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Constructor Theory: A New Explanation of Fundamental Physics - Chiara Marletto and Marcus du Sautoy
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- čas přidán 15. 09. 2021
- Constructor theory holds promise for revolutionising the way fundamental physics is formulated and for providing essential tools to face existing technological challenges.
Chiara's book "The Science of Can and Can't" is available now: geni.us/ChiaraMarletto
Watch the Q&A: • Q&A: Constructor Theor...
Physicist Chiara Marletto proposes a new way of thinking about laws of nature. Thinking about which laws are possible or impossible may generate an alternative way of providing explanations, and therefore new scientific theories.
In this talk, Chiara is in-conversation with Marcus du Sautoy to explain this fascinating, far-reaching approach (known as Constructor Theory) which holds promise for revolutionising the way fundamental physics is formulated and for providing essential tools to face existing technological challenges, from delivering the next generation of information-processing devices beyond the universal quantum computer to designing AIs.
Chiara Marletto is a Research Fellow working at the Physics Department, University of Oxford. Within Wolfson, she is an active member of the Quantum Cluster and of the New Frontiers Quantum Hub.
Her research is in theoretical physics, with special emphasis on Quantum Theory of Computation, Information Theory, Thermodynamics, Condensed-Matter Physics and Quantum Biology. Some of her recent research has harnessed a recently proposed generalisation of the quantum theory of information - Constructor Theory - to address issues at the foundations of the theory of control and causation in physics. These include applications to defining general principles encompassing classical, quantum and post-quantum theories of information; and to assessing the compatibility of essential features of living systems, such as the ability to self-reproduce and evolve, with fundamental laws of Physics, in particular with Quantum Physics. They also include the definition of a new class of witnesses of non-classicality in systems that need not obey quantum theory, such as gravity; and a scale-independent definition of irreversibility, work and heat, based on constructor-theoretic ideas.
Marcus du Sautoy is the Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the Oxford University, a chair he holds jointly at the Department of Continuing Education and the Mathematical Institute. He is also a Professor of Mathematics and a Fellow of New College. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2016. In 2006 he gave the CHRISTMAS LECTURES, entitled THE NUM8ER MY5TERIES.
This talk was filmed on 27 May 2021.
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Really interesting. I'd suggest using the CZcams 'chapters' feature to make the structure of the discussion more explicit and navigable. There were some great nuggets in there. I like the conversational style as an alternative to PowerPoint driven lectures. Hope to hear more on this subject.
She has it in her book...
pls upvote this
As best I understand it, Constructor theory isn't so much a physical "theory" in the same sense as relativity or QM is, rather its more a methodology of doing physics, a heuristic, that is hoped to uncover new physics. Its a *very interesting* methodology, and as a philosophy grad, I'm rather fascinated by it, because they appear to be using that trusty old philosophy trick of taking hard to answer questions and flipping them on their head and sayiing "Ok, approaching this question head on is proving rather difficult. So lets look at *wrong* answers (counterfactuals), and start using them to carve out a smaller search space for the right answer.This ties in with information theory, and my understanding is the theory provides a way to bridge information theory, which is reasonably well understood, your computers are based on it, into physics via those counterfactuals. It seems to be that they've taken that philosophy (and math!) observation that processes essentially are a transformation between an input to an output space, they are essentially a function (For instance addition transforms an input space of two numbers into an output space of one number). So if we apply this to physics, physical processes transform input states to output states, and its that observation that this appears to be living.
All of this!
Thanks, saved me the time of listening to it for 40 mins
Totally agree. It is a framework for thinking and analysis. Wipes out a lot of useful mathematical physics. So is a narrower window. Which can be useful sometimes if one is incapable of expansive thought.
This reminds me of the change in thought process needed for test-driven development (TDD). The tests are the counter-factuals and define what the code should do but the implementation is subject only to the constraints of the system as long as it passes the tests.
I agree, I found a lot of this analogous to software development. Particularly useful for quantum computing.
@queerdo And TDD-like physics-theories added on top of the formal-verification (which is formulated as constructor theory) could allow us to find stranger an more useful byproduct of science. Similar in form to metamaterials, but on a much larger scale. It could even lead to the discovery of clarketech or something significantly similar to it, even if not exactly it. Isaac Arthur (on youtube) has a great video explaining clarketech and it's ramifications, and almost-clarketech and it's ramifications.
I used to write tests in TDD-style software team, once thought that tests reflect thought flow, from what-you-want-to-do, breaking down into tasks, then from tasks further down into steps, then another level of what-to-dos, then how ( steps ) ....... until to the level of code ( implemented by Java or Python ). It suddenly dawned on me that this is very similar to Constructor Theory.
An interesting idea, but what have they discovered from this theory? Any new predictions? I hear her giving new names to old concepts but not much else…
After listening a while, and not finding the new theory, I think the title might better read: 'Philosophical Objections to Physics Theories'
Yes, nothing new there.
An empty taxi pulled up outside the Royal Institution and Deutsch's Constructor Theory got out.
Funnily enough, "experts" said the same thing about Einstein's work in the early part of the 20th century. Physics as it stands is good at description and deterministic prediction, but the constant and ongoing arguments around quantum theory show that it breaks down when determinism is not able to be assumed.
