Is E8 Emergence Theory Mathematics? Or the Occult?

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An acquaintance turned me on to a thinker whose work in mathematics and theoretical physics, in a search for the elusive “Theory of Everything”, has resulted in something called the theory of Emergence. The theory is based in mathematics and predicts new particles, so it is “testable” if those particles can be found.

The theory has some supposed implications (why they are implied I don’t know, I’m only a layman) and these are the implications:
  1. All points in time are connected in a causal loop, meaning the future can affect the past. Or as they say it, “all time affects all time all the time.”
  2. The base pixels of reality are tiny tetrahedrons that are connected to each other in accordance to the Golden Ratio, which may be the fundamental constant in the universe.
  3. There’s an underlying structure to reality that through emergence arose consciousness, which created itself as the universe.
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The third item is obviously pantheistic fodder for New Age baloney.
 
Garrett Lisi’s work in particle physics led him to find patterns in the geometry that led him to discover an 8-dimensional crystalline structure called the E8 Lie Group. He used this to predict the existence of particles that he believes account for the force of gravity.

Klee Irwin and the Quantum Gravity Research team have taken this and constructed a theory about the nature of reality itself all the way down to the plank length, where reality breaks down into pixellated tetrahedrons that through emergence theory has created a universal consciousness.

Here’s the video which I was getting this stuff from:

 
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niceatheist said:
It doesn’t sound like it’s very popular in physics circles, and it sounds like it has been debunked for the most part.
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But it does have some support, and the debunking has itself been criticized. Meanwhile, the author has produced some peer reviewed articles on the mathematics involved.

The theory is not complete. The “debunking” might be right. But it is creative thinking that could still be a breakthrough.
 
My concern with it is when it starts making claims about the future altering the past and the universe being “mind”. It all sounds more like hoodoo than science.

Also I live in an area where the new age is very popular (read: lots of pot users), and I am wondering whether this stuff serves new age occultism more than it does natural science.
 
When all you have is a hammer (math), everything looks like a nail (the meaning of life, the universe, and everything).
 
Protip: when you see the word “quantum” anywhere near philosophical musings, run away. It’s inevitably bullcrap.
 
looskanal said:
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HopkinsReb:
Protip: when you see the word “quantum” anywhere near philosophical musings, run away. It’s inevitably bullcrap.
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In other words, when you see anything that might possibly disagree with your preconceptions, run away.

Like that ludicrous idea that the earth orbits the sun. Just stick your fingers in your ears and mumble incoherent sounds until they go away.

That’ll work. That’s the Catholic way.
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This is, of course, in no way what I said.

I’m not Catholic.
 
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looskanal said:
It’s not precisely correct to think that consciousness “ created itself as the universe ”. But rather that they’re two aspects of the same thing…order.
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I dug a little deeper into the subject and I think I need to amend my original post. It seems that Lisi, who developed the E8 theory, does not go into so far to make any claims about “universal consciousness” His theory is just a theory about the nature of sub-atomic particles, and that’s about it. That’s fine, no problems there.

This second fellow, Klee Irwin, is another matter. His group, the Quantun Gravity Institute in Los Angeles, is the one which goes out on a limb and makes a lot of strange suppositions like “all time affects all time all the time”, and “consciousness created itself as the universe.” They take the E8 theory, and then attach New Age beliefs about “universal mind” to it. It’s a new variation on the New Age belief in “vibrations”, which from what I can tell is a quasi-religious adaptation of the vibrating strings in string theory.
 
looskanal said:
We all accept that the past, present, and future are consistent with each other,… The future and the present are connected, in the same way that the past and the present are connected. Every point in time is causally connected with every other point in time and that’s why they’re consistent.
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Do we?
Past is not; the future is not; neither exist at all (except in your knowing - memory and anticipation, yet you remember more than “now” and anticipate a long sequence of “nows”, you do not remember an individual “now” nor anticipate an individual “now” since “now” is durationless.
The future, which is not, cannot affect the past, which is not, nor can the future, which is not, exert pressure of causation on the “now”.
The past, which is not, cannot exert present pressure of causation on the “now”, nor any subsequent “now”.
Nothing touches anything, materially, nor temporally.

John Martin
 
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