random ejaculations from my thought factory

I’ve tried to make my thoughts as easily “digestible”  as possible and this is the best I could, so this is it (hope your minds don’t choke on it …mine almost did):

This journey starts close to the philosophical part of theoretical physics (close but just far enough that all the math is out of our field of view). There are two views amongst the thinkers that care about the “fundamental” nature of our world, thinking about it scientifically: the universe is at the level of “fundamental” “particles” (I use quotes because I think they’re not fundamental and every physicists knows they’re not “particles” in the everyday sense of the word) either:

• deterministic, e.g. “God does not play dice” kind of thinking, or
• probabilistic, the “classical” quantum mechanics way of thinking (by some extended insanely to “Schrödinger’s cat” and all that shit)

If we assume the fundamental laws of physics are probabilistic, we can still explain the deterministic nature of the universe that appears to us macroscopically.

And of we assume them to be deterministic, we can still explain the apparent probabilistic behavior of small particles by our inability or impossibility to measure them exactly.

But both these views are based on the intuitive (to some, not to me) presumption that the universe is of ‘finite complexity’ and ‘finite resolution’ (I will define my usage of these terms shortly).

Imagine instead that all the “fundamental” “particles” we know are composed of other “more fundamental” particle (let’s say, imagine such a heresy as an internal structure of the quark or photon) and apply this idea recursively infinitely.

Could infinite complexity not explain the apparent macroscopic determinism just as well? I bet it can. And the interesting conclusion would be that the terms “fundamentally deterministic” or “fundamentally probabilistic” wouldn’t  make any sense if we think this way, because there could be no “fundamentally”

Now you may think that by this ‘infinite complexity’ I’m referring to some kind of ‘infinite resolution’, in the printer dpi sense, or that I’m just saying that everything is composed of something smaller (infinitely).

But it’s not that: what if the rules of physics themselves, that govern how particles behave, are “new” for each level of detail, that is, for each step of zooming in, our previous theory turns out to be just an approximation of another theory (think newtonian mechanics and special relativity) that we can only verify by turning to a more detailed understanding of the world (ok, the scaling down thing is not the only thing this would apply to, you could also go to very high energy levels or make any parameter of the world model smaller or higher enough to get out of the bonds of your current model… but let’s skip this since I’m trying to make this easily “digestible” as I’ve said)?

Or to put it another way, what if the “fundamental” laws can never be understood, but we can only find better and better approximations of them, every new “more general” theory being a better fit for our data (maybe a perfect fit since our data is limited)?

I define the term ‘infinite complexity’ to mean what I’m referring to in these last two questions.

So, the universe I’m imagining has these attributes:

• infinite “size” (space, time, etc.)
• infinite resolution (as defined above)
• infinite complexity (again, see above)

To some, it might be the scariest thing ever imagined because we’ll never know it completely (of course we won’t, but the point is that no form of intelligence ever will) and we’ll never be sure we are “on top of the food chain” – whether we are the most advanced forms of intelligence in it (and most likely we’ll never be).

To ME (or to correct it a lil’ bit: “to an immortal being thinking like me”, since I’ll be dead before it matters anyway), it would be PARADISE.

It would be a universe where all the basic desires of (some) humans and (sufficiently evolved) human-like intelligences:

• survival and reproductions (the hope for them to be infinite)
• pleasure (physical and mental if you really think they can be separated in two categories)
• power (need to dominate others)
• curiosity (desire to find out more)
• creative drive (desire to make, invent, build thinks, but not in the reproductive sense)

…could be (potentially) fulfilled indefinitely. Or better said, you could for ever hope and “fight” to get them. E.g., even if you would live forever, you would never get bored, you could always discover and invent new things (I mean really “new”) or indulge in new pleasures, where you could always hope to be (or hope you are) “top dog” (you are the most intelligent advanced, powerful, whatever).

In such a universe, an eternal quest for happiness – which I think should be preferable to eternal happiness – will be possible (you will not always be happy, but you will never lose hope of being more happy then you are).

As the pessimistic end-note: only a god like being that has solved the problem of biological death (just a matter of time, unfortunately too much time) could really enjoy the benefits of such a universe.

And the “fun” thing is that we might actually be living in such a universe. Too bad we can’t enjoy it

P.S. The source of all this is not some THC driven trip or alcoholic overdose. These are just thoughts sprang from nowhere into my mind while enjoying a large cup of coffee on the balcony after a phone call from an ex gf while admiring the rain. Some people seem to have an ability to wake up the most unsane, weeeeird and useless parts of my mind.

P.P.S. You have actually read all this?  What’s wrooooong with you (wo)man?! No, seriously, go get laid or smth….