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It seems more likely that physics is the illusion.


Go on.


I'll expand my own take on this thought, borrowing a mathematical analogy I read recently.

Take the real and complex numbers. The real numbers have the nice property that they are easy to order since they form a line. Given any two you can tell which is larger. When you go up the complex numbers you lose this obvious ordering, you can define a new ordering, but it is no longer trivial since you are comparing points on a plane.

Now, some people see complex numbers as an extension of the real numbers, but it would be more accurate to call them a generalization of the real numbers. The real numbers are a subset of the complex numbers that satisfy the property of having this obvious ordering.

This again extends to the complex numbers and quaternions. A quaternion is a point on a 4D plane that does not necessarily satisfy commutativity, AKA ab != ba. The subset of quaternions that do satisfy commutativity are the complex numbers.

Every time you go up a level you lose an axiom, which is an assumption on how things work for that system. In a sense an axiom is a useful limitation that gives a certain structure to things. So what if there are 0 axioms? This would mean everything is possible, no limitations. 2 + 2 = 5. Obviously everything being possible is not useful.

Now how does this apply to physics? Physical laws are our axioms. But what if there are actually no physical laws, we are just witnessing the subset of "everything" that appears to have structure? If we are only capable of understanding things that are rational, we would be inherently unable to process events that are irrational. We would project this irrational observation down to the rational subset that we can make sense of. Let me finish with an example.

Take a uniform quantum superposition. It has an equally random chance of being measured 0 or 1. There is no hidden information determining this, it is truly random. This is irrational because there seems like there should be a reason for one final outcome being measured over the other due to our familiarity with cause-and-effect, but this ultimately appears to have no cause. We project this phenomena down to the rational and explain it the best we can with quantum states and probability.




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