What precisely is causal invariance?

Causal invariance is a crucial concept in Wolfram Physics.
It’s how we get special relativity from the Wolfram model.
It’s how we get quantum mechanics from the Wolfram model.
So what precisely is causal invariance?
This question will take us deep into the multiway graph, to an even deeper question: what is causality?
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What is the multiway graph?  • What is the multiway g...
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[@TurboJon]

Excellent explanation and examples of an otherwise confusing topic. By linking it all to history makes it much more intuitive. Thanks again!

[@NightmareCourtPictures]

Welcome back! It’s good to see you upload. I love the idea of casual invariance and it took me a while to get the branching and merging idea. But when I read the paper, seeing one of wolframs simplified example made it click for me That for instance 1 + 3 = 4 and 2 + 2 = 4 etc…are different but consistent paths to the same answer. In the limit of all countable numbers, all operations have convergent answers, which means the graph is invariant under transformation…maximally symmetric. The way I started understanding quantum mechanics was that we see definite things happen because we see the convergent operations taking place on the local scale…and really it gives a classical explanation of emergence. Patterns that appear more often (the local merging to the same results) are going to be the things we see at bigger scales. We are basically forced to see definite things happen at large scales and forced to have quantum mechanics at small scales! It’s brilliant. This theory clicks so well…recovering relativity in both QM and GR and emergence and observer dependence in a classical, computable and intuitive way…it’s just no contest for me right now with any other theory since no other theory comes close. Just my perspective and 2 cents to drop in the ruliad jar. Thanks again for the video!

[@lasttheory]

Yes, sorry it has been so long, it really did take some coding to get this one done. And yes, the large scale / small scale thing is really compelling. I still need to understand better how the quantum mechanics can be derived from the causal graph... so much more to dig into here. But there are all the elements here of a huge step forward in our grasp of why quantum mechanics is so strange and how our less-strange large-scale universe arises from it.

[@AmericanBrain]

@@lasttheory much needed - you're easier to understand than Wolfram - particularly when/if using nice graphics - that's the key. TIP: if you can also use metaphors with "metaphor" case examples so a 15 year old can understand then great [else get CHATGPT to help you generate this]

[@lasttheory]

​@@AmericanBrain Yes, the graphics take a long time to generate, but they're definitely worth it. I confess I'm less keen on metaphors - I'm more of a tell-it-straight kind of a guy - but I'll see what I can do. Thanks for the comment, much appreciated!

[@NightmareCourtPictures]

​@@lasttheory Ya its def the hardest part of the model to conceptualize. it took me at least a year to not be completely confused by it. Wolfram has a section on it on the website though and several writings in his blog. I really like his wordings because he uses very simple analogies first (the example I gave is pretty much the same example he gave except uses things like "A -> AB -> ABB") and this helps me get the intuition...the visual understanding of it first before I try to get into the technical idea. Gorard has an actually deep formal lecture about it though that goes into mathematical details : Wolfram Physics III: Completion Procedures and Basic Quantum Mechanics Wolfram Physics IV: Multiway Invariance and Advanced Quantum Mechanics I always manage to fall asleep by the time i get to part 3 (no offence to Gorard, it's just lectures can be hard to watch sometimes since they are so long and I don't have the time to watch them other than at bedtime lol) But this is gonna help cover the rest of the distance past the blogs and website material.

[@lasttheory]

@@NightmareCourtPictures Yes, I really should revisit those lectures. I don't think I link to them from my web site, need to fix that, too. Thanks for the reminder.

