What Is Spacetime, Really?

That's a pretty neat idea. Then you could have gravity caused by structure -- the closer the nodes are to each-other, and the more nodes in an area there are, the easier the nodes fall into a lattice/crystal -- making masses attract.

And conversely space could just be a limit to information density.

If that's roughly what Wolfram was saying, I'm sorry, I couldn't read his jerk-session.

These graphs have to be embedded into a computation device to be real and changing in time. To build such a computation device, maybe you need time and space. It could even be that our Universe is of the minimum complexity required to build a computation device capable of computing the graphs that describe our Universe.

> The uncertainty principle hints that something discrete may lie at the bottom.

Not necessarily. The uncertainty principle is a direct consequence of some quantities being "the Fourier transform" of each other. You can't play a pure tone unless it extends infinitely in time, and vice versa: You can't play an infinitesimally short sound unless you ring all frequencies. That's all.

And actually, if something discrete lies at the bottom of spacetime, the uncertainty principle implies that there's a maximum energy and a maximum momentum. For the same reason that there's a Nyquist frequency when sampling. So, if anything, our intuition that there aren't such maxima makes the uncertainty principle hint that there's nothing discrete underneath.

i appreciate the thought out response.. i'll try to address your points

1) sorry, it's the way i write

2) solid response:

   It's critical but doesn't add much of 
   substance on its own through the criticism. 

what you said there mirrors my immediate reaction to the linked piece by wolfram, and in all fairness i felt it myself of my comment and intended to reply with a more directed response to the piece but found it difficult to find anything to riff off of

    So then the question arises: could one of these simple
    programs in the computational universe actually be the
    program for our physical universe?

this seems to be the base line on which his potential final theory is predicated, but this just reads as a rewrite of the infinite monkey theorem

if the universe is programmable, then surely within the bounds of every possible permutation of computation therein must lie a representation of the universe..?

3) 'use case' and 'science as directed utility' seemed explicitly to go hand in hand

4) "... reveal those use-cases untouched by contemporary thought"

one such important use case that showed the inherent utility of relativity was understanding retrograde motion(o), this was the sort of use case i was referring to one where the contemporary thought was unable to reach insight

"an existence where every new finality conjures new questions"

here i'd agree i erred on poetics to allow for some self discovery, what i hoped to express was that every 'final theory', as wolfram puts it or finality as i put it, i think will introduce more questions mocking the title of final

relativity is sussed out and people, as wolfram attested, assume it to be true, but then later find it only reveals, seemingly by conjuring, questions they were unaware of

even einstein, the one person who stood to gain the most by espousing that his theory was 'the final theory', knew relativity to be wanting

it is my impression that i do write 'in spoken language'

when was the last time you heard a capital letter? or 'proper' punctuation?

these are the words i would use to talk to you about this topic

the diction may seem off because i avoid negative constructions:no, not, never, none,etc; with hopes that the a subsequent generation will have the patience to write out even negating prefixes: un-,i-,a-,etc;

i find removing negative constructions is a means of making discussion more inviting and less authoritative

next time someone asks if you've seen some new media, instead of saying 'no' see what reaction something like 'i've yet to have seen it' will afford

if a sentence comes easily as "which isn't that interesting" i will take whatever time necessary to rewrite in order to write out the negative

reading your rewrite:

    The ideas need to work to be useful. 
    We need to think up new ideas. 
    I think we'll always have more questions to answer

could placehold as a rewrite of wolfram's piece

i'll express it as your rewrite on one side of a colon and applicable sections from wolframs piece on the other, ctrl-f confirmation encouraged

    ideas need to be useful: "provides the only successful way 
    we have of describing spacetime"

    we need to think up new ideas: "started on my long journey 
    to go beyond traditional mathematical equations and instead 
    use computation and programs as basic models in science"

    I think we'll always have more questions to answer: 
    "But what would such a program be like?..what’s the basic 
    “data structure” on which this program operates?.." and on and on

so yes, i agree, markedly uninteresting

(o) http://theory.uwinnipeg.ca/mod_tech/node60.html

.. an aside, can we talk to the fact that middlebrow seems the only brow held in contempt, i feel low brow and high brow each have their accepted merits(i) but i've yet to have seen something quantified as being middlebrow used in promotion

i wonder what the says about adjudged middles

(i) http://nymag.com/nymag/culture/approvalmatrix/archive/

wolfram's use of detour seemed like a dismissal of the utility of relativity, i read it as 'a waste of time'.. taking an indirect route when a direct route would have been preferred.. was something else meant by the word? people mock an earth centered universe today but was the idea a waste of time?

what's the alternative to detours? waiting, still, until one is shown the direct route? how will it reveal itself? what defines direct? are there direct and detour routes between wolfram's network nodes?

bones had a hard time appreciating the efforts of his predecessors(o), but does the potential of a future technology rendering a current technology obsolete, barbaric even, mean we should avoid it's utility because it's merely a 'detour'

i think the probabilistic nature of quantum bodies is an incorrect model but i wholly endorse its use in those scenarios in which results are found where they were previously elusive

i think monte carlo descision tree traversal is a misguided method but i wholly endorse its use in those scenarios in which results are found where they were previously elusive

utilise and iterate on best fit 'detours' while still seeking direct routes

my response to wolfram was asking: why call something a detour when everything is a detour, even his unfinished attempt at finalising all detours

i want to make it clear that i encourage wolfram to continue his work on his theory, but careful judging lest ye be judged

hey einstein, “Don’t waste your time working on that!” and, “Please don’t work on that.” it's merely a detour

(o) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMaGnpVaSGQ