equations of the universe

[IJesusChrist]

We know that we can predict many things with equations, for example if we drop a bowling ball of the top of any building, we can predict when it will hit the ground with a ridiculous amount of certainty and accuracy.

We can fly planes without people; there are drones and other aircraft out there that are completely operated by mechanistic computers, computing algorithms constantly.

We can monitor populations and predict outbreaks of disease, and genetic drifts and genotype traits.

We continually progress in the way of prediction of the universe at an alarmingly fast rate. There is a project out now that is attempting to roughly predict the entire world; ecosystems, economics, weather, etc. It is taking massive amounts of super computers, but it is a project being looked into, nonetheless.

I however, don't believe that the universe can ever fit into a single equation, nor do I believe that it can be foretold. I believe, at best, the universe is an incompressible algorithm, meaning that it is synergistic in the way each law is described. The sum of all the laws of the universe are greater than just the parts (or however that saying goes).

What I mean by that is, is that there are laws dealing with gravity, electromagnetics, nuclear forces, etc. I believe these equations to be completely correct, and fundamental. However, I believe that their additive effects create a complexity that is essentially unsolvable- meaning we cannot predict things with any sort of complexity beyond one force or two body interactions.

therefore, i conclude, the universe is pretty neat.

 

[Mescaline]

I don't really know enough about physics and alike to really go into deep discussions about this, but I'm going to give a very different perspective on this, in terms of things that I know some more about (and it is also connected a bit with a thread I just made here).

(Before I go on: this is not my "belief", just a thought.. A thought I think has some serious credibility to it, enough to not just dismiss it as nonsense.)

What if the whole universe is a product of the brain. Everything you see around you, everything that is, is some neurons firing in your brain. On the level of experiential reality this is almost undoubtedly true. Everything we experience is in some way correlated to processes in the brain. Though, what I am saying is that there not even is a "real", objective reality out there. At the very most an objective reality that is made of something which can never, ok, probably never be understood in any terms of *whatever*. There is just nothing to.. well it cannot be described.. It is just "nothing", yet still "something", it doesn't have a context to understand it in. Words fail in bringing across what I am trying to say here, due to the property of language always referring to something, always being symbolic of something, but I hope you get the point.
Anyway, back to what I was going to say, I am going to go on with the idea of there not being a knowable objective reality (i.e. knowable universe). Thus there is only the subjective reality. The experiential reality. Now, as I have also stated in the other thread mentioned above, we are starting to understand the human brain, thus the human Mind, in more and more detail at an alarmingly fast pace. We are mapping in extreme detail how the brain functions, and thus to some degree how the Mind functions. Going further along this line of thought, if all there is, is experiential reality, and this reality is in turn a product of our brains, then all we would have to do is to fully understand the human brain in order to be able to predict the state of reality, the universe, right?
Now, of course, in how far this is more tangible than discovering an objective equation for the universe as you mentioned remains to be seen. It surely seems that fully understanding the human brain, and especially the Mind, is in no way "easier" compared to the discovering of an equation for the universe through physics, but I am inclined to say that it is possible. I do not believe it is impossible. Why? Well, because of the incredibly fast rate at which more knowledge about and understanding of the brain is being gained. I don't know if something similar is also the case in physics, but I am guessing that it is. So, also from that point of view, why would it really be impossible to think it possible? I don't think just because we cannot "imagine" it yet we are doomed to fail in that respect. There have been plenty of periods in humanity's history where something could not be imagined, and some tens (or hundreds) of years later it is suddenly there. Maybe it won't happen in our lifetime, but impossible? I do not think so.

 

[IJesusChrist]

don't you see the paradox there?

You are saying that our neurons create our reality, yet we can touch, and function with our neurons... doesn't that make this real?

I've been in that loop before and I really didn't like the experience that came with it :|

 

[Mescaline]

don't you see the paradox there?

You are saying that our neurons create our reality, yet we can touch, and function with our neurons... doesn't that make this real?

I've been in that loop before and I really didn't like the experience that came with it :|

Finally have some time to answer, so here it goes.