[@NukeCloudstalker]

I'm looking forward to that next episode on causality! I recently had a very interesting discussion with a friend on what randomness, cause and effect have to do with one another (and if one, or the lack of one, necessitates another - I don't think they do). I proposed that causality can be described as the subsets of state in the universe at time T, that subsets of the universe at time T+X depend on under the "change-function" (i.e. laws of the universe). This allows for a few interesting things, including things that are un-caused yet still exist in the universe (it simply has to conform to the rules of the universe in the first place). In other terms, it allows for rules themselves to "cause" things to be a certain way, that there was no way to predict given the state of the universe (sound familiar to the randomness found in QM?). It matters a lot, to my understanding anyway, for time, cause and effect to make sense in this conception, that the universe evolves in ONE time "direction" only (time being an artefact of the change-function when some systems are stable "enough" under the change function to effectively direct its own actions in a way that preserves its structure under this change), because if new subsets of state of the universe can be "determined" from an indetermined prior state (e.g. state of entangled particles or what appears to be pure randomness ) and this change then propagates not through the universe itself, but instantaneously to preserve other rules in the universe, then this can to my knowledge only be consistent if time is a one-way-street. Which is to say, the change-function on the universe does not have an inverse. I hope that made some sense, it's still a fairly rough idea in my mind.

[@lasttheory]

I think you're touching on some important ideas here, especially the relationship of time to cause and effect. I think we've been confused about this by the continuous equations of our existing theories of general relativity and quantum mechanics. These equations famously have no direction: they work the same going backwards in time as going forwards. My suspicion is that this is because these continuous equations are mere approximations to an underlying discrete computational reality. If we take the Wolfram model seriously, time is fundamental, and there's no question of reversing time: it's fundamental to the model that time goes forwards. Thanks for your ideas, I'm looking forward to discussing these questions more in my next episode!

[@PeterFellin]

I think of Special Relativity's time as the relative surface of absolute change. I don't remember if I included this thought in (what I facetiously flag as my ÆPT) worldview. However, Penrose's timelessly eternal Eons and Wolfram's Ruliad (computational conception of reality) will now be added to my simple take on ultimate reality (UR) in near enough normal English. String/M-theory (the mathematical physics framework that is closest to deserve being called a TOE) was already loosely tied to the peripheral "UR portion" of ÆPT. By fusing AE to Æ the flag looks as fancy as befits a Foremost Overview Of Truth (or a FOOT-hold on what is going on). ÆPT is diversely derivable flag that is both spelt and raised flexibly. N.B. Derogatory or irrelevant derivations are unaccEPTable! Perhaps 'the ÆPT FOOT' can to be used as a political tool in respect of the concEPT/definition of Absolute Life Quality (ALQ)-a concept that can be made into a mirth-inviting (antiseptic humored) motto; namely ”ALQholism is the best ism!”. The motto implies that the ÆPT concept/definition of ALQ suggests how to as far as realistically possible improve, and make subjectivity snubbing comparative assessments of, the "ALQwholesomeness" of cultures, of individual people, (not excluding politicians) and of policies and ideologies.

[@jeff-onedayatatime.2870]

Hey there...haven't checked in with you in a while...the Observer Theory has brought me back into the Wolfram world. But what I cannot envision yet is...what is an entangled limit? The ruliad is the entangled limit of all computation, but I cannot picture in my mind what an "entangled limit" is. I know of limits in calculus, but my mind is not envisioning an "entangled" limit.

[@lasttheory]

Hi Jeff, thanks for the question! I've not heard Stephen Wolfram talk about what he calls "the entangled limit", other than when he defines the ruliad as "the entangled limit of all possible computations". I'm not sure why he uses precisely these words: as you allude to, "entangled" and "limit" have very specific meanings in physics and math that don't seem to fit here. As far as I can tell, all he means is that in the same way that the multiway graph includes all possible evolutions of the hypergraph under a single rule or multiple rules, the ruliad includes all possible evolutions of the hypergraph under all possible rules. I'm _assuming_ that Wolfram uses the word "entangled" here because he's not considering all possible rules _separately,_ he's considering all possible applications of all possible rules tangled together in a single hypergraph. And I can only guess that he's using the word "limit" loosely here. It's not a very large subset of possible rules, it's _all_ possible rules, so that's a _kind_ of infinite limit!

[@setaihedron]

Let me try: Causal Invariance is like a pachinko machine with only one output slot. So no matter which path the ball bounces through the machine, it's always going to come out that same slot.

[@lasttheory]

Nice! Wish I'd come up with that.

[@Abstract3030]

This reminds me of type theory. Suplisticly, a type is a collection of all the proves of a proposition. I also wonder if causal invariance can be demonstrated from more complex algorithms. Thanks for the nice explanation.

