Thanks for this summary, very interesting topic ! The more I read about papers trying to discover the true nature of reality, the more confused I get about WHY there exists a 'reality' rather than 'nothing at all'.
In his discussion with Lex Fridman, Joscha Bach said that 'something' rather than 'nothing' may be the default state and the question may not have sense. At the end of the interview with Stephen Wolfram, the topic is also discussed and Stephen refers to the 'godel's incompleteness theorem' to postulate that the question may not be answerable from within this reality. It is kind of scary that even using infinite time, even by creating a sentient superintelligent AI, we may never be able to answer this ultimate question.
One thing may be logically probable though, if what is written in your summary is true "according to Interface Theory, even things like spacetime itself are constructions of this video game world that our brains render": If there is a substrate where our reality/universe exists, it must exists outside of spacetime and for that reason our brain may not be able to understand it.
Maybe an superintelligent AI will be the only way to help us answer this question after all:
"If there is a substrate where our reality/universe exists, it must exists outside of spacetime and for that reason our brain may not be able to understand it." - I think that in a way, this is what Wolfram is trying to do - to understand the reality that exists outside of our perceptions.
I found a better video where he explains how different beings can have different models of physics (linked above). One example he brings up: if you're a dog and you have a much keener sense of smell than vision, then maybe you care about relativity more since the speed of diffusion of particles is much slower than the speed of light.
Thanks for this summary, very interesting topic ! The more I read about papers trying to discover the true nature of reality, the more confused I get about WHY there exists a 'reality' rather than 'nothing at all'.
In his discussion with Lex Fridman, Joscha Bach said that 'something' rather than 'nothing' may be the default state and the question may not have sense. At the end of the interview with Stephen Wolfram, the topic is also discussed and Stephen refers to the 'godel's incompleteness theorem' to postulate that the question may not be answerable from within this reality. It is kind of scary that even using infinite time, even by creating a sentient superintelligent AI, we may never be able to answer this ultimate question.
One thing may be logically probable though, if what is written in your summary is true "according to Interface Theory, even things like spacetime itself are constructions of this video game world that our brains render": If there is a substrate where our reality/universe exists, it must exists outside of spacetime and for that reason our brain may not be able to understand it.
Maybe an superintelligent AI will be the only way to help us answer this question after all:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-40765-6
"Let’s keep on trying though, shall we?" :-)
Thank you for the reply!
"If there is a substrate where our reality/universe exists, it must exists outside of spacetime and for that reason our brain may not be able to understand it." - I think that in a way, this is what Wolfram is trying to do - to understand the reality that exists outside of our perceptions.
I found a better video where he explains how different beings can have different models of physics (linked above). One example he brings up: if you're a dog and you have a much keener sense of smell than vision, then maybe you care about relativity more since the speed of diffusion of particles is much slower than the speed of light.