Paul Davies - What is the Origin of the Laws of Nature?
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- čas přidán 4. 05. 2021
- From the fusion of stars to the evolution of life, the world works because the laws of nature or physics make things happen. Our universe as a whole may have come into existence through the laws of quantum physics. But from where did the laws of quantum physics come? Have they always existed?
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Paul Davies is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist and astrobiologist.
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Closer to Truth presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.
This channel is a treasure trove.
Paul Davies is great. I have devoured his books over the years. He feels a little bit like a "feeling" physicist rather than a "hard" physicist. God bless him.
Love how this show has been ongoing now for about a decade and it continues to improve
The Closer to Truth series is like a big candystore to me. Thanks for making and sharing this interesting interviews with all of us.
awesome episode. Paul Davies is a really great science communicator.
We’re all on just an endless journey trying to get Closer to Truth, but never actually getting there.
Extremely interesting and high-level discussion in this video.
Brilliant mind , wonderful to listen and learn.
Paul Davies his book
The goldilocks enigma
is brilliant
i'm pleased about the origin of the focusing in this video
To my humble knowledge there is only one and one force that is holding all the laws in balance. The way it holds is something unbelievable for us because it holds without any burden to itself which means it is that easy and not an issue for him.
lol. "Him"? That's some nice anthropomorphizing mythologizing you're doing there to explain things you don't understand. Don't feel bad. It's a lazy cognitive mistake humans have been making for a very long time.
@@publiusovidius7386 Yes, Him.
@@publiusovidius7386 To feel no love in your heart or mind is to expose yourself - to feel love and simultaneously deny its source is also to expose yourself.
Okay, now my mind is blown. This is amazing.
It never ceases to amaze me the hoops an apologist must go thru. There is a difference between reality and the laws that describe that reality. The laws are a product of our minds and as such they do not exist in reality.
Thank you for posting every day 🌷🌷🇲🇦
In 1990s, I wrote a term paper for a grad-level cosmology class I was taking. In my paper, I proposed that constants pertaining to electromagnetism could have been slightly different billions of years ago, which would have explained peculiarities in the observations of quasars. Two months later, a professor, who taught the class, showed me a new issue of the Nature mag, where same hypothesis was proposed by someone else n an article. They took the credit. Conclusion: in science, one might hurry to publicly announce new ideas before someone else claims them.
Shoulda seen what I sent to Guth 15 years ago.
@@DJWESG1 You probably did not get any reply. Professors and researchers usually do not have time to review work from outsiders. One might think that's inconsiderate. But researchers have their own work to do and have limited time resources. For example, a person inspiring to start a groundbreaking new business, would not expect a CEO from a large corporation to read the person's letters and give opinions on the person's business ideas. Same might be said about prominent researchers in science.
People with formal education can get feedback on their research in various ways: by attending conferences and making presentations/communicating with other scientists between sessions; writing papers and sending it to peer-reviewed relevant journals, etc.
@@ik1408 of course I didn't get a reply. Some random person on the internet emailing you out of the blue with a crack pot theory condensed into a poorly drawn diagram and a few quotes here and there.
If he did read it, I hope he had a good laugh, because it was pretty mental.
@@DJWESG1 Well, my proposal was well researched, formulated and, as it turned out, other researchers thought of a similar hypothesis. The only difference was that I was a grad student, and the others were "senior" scientists.
@@ik1408 I wasn't even in education at the time, I just felt compelled to ask as his name kept popping up in the stuff I was reading. You know when you have that burning question that you just need answering.
Since then astrophysics has made lots of new discoveries and is tending toward what I wanted to ask all those years ago, so overtime it sort of answered itself.
sem vam ze pred leti govorila in povedala vse kar sem vedela..nekatere stvari..oziroma ogromno stvari je nadnaravno
it's kind of like that.
we are centered on a single planet in a single solar system but we can postulate that parts of atoms "squeeze" in the presence of Tesla- strong fields. is it true? are we applying the rules or are we following the rules? are there "standard" forms and then we keep refining (extending the terms) until we see a pattern that can be reduced to a more general style and we keep doing this again for the new 1?
Waves and interactions emerged together and we describe persistent patterns we can detect as laws.
This series balances out some of my other CZcams interests
Do us a favor when you get a chance I would like very much if you would listen to Alan Watts he was an absolutely amazing philosopher was way ahead of his time and if you do some research on him and listen to his lectures I promise he will answer some of life's most deepest questions and in a most profound way using science and common sense.
czcams.com/video/r3VC2pBn3Dw/video.html
Ha. Yes, me too. I get recommended CTT videos, right alongside vdieos of Russian men fighting bears while drunk, or people from Florida trying to outrun the police on garden mowers.
Women's Pole Vault ? ?
Alan Watts ??! Watts was one of the earliest examples of the whole
phoney Eastern philosophy scam.
He plagiarized the teachings of Buddhist and Hindu scholars and rehashed it to gullible Western rubes ..! ( like you ! )
Paul Davies has P4P strongest eye contact
Could the cosmological constant have an effect to determine other physical constants of nature? Cosmological constant brings out the physical constants of nature from the laws of nature?