[@lasttheory]

Thanks. Yes, there are some real parallels with theorem proving and what Stephen Wolfram calls "metamathematics". Ideas such as causal invariance look like they have applicability way beyond physics!

[@NightmareCourtPictures]

Yep the Wolfram Model implies that all systems are also Wolfram Models (and can be modeled as such). You can look at it in several different ways : That systems have some notion of a space-time, That systems have some notion of a quantum mechanics, and that systems have some notion of relativity. Additionally, all systems are computational, can therefor be thought of as Turing Machines, and exhibit the properties of computational irreducibility and reducibility. When i say all systems, i mean all systems. So, so long as you can abstract a system, and the rules with which that system obeys, than you can extract a wolfram model framework from it and deduce all of these properties. The Wolfram Model is just an abstraction of the Ruliad object, so all systems can be thought of as different limits of the Ruliad. I like to think of the Ruliad object as a maximally symmetric object, meaning that Rules in the Ruliad are like coordinates, that you can then apply transformations to, which leads you to some other coordinate and therefor some other rule. You can express these transformations as translations to the object, rotations of the object...any transformation is going to satisfy graph isomorphism of the entire object, meaning transformations are changes in perspective that preserves the object. You can imagine say in front of you, a ball of nodes and edges, and that either rotating this ball or making a translation of your location to another with respect to the ball is equivalent to traversing rule space. You can then imagine your system as "like a ball of nodes and edges" and to describe it (derive theories of it) you "change perspectives" IE apply transformations like rotation to traverse the higher dimensional geometry of the system. Seeing that new perspective allows you to see different sets of regularities (computational reducibility) in the system. Wolfram has some illustration of this somewhere (i think its his observer theory lecture) Where in the illustration you have a plot of random points...but if you were to rotate the set of points in such a way...there's some angles at which all the points align into a series of strips. What you've done by rotating the object, is given yourself a new perspective, and therefor traversed rule space where this plot of random points, now gives you stripping behavior : like going from rule 30 to rule Rule 79. Observer theory implies that your perspective is part of the function when applying transformations, which is what makes observation so important in how we perceive physics, and really the properties of all systems. When you consider the principle of computational equivalence (that all systems have the same computing capability as a Turing machine) it means that us observers play a crucial role in what the system we are looking at is capable of doing...hence why we can get a random array of points to do striping behavior depending on how we rotate it. Lastly, the above alludes to the notion that any system can be programmed to be whatever system we want it to be, courtesy of computational equivalence (that all systems are equivalent to Turing Machines) which is a cool fact in and of itself. I hope this paragraph helped explain some things about the more conceptual side of the model beyond physics.

[@lasttheory]

@@NightmareCourtPictures Thanks for this. I need to take a closer look at observer theory, and I'm looking forward to digging deeper into metamathematics. The implications of this framework are so _wide._

[@NightmareCourtPictures]

@@lasttheory Let me try to find the lecture he has with illustration. He has an observer theory lecture that is just him reading with no illustrations, but i think the illustrations are just really powerful component to his presentations. give me a few.

[@NightmareCourtPictures]

​@@lasttheory Okay i found it. The lecture with the illustration is "Stephen Wolfram: Can AI Solve Science?" And the section where he talks about the random array of points is : 29:10 Identifying Computational Reducibility The Observer Theory lecture is also good to watch, but the Can AI Solve Science lecture also came out around the same time, so its got the same elements of observer theory lecture except this has visuals.

[@MichaelBarry-gz9xl]

I wish your website had a list of articles. Rather than just hyperlinks to some arbitrary previous articles. How are we supposed to find the articles?

[@lasttheory]

I have a list of articles, by Stephen Wolfram, Jonathan Gorard and myself, here: lasttheory.com/list/best-wolfram-physics-articles Hope that helps, thanks Michael!

