[kromem]

You don't think it's implausible? Reading this line didn't set off any red flags?

"And that the structure of space and everything in it is just defined by the network of relations between these elements—that we might call atoms of space. It’s very elegant—but deeply abstract."

How about this one, shortly after describing "in the history of science there's four models":

"But now there’s something even more: in our Physics Project things become multicomputational, with many threads of time, that can only be knitted together by an observer." Wow, one of the four models in the history of science is the thing you just came up with?

Or this one: "But how is that rule picked? Well, actually, it isn’t. Because all possible rules are used. And we’re building up what I call the ruliad: the deeply abstract but unique object that is the entangled limit of all possible computational processes."

Dude overfitted basic physics with a model and thinks he discovered a theory of everything.

"OK, so the ruliad is everything." Pythagoras move over, there's a new mathematician's Monad in town.

"And there are two crucial facts about us. First, we’re computationally bounded—our minds are limited. And second, we believe we’re persistent in time—even though we’re made of different atoms of space at every moment.

So then here’s the big result. What observers with those characteristics perceive in the ruliad necessarily follows certain laws. And those laws turn out to be precisely the three key theories of 20th-century physics: general relativity, quantum mechanics, and statistical mechanics and the Second Law."

How convenient.

"We can think of this as a place in the ruliad described using the concept of a cat in a party hat:" Wait, what now?

"Maybe we need a promptocracy where people write prompts instead of just voting." This is still on the rails for you?

"Before our Physics Project we didn’t know if our universe really was computational. But now it’s pretty clear that it is. And from that we’re inexorably led to the ruliad—with all its vastness, so hugely greater than all the physical space in our universe." Oh great, it's pretty clear.

I can't imagine that he hasn't convinced respected physicists of his claims.

Did he show them the video of the cat in the party hat becoming a "cat island" and then turning into abstract concept spaces mirroring the development of actual spacetime from the big bang? He should definitely lead with that next time.

[jfengel]

It's really distressing that I can't tell this from the usual physics crank gibberish. He's smarter than that. Or at least he used to be.

It's scary because I was never as smart as he used to be. I could be even more off base with even less to back it up, and equally unable to see that.

[kromem]

The key is the oft repeated "deeply abstract."

The whole thing reminds me of a book written by one of the researchers who was first reviewing the Dead Sea Scrolls.

An expert on his field, he eventually writes a book about how everything was actually connected to magic mushrooms. But the key is - it's all using abstract references and coded language.

So much like how online "pedophile investigators" suddenly saw flying in Chicago deep dish pizza as code for child trafficking because triangles are coded symbolism - it becomes a self fulfilling abstraction.

Redefine first principles off a presumed conclusion with enough abstraction and you can magically arrive at that conclusion from those first principles in ways no one can understand unless they embrace your abstractions! Crazy, right?

[coder-3]

Raw IQ doesn't mean you'll have good epistemology. His brain lets him reach deeper abstractions than most but it doesn't mean what he comes up with is grounded in base reality. If you're worried about being off-base, try:

- Contact with reality (feedback). Predict, try, did it work?

- Having a good reasoning framework. For some it's 1. Religious text, 2. what others they respect think, 3. reasoning for understanding. This is not the worst but not the best. Perhaps a better one would be 1. Science/rationality, 2. religious/philosophical/spiritual texts, 3. first principles thinking

- Humility, you don't know anything unless you have great reasoning and empirical evidence to back up what you're saying. Even then, when faced with complexity (i.e. unless you are dealing with the most atomic/simple concept), you're still almost certainly wrong.

[jfengel]

Unfortunately I don't know anything that guarantees a good epistemology. I am quite certain he'd insist he's doing all those things... including humility.

[mr_toad]

> So then here’s the big result. What observers with those characteristics perceive in the ruliad necessarily follows certain laws. And those laws turn out to be precisely the three key theories of 20th-century physics: general relativity, quantum mechanics, and statistical mechanics and the Second Law." How convenient.

If QM and GR turned out to be required by the anthropic principle it would be a pretty big deal.

But those two theories are known to be incomplete and incompatible, so I would really like to think that this is incorrect.

[dogcomplex]

Even if I disagreed, this level of snark would be worth an HN award. Well done

[globalnode]

ok that was pretty funny