I am not sure if I understand you correctly, but the paradox that I do see in what I wrote is that how can neurons create reality, thereby creating themselves, i.e. who created the first neuron? I don't read that in what you wrote though, as I don't see a paradox in that at all. Firing neurons are what create the sensations of touch and other sensory modalities, they are the cause of thoughts (or so can be argued) - Yes, agreed. To go into extremes, as I claimed before, you don't even know for sure if there is an outside world as all that you actually experience is the sensations and perceptions that neurons create, by firing. At least that is what neuroscience is really implying. This is also really close to, if not exactly the same as (except for him using older terminology, calling it "thinking" instead of "the firing of neurons"), what Descartes claimed to realize in his "Meditations", leading to his famous "Cogito ergo sum".
Though, if I misinterpreted what you were implying, please elaborate

Anyway, to counter the paradox how the "creator" (being the neurons) can create itself, I have a couple of suggestions (one being more crazy than the other ):

1) Suppose that it is not the physical brain, but a field of energy or information (or anything else that is not of a material nature; it doesn't matter what you call it) that creates the brain (i.e. neurons). This field of energy or information would be supposed to be there and always have been there. When it has a certain concentration (in case of energy), or when it has a certain informational "value", consciousness is manifested. This field of energy or information could be the objective reality which cannot be known in any way (under normal circumstances anyway; I'm not going to go into in how far taking psychedelics for example can make you aware of this objective reality). Well, then we have arrived at a point where there is consciousness, in turn creating all of experiential reality, including neurons. These neurons in turn could be some kind "correlate" to how consciousness is manifested by the field of energy or information.

2) A second explanation, which is a really crazy sci-fi idea, is that there exists some kind of extremely advanced "alien" species, which created us. This might sound really "way out there", but I really think it is plausible. Imagine this species was messing around with creating "humans", or were experimenting with "humans", just as we are experimenting with Artificial Intelligence. Now they might have either consciously, or completely unaware of it, brought about what we call consciousness or awareness. Making us "alive". Note that in this sense all that we experience as reality might actually be a virtual reality. This would furthermore explain why we do not "see" that alien species all around us, as we live in a virtual reality; everything that we do in our reality might be completely different actions in their reality. This is very much similar to what is illustrated in The Matrix (more so in the anime "prequels" than in the blockbuster movies themselves). Now, in my opinion this is actually backed up by people reporting alien "abductions", and the contact with alien entities especially during DMT experiences, but also by ingestion of large amounts of other psychedelic drugs. That would further imply that taking psychedelics might somehow short-circuit our brains, commonly referred to as expanding our consciousness (which is really a very appropriate way of putting it in this context), and thereby making us for at least a short period of time aware of this alien species. Also, from what I've read, these entities "operate" on us, implant weird alien devices, and want us to "upload" information about humanity. This all perfectly fits with the view that we are some kind of robot to them. Imagine us having this extremely advanced AI around us, but which we thought was unconscious. Then all of a sudden out of the blue it actually seems to be aware of our presence! What would you do? I guess you would approach it and ask it huge amounts of questions about its experience of reality, as you have just witnessed "life" in a mechanical device.. That would surely come across as a miracle. Them "operating" on us would not be so strange either, as, if we had advanced AI, we would probably "work" on them as well from time to time, updating its software or adding some new hardware or something.

I had a third plausible solution for this paradox, but I forgot it :/ Maybe I'll remember later.

Anyway, for scenario one, in case we want to predict the state of the universe, we would have to figure out how this field of energy or information creates this experiential world of ours. That, I agree, might be impossible, for as I mentioned before, this field would be the objective world which cannot be known (except maybe by the use of psychedelics, which would imply if we want to figure out such an "equation" we would have to research the nature of the universe by using those substances).
In case of scenario two, we would have to figure out how a machine would become conscious, or how to create a complete virtual reality with consciousness. That would also explain how this reality is created. Alternatively to us researching this on our own, we could try contacting those aliens, once again through use of psychedelics, and simply ask them. This does seem to be more possible than in case of the first scenario.


