Ask HN: What do you think is all this? (this reality, existence, space-time, us)

That's what scientists are trying to figure out. We have more and more answers, but also more questions. I'm glad we have the answers that we do, even if incomplete.

If you play the loterry for an infinite amount of time, eventually you're going to guess the winning numbers. I think it's the same thing with us. Our existence is just a product of an infinite lottery on multiple levels. We probably needed an unimaginable amount of planets "brewing" in all corners of the universe for an unimaginable amount of time until a planet succeeded in making and supporting sentient life. But, the environment in which planets can form and be stable is also not given. Maybe it took billions of "generations" of universes until this one appeared. I imagine there is also something more fundamental behind the universe(s), and it probably also had to go through a ton of generations until it generated the concepts of space and time.

To sum up, I think we are nothing more than weird temporarily stable regions dependent upon other temporarily stable regions in the sea of white noise.

I suspect nearly all of physics is some sort of emergent behavior from.. basically nothing. Like that if you could push it hard enough - if we had the tools - you could push it back to set theory, a multiverse of all self-consistent rules or some fundamental property of information.

But that doesn't explain qualia. I see orange on this screen, damnit. Sure, I know it's light interacting with rhodopsin, depolarizing neurons in my retina, relayed to the visual cortex and assigned to a color wheel of cortical columns.. but it looks orange. No amount of physics will ever explain that to my satisfaction. You all could be philosophical zombies for all I know - I don't know for a fact that any of you are subjectively experiencing color, maybe it's just me. But I know I do, and since physics relies on objective measurements that's a dead end.

But then how do I reconcile having written the above, convinced of my subjective experience, if my neural processes can be fully emulated with physics? That requires some sort of binding. But we understand physics at the scale of the brain very well, and there just isn't any place for that binding to look. And the duplicating teleporter thought experiment causes major issues too.

Anyway, lacking any explanation for color or other qualia, and unable to resolve this paradox, I've chosen to believe qualia are external to physical reality in some way, and mine might last beyond death. Maybe a soul. Hopefully.

I think you would enjoy the Wolfram Physics Project. They've been able to get quantum mechanical behavior to emerge from some very simple mathematics. It's also not the type of mathematics that is traditionally used to describe quantum mechanics, which is more descriptive and mysterious than emergent.

I don't really know if ultimately there's any "there" there, and Wolfram is pretty widely regarded as a bit of a blowhard, but take a look and let the work speak for itself.

https://www.wolframphysics.org/

Actualization Theory & Meaning of Life (“Why Quantum Mechanics?” - Shtetl Optimized, Jan 26th/27th, 2022)

(1). The notion of “Objective Reality” is a limit that only makes sense after infinite elapsed time from the perspective of observers within reality.

(2). The basic design principle of reality is ‘Actualization’. Reality begins from a ground state of ‘possible worlds’ (non-constructive math), some of which start to get actualized (become actual worlds). Actualization simply means that an objective description of these worlds can increasingly be given purely in terms of computation (i.e, constructive mathematics). From (1), this process continues forever; worlds are always only in various degrees of actualization, which is the measure of their existence.

(3) To actualizae reality there are 3 conditions: (a) the whole can be decompose into understandable parts (Compositionality) (b) the parts can combine into larger integrated systems (Complexity) (b) the parts affect each other in limited, logical ways (Causality)

(4). Quantum mechanics is simply a special case of the general ‘theory of actualization’, which explains the physics of conditions (a), (b) & (c) above. The 3 conditions together give reality the property of ‘comprehensibility’ , which is equivalent to ‘actualization’. Comprehensibility is the ease with which observers within reality can understand it.

(5). Hilbert space is only a description of the space of possible worlds, it does not account for the actual process of actuliazation (properties a,b,c) which are expressed as : (a) computational topology, (b) function spaces, (c) computational geometry.

(6). The full ‘theory of actualization’ is about the mapping between (1) Hilbert space, (2) Computational Geometry & (3). Space-Time. (1) is about the ground-state of reality (the space of possible worlds), (2) is about the actualization of reality (how reality is made comprehensible) & (3) is the actualized structure of reality (the observed physical world).

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I think the ‘ground state’ of reality is simply a space of ‘possible worlds’, and as complexity is built-up, these worlds get increasingly ‘actualized’ entirely via computational processes, so the ball gets rolling without any observers or consciousness, which are emergent systems of computation.

However, I think that after a certain complexity threshold is cleared, the continuing actualization of reality does need minds, and from this point forward consciousness contributes to the on-going actualization of reality! Not through any sort of mystical or non-physical process, but by structuring information (i.e., turning information into knowledge), thus helping to make reality increasingly comprehensible.

So what are minds? Well, remember I talked about the ‘actualization’ process itself, which I said takes place on the level of computational geometry, function spaces and topology. And minds exist at this level. They’re simply the higher-level processes of ‘actualization’. Minds make mappings of (representations of) reality by modelling systems of causal relations that are complex and compositional. And these models are themselves new systems of causal relations that are complex & compositional! This is an open-ended recursive process.

The meaning of life (for conscious observers) is thus simply the high-level version of the same process of ‘actualization’ that I think accounts for physics. It’s ‘Self-Actualization’ ! Of course, now we have to try to achieve a reasonable understanding of the meaning of the term ‘Self-Actualization’

Here’s my explanation of consciousness and values:

Consciousness is the highest level of recursive actualization. It’s a model of the perceived flow of time (temporal awareness). It works by integrating high-level values and low-level facts, to generate mid-level action plans. The representation of values, plans and facts is in the form of the temporal modalities ‘should, ‘would’ & ‘could’ respectively. And the generated ‘action plans’ which are “good” are simply the ones that structure information as knowledge such that it contributes to the on-going actualization of reality (i.e., generation of manageable complexity).

To understand values, consider the motivations of God in the context of ‘actualization’. I believe that these motivations can be considered to consist of two complementary tendencies, (1) rationality & (2) creativity, because this is the combination that generates manageable complexity ( ‘actualized reality’).

Rationality is about the compression of information (manifesting as intelligence) , whereas creativity is about the exploration of possibilities (manifesting as values). The balance between them generates manageable complexity.

In conclusion, the “actualization” of reality is ultimately about the generation of manageable complexity, which is complexity that has enough structured details to be interesting, but can still be compressed enough to make it comprehensible. At a high-level, this is the balance between rationality and creativity in conscious minds.