Constructor Theoryis an approach to emergence, where complexity exponentiates rapidly, which requires new approaches to analyse.
@@SafeTrucking Einstein did critically important work in both Relativity and Quantum Theory from 1905: which work are you referring to? The "experts" saw the importance of what he was doing straight away. It was work that made new predictions which were experimentally confirmed and explained previously mysterious effects. The polar opposite of constructor theory I'd say. The experts are looking at this and asking where's the beef? And getting no clear answer!
@@timemechanic5055 Einstein's work was greeted with immense skepticism and it continues to yield results, despite being flawed in some ways. Similarly with QFT and other approaches to quantum phenomena. Einstein himself was famously skeptical of QM: "God doesn't play dice with the universe".
The same can be said of many other advances in science. Deutsch and Marletto have taken on a huge task of inventing a completely new way to approach physics, from new first principles. The fact that it is still in its infancy doesn't invalidate it. Nor does your lack of understanding of what they're trying to achieve. Science doesn't work that way.
I wish we had more examples and demonstrations to follow along with
Go to the constructor theory website
Read her book.
Very grateful for the RI channel. Most content is incredible and I have bought many books of the speakers. But I don’t like this format as it’s not structured and I found the interviewer to be distracting. This is meant as constructive feedback.
Thank you for your feedback and the lovely way in which you delivered it. We always read the comments and as much as we like hearing compliments, we also really appreciate comments like yours that we can learn from.
@@TheRoyalInstitution I’d like to add that I enjoy this structure, but I think you should communicate what kind of type it is. A talk or presentation includes slides, examples etc. This is a discussion and this should maybe be reflected in the title of the video.
One benefit of Covid-19 is the explosion of talks, presentations, panels, guided tours, discussions uploaded for the public. A descriptive title and thumbnail is important to help us greatful consumers of this kind of quality content.
Right now I’m listening to this while cooking. =)
@@unknownuser069 please refrain from dragging in "societal issues" when it's unwarranted. RI provide a platform for speakers to present their work and ideas on their own merit, which makes it so meaningful.
@@unknownuser069 People like you are toxic. You just misrepresented my response as to deliver an uncalled for, pseudo moralistic view on something that has no relevance here. You should be ashamed of yourself. I feel sad that people like you often change the tone and subject to suite themselves instead of celebrating the contribution others are making. I will not respond to you again.
@@TheRoyalInstitution Maybe someone over there can actually review the content of this video as well? It honestly sounds like a load of nonsense dressed up in sciencey-sounding words to sell books and speaking tours to people who assume if they don't understand it, it must be smart. I expect better from the institution that hosted Faraday.
tldr: correct me if i'm wrong, but she's saying that we have lifeboats because we know that boats sink when enough water was the right velocity and direction to enter it and pool, so it doesn't matter if your particular boat doesn't match the exact parameters of the data because that knowledge tells you something about reality (it will probably sink). and also that it tells you how you could *possibly* fix this problem (remove water or use a second boat with no water in it)
if i'm understanding correctly, the main focus of constructor theory is to consider things as existing abstractly as information (ideas, thought, something that allows you to infer something about reality) rather than mathematically (numbers, data, precise measurements and calculations), which allows us to find universality in a lot of phenomena that have been observed and documented separately.
so for the lifeboat example, the reason why it's on the ship is because we have considered the possibility of the boat sinking without needing to mathematically derive the *exact* way that i will sink (information). if water is entering my boat, i don't need to take precise measurements of the leak to know if this boat will sink or not. i can infer the limit to the amount of water based on a number of past observations of other boats and then ,crucially, i can actually interrogate what larger fundamental truth causes these impossibilities rather than viewing the limit as the farthest edges of understanding.
the important part is the idea that we can make predictions based on these abstract possibilities (knowledge). so just as we made lifeboats to solve situations where it's impossible for our ship to stay afloat, they're saying constructor theory can help spur new discoveries in the face of the limitations of physics.
but we've been using this method for a long time, haven't we?
i think philosophy calls it structuralism : design had aesthetic theory : music is doing it with some kind of contemporary music theory.
i'm sure every discipline has its own term for the same methodology. i don't think that that makes the need any less valid though. right?
Newton conceived of gravity not because he was measuring an apple's velocity and direction and noticed that the data would eventually lead it toward the Earth, but because the limits of physics mean that you can just observe that most apples fall towards the Earth. defining levitation as impossible means defining a new force (gravity) which must be working on all the apples *as part of a larger system of energetic motion*. if you only measure the apple, it will simply be moving in a direct line through space; you have to assume something about the material quality of reality to understand it (gravity) as a force instead of a data trend.
if i'm not understanding it correctly, can someone point me in the right direction (as a layman and not a physicist). i've watched a couple of explanations and read online but there's no one i know who can make sure that i'm understanding these concepts correctly.
edit: added tldr
I am somewhat unsympathetic to those who elect to comment when only halfway through the video. On the whole, I have learned that the videos in this channel are rewarding, and I am prepared to trust them. In this case, the format was clear from the very outset. I would agree that the hosts provides kind of direction that does not leave directly into what Ciara is working on. May be more of a miss direction in that sense. But in the end, that is down to his enthusiasm for the subject, for reasons that become clearer and clearer; what is being discussed brings elements of information theory into physics in a new way, which I’m sure it would be exciting for any mathematician. By the end of the talk, the previously somewhat mystifying reference to lifeboats (at least for me) became clear, and I found myself intrigued by the idea and by the tone of open inquiry that is not always the case when people are lecturing on past work. It had the feeling of something that might or might not lead, as with many things ideas in physics, to earth shattering revelations or a fundamental new direction, but one that is full of potential, and interesting.
