Important Note: This post is entirely speculative and is meant not as an explanation for gravity as-it-is, but rather a proof of concept that something gravity-like, and elements that are like atoms or natural systems etc can arise out of very simple and random rules without the need for fine-tuning, and that constants (or regularities) can be arrived at by means of natural equilibria rather than being lucked upon, or designed.
The picture above is from a simulation you can explore at nonzerosum.games and is the result of some very…
… Simple Rules
Randomly positioned points
Each point assigned one of 1-24 colours
Each colour has a randomly assigned but consistent attraction or repulsion from each colour (including those that are the same colour as itself)
As with Conway’s Game of Life, we see that, from these simple rules, complexity arises—and specifically, we see gravitational forms and patterns that feel like bodies, cells, or atomic oscillations.
You may have seen similar “artificial life” simulations in the past, and if so, they will no-doubt have been more visually impressive than this particular sim. This is because this simulation is not intended as a cool-looking approximation of life, tweaked to present particular “behaviours”.
The purpose of this simulation is to demonstrate that coherent systems can (and in some cases inevitably) emerge without design. So, I have endeavoured to eliminate as much “design” as possible from the system. But before I get ahead of myself this is only...
… A Speculation
This project is no doubt a stunning example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. That is, that I have done so little actual study of theoretical physics that I am unaware of the extraordinary magnitude of my ignorance on the subject. Nonetheless, I will go forth with the confidence of a tone-deaf X-Factor participant.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe” — Carl Sagan
Gravity is a key missing piece in the quest for a Grand Unified Theory. And indeed, I stumbled on this subject not out of burning curiosity about gravity, but through arguments with religious apologists, which prompted me to conceive of a logically coherent way that something could come from nothing—how order could arise from chaos; the philosophical materialist’s foundational dilemma.
What Is Nothing?
As mentioned, I was trying to develop this idea with no physics education. So, I enrolled the help of Lawrence Krauss, in as much as I watched some of his lectures on YouTube. In his talk A Universe From Nothing he makes a nod to the problematic nature of nothing stating that…
“… philosophers and theologians know a lot about nothing and require you to talk about it in the way they like.” — Lawrence Krauss
If you are feeling masochistic and want to know how philosophers talk about nothing, try Heidegger’s essay What is Metaphysics?
It turns out that the nothing of physics; that being the emptiness of space is in fact a bubbling brew of quantum fluctuations. This actually aligns with the philosophical nothing—better described as chaos, something immeasurable, God’s dark materials*.
“… A dark
Illimitable Ocean without bound,
Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height,
And time and place are lost…”— John Milton (Paradise Lost)
Can Something Come From Nothing?
The void, nothing, chaos, by definition, is not limited (as any limit would be an assertion of order) and so it can create anything, in fact given infinite time scales it can create incredibly complex things. Something (some order) might well be inevitable.
What Is Something?
Something, in order to be distinguishable from nothing, needs to be measurable, and so needs to accumulate in some way, whether it’s by combining with other “things”, or replicating, or developing consistent properties. What I am looking for is the simplest form of self-ordering, because as soon as we have any simple self-ordering process, order can grow indefinitely.
So, what is the simplest thing that might self-order? How about a very weak force that draws points together… Wait, that’s cheating, right? That’s simply positing the thing we’re trying to explain (Gravity). To explain that, we need to find something even simpler.
How do we make something simple even simpler? We eliminate specifications.
Gravity requires particles with mass, so let’s do away with that.
Gravity sucks, so let’s do away with that.
Gravity has one particular measure of force, let’s lose that.
So, what are we left with?
A field of randomly positioned zero-dimensional massless points
… that move toward or away from each other
… with arbitrary relative force
These are the conditions of the simulation.
You might have a few questions about these “more simple” specifications. In general I’ve interpreted “more simple” to mean less ordered, or more random. The less we depend on order the less “designed” the system is. For instance specifying “gravity sucks” is tautological, it would be meaningless to run a simulation where all the points were specified as being attracted to each other as a proof of concept for the emergence of gravity because it posits gravity’s key defining attribute. Removing this specification in favour of the freedom to be pulled or pushed arbitrarily introduces randomness.
The simulation was essentially a proof of concept that, given random relative forces, gravitational bodies will emerge, and the results confirmed what I’d expected. But it also created “behavioural” patterns that I hadn’t expected. What it seemed to show was that these simple rules created complex structures, that reflected other natural phenomena (like oscillating atoms, magnetic fields etc), while the apparent attributes of gravity arose simultaneously, as an aggregate of individual particle forces ( particular forces?).
It was fun to experiment with, but I had a sneaking suspicion that there might be one of those annoying “facts” or “observations” in physics that made this position untenable.
Is Any Of This Real?
It turns out perhaps—I found that physicist Erik Verlinde, in his talk Gravity Doesn’t Exist, held a similar contention that gravity is not actually a force but a byproduct of multiple different micro-forces, in the same way as the force of a magnet is a byproduct of the alignment of the magnetic fields of the particles.