Constants seemed easier to understand as something more like simply units conversion. Inches or centimeters. The precieved numbers are stable or constant as the name suggests but for sure they can shift as time marches on. Obvious one is the scales big and small. Expanding universe. In small scale the next plank over has subtle differences that average out at scale.
I’m very struck by his suggestion that the speed of light appears to have minutely slowed over billions of years and that what we think of as physical absolutes may not be so. To me it suggests a few possibilities: 1. There is a creator who makes “tweaks” over time in order for the universe to run better, like a computer program or 2. The universe has its own ability to evolve and change not just via expansion but for its own unknown purposes as if it were itself a conscious or intelligent entity. Sagan said “we are bathed in mystery” and felt we would never fully figure out the exact nature of the universe. I tend to agree. If for no other reason than at the end of each day solipsism is about all one
prove by invoking Descartes’ “I think therefore I am” even if you can’t define what it is that you truly are.
🎯🎯⚡🇨🇦🇺🇸🌐
@@rickrobitaille8809 😁👍✌️🙌✨
Awesome
I bet Einstein would love that. He would simply state that his theory of relativity, is based on a reference mollusc, where the physical laws and constants don't change.
Because the fundamental properties of the universe is infinite, we have a constant. From that constant we create a laws on physics.
He imagine any changes to be like rounding errors during computing :) That's cute but what is the computer that is running on?
Paul has not aged . He looks and sounds the same in this interview as he does in the video
I made, with his kind permission. when he lectured at Kane Hall a couple of decades ago.. I bought his book About Time which he autographed and that meant so much to me. I would like to know what he thinks of the Constructor Theory. "When more information is available. a thing that was impossible becomes possible. " Well! For heavens sake! Is the theory a joke or is it being seriously considered?
I enjoyed About Time a lot. I disagree with him on religion but he writes extremely well about physics. I think it was in About Time that I came across the most intuitive explanation for special relativity's time dilation, which was a diagram of light bouncing between two moving mirrors, once from the perspective of someone moving along with the mirrors, and once from someone watching the mirrors pass by.
The whole 'flatcar running past a train station' analogy always overcomplicated things for me, whereas the mirror explanation made a lot more sense. Not that I could say I intuitively understand it to this day though - it's just not something we're evolved to intuitively understand.
The universe is like an intelligent entity with awareness. The problem is how to define nature? Nature makes the laws but we can't really comprehend it!
wonder what type of time frame reference before the planck length was breached for the formation of a wave was able to be sustainable with in the planck field, musta been a lot of information for the yang mills to exist
one constant became obsolete as another came into use
How do the constants of nature relate to the laws of nature? (Kuhn's question to Davies @ 3:33s, ) My answer is that they are re-created over and over again in this moment of 'time'. However, not significantly evolving or devolving from the past or into the future that was put into possibility by Davies.....
Considering we are assuming 'mathematics' and the 'constants and laws of nature' are "true and absolute" to make these suggestions of fundamental significance in the first place, I find this possibility a little underweighted compared to the weight of life that can consciously sense all of these relationships because of the stability and our dependability of the constants and laws of nature, over and in this moment of "time". where the current prediction IS from the extrapolation of the mathematics , constants and laws of nature has been back to the origin of space-time and matter, at the breaking of symmetry from its predecessor, supersymmetry, currently termed the Big Bang. Great discussion!!
what experiment was done to discover gravity??
his books are very good reading like "About Time"---John Gribbin has wonderful books too and i think they have collaborated---obviously Brian Greene has some good books--he mentions colleague, Barrow who has a good one "the infinite book"---Stenger is another very good science author for the science minded reader
thanks for the names i am interested to read Paul Davies's books after I watch this and other interview from him.
@@muhammadhazwanbinhussin1409 "the edge of infinity" also by Davies
The masses of the generations of the elementary particles shows that it requires a supersymmetry to make a balance between masses. And if there is an invisible moment after each moment of our moments then maybe we will not be able to detect those supersymmetric particles easily. And if the dark matter is not in our moment, then we can't easily observe dark matter too. And if there are elementary particles inside the Black Holes then it can be the supersymmetric group of all the elementary particles. And I think both elementary particles and black holes made a dependent origination too. - Suresh
Is there a way to find simpler foundation to mathematics that might indicate a simpler foundation for physical reality / science laws?
In a word, no.
This is an outstandingly complex universe we find ourselves in.
Good question!
I do not believe we will ever know.
No. At the start of the 20th century David Hilbert had hoped this could be done, he offered up the problem of discovering a system of proof for all mathematical truths such that some mathematical truth was true if and only if it could be proved under that system. Many mathematicians then converged on the discovery that this is impossible, most notably Kurt Godel and Alan Turing.
It turns out mathematical languages, like the algebra of the integers, is true under a set of axioms, and we can prove truths about that algebra under a set of axioms - but we can't prove that those axioms themselves are true without a different set of unproven axioms.