Lastly, I have to know, why does nobody respond to this and the thread I made, except you IJC? Don't you other people have an opinion on this matter? I'm really curious as to what other people think of this, and the thread I made. I would like to see these thoughts challenged, proved wrong, expanded upon, and new ideas brought up of course.. it doesn't matter what. I would just like to know what you people are thinking while reading this.

 

[ophiuchus]

im here!

i have to say, my mind mimes much of the ideas going on in here. so, as it were at the moment, i dont have much to elaborate on regarding this (without parroting)... maybe some time to digest these ideas will do some good

 

[Mescaline]

Aah, still in ninja-mode I see

That's as good as any elaborate reply though, as it indicates there's something to those ideas.
But, fair enough. I will wait patiently then

 

[Mescaline]

Oh! I remember my third solution. Although it is really not that convincing. That's probably why I forgot it.
The third solution to the paradox is introducing something like a God, which created everything. It is simply the religious solution to the problem.
However, I cannot identify with this, as to me this just seems to be avoiding the problem, and not solving it at all. Saying there is a God that created everything, just poses the question of who created God. The answer you get from religious folks is that God is by definition "the creator that is itself uncreated". Well... yeah... This doesn't add anything in our understanding of reality.

Also, I just realized that this goes for the alien solution as well. The aliens kind of (quite literally actually) being gods. It does avoid the problem of what our reality is, but it doesn't answer what all of reality is. However, I would not claim that these aliens themselves were not created by something. They might be yet another "robot" species of yet another even more advanced species. And who says this cannot go on into infinity? It is just hard (impossible) to fully imagine, as we as humans are incapable of imagining infinity, under normal circumstances of course, as psychedelic experiences can make this possible in my opinion, and this would actually just support this point of view.
I realize now, the same line of reasoning can actually be applied to a non-alien concept of God and also the field of energy or information theory. So this solution might be not as unconvincing as I first implied, it just being a more spiritual alternative to the "sci-fi" and "psychological" solution.

So, when I think about it, all three solutions I brought up are pretty much the same in nature. Just filling in "the blanks" (or "variables") with different concepts. The field of energy or information theory being the psychological/spiritual solution, the God theory being religious/spiritual and the alien theory being kind of "sci-fi".

So it all comes down to it going on into infinity. I guess I have to take back, or at least rephrase, what I claimed about the universe being possibly understood in terms of an equation. As I said before, we might be able to understand our reality, but that still would not explain all of reality. And due to the nature of infinity, it is simply impossible to understand all of it. We might be able to grasp an understanding of (the concept or experience of) infinity itself, but this is not the same as understanding something that goes on into infinity, and in turn trying to put it into a finite "equation" of reality. Although... maybe (very advanced forms of) fractal equations? I don't have a good understanding of how fractal equations work, so I don't know in how far this idea can actually be plausible (btw, Allusion, your avatar sums it all up quite nicely ).

 

[ophiuchus]

always in ninja mode

 

[BrainEater]

i have something to add. i tell you the reason why god was never created. that's because god is eternal. god just is...
if you ask me reality itself is like a psychedelic experience. maybe you can better relate to that, if you try to remember how you experienced reality when you were a child. also the idea that god could be a person changes a lot... at least it did that to me.
look, we are here to learn... if you already know everything, then what else would there be to learn??
in a certain way, you can see everything as symbollic. that means everything is just a representation for something else.
probably like a holographic nature of reality. you know?? it's the underlying concept that rules the world. we all project our own ego on something or someone else all the time. and time is very psychological as you might well be aware of. sometimes a minute may seem like an hour or an hour like a minute, know what i mean??? the world/life is just like a dream, literally!!! alright thanks for reading. 8)

peace 8)

 

[5tr4t0]

Just a fews words first :
In my dictionnary, here is the definition of the real : "Anything that truly exist or existed"
Reality : "Charasteristic of what is real, what exists actually, opposed to what is imagined"

reality, thereby creating themselves, i.e. who created the first neuron?

