I Physicists who propose that symmetries are emergent?

[Lord Crc]

Not sure if it was already mentioned but in Lee Smolin's latest work he explicitly says the fundamental theory has no (non-gauge) symmetries. So I assume then he means they are emergent.

He gives an overview in this recent presentation: http://pirsa.org/20110056

 

[Fra]

Not sure if it was already mentioned but in Lee Smolin's latest work he explicitly says the fundamental theory has no (non-gauge) symmetries. So I assume then he means they are emergent.

He gives an overview in this recent presentation: http://pirsa.org/20110056

Thanks for the link! I'm well aware of Smolins past reasoning on evolution of law, but i hadnt seen that recent stuff. I will look into the referencing papers and see if there's something new! Years ago, explicit proposals was not in line with what i was looking for due to not beeing radical enough, but the basic line of reasoning was in line with my thinking. Judging from the headlines it sounds interesting. I'll report back here when i had time to look at it if i find it worthwhile.

/Fredrik

 

[Lord Crc]

I will look into the referencing papers and see if there's something new!

IIRC he said the latest stuff is due to appear on arXiv, but I haven't seen it yet. But it builds on energetic causal sets and other previous work.

I'm no expert so I can't really judge it, but to me it seemed interesting and worth keeping an eye on.

 

[Fra]

The the main paper sems to be this

The dynamics of difference - Lee Smolin
"A proposal is made for a fundamental theory, in which the history of the universe is constituted of diverse views of itself. Views are attributes of events, and the theory's only be-ables; they comprise information about energy and momentum transferred to an event from its causal past. A dynamics is proposed for a universe constituted of views of events, which combines the energetic causal set dynamics with a potential energy based on a measure of the distinctiveness of the views, called the variety. As in the real ensemble formulation of quantum mechanics, quantum pure states are associated to ensembles of similar events; the quantum potential of Bohm then arises from the variety.
-- https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.04799

but it builds on ideas of other papers, on ideas of QM and energetic causal sets.

I skimmed this and I would summarize Smolins overall line of reasoning seems to be this:

- Modify/reconstruct both QM and spacetime using more fundamental abstractions.
- QM/QFT is specifically an effective theory for "subsystems" - which is also the domain of corroboration lies.
=> GR is not something one should "quantize" using the effective tools valid for particle physics. This is a conceptual mistake, which Smolin labels the cosmological fallacy.
- GR is speculated to emerge at the larger scale of interacting subsystems.
- There are no fundamental timelss laws/symmetries based on spacetime transformations (as is the case in standard model of particle physics).

At this level, this is fully in line with my thinking. But this is a massive ambition and the technical challenges are
1) what are the "more fundamental abstractions"
2) what is the kinetics and action principles that will replace tossing out timeless laws?

In Smolins current paper "The dynamics of difference", he proposes the following answers.

(1)=> the universe as consisting of "views of itself", which is represented by causal sets. Here causal order is fundamental. And thus implicitly time as index of causal order. Conceptually I associate this also to the presumed views of inside observers. For this reason he also uses the notion of beables instead of observables, so you can speak about things informally.

(2)=> assuptions from Energetic causal sets, where he while rejecting space, considers energy an momentum in 3D space as primitives along with its conservation constraints. The idea of this is the old relational tradition that spacetime view is "reconstructed" from incident energy and momentum information.

I can see how energetic causal sets is a possible way to reconstruct SPACETIME, in a way that is still somewhat conservative (not relaxing too much). But my hunch is that its not radical enough. At least as it seems in this paper, dimenstionality is put in by hand, so is momentum and energy without defining in from other first principles without circularly relying on spacetime. Perhaps I missed something in the first look though(did not check all referencing papers in depth), or maybe the causal set can be reinterpreted. The concepts of an initial set of events, having an order only. Is exactly in line with my approach but not the following steps of energetic sets. But this might lie in the pipe of furhter refinements, I have no idea.

Smolin also has a "real ensemble hypothesis" of QM, which partly resonate with hwo i see things. It means we can not make use of "fictive" ensembles or external observers doing statistics etc. Whatever statistical basis there is for QM, is has to have a physical base. I fully symphatize with this. This is also a context where evolution of law becomes natural, as its in the "population of view" that you get an emergece of consistent spacetime and probalby eventually all interactions. A possible mechanism for such emergence is simlpy put, a kind of democratic negotiation. This not only defines the common rules, it also defines what views that will not surviva. Its closely related to a evolutionary view of law.
Smolin entertains some principle of maximum variety, and principles of prescedence. All of that i can see may be hard to make sense out of, coming from the traditional paradigm. But I think its good thinking, but a lot of the details are still incomplete. So one should not prematurely judged it beacuse its not complete (and might fail of course).

