The universe learns itself
Stephon Alexander, a physics professor at Brown University, has
taken over the bizarre research. In the preprint of the article,
Alexander and the team, instead of trying to figure out what the
laws of physics are at work in the universe, ask why the physical
world is governed by certain laws and not by some other.
As a result, the researchers came to the conclusion that the
physical world is not the only true reality, it is the result of
many repetitions of the Universe trying to establish laws that did
not work. According to Alexander, our universe has probably
acquired the characteristics of many possible universes. It ended
up in a configuration that was stable and allowed universe to
develop consistently.
Researchers compare this process of trying, failing, and retrying
to an arcade game with a very large extra life. The universe is
always able to keep trying. In this regard, the universe learns
what works and what doesn't as it develops. Since the universe
does not have a teacher, but it learns its lessons along the way,
researchers call this self-education.
The team started by understanding that physical theories can be
viewed as matrix models. A vast matrix could contain all the
possible laws that could govern the universe. The mathematics
of matrix theory seems to contain some components of a specific
type of neural network, Alexander said in an interview with
New Scientist (
https://bit.ly/32hFN2T).
If the researcher is right, then we humans are not able to see
everything that the universe has learned. Perhaps there are other
corners of the universe where other interesting things have
happened that are completely radical from our point of view.
So there is no reason to believe that the universe chose to study
the laws that allowed life and consciousness to arise. Confirming
a theory of a self-learning universe would not necessarily rule out
Einstein's or Hawking's theories, but it would definitely confirm
that physicists should explore ideas that go far beyond traditional
boundaries.