I think the most important reasoning tool I have gained is to remember to think about what it is you don't see. There is plenty of observable phenomenon and plenty of instances of things that happen and that come up in the "evidential record" but there is as much to learn by thinking "I see this but what is it we don't see and what does that tell us".
Having a vivid imagination to be able to coungour up all kinds of counterfactuals, real metta ones or ones that are hard to think up is this important.
I read the book back in August and loved the idea of trying to challenge the traditional techniques for discovering physics. I really hope this leads to more discoveries with emergent properties of the universe. I work with biology and would love to hear more about how this could be applied or is being applied in biology.
It's useless. It will not help you cure cancer or slow down aging. If you get grant funding please use it for public good science, not fanciful speculative ideas that are based on tautologies.
All mathematics is based on tautology,★ which is of course often very useful, since most tautologies are not obvious, and CT is only a narrower window, wiping out a lot of useful mathematical physics from the toolkit.
★All of mathematics is (1) define some objects and their relations, (2) show a statement about them is a tautology. The thing is it is very hard to find new interesting statements, Euclid to Gauss et al did all the easy ones. Physics it not based on tautologies, iot is based on experiment. You can never know what mathematical physics you should be using until some experimentalist guides you. There is no experiment that has anything to say about Constructor Theory. It ain't physics, it's more linguistics.
I like the idea of constructor theory. Seems like a worthwhile project. I can see how it could generate insights useful to engineers, designers, .....anyone creating artificial systems.
But as others have said, it isn't really "a new explanation of fundamental physics". Instead, it suggests that physics tries to answer a different type of question. It asks, 'what is possible/impossible?' rather than 'why are things the way they are?'
Very interesting ...and her explanation of how qbits work gave me some sudden insight in regular software coding ( im a noob ) ..i love good simple analogies
17 minutes in and I'm still wondering wtf this new theory is.
I won't hang in that long, thanks for sparing me.
@@johngough2958 What does your theory look like?
@@johngough2958 Calling a respected quantum physicists theory a parasite. Generally, only people with skin in the game make bold statements like that. I would believe you if you were Scott Aaronson
@@johngough2958 except that this is not about something simple as clothes, but actually scientific theory and philosophy. Which takes expertise for judgement
@@johngough2958 I don't need any, I am defending the expert
Folks, it can be useful even if it doesn't solve new problems. I'm thinking of Heaviside's reformulation of Maxwell's equations using the vector notation. Didn't solve a new problem-not right away anyway-but made electromagnetism far easier to understand and appreciate. Likewise, if these new approaches-Category Theory, Constructor Theory, Geometric Algebra, Geometric Unity, Hypergraph, ...-can simplify our understanding of our universe, like Heaviside did to Maxwell, that in itself will be a big win. I think we should give them all a fair chance to prove themselves.
A useful tool is not correctly called a "theory" in science. It's just a useful tool.
@32:00 it is true that GR does not have HUP and Dirac's principle of superposition built-in from the original models which only consider trivial pseudo-Riemannian manifolds, but the broad statement Chiara made is not true. GR also admits other spacetimes with closed timelike curves, on the Planck scale. These are spacetimes containing Einstein--Rosen bridges. If they exist at about the Planck scale then they are equivalent to entanglement structure (the ER=EPR conjecture, which has a lot of strong evidence, the main problem being we have no Planck scale microscopes to see them). The scale at which they are stable sets Planck's constant relative to G and c, because with ER bridges the non-commutativity of symmetry generators have consequences for measurements in GR, because now the measurements depend on boundary conditions (measurement preparation, instrument orientation, etc), so infinite precision measurements are no longer possible, hence you've got QM. You've got QM out of plain old GR, spacetime, plus non-trivial topology. GR + CTC ⇒ QM, not the other way around.
If this is true, then you do not need to "quantize gravity" because GR is already a quantum theory, and so does in fact contain the HUP and Dirac's principle of superposition. You just have to permit non-trivial topology. Lamestream physicists don't want to even look at this, like frickin' ostriches, because they're scared of closed timelike curves. But if they are confined to the Planck scale, and only the lightest elementary particles can traverse the ER bridges, then there are no fatal consequences for macroscopic relativity, we still get macroscopic light cone causality, just not strict causality at the Planck scale. But that's a feature, not a bug, it means GR +CTCs is _already quantum._ No need then to quantize the macroscopic field, it naturally scale separates, without any ad hoc "collapse" or decoherence postulate.
As a squirrel would say. A lot of noise but no nuts
Telling word Nuts! I would hazard a guess it is the Feminine nature of this theory that causes you to twitch your tail and chitter over acorns hidden and never found.
@@charleediaven6278 Uhhhhhh what?
@@eosapienrancher4045 You didn't notice that Chiara is a good looking broad? That's counter factual!!
I like this type of presentation. The discussion achieves a middle ground between introductory simplification and detailed scientific paper. For those with a better understanding of the idea, nuance is achieved, and for those who don't understand, please pause the video and go read a paper or watch a detailed video on it, then come back for that nuance. People are complaining about this freedom???