/Fredrik

 

[Lord Crc]

Ah I thought he said the paper was to appear, and I only scanned the last half year.

As you say I also thought that it was cheating a bit to add momentum space by hand, so in this sense it does not feel fundamental enough. However it feels like a worthwhile pursuit, in that it may be a good step in a fruitful direction.

Though, not like my vote matters much :)

 

[jake jot]

The the main paper sems to be this

The dynamics of difference - Lee Smolin
"A proposal is made for a fundamental theory, in which the history of the universe is constituted of diverse views of itself. Views are attributes of events, and the theory's only be-ables; they comprise information about energy and momentum transferred to an event from its causal past. A dynamics is proposed for a universe constituted of views of events, which combines the energetic causal set dynamics with a potential energy based on a measure of the distinctiveness of the views, called the variety. As in the real ensemble formulation of quantum mechanics, quantum pure states are associated to ensembles of similar events; the quantum potential of Bohm then arises from the variety.
-- https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.04799

In the last paragraph of Smolin paper above are these words:

"Finally, there are implications of this proposal for foundational issues such as the measurement problem and the question of physical correlates of qualia. These will require careful consideration and are beyond he scope of this paper.".

Has Smolin written anything with regards to this "question of physical correlates of qualia"? Did he mention these in past papers or books? which one?

but it builds on ideas of other papers, on ideas of QM and energetic causal sets.

I skimmed this and I would summarize Smolins overall line of reasoning seems to be this:

- Modify/reconstruct both QM and spacetime using more fundamental abstractions.
- QM/QFT is specifically an effective theory for "subsystems" - which is also the domain of corroboration lies.
=> GR is not something one should "quantize" using the effective tools valid for particle physics. This is a conceptual mistake, which Smolin labels the cosmological fallacy.
- GR is speculated to emerge at the larger scale of interacting subsystems.
- There are no fundamental timelss laws/symmetries based on spacetime transformations (as is the case in standard model of particle physics).

At this level, this is fully in line with my thinking. But this is a massive ambition and the technical challenges are
1) what are the "more fundamental abstractions"
2) what is the kinetics and action principles that will replace tossing out timeless laws?

Didn't Smolin give any clue of the "more fundamental abstractions"? in your "
I skimmed this and I would summarize Smolins overall line of reasoning seems to be this:

- Modify/reconstruct both QM and spacetime using more fundamental abstractions."

Where in the paper did he reason about "Modify/reconstruct both QM and spacetime using more fundamental abstractions."? This makes better sense to make spacetime and QM emergent of a third theory (we discussed earlier in the thread"). Could this more fundamental abstraction be considered a third of separate theory?

Please share ideas of what Smolin thought were the more fundamental abstractions.

In Smolins current paper "The dynamics of difference", he proposes the following answers.

(1)=> the universe as consisting of "views of itself", which is represented by causal sets. Here causal order is fundamental. And thus implicitly time as index of causal order. Conceptually I associate this also to the presumed views of inside observers. For this reason he also uses the notion of beables instead of observables, so you can speak about things informally.

(2)=> assuptions from Energetic causal sets, where he while rejecting space, considers energy an momentum in 3D space as primitives along with its conservation constraints. The idea of this is the old relational tradition that spacetime view is "reconstructed" from incident energy and momentum information.

I can see how energetic causal sets is a possible way to reconstruct SPACETIME, in a way that is still somewhat conservative (not relaxing too much). But my hunch is that its not radical enough. At least as it seems in this paper, dimenstionality is put in by hand, so is momentum and energy without defining in from other first principles without circularly relying on spacetime. Perhaps I missed something in the first look though(did not check all referencing papers in depth), or maybe the causal set can be reinterpreted. The concepts of an initial set of events, having an order only. Is exactly in line with my approach but not the following steps of energetic sets. But this might lie in the pipe of furhter refinements, I have no idea.

