Radical new take on *uni*verse questions by Smolin, could be important

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around Lee Smolin's new book "Time Reborn" and his recent talk at Perimeter Institute, which presents novel ideas regarding the nature of time, laws of physics, and the universe. Participants explore the implications of Smolin's principles and the potential for a paradigm shift in understanding spacetime and quantum dynamics.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants highlight Smolin's principles, such as the principle of sufficient reason and the principle of the identity of indiscernibles, suggesting they challenge traditional views of fixed laws of nature.
  • Others argue that Smolin's view implies laws of nature are not eternal but evolve over time, which some find radically distinct and potentially flawed.
  • Questions posed in Smolin's talk include the reasons behind the specific laws of nature and initial conditions, as well as the nature of time and causation.
  • One participant critiques the notion of "timeless laws," suggesting that laws can be expressed in time-invariant terms, which raises questions about their interpretation in Smolin's framework.
  • Another participant expresses skepticism about the feasibility of Smolin's approach, particularly regarding the idea of asymmetric laws emerging from time-symmetric foundations.
  • Some participants emphasize the importance of understanding Smolin's arguments through his talk, suggesting that a deeper engagement with his ideas may clarify their implications.
  • A later reply discusses the concept of a "meta-law" that governs the evolution of physical laws, likening it to biological evolution, and introduces the idea of a non-traditional understanding of time.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a mix of agreement and disagreement regarding Smolin's ideas. While some find his principles thought-provoking and potentially transformative, others challenge the coherence and viability of his arguments, leading to an unresolved discussion on the implications of his work.

Contextual Notes

Participants note the complexity of Smolin's ideas and the necessity of advanced background knowledge to fully engage with his later arguments about Lagrangians and equations of motion. There is also mention of the potential for misinterpretation of terms like "timeless" and "real" in the context of his theories.

  • #121
Could this be one of those occasions where a mathematical model is not sophisticated enough to represent the real world? Would this mean that the exact same Universe is produced each BB? No free will and so on? I would like you to come to a casino with me if you have the time.
 
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  • #122
Okay, i think i get the "memory" thing.
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The particles from the original collapse maintain their identities including stats like physical constants, which they share with other particles created within the new black hole. Or at least the emergent and yet nascent progeny of the new universe will not greatly contradict the parameters of the founding particles {like Founding Fathers}. The founders bring with them the fine structure constant, slightly altered. Like colonists orienting the new progeny.
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It's good to be in with the in crowd, and in this thread Smolin is IT. But someone must have mentioned the similarity to Alice in Wonderland.
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It reminds me of a sci fi story i wrote 4+ decades ago. Folks jumped from universe to universe by turning a photon sphere inside out. i called it the "Mobius transformer." The physical rules for each universe changed slightly each time they jumped and they couldn't get back. Scientific American had a cover picture of a sphere being turned inside out and i fixated on it. i could draw it free hand.
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  • #123
Tanelorn said:
Chalnoth, sitting at JFK trying to understand the implications of what you said.
Does this mean that the Universe could start over with the big bang and all that follows, and each time it did so I would be sat here typing this? I really didn't expect this, are you sure?
Sure, if it started again from the exact same initial conditions. Though note that all we observe is only one branch of the wavefunction, and there are many other things that occur as well.
 
  • #124
Infalling mass/energy initiates the black hole collapse with extant constraints essentially intact.
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At some point in the birth of the black hole as seen from the outside, a resultant expanding universe is birthed as seen from inside. In this picture the expanding space would be subject to the extant constraints of the infalling mass/energy. The alternative would be that the resultant space would have constraints which contradict those of the initial mass/energy.
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i think I'm getting it. Space emerges from the moving mass/energy, somehow thru a looking glass.
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Okay, i'll buy that for a while, but now what about the cornucopia of new energy necessary to create a "billion billion" black holes? Space emerging from energy going down the rabbit hole is one thing but energy amplification eludes me entirely. i can't think of any example of anything I've ever heard of that would work that way except maybe Three Wishes.
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To be a true fan, one just has to believe, i guess.
Fixated but confused.
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  • #125
Try this weird use of the uncertainty principle.
They are attracted to each other, why doesn't the orbiting electron just settle in and land on the proton?* If you know exactly where the thing is, you don't know the exact momentum. Assume the black hole is pointlike. What is more exact than a point? You think you know the infalling mass? Well, when that thing crushes down to a geometric description of a physical impossibility, YOU DON'T KNOW the momentum. Of course some black holes are said to be larger than the orbit of Jupiter but I'm not going to let that enter my little head. Dr. Smolin is prolly not talking about vast polygamous agglomerations of black holes forming super massive black holes. There are only a few of those. He's talking about tidy bachelor universes born of star collapse, billions of them.
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Like a devoted hound i try to sniff out reasons why my Smolin is Elvis reincarnated!
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*disregarding some kind of neutron formation
 