@@PicturesJester thank you very much
what about direction, is this fully understood as we have learned that time is not completely linear in that it bends thru space.. but there doesn't seem to be any theory or physical evidence that the direction of time or expansion of space is occurring in unknown directions as opposed to past, present and future. Or out and in..In other words physics only understands the dimension that is there.. will quantum computers capable of multitudes of abstract possibilities open us up to a newer enlightenment? Or are we stuck like Chuck??
we are stuck like Chuck; and hopelessly, alas!
Big bang
Yes?
And what law created BB?
The laws of nature are only partly addressed by the laws of physics, physics often deals with the very small while the universe is very big. Focusing on 'top down' and holistic considerations embracing the whole lot at once will also be a fruitful avenue of research and contemplation. Further to this; consciousness is also a fact of the universe and maybe pervasive throughout; I'd suggest this is central to a proper understanding of existence.
🙏❤
We are closer to the Truth
So not only nature changes with time, but the laws of nature themselves may evolve through time, and be shaped by time, especially in the early high energy fractions of a second of the universe?
Yes
Not really: it's more that certain forces, like electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force, turn out to be what happens when a simpler law operates at lower energy levels. At _higher_ energy levels, eg. the very, very high energy levels at the big bang, those two laws unify and become the electro-weak force.
So it's not something that just always happens over time: it's more that energy levels were higher in the past, which means the electro-weak force was unified, bgut as energy levels in the universe dropped the electro-weak force broke apart and transitioned into electromagnetism and the weak force.
It's down to energy levels, not specifically time, although obviously you need time for the energy levels to change.
The reason Davies mentions it is because it's hypothesised that not just those two forces but ALL the four fundamental forces(gravity/electromagnetism/strong nuclear force/weak nuclear force) might unify under certain conditions into one single 'super-law'. That's what he was referring to in the interview.
@@thesprawl2361 So follow this logic the laws of nature just before the moment of the heat death of the universe (low energy level, flat spacetime without curves) also might be different from what they are today? maybe returning to what they were in the first moment?
All things are surrounded by, and aspects of, the 'origin'.. But the nature creates and persists eternally..
spaceandmotion
The laws of nature are descriptive of nature itself. Nature itself is the origin of these laws. The only alternative would be that the laws are "stored" somewhere outside of the universe, an idea which raises two immediate difficulties:
We have no possible means of investigating whether this might be true. It's not a falsifiable idea, therefore not a valid scientific hypothesis.
Supposing there was a place outside of the universe where such laws are stored, what is to be done about storing the laws which in turn necessarily define that place? We would have explained one mystery by proposing a greater mystery.
I am not sure if i am right , If there is a nothing , something should arise to balance it. If nothing is state then there should be point something should arise else nothing becomes a defined state which brings GOD to the scene. If you see our universe there is always something to balance out each and everything.
Diety are not nothing theyre characters of fiction a figment creation of human imagination because of this subjective flaw religion will always be false to nature because Nature has always been objective no literature is required the knowledge is always there for any conscious enough to observe and present their understanding independent to any language barrior.
Nothing is truly hard to achieve.
If the universe has No beginning, then there would be No changes or transition to occur.
Nothing can come to life from inanimate inorganic matter. Nothing can die because everything is just in a transition. If one is alive, then everything is also alive. If one is conscious, then everything must also be conscious (albeit in different levels).
…
Then nothing can exist to create something. Ergo nothing can exist... Thank me later.
Loop made out of paper have no begining or end.
But you can take a pen and draw something on one part, You can take scissors and make a hole in another.
This way You have something without end or start point but still with changes.
Another example of such interconnection of laws is between gravity and electrostatic force...they even have the same formula (F=gm1m2/r^2, F=kq1q2/r^2). But somehow they do not understand that gravity is an electric generated force (and only link it to mass, as an inherent property of mass). But it is, just watch how an electrostatic field generates something very similar if not identical to gravitational attraction on a crt screen for example, which attracts dust to it. Or how a static charged baloon can attract water and create a tide when you move it over a filled sink...just like the moon does with the sea. But its not the moons weight alone which attracts the sea, its its electrostatic charge generated by its internal friction of masses...just like the earths gravity is generated by its internal friction of masses.
The earth is not one solid block of mass, its a collection of many spinning masses (such as magma and tectonic plates) which create a huge amount of friction and electrostatic charge, which is what we perceive as "gravity".
But if the moon/earth would stand still and not spin at all, it would have no gravity at all. And there would be no attraction whatsoever between them, or any other objects. If the earth would stand still, we would float above it because its spinning core would not create friction and static charge anymore. So Newtons law is not complete on its own and in fact its dead wrong on its own because 2 masses alone do not attract just because they have...mass (this is easily provable by putting a cannonball and a tiny 1 mm ball near each other; they do NOT attract, unless there is a static or magnetic charge on one). One of them has to have a static charge or to have magnetic charge in order to be attractive to the other. So Newtons law must be combined with Coulumbs law and Farraday Electro magnetic law in order to get an universal gravitation law which works everywhere in the universe.