[@MichaelBarry-gz9xl]

@@lasttheory Thank you

[@MichaelBarry-gz9xl]

@@lasttheory Though I'm new to this theory, and I'm approaching it from a machine learning perspective, my initial reaction was rather than have rules as an entity in their own right, why not try to encode the rules as graphs. Then you have graphs transforming graphs. Kind of like the symmetry between electric and magnetic fields. It seems to me that nature would behave this way. Molecules transform molecules into new molecules which interact with other molecules etc. It should be graphs all the way down. 🤔

[@lasttheory]

@@MichaelBarry-gz9xl That's interesting. Rules can certainly be expressed as _two_ graphs: the sub-graph that'll be matched, and the sub-graph with which it'll be replaced (e.g. see lasttheory.com/figures/060-what-precisely-is-causal-invariance/060-ftp-8-rule.svg ). So I guess you could have pairs of graphs acting as rules on other graphs... that'd be kinda wild!

[@MichaelBarry-gz9xl]

@@lasttheory That would be wild. You're not limited to search and replace either, a graph could represent an entire algorithm, think of RNA slicing and dicing DNA, or protein folding. It's just a gradient descent through the path of least resistance.

[@NicholasWilliams-y3m]

The problem with hypergraphs in physics, is not of computation, but of composition. Hypergraphs are okay for some computational dynamic processes, but lacks compositional explanation outside the graph (the causes could be distant in composition space, but close within computational space) which is a problem for accurately modeling a systems behavior, which is needed for accurate thermodynamic accounting and more detailed analysis of corner case situations where the causal graph can't interpolate beyond. They are also dead ends, they don't infer new knowledge outside the graph, which is bad for science and exploration into new domains (how the set is part and partial to another more fundamental set). You can use it for understanding differentiation cutoff points, however, it's all about the context (but in science and physics at the boundary, it is in fact a dead end, we would need a thermodynamic theory).

[@lasttheory]

Thanks Nicholas. If Wolfram Physics is to be taken seriously then there's _nothing_ outside the hypergraph, but I don't see how that limits our ability to infer new knowledge. For example, we can show that the behaviour of the hypergraph conforms to Einstein's equations. In other words, we can derive General Relativity from the Wolfram model. And if we can derive General Relativity, is there any reason why we can't predict _departures_ from General Relativity, where the discrete nature of the hypergraph or the non-integer number of dimensions causes space and time to behave in ways that _don't_ conform to Einstein's equations?

[@carborundum1969]

I saw the theory at first, as a medium between the physical and spiritual (metaphysical) domains. I'm going to call it God's thought bubble. Can I haz PhD?

[@DeVibe.]

​@@carborundum1969Pretty close!

[@ValidatingUsername]

Imagine the inflationary model changes how causality works dependant on how much space time changes in relation to the event being observed. Causal invariance requires in the math that causality is preserved no matter what transformations are done to the field.

[@Khashayarissi-ob4yj]

With luck and more power to you. hoping for more videos.

[@lasttheory]

Thanks! Plenty more to come. I feel like I've barely scratched the surface so far!

[@nealesmith1873]

Very interesting! I think that one implication might be that some graphs are more likely than others. Personally, I think that the evolution of anything past bacteria is highly unlikely, but maybe there are many paths to arrive at more complex life forms...the system just might be rigged to be biased to do this.

[@lasttheory]

Yes, I like that idea, that some graphs are more likely than others. I'm not sure how that would work out... maybe we conscious observers are more likely to experience the more likely graphs? Fascinating stuff, thanks Neale!

[@SiiKiiN]

What wollfram says "multiway graph" is he speaking of the structure produced from a graph rewriting algorithm or is he talking about the sum of all possible histories?

[@lasttheory]

The latter. The "hypergraph" is the structure generated by the rewriting rules. The "multiway graph" is, as you say, "the sum of all possible histories". Thanks for the question!

[@ldlework]

The provenance of any given state may be ambiguous between multiple priors Or simply, multiple distinct states may lead to the same future state.

[@darrennew8211]

There's actually a proof that in these sorts of systems, if there are any states for which there is no prior state (garden of eden states), then there must be states where multiple prior states can lead to that state. It prevents you from tracking back from where you are to "the first state".

[@lasttheory]

Yes, exactly. And that's crucial... along with the fact that we macroscopic creatures can't _see_ that multiple distinct past states led to the same state we're in right now. Thanks for watching!

