not largely violate the negotiated "rules" and stay in equilibrium.

I think physical law might eventualyl be understood as such "negotiation process" where matter are the players. There specrum of laws/rules and players population the equilibrium would thus expecte to be connected.

/Fredrik

 

[atyy]

"why do all physicists use the same description?"

Zurek, http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.2832

 

[tom.stoer]

Fredrik,

I am not sure if I understand.

If it is a collection of minds that negotiates then I have to ask "how does this negotiation work?". OK, I don't think that you mean this.

If it's matter (whatever matter IS) that negotiates, then the questions are a) how this "negotiation" differs from "interction" and what (which "framework") sets the rules for the negotiation?

Or do you think that the physical laws emerge as a negotiation process? Then again: what are the rules for the negotiation and where do they come from?

Or do you say that only a description of the fundamental reality emerges from this negotiation? If so, the description is created by us humans. Therefore other communities of intelligent life could come to a totally different structure than SU(3) but still describe the same reality. If this is the case I would simply call this a "dual description". In that case again I would ask what is the reality behind this description.

ATTENTION: There is one general argument not to take the descriptions too seriously as reality per se. If you identify the description with the reality, then every time you are forced to change the description, you automatically destroy your ontological basis. During the paradigm change from classical to quantum physics the description changed - but certainly not the reality!

 

[Fra]

If it is a collection of minds that negotiates then I have to ask "how does this negotiation work?". OK, I don't think that you mean this.

Yes I'm not talking about human minds - it's just by analogy.

If it's matter (whatever matter IS) that negotiates, then the questions are a) how this "negotiation" differs from "interction" and what (which "framework") sets the rules for the negotiation?

There is no difference. The framework of negotiation is subjective, or relative to the observer.

Or do you think that the physical laws emerge as a negotiation process? Then again: what are the rules for the negotiation and where do they come from?

Yes, both interaction as per some law, and the law itself are different hierarchies of evolution in my abstraction. The only difference between a state in the normal sense and law, is it's confidence or inertia.

Or do you say that only a description of the fundamental reality emerges from this negotiation? If so, the description is created by us humans.

? why? I wouldn't say so, because the negotiators are not humans, it's physical systems, ie matter. Objectivive stable law, corresponds (in my view that is) to equilibrium at the corresponding level. Usually, it's only this most stable level where the evolution is not distinguishable that we would usually label "law".

So the question, what are the rules of negotiation? Well, that is the same as to ask what are the rules that selected the laws of nature. I do not have an answer yet. I just describe here a general point of view, a suggestion of a research program.

Ariel Caticha has a similar, but less radical view, where he thinks the laws of nature are derivable from the rules of rational inference in an information theoretic approach. But he works in a more objective context that I. He also doesn't reconstruct the continuum.

What I have in mind, as the program is to reconstruct probability theory, from a discrete poitn of view, and then argue that there exists natural rational measures of information divergence due to uncertainty that is the basis for the physical action of the least action principle. In this view, all "measures" will by construction get a kind of mass(complexity), that works as an inertia in negotiation processes.

The heave opinon will have large impact than the light one.

Combine this with systems of probability spaces that are related by transformations, leads to a measure-complex consisting of several related discrete proability spaces (discrete refers both to event index and probability value) and physical actions are then derived from the inference properties of this system.

So one such system might correspond to a physical system, say an elemetary particle. The mass is thus related to the complexity.

Also the internal transforamtions are those that leaves the complexity (amss) invariant and also leaves the communication interface to the environment invariant. The degrees of freedom left are tamed by assuming he internal equlibration is that which is most self-preserving - just like the human brain is constantnly reorganising inputs in the way that's assume to in its' interest.

This also aims to explain the origin of mass as a kind of game, where accumulation of mass is like accumulation of confidence. There is a kind of argument that this is simply self-presevation, those systems whose actions doesn't try to keep/increase confidence in the current structure will not survive - and thus such measures-complexes (matter) are not observed in nature other than transiently.

/Fredrik

 

[Fra]

Or do you think that the physical laws emerge as a negotiation process? Then again: what are the rules for the negotiation and where do they come from?

This touches upon Smolins ideas on laws beeing a result of evolution. Someone asked him that, then must their not be some meta laws of this evolution whose origin you would similarly question? He didn't give a clear answer.

But in my view that, I'd say no, there is no such laws. Instead my idea is to argue that the laws are emergent from a point where no laws at all are distinguishable, at this point the objection itself dissapears. I associate this to the *inside view* of a "TOE level" (total unification) - this is totally unlike the TOE level that we seek in an high energy accelerator experiment. This is what I would call a external view of the "TOE action".

/Fredrik

 

[Dmitry67]

Regarding 1,4:
If you insist in this mathematical mutiverse w/o any selection rule then we have to agree that we don't agree :-)

Regarding 2:
Seriously: thanks for the information; do you have a reference?

2
I have found only this (sorry for quoting Wiki, I remember I have seen it somewhere else too):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino#Types_of_neutrinos

Measurements of the Z lifetime have shown that the number of light neutrino types (with "light" meaning of less than half the Z mass) is 3

1,4
ok, let's agree on disagreement.
But to understand your disagreement, could I ask you a question about what is "real".

Are virtual particles "real"?
A) Yes, like the regular ones. They just don’t have 'free' energy. But on the short time intervals there is almost no difference.
B) No, only real particles are real. Virtual particles are just a mathematical method of calculation of interaction between real particles.
C) Both real and virtual particles are just mathematical methods of calculation of the correlation between macroscopic events. Only macroscopic events are real.
Note: Hawking radiation and Unruh effect (so different accelerated observers do not agree on the number of ‘real’ particles) strongly suggest A) or C), not B)
Note 2: In MWI there are no particles at all, but question is still valid if we talk about wavefunction.