The first matter
But before we get to that, let’s take a look at how “material” - physical matter - first came about. If we are aiming to explain the origins of stable matter made of atoms or molecules, there was certainly none of that around at the Big Bang - nor for hundreds of thousands of years afterwards. We do in fact have a pretty detailed understanding of how the first atoms formed out of simpler particles once conditions cooled down enough for complex matter to be stable, and how these atoms were later fused into heavier elements inside stars. But that understanding doesn’t address the question of whether something came from nothing.
So let’s think further back. The first long-lived matter particles of any kind were protons and neutrons, which together make up the atomic nucleus. These came into existence around one ten-thousandth of a second after the Big Bang. Before that point, there was really no material in any familiar sense of the word. But physics lets us keep on tracing the timeline backwards - to physical processes which predate any stable matter.
This takes us to the so-called “grand unified epoch.” By now, we are well into the realm of speculative physics, as we can’t produce enough energy in our experiments to probe the sort of processes that were going on at the time. But a plausible hypothesis is that the physical world was made up of a soup of short-lived elementary particles - including quarks, the building blocks of protons and neutrons. There was both matter and “antimatter” in roughly equal quantities: each type of matter particle, such as the quark, has an antimatter “mirror image” companion, which is near identical to itself, differing only in one aspect. However, matter and antimatter annihilate in a flash of energy when they meet, meaning these particles were constantly created and destroyed.
But how did these particles come to exist in the first place? Quantum field theory tells us that even a vacuum, supposedly corresponding to empty spacetime, is full of physical activity in the form of energy fluctuations. These fluctuations can give rise to particles popping out, only to be disappear shortly after. This may sound like a mathematical quirk rather than real physics, but such particles have been spotted in countless experiments.
The spacetime vacuum state is seething with particles constantly being created and destroyed, apparently “out of nothing”. But perhaps all this really tells us is that the quantum vacuum is (despite its name) a something rather than a nothing. The philosopher David Albert has memorably criticized accounts of the Big Bang which promise to get something from nothing in this way.
Suppose we ask: where did spacetime itself arise from? Then we can go on turning the clock yet further back, into the truly ancient “Planck epoch” - a period so early in the universe’s history that our best theories of physics break down. This era occurred only one ten-millionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. At this point, space and time themselves became subject to quantum fluctuations. Physicists ordinarily work separately with quantum mechanics, which rules the microworld of particles, and with general relativity, which applies on large, cosmic scales. But to truly understand the Planck epoch, we need a complete theory of quantum gravity, merging the two.
We still don’t have a perfect theory of quantum gravity, but there are attempts - like string theory and loop quantum gravity. In these attempts, ordinary space and time are typically seen as emergent, like the waves on the surface of a deep ocean. What we experience as space and time are the product of quantum processes operating at a deeper, microscopic level - processes that don’t make much sense to us as creatures rooted in the macroscopic world.
In the Planck epoch, our ordinary understanding of space and time breaks down, so we can’t any longer rely on our ordinary understanding of cause and effect either. Despite this, all candidate theories of quantum gravity describe something physical that was going on in the Planck epoch - some quantum precursor of ordinary space and time. But where did that come from?
Even if causality no longer applies in any ordinary fashion, it might still be possible to explain one component of the Planck-epoch universe in terms of another. Unfortunately, by now even our best physics fails completely to provide answers. Until we make further progress towards a “theory of everything”, we won’t be able to give any definitive answer. The most we can say with confidence at this stage is that physics has so far found no confirmed instances of something arising from nothing.
It's very interesting, but a little bit mixed up. Metaphysics explained it different...there, details, yeah are important, but if we are energy based we can alterated the states...simple
@Andreaz-64 cool enjoy it
If there's a big bang, can there be a big banger?
It takes two to bang
Big bang amalgamation..forces..symbiosis..our universal gift😃🇨🇦
this discussion confirms the physics of matter according to whitehead, where matter and the laws of nature come from the creative advance of the universe into novelty from nano-moment to nano-moment.
I like Paul Davies. I don't agree with him on religion, but he writes well on physics. About Time is an extremely enjoyable book.
A single equation must include a constantly growing and evolving system, A Single Universe,
Proving Theoretically Mathematically Physically and Spiritually, Without the use of machines other than to verify
the results of experiments, A Single Equation,
“What are the laws of Nature?”
“Well, the laws of Nature are the laws of Nature. There are some big laws and some small laws. Maybe some of the bigger laws are made up of these smaller laws. And maybe there is a Super Law that underlies all laws.”
it goes back to the basic unanswerable question as to why there are any laws at all. contemporary materialists believe it is laughable that there are moral or conscious laws, yet we all approach life every day, with the assumption based on a few hundred or so years of empirical evidence that these material laws exist. we have no idea what these processes or laws or patterns actually are, if they exist, or why they exist. hume figured this out a few centuries ago. the ancient skeptics realized it a few thousand years ago. obviously physical laws practically work for material engineering, but we really have no idea what any of this is, or if it really describes what is going on.
