Something from nothing -- my attempt of derivation of a UTM.

[Mindey I.]

Hi Everyone,

so, my background: http://mindey.com/42 -- I always wanted to know its
origin precisely.

The understanding of the origin of Universe(=Everything, Multiverse,
and our Life experience included) was likely never fully successful.
Fundamental obstacle for succeeding in it has been the logical
inconsistency of the concepts "Origin" and "Universe", because an
attempt to explain Everything by Something, makes the Something part
of Everything, which leaves us with "Nothingness", as the only viable
candidate for "Origin".

Universe to us subjectively appears as a complex and diverse
experience. In fact, except for some regularity (which we call laws of
physics), the patterns we see every day appear so complex, that only
something like a universal computer with large memory could possibly
generate it. We had recently even done so by creating 3D computer
games and worlds running on Universal Turing Machines (UTMs) -- our
computers.

From here, we can conclude:

(1) It follows that, _if_ we could come up with a UTM from
"Nothingness", we could explain pretty much everything that is
computable.

Our experiences rely on finite numbers of receptors with limited
granularity (selectivity), and limited lifespan, which seem to imply
finite number of possible experiences (as their Cartesian product) by
a being.

(2) It follows that, our life experience is likely computable.

To come up with a UTM from "Nothingness", let's:

1. assume "Nothingness"
2. conclude "Equidistance"
(because "Nothingness" means equal absence of information regarding
any aspect whatsoever)
3. see the definition of a ball
4. see the computation of Pi number with varying precision, i.e.:

Remember balls from degenerate ones in low-dimensional spaces with
special coordinate systems and weird distance metrics, to quite
standard Euclidean ones, to hypersphere, to the most near-perfect
conceivable ball regading any information aspect whatsoever.

Unfortunately, we don't know if Pi is really equivalent to UTM,
because we had not yet solved the Normality of Pi conjecture, but
assuming it is Normal, to understand how your unique experience of
life could have arisen:

1. assume that your life experience is a finite number
2. conclude that it is in Pi.

However, if Pi is normal, then then the conclusion is not informative
at all, because we will find any finite string in it many times over.

It would be much more informative, if Pi actually is _not_ normal.

Any comments/errors?
Thanks,

Mindey

Related: discussion on Halfbakery:
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Explanation_20of_20Origin_20of_20Universe

[Telmo Menezes]

On Sat, Mar 28, 2015 at 10:22 AM, Mindey I. <min...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Everyone,

Hi Mindey, welcome.

 

so, my background: http://mindey.com/42 -- I always wanted to know its
origin precisely.

The understanding of the origin of Universe(=Everything, Multiverse,
and our Life experience included) was likely never fully successful.
Fundamental obstacle for succeeding in it has been the logical
inconsistency of the concepts "Origin" and "Universe", because an
attempt to explain Everything by Something, makes the Something part
of Everything, which leaves us with "Nothingness", as the only viable
candidate for "Origin".

Universe to us subjectively appears as a complex and diverse
experience. In fact, except for some regularity (which we call laws of
physics), the patterns we see every day appear so complex, that only
something like a universal computer with large memory could possibly
generate it. We had recently even done so by creating 3D computer
games and worlds running on Universal Turing Machines (UTMs) -- our
computers.

From here, we can conclude:

  (1) It follows that, _if_ we could come up with a UTM from
"Nothingness", we could explain pretty much everything that is
computable.

I agree. You might be interested in Russell Standish's book "Theory of Nothing". He is a participant in the list.

http://www.hpcoders.com.au/nothing.html

One of the ideas explored there is (to put it very simply) that "nothing" and "everything" are the same thing. You might also like -- in case you don't know about it -- Jorge Luis Borge's short story "The Library of Babel", exploring a similar idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel

 

Our experiences rely on finite numbers of receptors with limited
granularity (selectivity), and limited lifespan, which seem to imply
finite number of possible experiences (as their Cartesian product) by
a being.

  (2) It follows that, our life experience is likely computable.

To come up with a UTM from "Nothingness", let's:

1. assume "Nothingness"
2. conclude "Equidistance"
(because "Nothingness" means equal absence of information regarding
any aspect whatsoever)
3. see the definition of a ball
4. see the computation of Pi number with varying precision, i.e.:

Remember balls from degenerate ones in low-dimensional spaces with
special coordinate systems and weird distance metrics, to quite
standard Euclidean ones, to hypersphere, to the most near-perfect
conceivable ball regading any information aspect whatsoever.

You will find like-minded people here.