 

[Finbar]

Finbar,

I agree that there is only one physical reality. I don't like the dualist view. Dualism with mind-independent reality is awkward since it does not allow us to describe the interaction of mind and matter (or whatever the two entities are). As soon as we are able to decsribe this interaction we are forced towards monism.

But nevertheless there seem to be different layers of what we call reality; one layer is our mind.

Look at the rainbow; you have three different "views":
(a) the rainbow as it is perceived
(b) the physical constituents of the rainbow = the raindrops, lighrays etc.
(c) the mathematical description in terms of geometry etc.

(a) is a phenomena which accurs in a subset of the universe(you) (b) is another phenomena local to the interaction of the raindrops with light. (c) is a description. If I have a non-relativistic theory it may describe reality well enough in certain limits but we know its not a complete description. Any mathematical theory of a rainbow is still just a description the theories existence has no effect on the nature of the rainbow.

So in conclusion my view is that (a) and (b) are phenomena of some reality. (c) is an attept to describe that reality.

Tegemark's view is that there existence some (c) which IS (b) and that he can ignore (a).

 

[tom.stoer]

@Dmitry67,

Regarding the reality of virtual particles: I think this is confusing, as strictly speaking there are no real particles at all! A particle has to interact with some detector in order to be detected. All those interactions are described by the exchange of virtual particles, so the detector registers virtual particles only. The real particle that escapes to infinity w/o absorption or whatever is invisible to us.
=> C) = mathematical tools
[the distinction between real and virtual particles comes from the distinction between the quantum process subject to experiment and the measurement itself; in the process only virtual particles are involved; in the measurement we register the asymptotic, outgoing real particle; this is a framework for doing certain calculations - quite successfully - but not a solid basis for an ontology]

Regarding the wavefunction: I would not say that a wavefunction is "real". If it were real then the "collapse of the wave function" during a measurement would be real as well - and I don't like this idea :-)
As an alternative you could try to construct two different "evolution operators" in QM; one is the well-known unitary time-evolution operator U(t,t°), the second one is a non-unitary R which - when applied to a wave function - forces it to collaps to the eigenstate corresponding to the eigenvalue that has been measured. R is applied to describe the measurement process. This has been proposed by Penrose - and I don't like this idea, either.
=> C) for the wavefunction as well

What is "real"?
Honestly speaking I don't know. What I was trying to explain is the following:
A) QM as it is understood today mainly serves as a framework that predicts experimental results; with this interpretation you will never run into difficulties when talking about reality; you simply deny that QM describes reality but you insist on the position that QM *only* predicts experimental results.
B) I do not see anything in the QM framework that could be "real", strictly speaking. Are Hilbert spaces real? Path integrals? I don't think so. They are just tools to predict experimental results. This is true for classical physics as well. Of course I would say that "spacetime exists". But I would not say that" spacetime is a four-dim. pseudo-Riemann manifold"; strictly speaking I would say that "spacetime is described mathematically by a a four-dim. pseudo-Riemann manifold"
C) Nevertheless I am convinced that there is something beyond this abstract descriptive layer that is indeed real! The moon is real - and a pair of entangled photons is real as well. They exist even if we don't look at them, even if we do not measure them. They have an existence that is independent of ours - and of our descriptions. The reality of the world does not change because we are changing the methods to describe it. Going from Newton to Einstein did not mean that the reality or the existence of spacetime has changed; only the description has been improved to some degree.
D) So I am a realist in the philosophical sense. I believe that there is something like "real physical entities". They need not be known entities like "pointlike masses" or "fields". With our physical and mathematical tools we are coming closer and closer to a description of this reality; but it will remain a description, an image, a model, not the reality itself. I do not identify reality with its description.

 

[tom.stoer]

Tegemark's view is that there existence some (c) which IS (b) and that he can ignore (a).

So let me say this in my own words just to make sure that I understood everything correctly.

Plato says that it's the "ideal triangle" that exists primarily. All drawings of triangles etc. are only secondary shadows or incomplete models (Allegory of the cave). I would agree with him in the context of mathematics, i.e. for mathematical entities like (e.g.) triangles.

Aristotle says (just the opposite) that the ideal triangles are only secondary abstractions of drawings, physically existing triangles etc. I do not agree with him in the context of mathematics, but e.g. in sociological contexts, i.,e, for terms like "goodness" as a secondary abstraction of several good deeds.

Now comes Tegmark and says that we can avoid both dualistic interpretations and find a monistic one that goes as follows:
1) there is a rather powerful mathematical framework which allows us to describe quarks q, q', q'', ..., interaction processes of quarks p(q, q', q'' ...) etc.
2) there is some reality populated by Quarks Q, Q', Q'', ... interacting in Processes P(Q, Q', Q'', ...)
3) instead of saying that (2) is "the reality" and (1) is "its description", this framework allows us to write q = Q, q' = Q', q'' = Q'', p(q, q', q'' ...) = P(Q, Q', Q'', ...).
The "=" does not mean "represents" or "describes" but "IS" in the sense of "is identical with".

So it's not only that we have e.g. the situation that two Quarks Q and Q' are identical Q=Q', which is mapped to the description as q=q', but that the description q of the Quark Q and the Quarks Q itself are identical. (of course I don't want to say that the reality is indeed populated by quarks; it's just an example; it could have used malt whisky as well)

Is it that what he says?

If yes (and if one can get rid of the multiverse) this is fascinating and shocking!

 

[moniker2]

Would you ever consider a Toe with imaginary units of energy, time and matter?