💯
It is the consistent pressure of the dark matter of space that creates our universal constants. That is why the systems we measure 1,000s of light years away follow the same math as here. Dark matter is made of extremely pressurized electron neutrinos. It is time for these questions to finally have law abiding explanations.
what is mean density of such dark matter? 10 particles per cube meter? for example barion matter have density 0.25 protons per cubic meter. Can we really say it's extremely pressurized?
So if even the "fundamental" laws seem to be changing over time, could we say that the "superlaw" is actually entropy?
No. There is theoretical possibility of universe without entropy.
Paul should take Plato' "Forms" and Carl Jung's ideas on the Collective Unconscious and Archetypes a little more seriously. Like so many mathematical theorists these days he sounds, to my way if thinking, unconvincing, He should read "Flatland" again.
I am not convinced that one can explain the nature of laws of nature in terms of the 'cosmic computer' running a program, since running programs requires there already be laws in place. In other words, one cannot say that laws depend on running programs because running programs already depends on laws. Davies just seems to be putting the cart hopelessly before the horse and not noticing.
It's an analogy meant to aid a layperson's understanding; it's not intended to be _exactly_ equivalent to running a program on a computer. And what laws does a computer program require in order to run? If you mean the laws of physics then you have not understood how analogies work.
@@thesprawl2361 Hello 'The Sprawl',
Being a theologian I am well attuned to analogies and the forms they can take, but I am at something of a loss to understand what Davies' analogy (if he really intends his remark to be one - and despite your doubtless well-meant protestations, I am not convinced) is supposed to be an analogy of. (What is the reality of which the 'computer program' is supposed to be the analogy?) If the universe is in some way merely _like_ a computer program, without literally being one, then in what way exactly is it like one? Computer programs can certainly _model_ reality (or, at any rate, certain aspects of reality) but that doesn't seem to be what he means. I do not accuse Davies of thinking that the universe is a computer program of the sort that has been deliberately devised. Still, he does sound as though he meant that the universe could be literally described in _terms_ of computer programming.
And, yes, I _do_ mean the 'laws of physics' but also the laws of mathematics and logic. But, your closing remark leaves me at a further loss to understand what that has to do with any failing on my part regarding how analogies work.
Perhaps you could enlighten me. After all, I like to think that I am not quite as thick as two short planks. But who knows? Having publicly confessed to my theological bent, you may take me to be mired so deeply in delusion that I must be beyond all hope, right from the off. (You wouldn't be the first.) But my invitation is intended decently.
@@theophilus749 I didn't imply stupidity on your part, I just asked a question or two and explained that the analogy is inexact.
The analogy is drawn for a variety of very good reasons:
- it turns out that the universe is, literally, digital; exactly like the information running on a computer.
- it also turns out that the universe can be described purely in terms of information. There is a close link between information laws and the 2nd law of thermodynamics for example, and in principle the universe could be have a specific 'file size'.
- in modern quantum gravity theories the universe's 3D 'interior' is described by the information encoded on the 2D surface of its event horizon. The same with black holes and their interiors.
Etc.
So, as a shorthand, many physicists talk of the universe in terms of a computer. There are many, many more reasons, and much better ones than the ones I gave(I highly recommend reading anything by David Deutsch - he's only written two popular science books and they're both fabulous).
Of course, it makes it easier to talk about laws as programs running on a computer, because laypeople understand the concept from their everyday interactions with computers. And in a sense it's the turn-of-the-millennium equivalent of back when physicists used to describe the universe as one large 'machine', sometimes analogised as a steam engine, sometimes a clock, etc.
But the analogy in this case is far more significant and deep, to the extent that certain physicists would say there is no boundary between what a quantum computer can do, and what reality does. To them, the universe is literally a computer, although a more abstract kind, a modern version of the kind of universal machine that Turing described back in the early-mid C20.
Davies used the analogy very loosely, but the connection can be made very explicitly and tightly, eg. Russell Standish, and like I said David Deutsch.
BTW Paul Davies is religious, so I suspect he'd be sympathetic to your religious beliefs.
@@thesprawl2361 Hello - and thank you for your gracious reply. I think I may have fell a little short on that front. And yes, I know that Davies is religious (in some sense) though I doubt he would go along with the more standard creedal Christian notions of God that I affirm. But leaving that aside, I come to the meat and potatoes.
Bluntly, I am just as suspicious about the universe being described in informational terms as I am about it being described in computational ones. It seem to repeat the same sort of ambiguities and confusions, especially if one wants to start saying that at the informational level the talk is somehow more literal, and that this being the case, the analogy of computation (perhaps 'metaphor' would be better) is in some useful way cashed out.
Firstly, the term 'information' in this context is deeply problematic, and in any case seems more than a tad just adding analogy to analogy. As I understand it a unit of information in this context is just another way of describing a physical difference - a specifiable state of a physical system - as fine grained as one can go. But if this is the case, we simply get back to a physical universe running in accordance with physical laws. (Whatever exactly a 'law' is. The word began life in a theological and civil context and got borrowed by the early modern thinkers, rather problematically, in the context of early-modern science).