 

Unfortunately, we don't know if Pi is really equivalent to UTM,
because we had not yet solved the Normality of Pi conjecture, but
assuming it is Normal, to understand how your unique experience of
life could have arisen:

1. assume that your life experience is a finite number
2. conclude that it is in Pi.

However, if Pi is normal, then then the conclusion is not informative
at all, because we will find any finite string in it many times over.

It would be much more informative, if Pi actually is _not_ normal.

Instead of Pi, Bruno starts with simple arithmetics: the sequence on natural numbers, addition and multiplication, which is already Turing complete. I'm sure he will engage you on this.

Telmo.

 

Any comments/errors?
Thanks,

Mindey

Related: discussion on Halfbakery:
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Explanation_20of_20Origin_20of_20Universe

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 28 Mar 2015, at 10:22, Mindey I. wrote:

Hi Everyone,

so, my background: http://mindey.com/42 -- I always wanted to know its
origin precisely.

The understanding of the origin of Universe(=Everything, Multiverse,
and our Life experience included) was likely never fully successful.
Fundamental obstacle for succeeding in it has been the logical
inconsistency of the concepts "Origin" and "Universe", because an
attempt to explain Everything by Something, makes the Something part
of Everything, which leaves us with "Nothingness", as the only viable
candidate for "Origin".

Hmm, you will need to explain the origin of "nothingness".

And the problem I see here is that you have as much notion of nothingness that you have notion of things.

Universe to us subjectively appears as a complex and diverse
experience. In fact, except for some regularity (which we call laws of
physics), the patterns we see every day appear so complex, that only
something like a universal computer with large memory could possibly
generate it. We had recently even done so by creating 3D computer
games and worlds running on Universal Turing Machines (UTMs) -- our
computers.

From here, we can conclude:

 (1) It follows that, _if_ we could come up with a UTM from
"Nothingness", we could explain pretty much everything that is
computable.

If you take the set notion of "nothingness", that is the empty set, then from just the notion of unary intersection of set gives the everything notion of sets. That contains all computable things, and also all non computable things. But it might be too much. 

Our experiences rely on finite numbers of receptors with limited
granularity (selectivity), and limited lifespan, which seem to imply
finite number of possible experiences (as their Cartesian product) by
a being.

This might be equivalent with the computationalist assumption. 

 (2) It follows that, our life experience is likely computable.

Hmm... Not really, because with everything/nothing type of theories, if we are finite objects, we are distributed in infinitely may examplary in the everything, and this introduce a non computable element in our life experiment.

You might read:

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html 

To come up with a UTM from "Nothingness", let's:

1. assume "Nothingness"

Unfortunately this is too much fuzzy.

2. conclude "Equidistance"
(because "Nothingness" means equal absence of information regarding
any aspect whatsoever)

Assuming some metrical space.

3. see the definition of a ball
4. see the computation of Pi number with varying precision, i.e.:

Remember balls from degenerate ones in low-dimensional spaces with
special coordinate systems and weird distance metrics, to quite
standard Euclidean ones, to hypersphere, to the most near-perfect
conceivable ball regading any information aspect whatsoever.

The idea is nice and would have pleased Plotinus, but I am not sure if you are aware of the many assumption you make here.

At least I guess you agree that some part of mathematics has to be assumed.

Unfortunately, we don't know if Pi is really equivalent to UTM,

Pi is a particular computable number. I don't see how you can make it equivalent with a computing machine, which can be seen as the given a finite number verifying some number relation.

because we had not yet solved the Normality of Pi conjecture,

You can take the number 0,12345678910111213141516171819202122... instead. (Champernow number).

But again, using some coding (well, decoding) you can see all description of all computations of all Turing machine. But you will not see any computation, which are more abstract relation. It is a common confusion, but description of relation are not the same as the relation themselves.

but
assuming it is Normal, to understand how your unique experience of
life could have arisen:

1. assume that your life experience is a finite number
2. conclude that it is in Pi.

So I disagree. Your experiences are in the number of champernow, but they are not in the relation making them into computations. It is like confusing Borges babel library and the universal dovetailling.

The universal dovetailing (generation and running of all programs) existence can be proved in very little theory, but you need more than syntactucal information: you need the relevant computable relations.

However, if Pi is normal, then then the conclusion is not informative
at all, because we will find any finite string in it many times over.

It would be much more informative, if Pi actually is _not_ normal.

Any comments/errors?

You need to be clear on the things you assume, and the minimal laws they obey. 