Well, according to the fact we are kinda talking about the origine of life on earth, please let me explain 2-3 stuffs about this.
The cellular theory says : each organism is composed of at least one cell, and and every cell comes from an other cell.
(1838, Matthias Shleiden & Theodore Schwartz).
Here is a scheme that summs up the life on earth.
Voir la pièce jointe 5183

But, there's still a question : what did happened for life appeared 3,5Billions years ago ?
Well, an experience has been lead in 1953 by Miller and Urey. They recreated the primitive earth conditions in a 1m diameter glass ball. In this ball they put all the compounds that were ine the earth in this age. There was mostly water, carbon dioxyde, dihydrogene, sulfur dioxyde, dinitrogen, carbon monoxyde and they shocked the whole (like thunder did).
Within a few days, simple organic compounds synthesized by themselve (aspartate, alanine, acetate).
These compounds are the basics of life ! And the experience didn't stop there, a few weeks/months (I don't remember exactly) they combined into macromolecules. It was a kind of very very etc little RNA -RiboNucleic Acid- !!!
Now we are so close from LUCA (last universal common ancester).

-The next is theory : scientists suppose tht the first cell would have appeared when a macromolecule got trapped into a phospholipidic membrane. Cell changed its RNA into DNA (DesoxyRiboNucleic) cause it's a natural chemical reaction, that allowed to her to stock its genetic material.Then the reactions inside this really primitive cell "naturally" looked for a way to get some energy. (if this theory is true) they dindn't must live long, cause their genetic material was really basic. The divided an divided, th'at's all they could do. But, they started creating a way to produce its own energy : glycolyse.

And I stop here, I'll be back tomorrow.


Maybe I'm totally out of the subject, but as I noticed you guys were talking about creation and everything.

 

[IJesusChrist]

well my original topic is just saying that I believe, currently, (and finally) that the universe is not a single equation, except itself.

Meaning it cannot be simplified down to anything smaller than itself... That makes sense to most of us, but mathematically that is extremely important, and philosophically even more so.

I.e. you can have an equation with every known variable in the universe, and you could attempt to solve it (it isn't possible right now, of course) and then play with this equation to peer into the past and future. You could try to simplify the equation down to the basic components, getting a simple thing - you are alluding to this when you say "a very complex fractal equation", for fractals are actually just very simple expressions with an infinite amount of complexity.

I don't know if the universe is a fractal, I don't think it is - unless it never repeats, and a fractal that never repeats? Perhaps...

Anyways. I don't know.

 

[Mescaline]

Haha, BrainEater, you're all over the place with your post xD. Not that I don't appreciate it, on the contrary, I very much do.
I'll try answer it as accurately as I possibly can.

i tell you the reason why god was never created. that's because god is eternal. god just is...

Saying that God is eternal and as a consequence was never created is a tautology. Being eternal implies never having been created, just as never having been created implies being eternal (ok, I admit, never having been created might still be open to the possibility that this thing will cease to exist at some point, or that it never existed in the first place, but this doesn't really matter in this context).
However, I do not deny the possibility of there being an eternal God (personified or not is not the issue) which has never been created. It cannot be falsified, nor proved (objectively). It just doesn't convince me . I find it more convincing that there is something that created God which in turn was created by something else, which in turn was created by something else, which in turn... etc etc etc (and this infinite nature of reality is what I would refer to as God; also note that I can say the same thing about this "God" as you did: the infinite nature of reality was never created, is eternal, and has always been.). This stance cannot be falisfied nor proved either.
So, both are equally plausible, as far as I can tell, yet I prefer the second.

if you ask me reality itself is like a psychedelic experience. maybe you can better relate to that, if you try to remember how you experienced reality when you were a child.

I agree, life is very much like a psychedelic experience. But, what are you trying to point out here?

also the idea that god could be a person changes a lot... at least it did that to me.

Hmm ok, but it really doesn't matter, in my opinion, whether you see God as a person or not. In my opinion it is more important what role or function you give it or him (or her ).

look, we are here to learn... if you already know everything, then what else would there be to learn??