[@ldlework]

@@lasttheory No thank you for doing this work.

[@ai_serf]

what's the big O on the multiway graph growth? I guess one of concepts to integrate into this expression would be causal invariance?

[@lasttheory]

That's a good question, and I don't have a precise answer. It's different for different rules: some rules don't fan out as widely as this one does in its first few iterations; for some rules, the universe actually comes to completion after a few iterations. What I can tell you is that for most rules, the universe becomes uncomputable after very few iterations.

[@tokrv]

Great animation and explaining

[@lasttheory]

I appreciate that, the coding to generate the multiway graph and the animations took a long time! Thanks for watching!

[@MusingsFromTheJohn00]

Sorry, first step at 2:15 into your video... how do you go from the first 2 vectors to the two versions of 4 vectors? Because I do not understand what you are doing here, it appears arbitrary hand waving and nothing makes sense. So, clearly I am missing something, but I do not see what.

[@lasttheory]

Yes, I can see it'd look a little arbitrary! And indeed, it is: I've picked a rule at random to apply to the hypergraph. To understand how this works, you can go back to one of my earliest videos: _Nodes, edges, graphs & rules: the basic concepts of Wolfram Physics_ kzbin.info/www/bejne/pZrOeouHbcp9rdU The accompanying article is at lasttheory.com/article/nodes-edges-graphs-rules-the-basic-concepts-of-wolfram-physics In that video, I explain how _any_ rule can be applied to the hypergraph. I use the same rule as in this video as an example. Hope that helps!

[@MusingsFromTheJohn00]

@@lasttheory thanks, I am going to go check those links out now.

[@dadsonworldwide3238]

I like woframs model but more for building space between into more order. Phase changes of particulates might change elements or atomic lattus structure and body but I'm not sure why they go with worlds as if platonic umbrella pov . I think our biggest paradox is 3 lines of measure, it's always 1st pos newton precision instruments on 2nd einstein frame of reference 3rd approach hiesenbergs photon. Any more or less we get concave of deformity. Yoo hoo woo uncertainty or more proper oreintation and direction line of thought measure that most avoid on purpose. I think finneman went right at it the best one could without keys to cosmos entry

[@Elsiodur]

Thanks!!!

[@lasttheory]

You're welcome! This one took a lot of coding so it was a long time in coming, but there'll be many more videos on this to come!

[@777666777MICHAEL]

Relativity and QM are NOT derriveble from Wolfram model in it's current development, it's a goal but not yet achieved.

[@lasttheory]

Have you taken a look at Jonathan Gorard's derivations? The paper on General Relativity is here arxiv.org/abs/2004.14810 and the one on Quantum Mechanics is here www.complex-systems.com/abstracts/v29_i02_a02/ Jonathan summarizes the derivations briefly in my interview with him: _How to derive general relativity from Wolfram Physics_ kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z6XNmXhmipKgncU and _How to derive quantum mechanics from Wolfram Physics_ kzbin.info/www/bejne/j4vLdIyCj8ahe6c Let me know what you think, Michael!

[@jyjjy7]

I don't see how the merging of causally invariant graphs could help provide evidence for MWI considering the whole point is that their states are identical.

[@lasttheory]

Right. I'm not suggesting causal invariance is evidence for the many-worlds interpretation. Quite the contrary: I still think that many-worlds is simply not science. What causal invariance does in Wolfram Physics is very different. It takes us to the causal graph, which takes us to special relativity and quantum mechanics. I'll be talking about how this works in upcoming videos. Thanks for the comment!

[@KeithMoon1980]

Great video! A complex topic, explained well.

[@lasttheory]

Thanks Keith!

[@merlepatterson]

That's of course assuming that the multi-way "rule" is a true primary function of the universe's evolution?

[@lasttheory]

Right, here I'm assuming that there's only one rule, and that it determines the evolution of the universe in its entirety. If there are multiple rules, however, the idea of causal invariance still applies to the collection of rules. Does that answer your question, Merle?