I see a lot of valid criticism of this in the comments. I'll play devil's advocate to maybe drive discussion..
If constructor theory assumes as a first principle that some transformations as impossible, then surely that does make predicitions? Shouldn't constructor theory be able to predict its own laws of physics and eventually predict forces and particles and larger systems?
Assuming certain things impossible to me sounds exactly like the sort of "symmetry breaking" that could give rise to a wealth of complex predictions
Wolfram Physics > Constructor Theory
Exactly.
I though the whole point was to answer questions about the reality without using "laws"
@@01FNG The simplest way to make a universe also makes all possible universes. This is what he means by the rulialliad - applying all possible rules at every step. Fairly coherent model and stunningly simple so will probably end up being right. Either way it's going to allow for some really cool exploration.
@@glitchp Where is that really cool exploration? This has been around for years - what has it made possible which was not possible before? Just one valid example would be enough to convince me this is not twaddle. I haven't heard that example from anyone yet.
Tried. couldn't hang with it. Not enough education/training on the subject.
That selfawarness and humility is already more than many others could claim to have and i wish more people would have.
Yea, this video did not really go into it. There are other videos.
@@nasunorahl Try the Q&A session transmitted afterwards, much more clear and interesting
@@Robinson8491 Thanks
So why didn't we just let her give a lecture?
Chiara asked to for an 'in conversation' format, and so we invited Marcus as he was very interested in the topic.
So what does having "what it takes to deliver a lecture" have to do with anything? You probably would have found that Paul Dirac or Kurt Gödel would not be good at delivering lectures.
Any prediction from that 'framework' which could be falsified?
All of it
@@X22GJP namely?
What is this theory trying to explain? I don't get what paradox/dilemma/problem her theory wanted to explain, and what steps she use to explain them, and what other real-world paradox/dilemma/problem that we can trial her theory with in a thought experiment? (what use is her description "the probability of all things that can happen but didn't, in an information system" as a Physic? IPCC climate modelling also did same thing; there's all possible outcome in IPCC simulation, but when does a simulation outcome is considered a physic?)
Study what can't happen is the new theory.
Instead of just what does happen.
To study the limitations of our universe helps us find the fulcrum, like a blackhole.
Simple.
😘
The only thing more exciting than potentially new physics is a new TRI upload on youtube!
Why is it called Constructor Theory when it doesn't produce anything new? Maybe the advertising standards agency needs to get on to them?
Don't we already know that AI can be creative. Didn't AlphaGo make 'unknown of before' creative plays to defeat Grand Master Lee Sedol. The famous “move 37” happened in the second game of the 5-game match, and was described by commentators, once they got over their initial shock, with words like “beautiful” and “creative.” It left Sedol utterly flumoxed, to the point where he had to spend 15 minutes contemplating his own next move. On 19 November 2019, Lee announced his retirement from professional play, stating that he could never be the top overall player of Go due to the increasing dominance of AI, referring to AI as being "an entity that cannot be defeated".
i've spent 50 years studying different scientific areas of interest and have been able to get an understanding of them over time. constructor theory has been going for years now and still no one can define it, explain what it actually is, or give concrete provable examples.
it's classic emporor's new clothes, and it's embarrassing for the RI to treat it like it's a true theory. it's like chiara's vanity project that got out of control and no one wants to admit it's vague bollox without any systematic foundation or disprovable axioms.
1) Its not her theory, its David Deutch's theory,
2) and you can literally look up his paper to know exactly what it is. Here, go nuts;- arXiv:1210.7439
@@shayneoneill1506 at last, someone smart who understands it. Can you explain it with an example for us?
@@julyanjohns1237 Chiara gave an example of it's application in this video.
Example: There are two counterfactual properties that determine whether a system can be classified as an information medium.
1) It is capable of being in more than one state.
2) It's states are interoperable with other information mediums.
If your system is not capable of being in more than one state, it can't be regarded as an information medium. An example would be a hard drive that can be read from, but not written on to or wiped clean.
If the information in your system is not interoperable with another system, then it can't be regarded as an information medium. There are no real world examples of this, but it does have some interesting consequences.
Regarding counterfactual two, one interesting consequence is that if there does exist a system that is capable of being in more than one discrete state, but those states are not readable by any other system, then universal computers would be impossible.
Another interesting quirk of counterfactual two is it implies that the reason life is possible is because the laws of physics allow for the existence of interoperability. What those laws of physics are is anyones guess.
@@HitomiAyumuquantum mechanics information storage...
I think this book just shot to the top of my reading list!
I forgot to also mention that information can never be destroyed. This means that there could be a ‘ given amount’ or finite amount of information in the universe that neither decreases or increases.
I thought the no-cloning theorem states it is *not* possible to copy quantum information such as a qbit. I may misunderstand though...
25 minutes in. I don’t think I have yet heard a concise statement of what the theory, insight, or position being proposed actually *is*
try the Q&A session transmitted afterwards, it was much more informative and interesting
I'm looking too.
it’s really not hard to just summarize the point first. then support it after. basic communication structure
They want to recast physics from "initial state + probabilistic change caused by laws" to a situation where you will only make statements about what physical changes are possible or impossible.