Agreed, if we would know everything, we would most likely become utterly depressed and commit mass suicide, assuming we would still have "common" human qualities. On the other hand, I have had the thought that being omniscient might actually bring about an extreme sense of peace. Additionally, omniscience being an aspect of God speaks in favor of this second interpretation. However, in my opinion, it is impossible for the human mind to be omniscient.

in a certain way, you can see everything as symbollic. that means everything is just a representation for something else.
probably like a holographic nature of reality. you know?? it's the underlying concept that rules the world.

Funny you mention this, as this has been the subject of yesterday's lecture on philosophy of mind (bit off topic, but there it is again: coincidence! ).
In the article I had to read the very issue was to find something that is not representational of something else. It concluded with mental states (do not make the same mistake I made and confuse mental states with states of consciousness ) being not representational of something else, and thereby being the fundamental building blocks that all representations eventually refer to. This is in no way some "ultimate truth" and I'll not go into detail about this, but what do you think of this idea?
Also, you have to keep in mind that whether something is representational often depends very much, if not exclusively, on the observer. Take for example the following video clip:

Do you believe the elephant knows what it is actually representing in the painting?

we all project our own ego on something or someone else all the time.

I understand what this means on itself but could you elaborate how this relates to the above?

and time is very psychological as you might well be aware of. sometimes a minute may seem like an hour or an hour like a minute, know what i mean???

Absolutely. Time is the modality in which the Mind exists (or the psychological, as you put it), just as Space is the modality of the Body (or the material). However, same question as above, how does this relate to the above?

the world/life is just like a dream, literally!!!

Just as a dream is like a psychedelic experience, which is like life itself. :idea:

alright thanks for reading. 8)

No problem, you're welcome

 

[Mescaline]

Just a fews words first :
In my dictionnary, here is the definition of the real : "Anything that truly exist or existed"
Reality : "Charasteristic of what is real, what exists actually, opposed to what is imagined"

What is your interpretation of "Anything that truly exists or has existed"? As providing this as a definiton of saying that something is real is yet another tautology, in my opinion.
Secondly, we might already be parting ways in our opinions regarding your definition of reality. What is imagined I consider to be just as real as anything else, except that it is not of a physical nature.
However, I will take your definition for granted while reading your post.

Well, according to the fact we are kinda talking about the origine of life on earth, please let me explain 2-3 stuffs about this.
The cellular theory says : each organism is composed of at least one cell, and and every cell comes from an other cell.
(1838, Matthias Shleiden & Theodore Schwartz).
Here is a scheme that summs up the life on earth.
[picture]

But, there's still a question : what did happened for life appeared 3,5Billions years ago ?
Well, an experience has been lead in 1953 by Miller and Urey. They recreated the primitive earth conditions in a 1m diameter glass ball. In this ball they put all the compounds that were ine the earth in this age. There was mostly water, carbon dioxyde, dihydrogene, sulfur dioxyde, dinitrogen, carbon monoxyde and they shocked the whole (like thunder did).
Within a few days, simple organic compounds synthesized by themselve (aspartate, alanine, acetate).
These compounds are the basics of life ! And the experience didn't stop there, a few weeks/months (I don't remember exactly) they combined into macromolecules. It was a kind of very very etc little RNA -RiboNucleic Acid- !!!
Now we are so close from LUCA (last universal common ancester).

In that case let me rephrase the paradox of who or what created the first neuron into: who or what created the first water, carbon dioxide, dihydrogen, sulfur dioxyde, dinitrogen, carbon monoxyde, and finally the electric shock?
You see? It doesn't matter what you say or how many causes you bring forward, one will always be able to ask the question of "who or what created the first X, Y or Z?". The only solution to this is either introducing a God or something similar, that is eternal and has never been created, or by claiming that everything has a cause or creator, which has a cause or creator, which has a cause or creator, which has... etc etc etc.

-The next is theory : scientists suppose that the first cell would have appeared when a macromolecule got trapped into a phospholipidic membrane. Cell changed its RNA into DNA (DesoxyRiboNucleic) cause it's a natural chemical reaction, that allowed to her to stock its genetic material.Then the reactions inside this really primitive cell "naturally" looked for a way to get some energy. (if this theory is true) they dindn't must live long, cause their genetic material was really basic. The divided an divided, th'at's all they could do. But, they started creating a way to produce its own energy : glycolyse.