I don't really think that physics shows us that the universe is 'literally digital', at all, even given the bit-ness of QM. It's literally physical and only analogously digital (because it can be described in suitable mathematical terms). In general - and this is the point I would really want to stress - one should avoid being caught in the conceptual trap of conflating what the universe really _is_ and the mathematics with which it can be described. Given that we do not fall for that confusion, then secondly, talking about the universe in informational terms is just as much to employ analogy as is talking about it in computational terms. It is analogy built on analogy - and this brings in the worry about its also being ambiguity built upon ambiguity.
Moreover, it is difficult to see why physics should even stand in need of such tricky-dicky talk. The universe is not an abstraction. It's a particular thing with various properties (at least largely physical). It runs along (largely at any rate) regular lines of behaviour (somewhat problematically called 'laws'). It seems little short of futile to attempt to clarify things in ways that just, in the end, extend the analogies.
@@theophilus749 "I don't really think that physics shows us that the universe is 'literally digital', at all, even given the bit-ness of QM. It's literally physical and only analogously digital"
It's not an analogy to describe it as digital. It's the literal reality. I think there's a slight confusion about the word 'analogy' here. It's not an analogy to describe the universe mathematically. It is in fact the only way to describe it with any kind of precision. If you think of mathematics as an analogy then you'd have to think of all human language as an analogy. Which it sort of is('all language is dead metaphors'), but only in a trivial way, and not in the sense of the word 'analogy' we normally use..
And the word 'digital' has nothing necessarily to do with bits or computers. It simply means there are no infinitely divisible physical properties in the universe: everything, and that means literally everything, including instances of time, amounts of energy, etc., eventually becomes irreducible. The smallest possible instant is the planck time, the smallest space is the planck space, etc. That is what digital means. No analogy.
" The universe is not an abstraction. It's a particular thing with various properties (at least largely physical)."
This is where science departs from the way ordinary people use concepts. What precisely do you mean by 'physical'? Because in literal terms nothing physical is touching when you touch a wall. It's just that the forces between the particles in your hand and the wall repel one another. And look closer at those particles - what does 'physical' mean at this point? They are dimensionless. They have no colour or shape. They pass through your hand individually without interacting. They are more aptly described as mathematical objects than anything physical: probability waves. And not in an analogous sense either. They are arranged in waves, and those waves interact with other waves, even though those waves seem to do nothing but determine where the particle will end up.
I could go on further about how nonsensical some of our most cherished concepts end up once we look at them more closely. 'Physical' matter is just one of the concepts that falls apart on close inspection.
And you can choose to ignore the reality of all this, but it's so much more _interesting_ than religion. It's mind-bending, mind-boggling.
And the alternative is a kind of vaporous superhero with all his powers turned to infinity - a god who demands an explanation of his/her/its own and thus simply complicates the chain of explanation. A god whose behaviour is unfalsifiably opaque, a god who explains nothing and seems to become less visible and credible the more we learn about the universe.
Laws & Constants emerge from the Universe. In a changing Universe laws & universal constant can't remain constant.
Hmm, okay, but this doesn't even attempt to deal with the question itself. They talk about the derivation of the electromagnetic and the nuclear weak force from the electroweak force...but that's just talking about how laws operate at different energy levels. At very high energy levels those two 'fundamental' forces are unified. That's not the same as talking about the actual origin of those laws.
Maybe I just prefer enlightened hypotheses and speculation instead of circling the issue in order to be more rigorous and precise. We don't know the answer, so why not have some wild guesses guys? Personally I'm thinking of traveling back in time to before the big bang and jumpstarting everything. That way the universe will be a closed loop and I'll basically be a slightly boring god.
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Opinion: To know, from where the laws of nature have come, we will have to make an assumption that what we call infinite space, has also been created along with the time and matter. Our universe’s complete enclosure of space, time and matter swings between duality of something and nothing changing non-stop. Only ingredients of singularity are single, timeless and eternal however may change the form. This is the duality followed by symmetry (equal and opposite compensatory counterparts such that sum total at any moment is always nothing) is the originator of space-time-matter out of nothing. Everything in the beginning originate in pair. Equal and opposite features that evolve out of duality and symmetry in their multiple combinations and recombination’s give rise to a definite pattern of mode of action under similar conditions are the ‘laws of nature’. The universe has some order in functioning because it is governed by certain laws, is therefore continuous and connected. The universe is not random and chaos but follow order and predictable because there are no options, choices or probabilities so follow resultant course and evolve automatically. (Probability is a tool of understanding of human mind to manage mind-brain-body connection). The creation of universe by paired features transforming in to the laws of nature ride imperishable singularity (like a carrier wave), creates universe of non-permanent dimensional reality. A new philosophy for creation of universe starting from blackhole, singularity and onwards will explain more unexplained phenomena.
That's a lot of assumptions to give one simple answer: we made them up. The laws of nature are simply human language to describe reality. You are welcome.
