Physics, the way we’ve thought about it for the last few hundred years, requires us to make assumptions about time.

In our old way of thinking, just as we must assume three axes of space – scales along which we can measure what’s where – so we must assume an axis of time – a scale along which we can measure what happens when.

It doesn’t matter whether, like Newton, we assume an absolute scale along which we can measure what happens when according to a giant clock in the sky, or whether, like Einstein, we assume a relative scale along which we can measure what happens when according to a tiny clock in each and every reference frame.

Either way, we must assume an axis of time.

Wolfram Physics, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to make anyassumptions about time.

We need only posit the application of rules to the nodes and edges of the hypergraph, and time emerges.

The evolution of the hypergraph is time...

...which gives us a profound clue, not just to the nature of time, but to the nature of the universe.

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References

• The canonical mass of a neutron star is 1.4 solar masses
• The mass of the Sun is 1.988416 × 10^30 kg
• The mass of a neutron is 1.67492750056(85) × 10^-27 kg
• So the number of neutrons in a neutron star, assuming neutron stars are made entirely of neutrons (which they’re not), is 1.4 × 1.988416 × 10^30 kg / 1.67492750056(85) × 10^-27 kg ~ 10^57

Credits

• Pulsar animation by Michael Kramer licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
• Retina image by د.مصطفى الجزار licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

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The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind

I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here.

The full article is here.

Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.

Different observers, from different regions of the ruliad, experience the universe in different ways.

To what extent can these different observers communicate their different experiences?

Can dogs, with their olefactory ways of mapping their worlds through scent, truly understand humans, with our one-dimensional ways of mapping our world through language?

Can humans, with our one-dimensional streams of language, truly understand AI image generators, with their parallel diffusion models?

If we ever met aliens, would we be able to communicate with them?

How might it be to think like an alien?

Stephen Wolfram explores some of the mind-bending implications of different regions of the ruliad giving rise to different experiences of the universe.

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Stephen Wolfram

• Stephen Wolfram
• The Wolfram Physics Project
• Wolfram Institute
• Wolfram Institute Community Discord

References

• Ruliad definition
• Ruliad article

—

The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind

I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here.

Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.

The ruliad is every possible computation. What could you possibly say about such an enormous, all-encompassing object?

Well, that’s where we come in.

Particular observers sample the ruliad in particular ways.

Observers like us sample the ruliad in ways that give rise to physics as weknow it.

Ruliad + observer = physics.

In this excerpt from my conversation with Stephen Wolfram, he explores how physics, mathematics and biology all arise from this same enormous, all-encompassing object, the ruliad.

He gets to aliens, too, asking such provocative questions as how far from us in rulial space are the nearest aliens?

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Stephen Wolfram

• Stephen Wolfram
• The Wolfram Physics Project
• Wolfram Institute
• Wolfram Institute Community Discord

References

• Ruliad definition
• Ruliad article
• Second Law of Thermodynamics article
• Second Law of Thermodynamics history
• Metamathematics article
• Metamathematics book
• Biological evolution article
• Biological evolution follow-up
• Computational irreducibility

—

The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind

I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here.

Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.