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  • #126
"...Some black hole models have so-called “Cauchy horizons” inside the event horizon, i.e., surfaces beyond which determinism breaks down..."
Under 4.3.2 Singularities in:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/
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This must be what Mr. Smolin is talking about. No need for the uncertainty principle. GR has it's own uncertainty.
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While GR is not classical in the sense of being deterministic in, "...Some...models," otherwise it is "classical." It's deterministic because it's a mathematical model which will yield the same results given the same initial conditions, when calculated. Except in the pesky case of black holes, maybe.
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i love this stuff!
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  • #127
In Smolin's picture, Sol can't procreate.
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Sol has only half what it takes to deliver progeny!
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Speaking of the progeny of an entire new universe.
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Can a local fan club rectify this mass deficit! Loans perhaps, of mass from neighbors?
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  • #128
But if you somehow throw yourself into a large star - you can become a universe!

Henrik
 
  • #129
Negativzero - thanks for your reply. There was a lot to think about.
negativzero said:
Have you considered that space is an unneeded construct? What science can measure is fields, more accurately it measures fields on fields. When a physicist predicts all the places a particle might go by tunneling or otherwise, he is describing predictions given fields. "Space" may be a superfluous concept.

Do you have a link or some names/theories I could look into to get deeper into that idea?

Henrik
 
  • #130
Henrik,
Not talking red cool-Aid here, or white Nikes.
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Just a simple non-profit to bulk up Sol to critical mass...that's all. Let's get together people and help our star make a new li'l universe. Show a little solar spirit.
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Our sun needs our help. Clearly there is not enough debris in the immediate solar system.
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When oh when will NASA ever learn Smolin's most central idea? Namely, if you are going to deliver, it's not enough just to have facial hair. You have to have enough mass to implode and really mean it! [edit: paraphrasing] Let's put some cities inside asteroids and wander off into the nearby galactic neighborhood to collect stuff and toss it all into Sol. In a reverential manner, of course.
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Clearly, we r on th same wavelength. By the way, what's a "link?"
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  • #131
No thanks to world-impires, galactic settlements or universal justice. A truly important lifeform creates universes. Humanity can move forward. Thank you for opening my eyes.

By the way - I have trouble understanding how the concept of fields should do without space. To me a field is a very spatial thing - what are we talking about here - relations between particles giving the impression of fields in space?

A link - did I aim too low? I just want information about how space can be a superflous concept - where can I find that?

Henrik
 
  • #132
In Smolin's evolution picture, math evolves along with the universe.
Assuming "one" is math, that most basic natural counting number evolves too. My question now is whether negation evolves along with number?
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If no two nothings are the same twice,
and no two nothings are the same thrice,
then no two nothings are odd and even. [One of my oldest and most favorite jokes.]
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Clearly, according to Smolin, 1 does not =1. Each one has a separate history and can be identified separately by inspection. What is really understood is that in spite of the fact that you have to see two different ones on the page to understand perceptually what is being said, what IS being said is a convenient fiction. We assume all ones are the same for the purposes of thinking about math.
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Thus math is not just nonsensical, it's fiction. Some call math "truth," i call it a damned good lie.
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Regardless, in my world, and I'm pretty sure Smolin agrees with me on this, all math and logic has a physical manifestation. What i think, see, hear, and otherwise perceive as math has always in every particular instance been physical. Ink on pages, words I've heard, chalk on boards, sheep jumping fences in rectangular arrays*, all, ALL, can be described as physical stuff. The field of neuro-cognition assumes thought is physical. i have yet to confirm a single non-physical event in my experience.
The metaphysical or Platonic view of math is an example of what Smolin protests against. Math and reason don't exist outside the universe, they are physical too. Thus if physics evolved, it's not too hard to understand that since numbers are physical, they too evolved.
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Truly negations are unruly, the multitude of paradoxes created by the frailties of negations is evidence of that. However, i suppose the numerical nature of negations could be disputed or qualified at least as in Russell's meta-language. [...along with notions of universality, another fertile source of paradoxical constructions.]
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Hernik, think "luminiferous aether." A notion similar to space, which was discarded.
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If eternal Platonic space exists forever, even outside the universe, then how does it connect to the physical world? And don't say, "the pineal gland," that trick has already been tried! If it isn't physical it's not physics. It's meta-physics.
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My simple headed definition: "Space is any place anything could be." Anything.
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How do physicists determine where things could be? In the example of particles, for example with a Gerlach apparatus, movement and change are defined on fields. We shouldn't need to refer superstitiously to "space" when fields are descriptive enough. In the unholy name of Occam it's time to trash space, and open your heart to fields.
---A note from the ever-evolving -0.
*insomnia problem
 