Smolin also has a "real ensemble hypothesis" of QM, which partly resonate with hwo i see things. It means we can not make use of "fictive" ensembles or external observers doing statistics etc. Whatever statistical basis there is for QM, is has to have a physical base. I fully symphatize with this. This is also a context where evolution of law becomes natural, as its in the "population of view" that you get an emergece of consistent spacetime and probalby eventually all interactions. A possible mechanism for such emergence is simlpy put, a kind of democratic negotiation. This not only defines the common rules, it also defines what views that will not surviva. Its closely related to a evolutionary view of law.
Smolin entertains some principle of maximum variety, and principles of prescedence. All of that i can see may be hard to make sense out of, coming from the traditional paradigm. But I think its good thinking, but a lot of the details are still incomplete. So one should not prematurely judged it beacuse its not complete (and might fail of course).

/Fredrik

 

[Fra]

"Finally, there are implications of this proposal for foundational issues such as the measurement problem and the question of physical correlates of qualia. These will require careful consideration and are beyond he scope of this paper.".

Has Smolin written anything with regards to this "question of physical correlates of qualia"? Did he mention these in past papers or books? which one?

Didn't Smolin give any clue of the "more fundamental abstractions"? in your "
I skimmed this and I would summarize Smolins overall line of reasoning seems to be this:

- Modify/reconstruct both QM and spacetime using more fundamental abstractions."

Where in the paper did he reason about "Modify/reconstruct both QM and spacetime using more fundamental abstractions."? This makes better sense to make spacetime and QM emergent of a third theory (we discussed earlier in the thread"). Could this more fundamental abstraction be considered a third of separate theory?

IMO, the two questions belong together.

As my own line of reasoning is close to smolins, thinking, i find it easy to extrapolate and make sense between out what he says. But there is also a risk that my own bias risks misinterpreting his ideas. In short, all of Smolins explicit ideas are IMO not the final answers, and its also "incomplete", beeing sometimes a reconstruction "designed to give the right answers" so i can see what he means when he refers to future progress, and that the principles hold the possibility open for replacing the assumptions to increase the explanatory value (my own thinking circles in the domains which smolin skipped). I can not defend the specific examples smolins makes. IMO they are likely a first attempt to create a mathematical model, that partly implements or illustrates the possible power of the idea. But to make up your own mind, I recommend reading these papers, relating to emergence of QM

-- Precedence and freedom in quantum physics, arXiv:1205.3707v1 [quant-ph] 16 May 2012

-- Quantum mechanics and the principle of maximal variety arXiv:1506.02938v1 [quant-ph] 9 Jun 2015

But if you read it with a too critical axiomatic mindset, one likely dismisses the whole points. I consider the papers to outline and try to make simple mathematical dressings of intuitive ideas; but they can, and need improvements. Smolin for a LONG time has also advocated a new paradigm in THINKING about the nature of law, that has more in common with evolution than with classical reductionism.

/Fredrik

 

[jake jot]

IMO, the two questions belong together.

As my own line of reasoning is close to smolins, thinking, i find it easy to extrapolate and make sense between out what he says. But there is also a risk that my own bias risks misinterpreting his ideas. In short, all of Smolins explicit ideas are IMO not the final answers, and its also "incomplete", beeing sometimes a reconstruction "designed to give the right answers" so i can see what he means when he refers to future progress, and that the principles hold the possibility open for replacing the assumptions to increase the explanatory value (my own thinking circles in the domains which smolin skipped). I can not defend the specific examples smolins makes. IMO they are likely a first attempt to create a mathematical model, that partly implements or illustrates the possible power of the idea. But to make up your own mind, I recommend reading these papers, relating to emergence of QM

-- Precedence and freedom in quantum physics, arXiv:1205.3707v1 [quant-ph] 16 May 2012

-- Quantum mechanics and the principle of maximal variety arXiv:1506.02938v1 [quant-ph] 9 Jun 2015

But if you read it with a too critical axiomatic mindset, one likely dismisses the whole points. I consider the papers to outline and try to make simple mathematical dressings of intuitive ideas; but they can, and need improvements. Smolin for a LONG time has also advocated a new paradigm in THINKING about the nature of law, that has more in common with evolution than with classical reductionism.

/Fredrik

I have read the ideas in the papers already in one of his books. Who are the physicists whose ideas are opposite to that of Smolin, so I can see the distinctions of them? Because instead of laws that evolved deep in the past. Why not more complex laws of natures for the arbitrariness of the Constants of Nature? What is Smolin proposed solution to the Hierarchy Problem and Quantum Vacuum 120 magnitude of energy more than predicted by General Relativity? What do you think is the solution to it? Because unless his proposals can solve them. It's not very helpful for practical purposes.

