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On To the Real TOE

Spacetime as an Emergent Phenomenon

Not so many scientists are naive realists any more, for the “elementary” particles are thought to emerge from the quantum realm and are therefore not straight forward physical realities, although they lead to stars, atoms, molecules, cells, and our own glorious complexity; however, we are after the TOE itself.

The geometry of space is not fixed, and spacetime is certainly dynamical and contingent—Einstein’s great discovery that space evolves in time; therefore, we need a TOE about what makes up space, not what happens in space, such as strings wriggling.

A theory of what moves in space would be background-dependent, as in string theory that chooses an appropriate fixed background to obtains the results it wants. These kinds of theories have a “truth” that derives from their choice of background, but, the background is not really fixed at all—it's dynamic.

A theory of what makes space would be a background-independent theory. A purely quantum mechanical theory is needed that shows how space emerges from a deeper level of reality in which space does not even exist—surely the ultimate of background-independence.

Many quantum gravity scientists think that space emerges as an approximation of something discrete, the apparently smooth continuum of space being an illusion, like a movie or the smoothness of water, and that causality is fundamental, especially below the level of space’s emergence.

The keys are emergence of space from the quantum world, and discreteness and fundamental causality within the quantum world.

One approach is non commutative geometry (AB is not equal to BA), since you can’t measure a particle’s position and momentum at once.

The casual dynamical triangulations model uses simple building blocks, each of which represents a simple causal process. The quantum spacetime is then a sequence of possible spaces that succeed one another in some kind of “time.”

Whatever the case or approach, it seems almost out of reach, but it must be there that the ultimate TOE resides.

The ultimate simplicity is probably not astonishing; nor is it the time or place to introduce some infinite complexity of an alien or Creator type being, for that just starts the descent to simplicity all over again.

The ultimate simplicity could be eternal with no beginning—it’s possible—but that leaves the mystery of how come it was the right stuff, not to mention how it could have always been there.

“Nothing”, without any potential whatsoever, seems to be an impossible state to maintain, since there is something.

Now, why would the quantum world be where the buck stops. Perhaps it generates substance through possibility and probability, ending the regress of smaller substance causing larger substance, because, well, we have to throw out the rule book of physical laws of form and time. What could the formless-timeless do? Anything and everything, I suppose.

Now, what?