This is the 5th video I've watched on Constructor Theory & as a leyman I still have no idea what it is lol.
Seems like a hard concept for non-Physcists & Mathematicians to get.
You'll notice they use a fair bit of unusual language that is designed to confuse so you need to keep re asking for explanation confirming The Informers position at the top of the pyramid
@@justadam1917 ur's is a comment worth saving and printing in the front page of every science textbook.
anyways, the way i understood the CT is foll:
- think that u are designing a new game. So, for that u take a starting theme, then u decide rules one by one - like this thing can be done, this thing cant be done. Doing this thing will reward 2 points, doing that will deduct 1 point and so on, and so forth.
- CT seems to be similar thing, but instead of designing a game, u are designing the framework for science/physics. and instead of deciding rules by urself, u r doing it - constrained by nature.
@@yash1152 Thanks for breaking it down.
@@enoeht5519 glad it helped :) many things are easy to grasp, just if well communicated :)
This reminds me a bit of Stephen Wolfram trying to convince the world he has discovered something really profound.
He hasn't discovered anything profound, he's stated the same thing as Deutsch: the top down investigation is stalled, so ''Let's try the bottom up'. I think for those of us in economics and artificial intelligence this is easier to understand because we think in terms of running tests, by creating simulations.
I saw Wolfram explaining his ideas and thought that, if true, they were truely revolutionary. That was some time ago and I've heard nothing further so I assume that they have gained no traction with physics generally and were wholly unconvincing to people who understand the concepts a lot better than I.
@@avsystem3142 Take his New Kind of Science book, which was his first attempt at trying to convince the world he has discovered something substantial. It’s a summary of his studies around complex behavior produced by simple systems. Which, actually, is nothing new or surprising. And he doesn’t go to any conclusions in his book. It’s just a showcase of vanity. He wants to be admired as a genius, that’s at least how it appears to me.
@@TheNaturalLawInstitute nothing wrong with that, but you have to show some results, or at least conclusions. Just talking hot air is not enough.
@@avsystem3142 He's inventing what he would call a new mathematics so to speak. And some of the results are promising. But it won't happen overnight. I follow it pretty closely. And if I were going to try it, I'd do it similarly, and so would the other person in the field I know of who understands the problem. We'll see. But the approach isn't wrong or unscientific.
What about books? Do they contain information? If I remember well, Shannon’s Theory of Information is about messages; messages contain (transmit) information, not systems.
messages need interpreters: hence a system
A message requires both a transmitter and a receiver, which have to be able to understand each other. Maturana's work on autopoiesis is informative.
Thank you very much!
Haven't watched to the end yet... but I wonder what the implications of this line of research will be to the many worlds formulation of QM? As I understand it most physicists who reject it do so on the grounds of either "it's not a simple theory" (debateable) or "it doesn't matter because we cant send information across the branches of the wave function". If the mindset and language of counterfactuals turns out to be important to the formulation of new physical theories, then this may well improve support for Everett's interpretation... at least among those physicists who hold the "it doesn't matter" position. Thoughts?
The manyworld theory is just the most obvious stupidity reflecting a lack of philosophical education in modern fhysicist, and their public. It is related to this subject because it directly arises throigh a gross misinterpretation of counter-factuals or the related 'alternativity". But you dont need any 'contrcutor-theory" to understand that yes, options must in some way exist, and that reality cannot be adequately desccriped as one long chain of factual states: but NO, they are not both real simulatanouely in the way that manifest reality is. (Heisenberg, for instance, tried to reestablished the old concept of 'potentiality", and this had been quite sufficient.)
This seems very similar to ideas in "Incomplete Nature" Terence Deacon's absolutely brilliant book on origin of life.
The book was fantastic! Hope much progress is made. Is there anywhere to study this subject?
The theory has been explained in previous constructor theory videos, this is the concept behind the thought process that derives from it, it is as much a method from an advance theoretical background to encapsulate a way to reveal more of true reality besides what we would typically invasion from our past observations & subsequent theorys which don’t match. It’s a theory to create more useful theory’s which is revealed deductively.
Could you please provide a link to these videos?
Wow. Chiara is one very smart person. Insightful. Look forward to this work continuing.
Actually what science does is trying to find a repetitive behavior in nature. But maybe that nature is completely chaotic and we just happen to live in the tiny corner where things got organized by chance.
So finding new laws won't help you escape that problem, the main question is actually "why is there something and why it's like that ?". But I guess that starting with "let's see if there is a repetitive pattern in there" is the only thing we can do for now.
Thanks the Ri.
Very interesting approach. Need to think.
Just to say, Ernst Mach did say physics is "Table, Chair. Beer.")
It is w/o doubts a fascinating approach. My wondering is how you apply it. Its generality is such I would expect, given a domain of activity, say biology, you have a way to start making conjectures. Say you have an intuition something is possible in biology, then I understand a constructor for it must exist, the question is how do you find it?
A very refreshing and inspiring talk and a call to get out of paradigmatic and emulated thinking. Thats how science should be and thats what it needs alot more of.
Thanks for that Ri.
Very clear exposition, think I will be buying the book
If its so clear explain it because she stated nothing I have seen so far.