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It seems like there should a logical argument that makes "nothingness" or a "lack of distinctions" impossible -- some sort of logical line of reasoning that shows that there is a contradiction within the idea of nothingness, such that even if it were possible for there to genuinely be nothing, this contradiction would immediately necessitate the existence of some sort of distinction (i.e., the existence of something).
Even a Void has to be something, but before it becomes nothing perhaps that is the beginning of a new or different dimension.
Yes. My argument has always been that saying 'there had to be either something or nothing' is logically equivalent to saying 'there is no alternative to 'something''.
'Nothing' is not an alternative to something, it is the _absence_ of an alternative. Therefore 'something' had to exist.
The knots people tie themselves in trying to answer the 'why is there something rather than nothing?' question have always baffled me. It seemed obvious to me that the question was incoherent.
Our physics our parochial in our favor ⚡
Asking infinity where it began.
So true!
Infinity is not necessarily conceived of in a lifetime.
Humans learn by observation. We discover knowledge. Laws are a shorthand explanation of our observations.
Yes Paul - as we go back in time to the big bang, the laws do become combined and simplified. The first and all inclusive law is "and God said let there be...:
That's a bold assumption
@@fr3d42 As are all scientific theories. How about "multiverses"?
@@lourak613 Some theories are so well established, I assume that you accept general relativity as beeing a fact.
I think the multiverse as a model is interesting, could be real, could be wrong.
@@fr3d42 Indeed - the theory of God's creation has been "well accepted" by the overwhelming majority of people and scientists in the world from time immemorial.
@@lourak613 That wasn't the example I gave. That theory isn't scientific, and isn't accepted by the majority of expert on the subject.
This is a surprise? Everything changes…given enough spacetime 😉
Interesting.
Davies does not answer what the cause of physical laws and constants being as they are, are.
Neither whether and how physical laws, if they do vary, vary. According to another time-invariant law?
Controversial U.K. biochemist Rupert Sheldrake often presents data of the not-so-constant "laws" of nature he's collected over the years. See "Science Set Free", published 2012.
Constants don’t change. Hence the term Constant. LOL. Interpretation of them and assigned numerical values are limited to our current capability.
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What if the magnetude of gravity is determined by a quality of space-time, that is its ratio of flexibility to rigidness?
What if the magnetude of Gravity was higher, during The Universe's infancy, that it is today?
What if the quality of space-time's ratio has changed so that today it is more flexible & less rigid?
-& this more flexible & less rigid quality of current space-time, emerges Lambda, The Cosmological Constant?
What is expansions in The Universe are really just an emergent phenomenon of space-time's quality tending toward being more flexible & less rigid as Entropy increases & as The Universe ages?.
I guess we need VERY accurate & sensible equipment that can measure gravity waves from an early pair of 2 merging Blackholes; billions of years ago.
& then a civilization many years from now would need to measure gravity waves from a pair of blackholes merging, as I type this.
Lastly, compare the measurements. If they don't match, find the difference & note the order of magnetude where the 2 measurements do not agree.
& maybe that can offer a case in support of the magnetude of Gravity changing throughout The Universe's sustenence.
*EDIT*
I wrote the comment, before listening to Davies speak.
I kinda paralleled what he said.
& What I have stated, was just my own thoughts.
Lol
"The map is not the territory." - Alfred Korzybsky, 1931, Polish-American mathematician & linguist. The model of reality is not the same thing as reality as such. Numbers and language are not properties of non-human existence. These tools have been invented by us to help us understand reality.
I suggest you research where the humans got their languages and number systems.
No one can answer this question.
The same origin of the laws in ones heart due to DNA.
Laws require a law maker. Law is a code of of rules. Such comes from a conscious mind, not nature. The laws of nature are encoded into created reality, especially into the heart of physical nature which lies in extra dimensions at the core.
Time🤔what chaos ⚡🇨🇦🇺🇸🌐
The laws of nature, the regularities or order of nature, the unarbitrariness of nature.
The answer is to find out the truth of the beginning of everything
Toked up and this episode seemed to last for hours and hours.
Maybe it actually did last for hours and hours because you kept having to go back and re-watch every sentence that came out of their mouths.
School? who needs school when you have youtube to learn that the earth is a pizza? god loves pizza
I believe if i fill myself with helium i will float cause im heavier air
Einstein's front lawnmower..I can do that job😃🇨🇦
I think they are eternal.
This concept of God is not of a separate superior being, existing in some other realm, overlooking human affairs and loving or judging us according to our deeds. God is in each and every one of us, the most intimate and undeniable aspect of ourselves. God is the light of consciousness that shines in every mind.
I Am the Truth
Identifying God with the light of consciousness brings new meaning and significance to many traditional descriptions of God.
Whatever is taking place in my mind, whatever I may be thinking, believing, feeling or sensing, the one thing I cannot doubt is consciousness. Consciousness is my only absolute, unquestionable truth. If the faculty of consciousness is God, then God is the truth.
