Red, theory; black, fact.
I continue to mine the idea that the world of appearances is simulation-like, in that how we perceive it is strongly affected by the fact that our point of view is inside it, and illusions are rampant.
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The slate-of-givens approach is intended to exploit consilience to arrive at a simplified physics that attributes as many phenomena as possible to historical factors and the observer's point of view. Simplified physics is viewed as a stepping-stone to the one, true TOE. The existence of widespread consilience implies that such exists. |
The basic theory
The underlying reality is proposed to be a small-world network, whose nodes are our elementary particles and whose links ("edges" in graph theory) are seen collectively as the fields around those particles.
This network is a crude approximation to scale-free, but is structurally only a recursion of three generations (with a fourth in the process of forming), each comprised of two sub-generations, and not an infinite regress. The first generation to form after the big bang was a bunch of triangular networks that we call baryons. In the next generation, they linked up to form the networks underlying light atomic nuclei. These, and individual protons, were big enough to stably bond to single nodes (electrons) to form the network version of atoms. Above the atomic/molecular/electromagnetic level, further super-clustering took on the characteristics of gravitation, whose hallmark seems to be rotation. At the grandest cosmological scales, we may be getting into a fourth "force" that produces the foamy structure of galaxy distribution. The observations attributed to the presence of dark matter may be a sign that, at the intra-galactic scale, the nature of the "fields" is beginning to shift again.
I conjecture that throughout this clustering process, a continuous thermal-like agitation was running through all the links, and especially violent spikes in the agitation pattern could rupture links not sufficiently braced by other, parallel links. This would have been the basis of a trial-and error process of creation of small-world characteristics. The nature of the different "forces" we seem to see at different scales would be entirely conditioned by the type of clusters the links join at that scale, because cluster type would condition the opportunities for network stabilization by cooperative bracing.
Reconciliation with known science
Formation and rupture of links would correspond to the quantum-mechanical phenomenon of wave-function collapse, and the endless converging, mixing, and re-diverging of the heat signals carried by the network would correspond to the smooth, reversible time-evolution of the wave-function between collapses. The experience of periodic motions would arise from resonances in closed paths embedded in the network. When you see the moon move across the sun in an eclipse, <11-27-2020: no net links are being made or broken; the whole spectacle somehow arises by an energetically balanced creation and rupture of links.>
The photoelectric effect that Einstein made famous can be given a network interpretation: the work function is the energy needed to simultaneously break all the links holding the electron to the cluster that is the electrode, and the observation of an electron that then seems to fly away from the electrode happens by calculation in the remaining network after it has been energized by heat-signal energy in excess of that needed to break the links, reflecting back into the network from the broken ends.
How distance would arise
All the ineffably large number of nodes in the universe would be equidistant from each other, which is possible if they exist in a topological space; such spaces have no distance measure. I think it likely that what you experience as distance is the number of nodes that you contain divided by the number of links connecting the cluster that is you with the cluster that you are observing. It remains to figure out how some of the concomitants of distance arise, such as delay in signal transmission and the cosmological redshift.
Reconciliation with the finite speed of light
11-01-2020: The time-delay effect of distance can be described by a hose-and-bucket model if we assume that all measurements require link breaking in the observer network. The energy received by the measuring system from the measured system is like water from a hose progressively filling a bucket. The delayed overflow of the bucket would correspond to the received energy reaching threshold for breaking a link in the observer network. The fewer the links connecting observer to observed relative to the observer size (i.e., the greater the distance), the slower the bucket fills and the longer signal transmission is observed to take.
11-02-2020: The above mechanism cannot transmit a pulsatile event such as a supernova explosion. It takes not one, but two integrations to convert an impulse into a ramp function suitable for implementing a precise delay. Signal theory tells us that if you can transmit an impulse, you can transmit anything. The second integration has already been located in the observer cluster, so the obvious place in which to locate the first integration is in the observed cluster. Then when the link in the observer cluster breaks, which is an endothermic event, energy is sucked out of both integrators at once, resetting them to zero. That would describe an observer located in the near field of the observed cluster. In the far field, the endothermic rupture would cool only the observer cluster; most of the radiative cooling of the observed cluster would come from the rupture of inter-cluster links, not intra-cluster links. Thus, hot clusters such as stars are becoming increasingly disconnected from the rest of the universe. This can account for the apparent recessional velocity of the galaxies, since I have conjectured that distance is inversely proportional to numbers of inter-cluster links.
Predictions of the fate of the universe
We often hear it said that the reason the night sky is black is that the expansion of the universe is continuously creating more space in which to warehouse all the photons emitted by all the stars. However, the network orientation offers a simpler explanation: inter-cluster links at the grandest scale are being endothermically destroyed to produce the necessary cooling, and the fewer these become, the longer the cosmological distances appear to be. I suppose that when these links are all gone, we all cook. The microwave background radiation may be a harbinger of this. Clearly, my theory favours the Big Rip scenario of the fate of the universe, but a hot Big Rip.
Accounting for the ubiquity of oscillations
05-01-2021: At this point, an improved theory of oscillations can be offered: Oscillating systems feature 4 clusters and thus 4 integrators connected in a loop to form a phase-shift oscillator. These integrators could be modeled as a pair of masses connected by a spring ( = 2 integrators) in each of the observer and observed systems ( = 2 x 2 = 4 integrators).