@@seditt5146 It reminds me of mathematics, which Marcus Sautoy also remarks. There you have roughly two ways of proving things: building constructive proofs, or using reductio ad absurdum. In physics this would equate to building theories on actual observations, and the latter 'reductio ad absurdum' way is what Chiara is proposing: using the fact that things are impossible, to prove certain things are true or the way they are/should be.
Hey is she not the one who was onxe shown on the quanta magazine .
The premise is there is a problem with the way we do physics, but this talk didn’t make it clear what this problem is, why it needs to be solved, nor how to solve it. There is no motivation here. I’m happy to accept I might not understand the solution, but I didn’t even understand what needs to be solved. I don’t understand the paradigm shift being proposed here.
I have read some original papers about constructor theory because of this nice talk. Do not the attributes and task concepts sound a lot like the basic elements of category theory?
I hear ya, but the set of possibilities has to be infinite and thus intractable, right?
On the impossible and the second law of Thermodynamics , size matters, The second law may apply to the macro world but maybe not to the Quantum world just a thought🤔
Chiara Marletto's work is philosophically loaded and can be hard to understand for those who aren't familiar with the work of people like Karl Popper, David Deutsch and John von Neumann. I see many criticisms in the comments, so I just want to urge you to consider this fact before dismissing her work completely.
She seems to treat philosophical constructs as if they were factual descriptors, which they are not. She's welcome to whatever she wants to do - but she sounds more like a preacher than a scientist sometimes.
The natural first assumption for any physics student to explain how or why a particle like a photon (or electron, etc) might behave as an uncertain location particle while also like a polarizable axial or helical wave ''packet'', given that everything in the universe from electrons to solar systems are in orbit with something else pulling them into polarizable axial or helical apparent waves depending on the orientation of their orbits as they travel thru space, and given that we know we’re in a sea of undetectable dark matter but don’t know where it’s disbursed, is that they’re in orbit with an undetectable dark matter particle pulling them into polarizable axial or helical apparent waves as they travel where the speed of their orbit determines the wavelength and the diameter is the amplitude which would explain the double slit, uncertainty, etc. No?
Intuitively so.
Supposed to be talking to a general audience… I lasted 18 mins and I haven’t the foggiest
Is this similar to what Godel set out to do and could it lead to a contradiction similar to the Incompleteness Theorem?
Infinity and fractals are perpetual motion mechanics at work so is that a paradox? Or proof nothing is infinite but circular with the ending being the beginning and both exist in a singularity.
(5:14 video starts) please do highlight reels this is just so long I'm just curious of the concept I don't need to teach a class on it.
This is a lot like object oriented programming.
I was watching this on a tiny screen overlay and before Chiara started speaking, I did a double-take. I thought for a moment Marc Bolan was back! Anyway, great and informative content from the RI, as usual. Thanks Chiara and the RI Team.
It seems to me that a Theory which has as it’s Starting Point the idea that there are things which are forbidden because of the Laws of Physics is going to have a difficult time coming up with anything truly new. Things that we cannot currently explain are the driver for new discovery. It is possible that this Constructor Theory might be able to look at things from unexpected angles and that might be useful. How does one apply the Scientific Method to Constructor Theory?
How does one comment without needing to say how does one?
@@X22GJP you didnt address any of the points raised in the comment
I came to the comments to type this...or something like this
Constructor theory is a great way to VERIFY. As you say, discovery requires some speculation
Does anyone have a timestamp for what the theory actually is?
If there is, it's in the future. Not here yet.
I think you need the cannabis to get on the vibe here and all will become clear.
Is a Replication Von Nuemann Machine perpetual motion of information?
Is there a "counterfactual" :o) more fundamental than (Am I alive or am I dead?){I'm thinking therefore I am.}?
What an appaulingly obscure and incomphrensible explanation. I hope this theory is much better than it's presentation !
You should read her book. It's much easier to understand there.
If there was a system of counterfactual elements defining how to leverage information it would end being a universal constructor. At its most basic level this is a protocol. It would define the physical behaviors required to express data as an observable. Such a description might be possible if special and general relativity were combined with thermodynamics into a single unified mathematical description. I think Chiara Marletto is closer than she imagines.
Love this. To clarify her example: we can describe all the construction and materials in the lifeboat, but that doesn’t really explain WHY the lifeboat is there. What brought it into being. The meaning of it. The knowledge of probabilities that led to it.
humans been saying that for how long now?
The life boat that has not been built yet ,its been shipped out of one of the future outlets .
@@wayfa13 Ya, exactly. I just wanted to clarify because the why part is what I have based my career and life on. 😂🙏🏻
@@obiecanobie919 yep.
But that is exactly what actual theories do - they describe all the construction and materials of something and then predict what must also exist because of the described thing. Or describe why it must exist because of another described thing.
So gravitational lensing must exist because of the maths of General Relativity, for example. The description of the construction and materials and behavior of gravitational lensing very clearly does say why it exists.
I'm afraid that's just word soup to me. It's way too abstract for me to have any idea of what they're talking about. Maybe it's useful... who knows...
No, it's just word soup.
She is not versed in the general problem across all disciplines that they're trying to solve within their discipline so she's limited in her ability to simplify it. Explained from the problem of mathematics itself it's rather simple. And I tend to use economics instead of physics because it's easier to understand. (I also came to the problem from economics and not physics. )
@@TheNaturalLawInstitute How can you judge that? It is very likely for me to assume and be correct that she read more into this than you. She's being paid for it after all
@@TheNaturalLawInstitute Are you suggesting that David Deutsch should have been in the chair instead of her, and would it have been much clearer if he had?