In this list (and in my publication) I show that all specification of a UTM can be used for deriving the physical laws and consciousness. I use a very tiny fragment of arithmetic, or even a smaller theory (SK-combinators)/

I think your main confusion is between a description of a computation, and a computation. Amazibgly enough, I was just explaining that confusion, which was cropping again in some critics of the step 8 of the main argument in the paper linked above.

Nice try, and quite in the spirit of this list, like Borges, and Everett, but you might need to study what has already been done. Mathematical logic can be useful to see what needs to be assume or not, and to make clear the presentation of the theory.

Also, you don't seem aware of the mind-body problem, which, when we assume computationalism, reduces *any*  theory of matter into a probability or uncertainty calculus on computations. This has to be taken into account, or you risk to eliminate persons and consciousness. In fact computationalism is epistemologically incompatible with materialism (even the weak doctrine which just assume some primitive physical reality).

Bruno

Mindey

Related: discussion on Halfbakery:
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Explanation_20of_20Origin_20of_20Universe

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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[John Mikes]

Bruno:

is an EMPTY SET indeed nothingness? Does it not include the  " S E T "  recognizing that it is EMPTY? nothingness may be the CONTENT of the empty set. 

Just as a singularity, which has borders to end, measures, characteristics etc.? 

Nothingness as empty set should be infinite and include the entire Everything. 

I consider the term NOTHINGNESS just as unfathonable, as infinite, or 'ever'. 

JM

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi John,

On 28 Mar 2015, at 22:32, John Mikes wrote:

Bruno:

is an EMPTY SET indeed nothingness? Does it not include the  " S E T "  recognizing that it is EMPTY? nothingness may be the CONTENT of the empty set. 

The empty set is the set without element. You can denote it by { }.

It has some typical property; notably that:  A union { } = A, A intersection { } = { }.

The unary intersection of a set is given by the intersection of the element of a set (of sets):

Unary intersection { { a b c} {a t r }} = {a}

The unary intersection of { } = the set universe (the collection of all set). I can explain someday. It is like the empty conjunction is always true (someone who say nothing can't be refuted).

Just as a singularity, which has borders to end, measures, characteristics etc.? 

Nothingness as empty set should be infinite

Then it has infinitely many elements, and is hardly empty. The empty set is like a box of cigarettes, when all the cigarettes have been smoked.

and include the entire Everything. 

Through the unary intersection, this intuition is made precise.

I consider the term NOTHINGNESS just as unfathonable, as infinite, or 'ever'. 

I agree, because it is a theory dependent notion. If you change the theory of sets (and there are many) you change the notion of nothingness and everythingness. The important thing to agree on is the notion of thing, or of what we agree to assume the existence, so that we can talk about something.

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Bruno Marchal]

Hi Mindey,

let me put it in this way.

You seem to agree that PI exists, and I see PI indeed as an existing
machine computing PI decimals, or measuring the era of a circle (with
radius 1).

So you are realist about arithmetic and even a bit more.

Then, you can already proves the existence of the UTM in elementary
arithmetic. The Turing machine is a mathematical notion, and with
Church thesis, the universal Turing machine is only one form of a
universal machine. Amazingly perhaps, elementary arithmetic is another
one. More amazingly some diophantine polynomials, even of degree four,
are Turing universal.

So elementary arithmetic is full of universal machines, ...

We have to assume at least one universal machine, or system, if only
has a base to talk about all the other. I use elementary arithmetic,
because it is taught in high school, but to avoid idolatry of numbers,
I use also the combinators.

There are also mazing mathematical chracterization, like the creative
set (of natural numbers) by Emil Post.

So it is easy to justify the existence of the universal numbers
(entities described by number; as I choose arithmetic as the universal
base).


The real problem is this one. if we are only universal machine, as the
computationalist hypothesis suggests, then we cannot know which
universal machine run us, but we can know that below our substitution
level, we must find the result of some statistical sum on all
computations, done by all universal numbers.

The physical reality cannot select the computation without betraying
the computationalist assumption, and so the physical reality has to
result from the invariant in the sum on all computations.

Now this is very difficult to define, but we can define at a more
abstract level the "probability one" on our consistent computational
continuations, and study its logic, which should be, and seems to be,
a quantum logic.

Like the mystic says: the truth (including physics and physical
worlds) is in your head.
I generalize: the truth is "in the head" of all universal number, and
you need just to listen to them to compare with what you see, think,
believe, etc.
Although they would probably put it in that way, the interview has
begun with Gödel in 1931, and culminated with Solovay with the
axiomatization two infinite interviews, what the machine can justify,
and what is true but that the machine cannot justify (the modal logic
G and G*).