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  • #133
i will refer to this technique by Hernik as the "Hernik maneuver": "But if you somehow throw yourself into a large star - you can become a universe!"
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That's a direct and personal way to contribute, of course. But before diving into another star, any star besides Sol, i think you should ask yourself, "...what kind of a universe do i want to create?"
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If you sincerely want a place with streams of running chocolate, and waterfalls of dark German beer, this it the time to consider ingredients.
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However, if you just want to be a player, universally, then the easier strategy would be to find a star that is wobbling on the edge of sufficient mass to create a black hole, and just add in your extra contribution to push the mass up over the magic tipping point of universe creation. In that sense it would be you, who decided that with a little elbow grease and mass, you could make a universe that wouldn't exist without your contribution. IN that case, i think it would be fair to name it after yourself. --The Hernikverse -- and you don't even have to jump in. You maybe could do a couple of sequels.
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With some chocolate, Spaten Optimator, and free-will, as an example of intellygunt design, you can create your own universe, details will be forthcoming. i'll bet it's only a month until someone writes this up in Analogue. Where's the love interest? Needs a story line.
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  • #134
Okay I think I understand. I still do not think it is possible to have any kind of events going on that do not take place in space of some kind. Just as your definition "Space is any place anything could be" needs a non-spacial meening of the word "place" . I cannot think of any place that is not in space.

Also I would prefer any universe I participate into be called simply "Henrik " among friends .but that 's just how I feel about it.

By the way I believe dead or alive is equally fine when you contribute to the creation of as well small as large universes . So actually I expect a marked is opening up in the wake of Smolins hypothesis .because why would you want to rot at a cementary or pollute the athmosfere with unnecessary amounts of CO2 when you can be shipped of to a large dying står and arrive in time to become your own universe ? Of course it would be an expensive burial place but a rather good deal if you consider what you get for your money.

Henrik
 
  • #135
i know!
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But personally, i'd rather sit on the back deck, smelling the BBQ, viewing the two great volcanoes Shasta and Lassen, drinkin' dark beer---than to toss my youngish carcass into the proto-supernovas of Smolin's conjecture.
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i name no species, no stars, no universes.* i name Smolin as the new Moses. And we (peeps) are NOT chosen. It's just no way man! We and our progeny can witness other stars than our beloved Sol "self destructing" by transforming into super novas. But the sun will remain barren.
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As Joseph Campbell says, the story of the hero is the story of sacrifice. Surely our sun would create another universe if only there was mass enough. But sadly our celebrity doesn't have the mass man.
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In eulogy, i think we can put to rest the idea that our Star will ever become perfected as a black hole.
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Meanwhile there are plenty of marketing opportunities in the Vegan* 5th dimensional homeopathic grokking community. There are vast unharvested needs of the alternate culture who will pay big bucks to be connected to contribute their own efforts to universal recreation. It's not real estate on Luna; this time it's serious.
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We have evolution. Sexuality evolved on earth. One of the mysteries of life on Earth is sexuality. Is the sun truly male? The sun according to Smolin will not mother a new universe? Are stars sexed by their fecundity? If true, then one could "pick up" a young star and by hefting it, could tell whether this star would someday mother a new U.
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*except Henrik
**as in "Vegan diet"
 
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  • #136
You guys are still ignoring initial conditions and their consequences.
 
  • #137
What you are disputing by assertion is a question at hand.
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We have at least three major Smolin ideas juggled in this thread. Evolving universes, evolving math, and Space Emerging from Momentum in Time.
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All these notions are in contradistinction to the standard assumptions.
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If you want me to stand in Smolin's place and argue his theories for him, i will.
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At least until he gets a restraining order, telling me to cease.
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So load it up and fire. Criticize Dr. Smolin.
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And thanks again for giving a damn.
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  • #138
I'm saying this is pure speculation that is unsupported. Smolin's original cosmological natural selection conjecture that constrains neutron star mass has been observationally refuted.
 
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  • #139
Chronos said:
I'm saying this is pure speculation that is unsupported. Smolin's original cosmological natural selection conjecture that constrains neutron star mass has been observationally refuted.