Same answer as above: Who or what created the first macromolecule and phospholipidic membrane?
I'll not repeat the rest of it.

Maybe I'm totally out of the subject, but as I noticed you guys were talking about creation and everything.

No you are not completely off topic, but maybe a bit That's primarily my fault though, haha. I started about all of the creation of everything. However, if you want to talk about an equation of the universe I think it is important to first know how the universe was created, and thereby figuring out what the universe actually is. How else would you know what to base your equation on, and what it actually represents? "Well, the universe of course" - "But, what is the universe?"

 

[Mescaline]

well my original topic is just saying that I believe, currently, (and finally) that the universe is not a single equation, except itself.

Meaning it cannot be simplified down to anything smaller than itself...

I tend to agree now, after thinking and writing about it some (a lot) more, as I mentioned before. The exception being (perhaps) a very advanced fractal equation.

That makes sense to most of us, but mathematically that is extremely important, and philosophically even more so.

It sure is. :!:

I.e. you can have an equation with every known variable in the universe, and you could attempt to solve it (it isn't possible right now, of course) and then play with this equation to peer into the past and future. You could try to simplify the equation down to the basic components, getting a simple thing - you are alluding to this when you say "a very complex fractal equation", for fractals are actually just very simple expressions with an infinite amount of complexity.

I don't know if the universe is a fractal, I don't think it is - unless it never repeats, and a fractal that never repeats? Perhaps...

Yes, perhaps.

Anyways. I don't know.

Neither do I.
However, it's fun to talk about, at least in my opinion.

 

[IJesusChrist]

I've just thought about it so much that sometimes I get tired of it... I tend to say ah fuck it, it doesn't matter - I'll never know...

but then, of course, I become curiouser and curiouser and I'm back to square one.

However I believe this insight of "incompressibility" is astounding to me. I very much like that concept. It finally fuses reductionist scientists with holistic ideologies. There are many equations compounding one another, until eventually, in reality, you come to the universe itself - which cannot be fully explained in parts, but must be looked at as a whole, or something will always be missing.

:idea: God I'm so glad this finally hit me.

 

[Mescaline]

However I believe this insight of "incompressibility" is astounding to me. I very much like that concept. It finally fuses reductionist scientists with holistic ideologies. There are many equations compounding one another, until eventually, in reality, you come to the universe itself - which cannot be fully explained in parts, but must be looked at as a whole, or something will always be missing.

I'm agreeing more and more, haha
What do you think of this: A fractal equation that does not simplify reality/the universe?

EDIT: In other words, if one would try to build/create such an equation, one would end up with creating reality itself, in every aspect thinkable. Thus to see the equation, one would just have to look around; it's all around you. [/edit]

This would actually make some sense to me, as when you are having a psychedelic experience or similar, everything you see all around you is pretty much fractal in nature.
Or am I making assumptions about fractal equations that stop it from being a fractal equation?

EDIT2: Oh, I just realized this is probably the same as what you meant by a fractal equation that never repeats

 

[Mescaline]

Just had a good talk with a friend about this subject, and got to some pretty neat conclusions.

First thing that came up is that when you claim that only a non-repeating fractal equation would be a good representation of the universe, this actually implies that you claim that the universe is inherently non-repeating. In other words, you are claiming that the universe is genuinely creative (creative here meaning that the universe has aspects to it that are in and of itself absolutely, 100%, independent of all that has preceded it up to that moment).
One could however take a different point of view and claim that the universe is not genuinely creative. Put differently, that everything ultimately refers to something else or is dependent on something else.

Explained schematically, by example of sequences of numbers (extremely simplified of course):

1) The uncreative universe or repetitive infinity is:
From infinity ~... 123 132 213 231 213 123 312 ... ~ into infinity.

2) The creative universe or non-repetitive infinity:
From infinity ~ ... 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 ... ~ into infinity.

If you believe in an uncreative universe, then fractal equations would be able represent the universe. And that would be all there is to it, as far as I can tell. Maybe this is the case..