Motion and gravity
11-30-2020: Motion would be an energetically balanced breaking of links on one side of a cluster and making of links on the other. This could happen on a hypothetical background of spontaneous, random link making and breaking. Acceleration in a gravitational "field" would happen if more links are coming in from one side than the opposite side. More links will correspond to a stronger mutual bracing effect, preferentially inhibiting link breaking on that side. This will shift the making/breaking equilibrium toward making on that side, resulting in an acceleration. <12-11-2020: The universal gravitational constant G could be interpreted as expressing the probability of a link spontaneously forming between any two nodes per unit of time.>
Dimension and direction
01-13-2021: It is not clear how the direction and dimension concepts would emerge from a network representation of reality. If distance emerges from 2-way interactions of clusters, perhaps direction emerges from 3-way interactions and dimension arises from a power law of physical importance versus the number of interacting clusters in a cluster of clusters. This idea was inspired by the fact that four points are needed to define a volume, three are needed to define a plane, and two are needed to define a line.
02-13-2021: Alternatively, angle may be a matter of energetics. Assume that new links form spontaneously at an unalterable rate and only link rupture rate varies. The heat injected by link creation must be disposed of by a balanced rate of link rupture, but this will depend in detail on mutual bracing effects. If your rate of rupture of links to a given cluster is minimal, you will be approaching that cluster. The cluster with which your rupture rate is highest is the one you are receding from. Clusters with which you score average rupture rates will be 90 degrees off your line of travel. The distribution of clusters against angle is predicted from geometry and the appearance of the night sky to be proportional to sin(θ), but a random distribution of rupture rates would predict a bell curve (Gaussian) centered on the average rupture rate. Close, but no cigar. The tails of the Gaussian would produce a sparse zone both fore and aft. Moreover, since there must always be a maximum and minimum, you will always be heading exactly toward some cluster and exactly away from some other: not what we observe.
03-06,07-2021: That the universe is spatially at least three-dimensional can be reduced to a rule that links do not cross. Why the minimum dimensionality permitted by this rule is the one we observe remains to be explained.
Momentum
Momentum can be explained by attributing it to the network surrounding a cluster, not to the cluster itself. Heat must flow without loss (how?) from in front of a travelling cluster around to the rear (I hope eventually to be able to purge this description of all its directional assumptions), suggesting closed flow-lines through the larger network reminiscent of magnetic field lines. (This is similar in outline to Mach's explanation of momentum, as being due to the interaction of the test mass with the distant galaxies.) It seems necessary to postulate that once this flow pattern is established, it persists by default. An especially large cluster in the vicinity will represent a high-conductivity path for the heat flow, possibly creating a tendency for links to form perpendicular to the line of travel and offset toward the large cluster, which might explain gravitational capture of objects into stable orbits. Finally, the overall universal law would be: heat of link formation = heat of link rupture + increases in network heat content due to increases in network melting point due to increases in mutual bracing efficiency. A simple concept of melting point is the density of triangles in the network. Still to be explained: repulsive forces.
Repulsive forces
04-04-2021: Repulsive forces are only seen with electromagnetism and then only after a local network has been energized somehow. When particles said to be oppositely charged recombine, neutral atoms are re-formed, which creates new triangles and thus increases melting point. The recombination of particles said to be of like charge creates relatively few triangles and is therefore disfavored, creating the impression of mutual repulsion.
More on the origin of momentum
Inter-cluster links are not individually bidirectional in their heat conductivity, but a (usually) 50:50 mixture of unidirectional links going each way. Momentum and spontaneous First Law motion become prevalent in classically-sized networks due to small imbalances in numbers of cluster A to cluster B links versus cluster B to cluster A links. This produces a random pattern of spontaneous heat flows across the universe. Converging flows burn out links (and are thus self-limiting) and diverging flows preserve links, causing them to increase in number locally. This process nucleates the gravitational clumping of matter. A directional imbalance in the interior of a cluster causes First Law motion by spontaneously transporting heat from front to back. Front and back are defined by differences in numbers of inter-cluster links (to an arbitrary external cluster) among subsets of cluster nodes.
Case study of a rocket motor
For a rocket motor to work, we have to assume that one of these asymmetrical links can only be burned out by heat applied to its inlet end. During liftoff, the intense heat down in the thruster chambers burns out (unidirectional) links extending up into the remainder of the craft. This leaves an imbalanced excess of links within the rocket body going the other way, leading to a persistent flow of heat downward from the nose cone. This cooling stabilizes links from overhead gravitationally sized clusters ending in the nose cone, causing them to accumulate, thereby shortening the "distance" from the nose cone to those clusters. Meanwhile, the heat deposited at the bottom of the rocket progressively burns out links from the rocket to the Earth, thereby increasing the "distance" between the rocket and the Earth. The exhaust gasses have an imbalanced excess of upward-directed asymmetric links due to the temperature gradient along the exhaust plume that serves to break their connection to the rocket and create the kind of highly asymmetrical cluster required for space travel. <04-11-2021: The details of this scenario all hang together if we assume that link stabilization is symmetrical with link burnout: that is, it is only responsive to what happens at the inlet (in this case, cooling).> Since kinetic energy is associated with motion, the directional link imbalance must be considered a form of energy in its own right, one not sensible as heat as usually understood.
Future directions
05-28-2021: To make further progress, I might have to assume that the links in the universal network are the real things and that the nodes are just their meeting places, which only appear to be real things because this is where the flow of energy changes direction. I then assume that all links are directional and that pairing of oppositely-directed links was actually the first step in the evolution of the universe. Finally, I decompose these directional links into an inlet part joined to an outlet part. With this decomposition, a link pair looks like this:
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Notice the interesting ambiguity in how to draw the arrows. A purely directional link recalls the one-way nature of time and may represent undifferentiated space and time. A final decision was to treat a repulsive force as a link whose disappearance is exothermic, not endothermic, because this indirectly allows the formation of more of the default kind of link.