The same applies to other people. The only thing I do not doubt about you is that you are conscious and have your own interior world of experience. I can doubt your physical form-indeed, modern physics tells me there is nothing really there, no material thing, that is. All that I perceive of you is a projection in my mind. I can doubt what you say. I can doubt your thoughts and feelings. But I do not doubt that "in there" is another conscious being like myself.
Like God, consciousness is omnipresent. Whatever our experience, consciousness is always there. It is eternal, everlasting.
When I say "I am," I do not mean a separate entity with a body as its nucleus. I mean the totality of being, the ocean of consciousness, the entire universe of all that is and knows.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
God is omniscient, all-knowing. So too, consciousness is the essence and source of all our knowing. It lies behind all understanding.
God is the creator. Everything in our world, everything we see, hear, taste, smell, and touch; every thought, feeling, fantasy, intimation, hope, and fear; it is all a form that consciousness has taken on. Everything has been created in consciousness from consciousness. I, the light of consciousness, am the creator.
I am the God of my universe. And you are the God of yours.
God is Almighty. What greater power is there than the power of consciousness to appear as the myriad of forms we experience, everything in the world we see, hear, taste. touch and smell.
This pure Mind, the source of everything,
Shines forever and on all with the brilliance of its own perfection.
But the people of the world do not awake to it,
Regarding only that which sees, hears, feels and knows as mind,
Blinded by their own sight, hearing, feeling and knowing,
They do not perceive the spectral brilliance of the source of all substance.
Huang Po
Book😃⚡🇨🇦
There was a "universal law" that said that the Earth was at the center of the universe. Maybe things are different out there.
The 2nd Doctor returns to explain the laws of the Universe.......
Wholly😃🇨🇦
That's our mistake..we are geocentric in our hardwired genome 👽😃🇨🇦
Not much established here. Love Paul Davies, though.
ONE LAW in the Nature Of One Nature ALL IN ALL on the SMAT or Space Matter and Time circle of cycles called the Sun...It gives and takes like the pulsating STAR TETRAHEDRON...
Circular reasoning is dizzying
Game on buddy! - A christian :)
On the off chance that an all powerful eternally existent "God" doesn't exist, it's an all powerful eternally existent "Nature" that does. And a particularly brutal one at that.
The laws originate from the phenomena.
The fact that we have 2 different ways of describing Gravity for example, show that science is merely a language and not unique. Newton and Einstein. They are both correct in the same way that English and French are valid ways of describing reality. If science is merely a language then there has to be a blueprint of reality living in a higher plain.
"The fact that we have 2 different ways of describing Gravity"
We don't. Einstein's way of describing gravity is not the same. It predicts things that Newton's law doesn't, and Newton's laws are useless when describing enormously massive objects like black holes. It also predicts that time slows down, relatively speaking, the closer we approach the bottom of a gravity well. It's almost completely different from Newton's laws of gravity.
Science is not 'merely a language'.
@@thesprawl2361 You raise very good points and are right to some extent. However Newton's laws can be used to calculate space flight trajectories and therefore cannot be entirely wrong. Observational evidence is very important. Both Einstein and Newton have been confirmed in this way and therefore neither can be dismissed as wrong. Therefore unless it can be demonstrated that Newton's laws are a subset of Einstein's applied in a special limited situation, then my statement would be right.
@@julianmann6172 "Therefore unless it can be demonstrated that Newton's laws are a subset of Einstein's applied in a special limited situation, then my statement would be right."
But that's exactly what they are. You have literally used the language physicists use to describe the situation. They are a 'subset'(not quite the right word but it'll do) of general relativity(and special relativity) that work extremely accurately in most conditions, but not all. GR works in an even larger variety of situations...but again not quite all. So we go on looking for ever more not-quite-perfect descriptions of the way the universe works.
The chase for ever more accuracy may turn out to be described asymptotically, but it works.
@@thesprawl2361 Good points you raise again. However under the Newtonian system of gravity, the speed of gravity is instant across the universe. According to Einstein the speed is a finite C. So although Einstein was right in this regard, the concept of Entanglement would very much have conformed with Newton's world view and it was well known that Einstein was very unhappy with Entanglement and proposed ways around it that were proved wrong. Thus I would contend that both world views have equal validity and hence the hitherto fruitless search for Quantum Gravity.
@@julianmann6172 They don't have equal validity. It's a simple fact that general relativity is an objectively more 'valid' description of reality. If one of the two theories is capable of doing everything the other one can do, and more, then by definition they are not equally valid.
And that's just speaking instrumentally. If we're talking about how well they explain what is actually happening then Einstein's theory is way ahead. Newton had no explanation for what gravity actually _is._ GR explains it in precise terms; it's the deformation of the geometry of spacetime due to the presence of mass-energy. Newtonian mechanics is simply silent on this issue. It doesn't know what gravity is, it just talks about what it does.
That doesn't render it invalid, not even close. NASA use Newtonian mechanics and they're working with incredibly precise parameters.
Nevertheless the two theories are not equally valid.