Few people seems to know that some universal machine can "know" (in a
weak technical sense) that they are universal, and those machine can
prove their own incompleteness theorem, and understand the origin of
the contradictory intuition (the many intensional variant of G* minus
G) that they have about ourselves: they can discover the mind-body
problem, and solve it in some ways.

Good books are referred in my papers and biography of my thesis, or in
this list, or ask. Good authors are Boolos, Smullyan, Smorynski.
Boolos and Jeffrey made a good book on the main technic "Computability
and Logic".
Smullyan wrote a recreative introduction to self-reference and the
modal logic G. Mendelson is one of the best introduction to
mathematical logic.

Yes, that is the bad news perhaps, the subjects of UTM, and UMs and
other UNs belongs to mathematics (mathematical logic, theoretical
computer science). In fact it belongs to arithmetic and meta-
arithmetic, which plunges itself in a large part in arithmetic. From
inside, it is vastly bigger than arithmetic.

The Church-Turing hypothesis rehabilitates Pythagorus and Plato, but
changes the Platonia in the deep, it adds the Mandelbrot set, chaos,
indeterminacy, uncertainties. Living things live on the border of the
computable and the non computable in arithmetic.
There is someting which put *uncomputably* many more mess in Platonia
than an UTM: a couple of UTMs.
The universal machine is a bit the enfant terrible of mathematics.
(and not all mathematicians likes it).

Then the debate between God/not-God hides the real debate: is physical
reality real or is physical reality the border of something else?

With comp I argue we have not so much choice, if we want stay
rationalist: the evidence are that the physical percolates (somehow)
on the arithmetical). That is already testable, and somehow tested.

With computationalism, we are in the Matrix, or in the simulacron-III,
but we are actually in infinities of matrices. That is a problem.
Universal machines gives already a big hint to the solution. It is
more close to Plato-Plotinus-Pythagorus than Aristotle.
Reality is not WYSIWYG (assuming computationalism).

So: everything from nothing physical? Yes. We need only natural
numbers or combinators at the start. But in that frame it is still an
open question if our physical history (which are coherent glued
machines' dreams) starts from some physical nothingness, like quantum
vacuum. That remains possible, and it is open if that would be
geographical or really physical: does our histories have a finite or
infinite past? I don't know. Comp might suggest infinite pasts, but I
might misinterpret what the machine says, or extrapolate too naively
from the structure of the universal dovetailing.

Bruno

On 28 Mar 2015, at 10:22, Mindey I. wrote:

[John Mikes]

Bruno,

not in my views!

Why would you deem an empty box "NOTHINGNESS"?

("when all the cigarettes have been smoked")

If we "talk" about nothingness, we render it a "somethingness". 

Your 'set' INCLUDES - CONTAINS nothing, not the set itself

turns into it.. Once you can say ANYTHING about the "SET" 

it is not nothing.

I need to go further to identify what I cannot identify.

JM

[LizR]

There is a "recording" of your life experience and mine in pi, and also in e and no doubt lots of other transfinite numbers. What breathes fire into the recordings? A UTM - which has to be instantiated in some sense (not necessairly physical). Somehow this works by takeing one set of numbers relative to another, however the margin of my brain isn't large enough to quite undersand how that works.

[Chris de Morsella]

 

 

From: everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John Mikes

 

Bruno,

not in my views!

Why would you deem an empty box "NOTHINGNESS"?

("when all the cigarettes have been smoked")

 

If we "talk" about nothingness, we render it a "somethingness". 

Your 'set' INCLUDES - CONTAINS nothing, not the set itself

turns into it.. Once you can say ANYTHING about the "SET" 

it is not nothing.

 

I need to go further to identify what I cannot identify.

 

I agree on this.

The set itself is something; even if it is a meta something. Nothing is undefinable; the container of nothing is itself a container and therefore nor nothing; a perspective on nothing (in order to have a point of view) is itself not nothing; perceiving nothing is an act, which requires an actor… something doing the action.

Nothing does not exist, and nothing can be said about non-existence without giving it some form of existence… even the barest essential requirement of a point of view – the “dreamer” doing the “dreaming” entangles the story with all of emergence – a multiverse bowl of spaghetti code perhaps (A Cobol multiverse).

Nothing, of course is a very convenient place holder that is commonly used to denote an empty set, but trying to define it is self-defeating; it is undefinable.

Chris

 

JM

[LizR]

Sure it isn't the empty box that is nothing, it's the contents of the box?

I don't see that talking about nothingness renders it into something. I could talk about pink unicorns, for example, without....hang on what's the neighing sound outside my window? Excuse me a moment.