Verlinde relates gravity to temperature, which is a byproduct of the average kinetic energy of particles. He says that while we cannot measure the temperature of a single particle at the microsopic scale, we can measure the temperature of a group of particles and other macroscopic phenomenon such as pressure. Also, we can predict, based on the law of entropy—explored in Emergence Vs Entropy, that gas will flow from a high pressure area to a lower pressure area, and the temperature will transfer from hotter areas to cooler areas. He suggests that in the same way, gravity is a byproduct of the alignment of the quantum particle fields.
So…
This simulation is not a claim about our universe, but a sandbox for rethinking how order, and perhaps even gravity, might emerge without design. While it lacks the mathematical rigour of formal physics, it serves to illustrate an important philosophical intuition: that complexity can arise without intent, structure without architecture, constants without tuning.
If gravity—like temperature—is emergent, then what we call “laws of nature” may be more like statistical tendencies than divine decrees. And if that’s true, then even from chaos, we might reasonably expect cosmos.
Gravitational forms may be yet another consistent outcome of forces that are ultimately entropic. And as we have explored the consistent process of entropy creates many consistent byproducts in this way. These from substrates of uniformity, eking out a niche for a new phenomenon or dissipative structure that, through its contribution to entropy creates a new substrate on which further phenomena can arise. If this sounds a bit confusing don’t worry, we will flesh this out in the next part.
P.S.
Some have asked if I’m meaning to approximate Quantum Gravity with this experiment, and I am not. If this purely speculative model has any relation to real physics it relates to Verlinde’s model, which while it is much more complex than what I’ve contemplated here, it does not fall under the category of quantum gravity. Theories of quantum gravity generally involve some form of a “graviton”, my (naive) understanding of emergent gravity, and Verlinde’s position holds that gravity emerges from statistical dynamics, and doesn’t require gravitons.
@Adele Lopez is right, but also, entropic/emergent theories of quantum gravity are definitely a thing, and if that’s what you’re aiming to describe here, I don’t think the point comes across well.
I agree, it’s not coming across at all well at present, needs a rewrite, give me a couple of weeks :)
None of these are really true. Photons, which are massless, are affected by gravity as evidenced by gravitational lenses. Even in a universe with only photons, general relativity says that there will be non-trivial gravitational effects.
Gravity is simply the curvature of space-time. It’s more like how two objects moving due north (from the northern hemisphere) get closer together, than like suction (where the force arises from the absence of a force pushing out in a situation that is normally in equilibrium).
Gravity isn’t a force, in exactly the same way that the centrifugal force isn’t a force. With the centrifugal force, you feel like there’s a force pulling you outward, but this is an artifact of your intuition’s insistence on using a rotating frame of reference. With gravity as we typically experience it, space itself is “shrinking” (i.e. curved in time), and the actual force is from the earth’s surface accelerating upward at a constant rate, which itself is due to its rigidity (ultimately arising from the Pauli exclusion principle). We experience it as a force downward due to our intuition’s insistence on using a frame of reference stationary relative to the surface of the earth.
General Relativity is profoundly simple and beautiful in a way that I think is well worth taking the time to understand if you’re interested in this stuff. It was discovered due to Einstein’s persistent belief that the laws of physics should be the same in all reference frames, and in particular that the mass of inertia and the mass of gravity being equal could not be a coincidence, and are actually the exact same kind of thing.
Thanks Adele,
I appreciate your comment, and will take some time to process it and read the links. This is definitely not an area I have any expertise in and I’m not meaning to propose that this is how gravity actually works in reality—it’s more an illustration that something gravity-like, and elements that are like atoms or systems etc can arise out of very simple and random rules without the need for fine-tuning, and that constants (or regularities) can be arrived at by means of natural equilibria rather than being lucked upon, or designed.
But I probably haven’t made this clear. It was something I actually wrote I while ago and have only recently published here, so it may require a re-write, clarifying my intention and incorporating the points you’ve raised. You’re the first to provide a rigorous rebuttal for it so far, so I appreciate you lending your expertise in this respect.
Your other posts about game theory were high quality. However, this post doesn’t make sense to me.
You try to frame your simulation as “simpler” than regular Newtonian gravity, even though you’ve added many extra parameters (groups of particles with different forces between each other) which technically makes it more complex. You talk about emergence, but the results are pretty simple too; the particles just form clumps every time. It comes across to me as adding an extra weird feature to a simple gravity simulation and then being impressed that a weird thing happens. Also, the rapid oscillations look like they might be artifacts resulting from forces that are too strong relative to the framerate of the simulation. Particle Life is similar to this, but executed much better.
Then you also talk about forces emerging from entropy, but that doesn’t seem relevant. Your simulation doesn’t have action at a distance emerging from local interactions, it’s just pre-programmed action at a distance where some of the particles happen to be repelling each other instead of attracting each other.
I’m not sure I correctly understood what this article was trying to say, because it jumps between different points and it talks as if you have a theory while being incredibly vague about what it is. What does it mean for gravity to come from “nothing”? There’s no concrete explanation.
I take your point, I think it needs a rewrite, I have not been nearly clear enough, and your notes are helpful in pointing me to areas I need to clarify. I have replies to your points here, but I should get my ducks-in-a-row before making them, so I don’t end up contradicting myself. Thanks for your comment.