However, the creative universe feels more correct, and has some interesting consequences:

So, if the universe is genuinely creative, it cannot be simplified, as we concluded earlier, I believe (except for the imaginary non-repeating fractal, but this is not important now).
One thing to be noted about the example, before I go on, is that the creative universe sequence does not necessarily have to be that exact sequence of numbers. It could also be "from infinity ~ ... 1 4 2 6 3 9 5 8 7 0 ... ~ into infinity", just as long as it doesn't repeat itself.

Now, as we can see above with the sequences of numbers, a new number is "created" out of the "realm" of infinity, or out of nothing, depending on how you see it. Before we arrive at any given number this number did actually not exist (yet).
As the "into infinity" part is in and of itself infinite, this means that it contains all possibilities. It contains all possible numbers that exist. In terms of the universe, it contains all possible states of the universe, all possible events; simply everything. Which number comes next in the sequence is made up out of an infinite number of possibilities. In other words, the next number in the sequence contains an infinite amount of potentiality.
So, in a sense, the future sequence of those numbers is "nothing" and "something" at the same time. It is nothing because it has not manifested yet as something concrete. However, it is "something" as it is an infinite amount of potentiality.
Now lets translate this into terms of human experience, and the universe. Every future second, milisecond, microsecond, nano(?)-second (etc.) will contain an infinite amount of potentiality. As time passes, as we humans pass through time into the (infinite) future, all the time this infinite amount of potentiality is realized into something concrete, thereby becoming reality. One could say, thereby creating reality.

Well then, as the observer (i.e. us) moves through time into the future the infinite amount of potentiality is realized into the experience of reality. If the observer ceases to exist, or simply ceases to be present, this infinite amount of potentiality is never realized into becoming reality, thereby staying an infinite amount of potentiality.

The "Nowhere man"-scene in the movie Yellow Submarine illustrates this beautifully, and I have only through this conversation just now realized that this is what is being alluded to in that scene (or so I believe). Here is the clip (the relevant part I am talking about starts at 3:00min (although the song starts at 2:50 ):

.

As you can see, as the cartoon Beatles move along the white scene, something is created and left behind as a trail. Before they arrive at any given spot however, the white space is made up out of an infinite amount of potentiality. One will never know what will come next, as it could by literally anything.
Thus the white space is "nothing", yet something, namely an infinite amount of potentiality.
EDIT: Just realized the part of the clip before 3minutes is relevant as well. As they peek outside the Yellow Submarine into "nowhere land" they say:

"What do you think it is?"
"Nothing"
"Yea, it looks like nothing"
"[Look], a local inhabitant"
"He's probably one of the nothings"
"At least that's something"

This is pretty much what I'm trying to explain, haha. Just told symbolically, as part of a storyline.

Or to quote the Holy Bible, slightly more abstract (mind you I'm absolutely not into Christianity):
"And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light."


As such we have moved from fractal equations to Quantum Theory (If I'm not misinterpreting Quantum Theory that is).
I find it very interesting though, that without consciously aiming for Quantum Theory, we have arrived at just that, Quantum Theory.
Every part of the universe contains an infinite amount of potentiality, which becomes manifest upon the presence of an observer.

So.. Do quantum theorists have an equation for their theory?

 

[IJesusChrist]

I think you're going too fast

Lets take a look at fractals;

Random fractals – Generated by stochastic rather than deterministic processes, for example, trajectories of the Brownian motion, Lévy flight, percolation clusters, self avoiding walks, fractal landscapes and the Brownian tree. The latter yields so-called mass- or dendritic fractals, for example, diffusion-limited aggregation or reaction-limited aggregation clusters.

From wikipedia. So I suppose that yes fractals can be random.

However - a fractal is the exact opposite of what I was alluding to when I Said equations of the universe! Fractals, by their very definition, are equations (or in the case of random, probabilities) that are very simple, but give rise to extremely complex images, if given space and whatever else they need to be manifested.

That is the exact opposite of incompressibility. A fractal, if the universe followed such a thing, would indeed be very compressible. In fact, I would go so far as to say that any useful fractal probably fits on a single page of paper.