That seems strange. I think earlier this year I read a comment from him to the effect that the CNS conjecture was still standing. That would mean no confirmed neutron star mass definitely > 2 solar.

The issue is something like---to make a lot of baby universes you want a lot of stars to form and you want as many as possible of the neutron-star remnants to collapse to BH. But some of the same physical constants determine:
A the strength of neutron matter: how easy it collapses---how much mass you need to trigger collapse to BH
B rates of star formation

Because of this tradeoff, the weakest most collapsible neutron matter you can have, without interfering with star formation, is such that it takes 2 solar mass to cause collapse.

Therefore in a universe optimized for BH production there will not be any neutron stars with mass ≥ 2 solar. All the ones that massive will have collapsed.

If we observe neutron stars with mass CONFIRMED to be > 2 solar, then our universe is NOT optimized for BH production. That our physical constants are NOT optimized for reproductive success, for producing a lot of progeny.

But the CNS conjecture is that tracts of space-time reproduce with small variations ("mutation") in the physical constants, so that the constants have evolved IN THE GREAT MAJORITY OF CASES to be nearly optimal for reproduction. Assuming our case is typical of the majority, we expect to find all neutron stars ≤ 2 solar.

What I thought I read was that, if you take account of the UNCERTAINTY in determining neutron star masses, they had not yet found any that they were sure were > 2 solar.

Maybe you could refresh my memory and provide some links to papers which refute/falsify the CNS conjecture. If you have some handy.

I remember gathering some links which seemed to put pressure on CNS, earlier this year, but I don't have them handy. There were confidence intervals, not definite mass figures. But they were getting up there around 2 solar, as I recall. You could be right, but I didn't think it had definitively been shot down.
 
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  • #140
Yeah! What marcus said! And by the way, marcus, if you had just given me a moment, i could have said something almost as good! But you nailed it!
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  • #141
marcus, do u have anything on Smolin's dozen parameters? How has our universe evolved into the perfect black hole nursery due to the, just as a naïve inquiry, fine structure constant? Any parameter will do, to start. It doesn't have to be the fine structure.
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i could spend a few rainy months trying to understand computationally why! Yeehaw!
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And please don't feel obligated to respond. i know this thread has gone viral and the paparazzi are chasing you.
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"CNS" means what? Some of us are D students. i always think "Central Nervous System," for CNS. Sorry. i was late to disorientation.
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  • #142
Smolin's originals CNS conjecture constrained neutron star mass to about 1.6 solar. Apparently he has upped the bar to about 2.5 solar. I admittedly am unfamiliar with the logic behind this new limit, but, it appears he has abandoned his original reliance on the Browne & Bethe equation of state. I agree the prospects of detecting a neutron star of such a mass appears remote. Then again, we have no confirmed black holes less than about 5 solar masses, which I still find curious. For an example of a 2 solar mass neutron star, see http://www.rdmag.com/news/2013/05/observations-massive-neutron-star-confirm-relativity-theory
 
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  • #143
At http://arxiv.org/pdf/1012.3208v1.pdf
Smolin is not mentioned, however the 1.97 solar mass limit is discussed at length.
i think it's safe to assume Smolin is aware of the work, since he mentioned that number at SETI if i remember correctly.
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  • #144
He has been aware of it for several years, but, unconvinced it is reliable. The more recent Shapiro delay measurements have, however, bolstered its credibility
 
  • #145
negativzero said:
"CNS" means what? Some of us are D students. i always think "Central Nervous System," for CNS. Sorry. i was late to disorientation.
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CNS = Cosmological Natural Selection.
 
  • #146
Chronos: "Smolin's original cosmological natural selection conjecture that constrains neutron star mass has been observationally refuted."
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Yeah, but that doesn't mean the theory is wrong. 1.6, 1.97, nearly two, those are just numbers. Famously, Einstein was off by about a factor of two re the advance of the perihelion of Mercury. You know, the famous, "plus and minus" vs "plus or minus" error. I'm not dancing an end zone jig because Smolin screwed up his arithmetic.
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His still has one of the few non-standard approaches around that has any empirical legs at all.
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Not that i can hear you tap dancing Chronos. Without your skepticism you wouldn't be the fun poster that you are.
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On a separate detail, i have been thinking of the neutron star mass limit as different from the "tweaking the parameters" assertion, but both ideas are so closely linked that you could almost say it's all just one idea.
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This is apparent from the opening sentences of the article i referenced before above
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1012.3208v1.pdf
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Now if i could get some stuff to read on just which parameters are tweaked how, resulting in what?
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[quantum physics joke: Who left the door open? Everyone.]
 