@@mauricegold9377 Well, I mean, yes. Deutsch has no problem stating that it's the generalization of the theory of computation to physics. I don't know if he knows how to compare computation(operations) to calculation (deduction) because I haven't followed him that closely. But my work is dependent upon articulating that same concept all the way to social science and law. I don't believe the woman in this video comprehends what she is saying at this level of comprehension or perhaps is merely engaging in verbalisms that are common when computationalists ( systems, operations, physicists, engineers) are interpreted by mathematicians (verbalists, analogies, ideals). In this sense all mathematics outside of the computable consists of statistics (commensurabilities, averages, analogies). Since this is a difficult subject requiring quite a bit of knowledge I understand this knowledge is scarce (rare). She doesn't understand it.
It's my impression that if I were to speak to Deutsch directly it would be a simple conversation to articulate this issue of computability vs calculability. Simply because that which is computable is greater than that which is calculable. Because that which is reducible to mathematical generalization is a subset is what is computable and irreducible to mathematical generalization.
@6:00 oh no! 🤣 I'm going to have to read this CT stuff now, because that example was absolutely shyte. The reason the lifeboat was there is because there had been a shipwreck (or two) in the past and some boat builders who intuitively know nature is not entirely random decided it'd be cool not to have passengers or sailors die. Not because some storm in the future exists. The future storm is a regularity of the laws of nature and spacetime symmetries plus asymmetric boundary/initial conditions. So no need to give up on spacetime. QM is nothing but respect for local rather than only global symmetries, but they are still spacetime symmetries, 3+1D bivector algebra in the case of electroweak, in the case of QCD they are Jordan or octonion algebra generated, but still within the 4D spacetime graded (Clifford) algebra. Until some collider or other experiment finds more exotic elementary particles there is nothing else. It's all in 4D spacetime. Not even any need yet for Calabi--Yau manifolds... yet.
So … not sure what’s new about this theory. At first while she is explaining it, I immediately thought that she was describing how Boolean logic is used to build electrical circuitry, then she goes on to how a Flipflop works (while calling it a Transistor, which isn’t what she was describing). Which left me wondering what I missed, is this new? Seems like 50 year old circuitry logic to me, even with adding Qubits and quantum computing to the discussion. Sure, using the term “Counter-Factual’s” to mean potentialities is new, but it’s not like those of us in the integrated circuitry industry weren’t already aware. Or perhaps I did miss something?
Absolute proof that statements can be grammatically perfect, yet convey no discernible meaning to the public at large.
Such brilliance.
Wait, physicists didn't use counterfactuals until now? I thought it was pretty common, because that's how I was taught physics in school. "Imagine if you can travel at the speed of light, now how can you imagine receiving information about anything, since you're always travelling faster than information can catch up with you?" That sort of thing.
Yup. Counterfactual reasoning is common. But they are rarely ever regarded as fundamental building blocks of any physical theory.
I consider myself quite science-literate, and i have watched about 25 minutes of this video and I'm still unsure what this is about. i do get the concept of distillation of information about systems, but the questions that keeps niggling at me are these: how do I know that I have got all the information about a system that I could ever ask for to make any further contribution to what is already known? And is any of this down to language?
I have paused the video at this point. Another thought is information. 100 years ago, we started to think about galaxies as other than part of ours, and as big if not bigger. Now we are discovering a huge inter-galactic web of 'something' connecting galaxies, and suddenly we have a new paradigm. galaxies as perhaps secondary to their connections to a giant universal 'web', albeit permeated with some gaps, but nonetheless this still stands. We couldn't have imagined this 100 years ago, and thus the information wasn't then enough, and today it might not be enough.. etc. 25 minutes in to this video, and no real 'concrete' sense that i understand what is new here. Perhaps I'm impatient, but I sense a talking-head male scientist not really helping. They are talking to one another, and not to an audience which may be literate enough scientifically, but have yet to hear or see what is intended. Am I being premature here?
I can sense frustration with the scientific world claiming that the thermodynamics can evolve to work as perpetuum mobile or even flipped to produce things ,somehow reversing time heading towards the past using info out of the future .
This was fascinating, thanks for sharing! I wonder if these axioms of existence are fractal, and if they repeat across different information systems and scales
24:00 if a system like a computer is full, then it becomes unusable. As we all know. And so in a way the information becomes inaccessible.
You might think "but i can extract it using an other computer".
Yes you can but then you system is not a full computer.
Your system is "one full computer connected to an other not full computer". Your system is bigger.
Like a binary black hole is a system that can store more info than one of those black holes.
(Analogy is not perfect but is appealing)
To
I'm only about 15 minutes into this but what about the perpetual motion of the levitation property is a business why can't we use that
It seems the crux of the idea is to formalize a process by which one can explore theories, hypotheses, etc based on determining whether they contain counterfactual statements in their definition.
So, we know our universe allows for computers, say. Thus a theory which does not allows for computers is a counterfactual theory.
Are we exploring ensembles of counterfactual theories?