In my opinion, I don't think that the universe could ever be compressed to a single page!

And quantum theory - depends what equation you are looking for. Probably the schrodinger equation. This is not solvable for anything beyond the hydrogen atom, but we can make very accurate predictions for most things with it, but only the hydrogen atom is exact.

 

[Mescaline]

I think you're going too fast

Haha, I might be. Just stop me where I take a wrong turn in my reasoning. It's one of the main reasons I'm posting here; to have my ideas changed and challenged (and I have to say, you're doing a good job at that ).

Random fractals – Generated by stochastic rather than deterministic processes, for example, trajectories of the Brownian motion, Lévy flight, percolation clusters, self avoiding walks, fractal landscapes and the Brownian tree. The latter yields so-called mass- or dendritic fractals, for example, diffusion-limited aggregation or reaction-limited aggregation clusters.

From wikipedia. So I suppose that yes fractals can be random.

So, does this mean that fractal equations can be genuinely creative, as in creating a 'next' fractal that is completely independent of all fractals that preceeded it?

However - a fractal is the exact opposite of what I was alluding to when I Said equations of the universe! Fractals, by their very definition, are equations (or in the case of random, probabilities) that are very simple, but give rise to extremely complex images, if given space and whatever else they need to be manifested.

That is the exact opposite of incompressibility. A fractal, if the universe followed such a thing, would indeed be very compressible. In fact, I would go so far as to say that any useful fractal probably fits on a single page of paper.

In my opinion, I don't think that the universe could ever be compressed to a single page!

Yes, it wasn't my intention denying this. I only mentioned the fractal equations as being potentially representational of a repeating or uncreative universe. I have dismissed this idea of an uncreative universe myself, and thereby have dismissed the idea of a fractal equation being representational of this universe, in favor of a creative universe. I just mentioned it again for the sake of it.
However, I don't see any flaws in reasoning in my previous post, except if the question I asked above ought to be answered with a "yes". In that case, I admit, the fractal equation would not be a good representation of an uncreative or repeating universe, but would become an alternative for the creative universe.
So, if this is the case, then I would like to know why you believe the universe could not be compressed to a single page? I tend to agree with you on this, and I have my own answer to this, but I would like to know why you think so first.
If there are any other flaws you see in it, please point them out to me.

And quantum theory - depends what equation you are looking for. Probably the schrodinger equation. This is not solvable for anything beyond the hydrogen atom, but we can make very accurate predictions for most things with it, but only the hydrogen atom is exact.

Well, might that be an equation of the nature you are looking for? It is pretty straightforward that it is not solvable in most cases, for how can you exactly predict the state of something that has an infinite amount of potentiality contained within it? Yet, it would still be the equation that would come closest to the equation in question.

 

[IJesusChrist]

Here are a few points I want to make.

1. Random fractals are completely random. Here is one:
Given point N, give a random direction, Theta.
From point N with angle Theta, give a random magnitude for the vector.
[Now we have a line from N at angle theta to a random point - this point is N+1]
Given point N+1, give a random direction, Theta+1.
From point N+1, with angle Theta+1, give a random magnitude for the vector.
[Etc]
THIS is the definition of "the random walk" which is relevant in chaotic systems (i.e. atoms bouncing around) and can be looked at as a completely random fractal.

This particular example of a random fractal was very simple, only two real properties gave rise to it; a direction and a magnitude, but I'm sure you can imagine that a random fractal can become infinitely complex.

That is all fine and dandy, and we could assume that the universe is actually a complex random fractal:
Given point N, if, then, else, if, then [if you know logic statements] we could input all the equations of the universe and have some kind of equation. Of course, parts of the equation would have to be random, or at the very least, probabilities, due to heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

So yes - in this way, the universe could be written down on a page, composed of all the equations within a logical system. However, something has to carry out that logic. In our case, it is a computer. In reality's case... ? What is the "operator"?

Although it is not clear, nor did I intend it to be, from the above that the universe CAN'T be a random fractal. I just don't believe it is...

Damnit I have to give this some more thought now.