But I'd ponder Smolin paper "The Dynamics of Difference" more since he talks like you more and more. Lol. Hope you can talk to Smolin and discuss with him about it so you'd know why he thought of certain things and his feedback for your comments on it.

 

[Lord Crc]

From the presentation I linked to, he said that so far the "intrinsic" momentum space he's been using is flat. Hence currently no GR-like results have emerged. His goal is to use a curved momentum space instead, and with that hopes to get GR out, but so far it's too early.

As I said it feels a bit more like a stepping stone, but an interesting one.

 

[jake jot]

From the presentation I linked to, he said that so far the "intrinsic" momentum space he's been using is flat. Hence currently no GR-like results have emerged. His goal is to use a curved momentum space instead, and with that hopes to get GR out, but so far it's too early.

As I said it feels a bit more like a stepping stone, but an interesting one.

Oh. I initially read about Smolin momentum space in a 2011 article.

Beyond space-time: Welcome to phase space | New Scientist

In Smolin 2011 ideas. The intrinsic is phase space. So he now says momentum space itself is intrinsic?

After it. I read theoretical models about spacetime and momentum space being both intrinsic. Not just a wave function in momentum space being the Fourier transform of a wave function in position space.

Meaning there is barrier between spacetime and actual momentum space (where exists monopoles). In Smolin present account. It seems spacetime is derived from momentum space?

 

[jake jot]

IMO, the two questions belong together.

As my own line of reasoning is close to smolins, thinking, i find it easy to extrapolate and make sense between out what he says. But there is also a risk that my own bias risks misinterpreting his ideas. In short, all of Smolins explicit ideas are IMO not the final answers, and its also "incomplete", beeing sometimes a reconstruction "designed to give the right answers" so i can see what he means when he refers to future progress, and that the principles hold the possibility open for replacing the assumptions to increase the explanatory value (my own thinking circles in the domains which smolin skipped). I can not defend the specific examples smolins makes. IMO they are likely a first attempt to create a mathematical model, that partly implements or illustrates the possible power of the idea. But to make up your own mind, I recommend reading these papers, relating to emergence of QM

-- Precedence and freedom in quantum physics, arXiv:1205.3707v1 [quant-ph] 16 May 2012

-- Quantum mechanics and the principle of maximal variety arXiv:1506.02938v1 [quant-ph] 9 Jun 2015

But if you read it with a too critical axiomatic mindset, one likely dismisses the whole points. I consider the papers to outline and try to make simple mathematical dressings of intuitive ideas; but they can, and need improvements. Smolin for a LONG time has also advocated a new paradigm in THINKING about the nature of law, that has more in common with evolution than with classical reductionism.

/Fredrik

I reread the paper and it gave me more clarity after Lord Crc described about "intrinsic momentum space" (see above two messages) but after reading the quantum mechanics ensemble idea in Smolin old book where nonlocality was said to occur because simple electrons were alike compared to more complex objects and at that time I didn't like the idea because it was quite simple and no richness left. I want to know what happens if Smolin would be agnostic of quantum mechanics interpretation but just used his momentum space and ideas of the universe as consisting of "views of itself" represented by causal sets. Would the latter stand alone? Or what would be modified if no quantum interpretation was used?

By the way. This is related to this thread because of this passage in the paper

" The views do not live in spacetime. They live rather in products of momentum spaces, as a view is made up of incoming energy-momentum. The fact that we perceive our past as a set of incoming energy-momenta does not commit ourselves to the expectation that the universe is a lorentzian spacetime. This approach is, in a way, Kantian, in that the apparent 3 + 1 dimensionality and lorentz invariance of our perceived world reflects the structures through which we perceive the worldthe views-and are not necessarily realized as properties of the world itself. ".

I'm interested in the paper about Momentum space because I have been for a decade interested in the idea of dual physics in both real space and a separate momentum space. Have you read or heard anything like this?

 

[Fra]

" The views do not live in spacetime. They live rather in products of momentum spaces, as a view is made up of incoming energy-momentum. The fact that we perceive our past as a set of incoming energy-momenta does not commit ourselves to the expectation that the universe is a lorentzian spacetime. This approach is, in a way, Kantian, in that the apparent 3 + 1 dimensionality and lorentz invariance of our perceived world reflects the structures through which we perceive the worldthe views-and are not necessarily realized as properties of the world itself. ".