[Roger]

Mindey,

    Hi.   I basically agree with you especially about the ball/sphere part and have posted similar ideas here and elsewhere in the past.  The whole something/nothing/empty-set thing has been discussed here extensively for probably at least 15 years and was last discussed about 3-4 months ago. I won't repeat the whole thing, but my view is that:

1. A thing exists if it's a grouping defining what is contained within.

2. If we consider what we've always called the "absolute lack-of-all" or "nothingness" (no energy/matter, space/volume, time, laws of math/physics, and no minds to consider this "lack-of-all"), that situation would be the entirety of all there is; that's it; there's nothing else; it would be the all.

3. Entirety, all, etc. are groupings defining what is contained within.  Therefore, what we've always considered to be the "absolute lack-of-all" isn't really the lack of all existent entities because it itself is an existent entity.   In terms of "empty sets", this "lack-of-all" could be thought of as both the contents of an empty set if looked at from the traditional "nothingness" point of view and the brackets around "nothingness" (e.g., the set containing "nothingness") if looked at from the grouping defining what is contained within point of view.  They're both the same "lack-of-all", just thought about in two different ways.

4. As an existent entity, and in fact the most fundamental of existent entities, it must have at least 3 dimensions.  I can't picture any actually existing entity having one of it's dimensions be zero.  If so, it would be gone; it would be not there.

4. This existent entity contains no information specifying specific shapes, corners.  Therefore, it would be the same diameter in all directions; that is, it would be a sphere.

    Most people on this list seem to disagree with my rationale because, if I remember correctly, they think that abstract arithmetical propositions exist and are the basis of the universe.  I don't personally agree, but everyone here is mostly very nice and everyone's got their own methods of working on the problem.  For me, I'm trying to use the above reasoning about "non-existence" and "spheres" to build a primitive model of the universe to try and eventually make testable predictions.  It's a long way off, needless to say.  In this area of thought, evidence always speaks louder than ideas.  If you're interested, I've got more on the "nothingness" and "spheres" stuff at my websites at:

https://sites.google.com/site/whydoesanythingexist/
(4 page summary, but no spheres stuff)

https://sites.google.com/site/ralphthewebsite/filecabinet/why-is-there-something-rather-than-nothing
(more detail, philosophical background and stuff on spheres in section called "Use of the proposed solution to build a model of the universe".

    Anyways, I think you're on the right track.  Thanks!

                                                       Roger

[John Clark]

On Sun, Mar 29, 2015  LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

 > it isn't the empty box that is nothing, it's the contents of the box

The contents of the box is a vacuum and that is far from nothing, it's seething with virtual particles.   

 

> I don't see that talking about nothingness renders it into something.

The only way to describe nothing is to say what it is not, so although nothing is not something the 2 are inextricably linked. And the best short answer that modern physics can give as to why there is something rather than nothing is that nothing is unstable.  

 

> I could talk about pink unicorns, for example

Therefore the idea of pink unicorns exists, but pink unicorns probably don't. The idea of Real Numbers certainly exists but it's not known if Real Numbers exist. 

  John K Clark 

 

without....hang on what's the neighing sound outside my window? Excuse me a moment.

--

[John Clark]

On Sun, Mar 29, 2015  LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

> There is a "recording" of your life experience and mine in pi, and also in e .

Yes.

 

> What breathes fire into the recordings?

I have 2 ideas about that but it's pure speculation and I'm probably talking Bullshit:

1) There is certainly a relationship between the diameter and the circumference of a circle but maybe it's not a real number, maybe the Real Numbers don't exist and only the idea of them does. In fact some say that space itself is quantized, if that's true could you even say that circles exist?  Some things written in the English language do not exist so If mathematics is a language then perhaps the Real Numbers are a mathematical Harry Potter Novel.  

2) Perhaps in this context "fire" means a lack of noise. Assuming that the Real Numbers exist there is a sequence of digits in pi that contains my life experience, but there are a large number of other sequences that do not, a very very very large number of them. Perhaps there is a way to give a value, including a negative value, to all the sequences in pi depending on how close they were to John Clark's life experience. Then if you could find a way to sum up all those values, maybe in a way analogous to Feynman's sum over histories method, you'd get a value close to zero and so conclude that pi has very little to do with me. But if you did the same thing with my brain you'd get a value very close to 1.  

  John K Clark

 

A UTM - which has to be instantiated in some sense (not necessairly physical). Somehow this works by takeing one set of numbers relative to another, however the margin of my brain isn't large enough to quite undersand how that works.