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  • #147
A black hole could just be matter with sufficient density to prevent photons from escaping. Isnt this still the most likely explanation? Occam etc. Also every black hole is different due to its size, mass and rotation. Wouldnt these variables also change the characteristics of any new Universes?

Finallly wouldn't this form of CNS ultimately result in Universes in which all matter ends up creating black holes in the shortest possible time? The concept of CNS is very interesting though, I wonder if there are other possible CNS mechanisms possibly on much larger size scales eg. 10^30 times size of the O.U. etc.
 
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  • #148
Thought I would catch up with this thread. Smolin has some interesting ideas like energy being fundamental, I would suggest however that how that energy is produced is more fundamental. I feel he is however no closer to the truth than Feynman was. There seems to be a huge blind spot, which I think Smolin is aware of, that no one has been able to see through. The universe is far simpler than they think and all have lost sight of the wood for the trees. As I said Feynman was within touching distance Smolin is getting there it remains to be seen if he can overcome the blind spot that has caused all the half theories to date.
 
  • #149
Tanelorn, your last question rules!
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If you could find a parameter-tweaker calculator free online, then maybe you could work out different universal scenarios. Smolin seemed to say that your question was too difficult to calculate beyond small tweaks. If I recollect, he said that a dozen of 30 parameters seemed to be dialed into maximize black hole number, presently at about a billion billion in the known universe.
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Generally, it looks like the tweak question revolves around the collapse where-in some parameters account for pressure outward, and overwhelming pressure inward accounts for the other "significant" parameters. i think these are included in the parameters he's been tweakin'. The article i referenced talks about this, but not about CNS. This leads one to wonder what kind of universe could maintain the basic twelve parameters responsible for reproduction and still vary the other 18 parameters. A million SF writers at a million keyboards.
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Yeah, looking for the mechanism which somehow creates all the mass/energy to supply a new universe somewhere in black hole collapse has been my continuous goal in understanding Smolin's thing. i think his argument starts off that you don't and can't know what is happening beyond the event horizon. For instance, from the inside you might find there is no singularity at all. But does that mean we can throw conservation of mass energy out the window? i think that's what he's saying, "I'm throwing conservation out of the fenestra!"[not an actual quote. edit] He mentioned that Lagragian constraints take the place of conservation of energy laws.
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Stuff on the inside can't link up with the old universe outside the event horizon. Further, the only memory of the old universe will be the infalling mass. Which apparently is some kind of "seed mass" which shares it's constraints with any new mass energy created in the event. Why would it share? Why wouldn't the old mass share it's parameters? The contradiction would be if the old and new didn't share parameters. He imagines the parameters change randomly but typically in small increments.
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Smolin still needs to show that everything we know about the bang and results from the bang are consistent with being on the inside of a black hole. In Smolin's universe the math inside black holes should coincide with what we are seeing here in this universe. There are arguments out there that use this idea, e.g. holographic theories.
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Smolin is a creative individual. He tolerates ambiguity well. He's open minded. His ideas come out of philosophy which reminds me that Bohr published some of his best work in Philosophical Magazine, in 3 parts.
If Smolin is correct, he may not be held in as high esteem as Bohr or Einstein, but he will rank, and it doesn't in anyway surprise me that his bent is philosophical.
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As Bohr explained the obdurately mysterious symmetry of the Period Tables with quantum mechanics, Smolin's theory promises to explain the previously inexplicable elemental parameters of physical theory. Not by some mythical "initial conditions," but with a theory of natural selection through fecundity of black hole production.
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Needs more information theory and a little cow bell.
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  • #150
I agree that there is a degree of separation between matter in the black hole and the matter in our outside universe. However there are still connections between them. Firstly there is the Gravitation field (warping of our space time) and secondly there is matter and energy leaving our side of the event Horizon and falling into the BH.

Another possible problem is that you don't want too many black holes in too small a space. I suspect that those threads of galactic clusters and great voids are also necessary for our universe of galaxies to work the way it does.

If our Universe is a BH in a parent Universe then perhaps our Big Bang inflation was the moment the BH formed due to the collapse of a star, and the continued dark energy expansion here, the growth of the BH due to matter in the parent Universe continuing to fall in. Matter there becomes energy in our Universe. The whole thing, parent, child and yet more progeny Universes become one enormous, very complex warping and DIVIDING of space time. WOW!

Unfortunately though, as I have said several times we have not found first cause or final effect, but it is a very very interesting picture or model of a possible reality nonetheless.

More Cowbell would help, or you could try "M of the U" by HW :)
 
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