The biggest problem with this video is that the interviewer was more interested in communicating his own perceptions of her book to the author than in facilitating the communication of her own ideas to the public
He is actually a mathematician and I found his reflection on the matter very helpful
Resilient information = Knowledge, 'good things' (experiences, theorems) tend to be better remembered/preserved/resilient.
Some principle within the universe that preserves knowledge of good, good practices for protecting & improving life.
An ability to last
We kind of have already seen that "creativity" is a process that can be replicated (to a degree and maybe not identically) by machine learning. GPT-3 and generative neural networks do quite well at generating novel permutations of data from existing bits. If we take the pleasure and the intent away from it, this is pretty much what art is.
I think CT is heading in the direction of an 'information- knowledge' formalism that could indeed become the 'new physics', but it will be a physics that dispenses with physical theory per se altogether - which I'd be okay with (because no one has ever known what stuff 'really is'.. Saying nature is creative is a tautological: it's just like saying nature is sui generic - creationism is true because nature is it's own 'self' creation according to 'its' possibilities (and not randomly otherwise because it is limited by natural impossibilities.)
It seems that GR settled the score on "Quantum" Gravity. Gravity seems to be a descriptor and not a quality. It appears to be only the manifestation of the interaction of "Quantum" energy in (curved) spacetime...Matter is (by all appearances) a result of the same manifestation. Matter is also a descriptor. The scale of our understanding is at least an order of magnitude too large for us to observe. It seems that there is a field (information super highway) that permeates space time. Our measurements (observations) are like using a ruler to measure the length of a single cell. It is very difficult to observe things that pass through us like a plankton in the ocean.
One has to be a bit circumspect on 'the curvature of spacetime' concept. That gravity is 'merely' the geodesic pathway of a curved spacetime created by matter. A kind of potentially circular argument. Einstein reminded others that this geometric 'curvature' idea is more like a crutch to support a particular explanation for gravity, than the final explanation. And all this stuff about tensors and pressure and metrics are just descriptions, rather than explanations of what gravity is and how it works from first principles.
So it basically sounds like it's an abstraction of science based on rules called counterfactuals that don't necessarily require super nitty gritty concepts. So like constructing something out of python instead of using machine code or assembly. It's like engineering scientific concepts. That's what I got out of it anyway. Seems to be a good unilateral endeavor to complement science. I'll be reading the book. I mean scientists already do this as they said, but maybe making a full endeavor out of it will help science move forward.
Anyone know why David Deutsche, the originator of this idea, has been quiet for a few years now?
12 min in and I still don't know what her theory is. Lady, we all know what the current problems in physics are, how about getting to the point?
Will it ever be possible to acquire or identify knowledge without human agency? I doubt it since the results are either not known by us or are judged by us.
Yes it is possible. The genes of a fish, for example, contain a kind of knowledge about how to build a survival machine capable of making a living in water. This knowledge exists completely independently of human agency.
I found this difficult to grasp, the concept of ‘counter-factual’ but in any case what’s information anyway? In my view ‘information’ requires an instant source and a destination (observer or receiver) to exist otherwise it’s not there. This connection must be instantaneous ie therefore does not obey the rules of relativity.
Please Invite her again soon, to discuss this with Jonathan Gorard (Wolfram Research)
A bit confusing in how she uses counterfactual in a way which appears totally different to common usage.
Curious.
The Plank's constant is the smallest wave/particle size of as now. But the space it inhabits is vestless.
We really should try to know how the space that all particles are "contained" in are also a property of that space ( "metric" still is not exactly descriptive.)
Between, all the fields that we envision in the space and what we call substance. In the interactions. ( Goes toward exactly what your saying.)
Sort of that there really is no straight line. (i.e.) A. Einstein
I truly adore this endeavor but it will not change the human race and what all of us will do.
Yeah! On time
A helpful mode of thinking for sure. Well done!
What has it helped? What new predictions come out of it? What new and different results from testing it experimentally?
If the past and future are all as real as the present (i.e. theres nothing special about "now" esp. considering how time is relative), and all the different possibilities of the universes wavefunction, whatever mathematical structure it represents, are all in superposition as theyve always been since all of the universe is real, even its superpositions we now call multiverses, then the issue with current mathematical models are all constrained generally to one distinct timeline and we arent looking for connections across the superpositions. We're scanning the whole thing left to right looking for patterns, never scanning side to side, backwards, or diagonally. What patterns are we missing entirely? What patterns will forever be beyond our comprehension because our brains dont meet the minimum hardware requirements for that form of a concept. How naturally do you comprehend patterns across a massively multidimensional structure? Even if we can get a computer to see the pattern, we would still need it dumbed down for us lowly humans. Maybe the current equations seeming simple is just evidence of humans pushing against the limits of the brains theyve been given?
I love how excited the guy is. I feel like he was about to burst out of his seat at the start lol
When are you going to be back in the RI theatre? :(
Nowish! We've started doing some events and short film filming in the Ri building, so these will get to you very shortly. There's a short film on quantum gravity coming with Harry Cliff coming up next week, and a talk about the social instincts of animals the week after.
How do you describe the existence of magnetic field or colors to people who refuse to consider the possibility that something like these could exist? hmmm. Is that a counterfactual?
Was waiting for this!
Imagine a fractal graph - that’s gives rise to the rules of physics as we kno as a byproduct. That is what I think constructor theory is.