[@merlepatterson]

@@lasttheory Well, I'm assuming the universe as an analogue of wave evolution and for set rules such as a multi-way graph there is a suggested function of digital-like binary steps.

[@lasttheory]

@@merlepatterson Right, yes, the Wolfram model involves digital (i.e. discrete) steps, the applications of the rules. The branches are not always (or even usually) binary, in that at every step in the evolution of the hypergraph, there are (generally) many possible applications of the rules. But we can reduce this to binary branches by simply picking pairs of paths from any point in the multiway graph, and investigating whether these paths ever come back together.

[@sspirial]

it's been a while

[@lasttheory]

Yes, it has! It took a really long time to rewrite my code to be able to generate the multiway graph shown in this video. I really wanted to show a multiway graph of hypergraphs (in his book and articles, Stephen Wolfram sometimes regresses to strings of A's and B's, instead of hypergraphs, in multiway graphs, and I really didn't want to do that). Thanks for your patience, Munubi, I'll be getting back to a higher rate of production now that the coding's done!

[@ldlework]

@@lasttheory Any interest in help with that stuff? Do you have a Discord server or something?

[@lasttheory]

​@@ldlework Right now it's just me working on my own... I learn better when I've had to implement the whole thing myself. But I'll keep your offer in mind: maybe there are ways I can turn this into a more collaborative effort. Thanks!

[@TravisLiedke-qk9jx]

I've got a possibly interesting question for you. Doesn't this seem a bit like high entropy and low entropy states. For example a liquid at rest has multiple causal invariant paths to the same position of liquid at rest. While a high entropy system like turbulent gas has less causal invariance. Meaning depending on the starting condition of your rule set and how much entropy is possible in that system, the nature of the causal invariance will be at a different scale. I'm curious if that is true, or if in all systems both ones designed to be high entropy and low entropy, causal invariance remains at a constant or has a bell graph or some other limit that keeps it within a certain bound. Principlistically, I feel like causal invariance is a necessary principle of the universe, the question is just the specifics. What is the true root, are their multiple roots, what are the ways things erase and how many things at a time get added etc, and how does this all happen with a certain conservation of energy etc. But yeah, nice, I like this, its quite nice.

[@lasttheory]

That's interesting, thanks Travis. I confess my head hurts whenever I try to think about entropy. Causal invariance, in the strictest definition, is an either-or: either a rule _is_ causally invariant, or it's _not._ But different rules might involve longer or shorter paths through the multiway graph until the coming-back-together, so maybe there's something there that could feed into entropy?

[@NightmareCourtPictures]

Causal invariance is an equivalence notion, for doing transformations to a set of things. Something is invariant when that thing does not change given a transformation (ie translation, rotation etc…) you may have heard of things like lorentz invariance, gauge invariance, scale invariance, translation invarience…these are all statements about the equivalence relations of the set of transformations. Causal invariance means the set of things (in this case all the nodes in the graph) preserves causation under different transformations. The limit of the set is the ruliad object so that is the object being preserved. Locally, preservation need not be satisfied. The key thing here is that the church rosser property (the merging behavior of the graph) will eventually preserve the structure. In essence yes, you can observe different entropies of something at different scales. In the limit of all scales, the structure is preserved and therefor has the same information content (has an unchanging entropy) One can have a discussion about what this actually means…in my view it means we have the definition of entropy wrong : that the universe simply contains an infinite eternal (static) well of information that is accessed, aka this is the ruliad object, and entropy as we understand it now is a local observer dependent observation of a systems information content in isolation. Cheers,

[@lasttheory]

@@NightmareCourtPictures You're way ahead of me, as ever. I was wondering whether anyone would call me on the discrepancy between my definition of causal invariance in this video and the definition Stephen Wolfram generally uses, which places the emphasis on, as you say, "preserv[ing] causation under different transformations." The two definitions are formally equivalent, and I'll get to that other definition, which emphasizes "invariance", probably in the video after next, which will be about the "causal" aspect of causal invariance. Thanks, as ever, for being so astute!