I'm interested in the paper about Momentum space because I have been for a decade interested in the idea of dual physics in both real space and a separate momentum space. Have you read or heard anything like this?

From my perspective, I'm mainly interested in constructing/understanding/explaining the concepts of energy, momenyum and mass from more abstraction information theoretic terms; so that more self-organisation principles can EXPLAIN first of of why new dimenstions appear, why it stops at 3+1. The abstraction of "inertia" exists also in bayesian like decision making or probabilistic reasoning, where it simply means that you weight a priori support against the the evidence of conflicting evidence.

After all, when going from classical mechanics, the association of old terms, and the operators are somewhat heuristic. I think there is a deeper explanation of QM. I think Smolins approach as a good step towards this direction. But some details are missing, and i wish to have them solved before proceeding; so for this reason i have not analysed all the technical details in smolins approach (as I fear the details might need reworking anyway once the starting point is adjusted).

/Fredrik

 

[jake jot]

From my perspective, I'm mainly interested in constructing/understanding/explaining the concepts of energy, momenyum and mass from more abstraction information theoretic terms; so that more self-organisation principles can EXPLAIN first of of why new dimenstions appear, why it stops at 3+1. The abstraction of "inertia" exists also in bayesian like decision making or probabilistic reasoning, where it simply means that you weight a priori support against the the evidence of conflicting evidence.

After all, when going from classical mechanics, the association of old terms, and the operators are somewhat heuristic. I think there is a deeper explanation of QM. I think Smolins approach as a good step towards this direction. But some details are missing, and i wish to have them solved before proceeding; so for this reason i have not analysed all the technical details in smolins approach (as I fear the details might need reworking anyway once the starting point is adjusted).

/Fredrik

I can't wait for Smolin next paper on this "physical correlates of qualia" he mentioned in "Finally, there are implications of this proposal for foundational issues such as the measurement problem and the question of physical correlates of qualia."

Why is there implications related to qualia? Can you or anyone please ask Smolin? (Are these physics giants so out of reach for us normal mortals or public?)

For a long time. I've been pondering on Momentum space and physical correlates of qualia after reading a proposal that an intrinsic momentum space could be where our qualia could reside, with a barrier to the normal spacetime and matter. What is said to bridge the gap (barrier) or connect them is our intention. This word "intention" is taboo for physics, but since Smolin mentions "physical correlates of qualia". The word "intention" would be less taboo.

So it is said that whenever there is intention and the bridge is gap (between dual physics in an intrinsic momentum space and normal space). Extra energetic input from intrinsic momentum space would show up in the thermodynamics of molecules. Many unofficial underground experiments were always said to measure such changes. And the reasons official channels won't do any such experiments is because they ignore this outrageous idea in the first place so discount it automatically. But compared to some physicists belief in Multiverse where all laws of physics is possible. Won't this be not so outrageous at all?

I don't want to ask it separately in the chemistry forum because the idea is far off. I only mention it now in BSM since Smolin talked about intrinsic momentum space and qualia. So let me ask this one and last time to this that I've been wondering it for years. I hope someone can at least give counterarguments why it couldn't exist. For a very convincing argument. I'd exchange it for not posting anything anymore at PF. At least then I can focus on Smolin theory of Momentum space and Qualia that can relate the two (if they are connected at all). Thank you.

 

[Fra]

I can't wait for Smolin next paper on this "physical correlates of qualia" he mentioned in "Finally, there are implications of this proposal for foundational issues such as the measurement problem and the question of physical correlates of qualia."

Why is there implications related to qualia? Can you or anyone please ask Smolin? (Are these physics giants so out of reach for us normal mortals or public?)

"The measurement problem is naturally and simply solved. Microscopic systems appear statistical because they are members of large ensembles of similar systems which interact non-locally. Macroscopic systems are unique, and are not members of any ensembles of similar systems. Consequently their collective coordinates may evolve deterministically.
...
All the relational information about a subsystem of the universe is contained in the view that subsystem has of the rest of the universe, through its causal links or other relations to other subsystems."
...
Systems which have no causally indistinguishable copies in the universe are expected to behave classically, because for such systems there is no confusion possible and no quantum potential.
...
In this paper we develop this idea by showing that the quantum potential of Bohm can be understood to be a measure of the variety of a system of similar subsystems of the universe."

-- Quantum mechanics and the principle of maximal variety arXiv:1506.02938v1 [quant-ph] 9 Jun 2015

I can not defend Smolins explicit choice of construction of the "views" however.

/Fredrik