[@jperez7893]

isn't causality a product of the logical implication, from a philosophical logic point of view. logical implication considers all possible worlds or interpretations, making it a robust concept for establishing necessary truths, or in other words causality is a path of truth preservation

[@lasttheory]

Well, yes, good question. What puzzles me is when I try to make contact between the physics and the philosophy. Yes, I can hold the concept of logical implication in my mind when I'm thinking philosophy, but I can't seem to find a place for it when I'm thinking physics, at least, continuous-equation physics. To an extent, at least, I think the discrete computational approach rescues that connection between physics and philosophy.

[@jperez7893]

@@lasttheory for me it’s more in the realm of formal and symbolic logic and foundations of mathematics and epistemology. In the same fields of study as Gödel or Turing, not schopenhauer nor nietze

[@wynshiphillier313]

So what? It's like the binominal function, or the multinomial function, or . . .

[@lasttheory]

"So what?" is a good question! The answer is that this is not just mathematics. It provides a basis for a model of the universe that predicts general relativity and quantum mechanics. In other words, it might prove to be a fundamental theory of physics. Much more to come on how this works! Thanks, Wynship, for the comment.

[@wynshiphillier313]

@@lasttheory It seems strange that QM would be explained by a theory of causality when its results defy causal explanation.

[@lasttheory]

​@@wynshiphillier313 Yes. I believe Scott Aaronson's critique of Wolfram Physics touches on this difficulty. I'm keeping an open mind on this. I'm not sure Aaronson's critique holds up as a criticism from _within_ the paradigm of Wolfram Physics. As a criticism from _without,_ it's simply saying that the Wolfram model isn't compatible with the traditional interpretation of quantum mechanics, which, given that the traditional interpretation of quantum mechanics doesn't seem compatible with the _universe,_ doesn't seem so damning.

[@wynshiphillier313]

@@lasttheory [hasn't watched your vid on Wolfram physics yet but used Mathematica in grad. school.]

[@danellwein8679]

thank you for this .. we separate to come together again .. good stuff

[@lasttheory]

Thanks Dan! It's a bit mind-blowing when I think about it. Perhaps that's just my mind dividing along multiple paths through the multiway graph? I'm not sure all those paths have come back together yet, in _my_ mind, at least!

[@DeVibe.]

I said "This is pseudoscience" but "someone" reported my comment and I got a notification about its deletion and the "rule" that was supposedly violated. Now I would rather say "This is a cult."

[@lasttheory]

Sorry your comment got deleted. This happens without my even knowing about it, let alone being able to do anything about it, I'm afraid. It's entirely reasonable to call this "pseudoscience". I think this computational model holds real promise as a possible framework for physics. It has already proved possible to derive General Relativity and aspects of Quantum Mechanics from the hypergraph. I'm hoping one day it'll be unequivocally real science, but I agree, it's not there yet. I'm not so sure it's a cult, though! Who knows what goes on over at The Wolfram Physics Project, but I'm not a part of that. I'm just interested in the model and interested in communicating its ideas. And I assure you, I'm the last person to join a cult! Thanks for your comments and thanks for persisting despite these problems with deletions.

[@bitegoatie]

So history matters only if we notice it. Oh boy.

[@lasttheory]

Well, I half-agree with your charaterization of my position. Here's where I agree with your statement: if there's no way of distinguishing, even theoretically, let alone experimentally, between two different histories, then can we really say that one happened and the other one didn't? But here's where I disagree: the fact that there _are_ two possible histories can still matter. By the way, you characterization also applies to a standard account of quantum mechanics. In the two-slit experiment, you can't say whether the photon goes through one slit or the other; and if you _can_ say, i.e. if you _observe_ which slit the photon goes through, then the interference pattern is destroyed. So yes, in this standard account of quantum mechanics, history - which slit the photon goes through - matters only if we ntice - observe - it.

[@carlocartello]

When you guys will stop calling it "Wolfram" physics people will start to take you seriously

[@lasttheory]

Yes, I hear you. I'm uncomfortable with the name, which underplays the role of people like Jonathan Gorard. I'd like to find a better one. Open to suggestions!

[@DeVibe.]

​@@lasttheoryWerewolf physics?

[@lasttheory]

@@DeVibe. Ha! I like it ;-)