Is spacetime an error-correcting quantum code?

Approaching Infinity

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Saw this one on an Intelligent Design news blog. I don't know enough about physics to say much, so I'll just sum up as best I can and post some quotes. Apparently one of the problem with quantum computing is that you need a way to correct for the corruption introduced by indeterminate 'qubits' undergoing 'bit-flips'. Recently some physicists found the following:

How Space and Time Could Be a Quantum Error-Correcting Code | Quanta Magazine
That year — 2014 — three young quantum gravity researchers came to an astonishing realization. They were working in physicists’ theoretical playground of choice: a toy universe called “anti-de Sitter space” that works like a hologram. The bendy fabric of space-time in the interior of the universe is a projection that emerges from entangled quantum particles living on its outer boundary. Ahmed Almheiri, Xi Dong and Daniel Harlow did calculations suggesting that this holographic “emergence” of space-time works just like a quantum error-correcting code. They conjectured in the Journal of High Energy Physics that space-time itself is a code — in anti-de Sitter (AdS) universes, at least. The paper has triggered a wave of activity in the quantum gravity community, and new quantum error-correcting codes have been discovered that capture more properties of space-time.

John Preskill, a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology, says quantum error correction explains how space-time achieves its “intrinsic robustness,” despite being woven out of fragile quantum stuff. “We’re not walking on eggshells to make sure we don’t make the geometry fall apart,” Preskill said. “I think this connection with quantum error correction is the deepest explanation we have for why that’s the case.”
...
Space-time is a lot smarter than us,” Almheiri said. “The kind of quantum error-correcting code which is implemented in these constructions is a very efficient code.”
...
“Quantum error correction, to me, it’s like magic,” Almheiri said.

The key to the error correction is to store information not just in individual qubits, but in groups of entangled qubits. Sounds to me like that means the introduction of redundancy, similar to the codes for amino acids in DNA.

On the physics side, it remains to be seen whether de Sitter universes like ours can be described holographically, in terms of qubits and codes. “The whole connection is known for a world that is manifestly not our world,” Aaronson said. In a paper last summer, Dong, who is now at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his co-authors Eva Silverstein and Gonzalo Torroba took a step in the de Sitter direction, with an attempt at a primitive holographic description. Researchers are still studying that particular proposal, but Preskill thinks the language of quantum error correction will ultimately carry over to actual space-time.

“It’s really entanglement which is holding the space together,” he said. “If you want to weave space-time together out of little pieces, you have to entangle them in the right way. And the right way is to build a quantum error-correcting code.”

So is spacetime, like DNA, a code? And if so, what does that imply about the code's source?
 
Also might want to read Berlinski's "The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions". He talks about the de Sitter universes and all that. Most enlightening and truly a mad romp through science.
 
Also might want to read Berlinski's "The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions". He talks about the de Sitter universes and all that. Most enlightening and truly a mad romp through science.

I definitely like the sound of that title. May very well get added to my reading list.
 
Also might want to read Berlinski's "The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions". He talks about the de Sitter universes and all that. Most enlightening and truly a mad romp through science.
Yeah goodreads has his humorous quotes about Hawking and the de Sitter space.

The Devil's Delusion Quotes by David Berlinski

It's like science ran into a roadblock with the de Sitter space and just declared it as the beginning even though it's not. The true beginning is the Clifford algebra Ark is looking more into aka what the Cs last year referred to as geometric algebra. Clifford algebra actually comes with some known quantum error correcting code. It's more directly an information theory than de Sitter spacetime. De Sitter spacetime can be derived from Clifford algebra and de Sitter spacetime is useful just not as the beginning structure (it's related to Ark's conformal gravity work).
 
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Thanks to everyone for sharing so far. The Devil's Delusion sounds like it could be a worthwhile read. I wonder if the creation of matter is any way related to the "depolarisation" of STO and STS from "battle?" It's like both sides lose energy in the conflict and so regroup and resolve the conflict further down the ray of creation though material proxies. Perhaps that's a reference to matter acting as a buffer to preserve the integrity of quantum information?

So is spacetime, like DNA, a code? And if so, what does that imply about the code's source?

One two-cent hypothesis coming right up:
  • DNA code = short wave cycle (2D to 5D)
  • Spacetime code = long wave cycle (1D to 6D)
If I could toss "Grand Cycle" in there with an equal sign somewhere I would, but I'm not smart enough.
 
These passages about black holes stood out for me in the article A.I. shared.

The language of quantum error correction has provided a new way of describing black holes. The presence of a black hole is defined by the breakdown of correctability,” Hayden said: “When there are so many errors that you can no longer keep track of what’s going on in the bulk [space-time] anymore, you get a black hole. It’s like a sink for your ignorance.”

Ignorance invariably abounds when it comes to black hole interiors. Stephen Hawking’s 1974 epiphany that black holes radiate heat, and thus eventually evaporate away, triggered the infamous “black hole information paradox,” which asks what happens to all the information that black holes swallow. Physicists need a quantum theory of gravity to understand how things that fall in black holes also get out. The issue may relate to cosmology and the birth of the universe, since expansion out of a Big Bang singularity is much like gravitational collapse into a black hole in reverse.

AdS space simplifies the information question. Since the boundary of an AdS universe is holographically dual to everything in it — black holes and all — the information that falls into a black hole is guaranteed never to be lost; it’s always holographically encoded on the universe’s boundary. Calculations suggest that to reconstruct information about a black hole’s interior from qubits on the boundary, you need access to entangled qubits throughout roughly three-quarters of the boundary. “Slightly more than half is not sufficient anymore,” Almheiri said. He added that the need for three-quarters seems to say something important about quantum gravity, but why that fraction comes up “is still an open question.”

In Almheiri’s first claim to fame in 2012, the tall, thin Emirati physicist and three collaborators deepened the information paradox. Their reasoning suggested that information might be prevented from ever falling into a black hole in the first place, by a “firewall” at the black hole’s event horizon.

Like most physicists, Almheiri doesn’t really believe black hole firewalls exist, but finding the way around them has proved difficult. Now, he thinks quantum error correction is what stops firewalls from forming, by protecting information even as it crosses black hole horizons. In his latest, solo work, which appeared in October, he reported that quantum error correction is “essential for maintaining the smoothness of space-time at the horizon” of a two-mouthed black hole, called a wormhole. He speculates that quantum error correction, as well as preventing firewalls, is also how qubits escape a black hole after falling in, through strands of entanglement between the inside and outside that are themselves like miniature wormholes. This would resolve Hawking’s paradox.
 
Layman's understanding to read this book?

Yikes:

De Sitter universe - Wikipedia

Definitely read Berlinski. Not only does he recast everything into layman's terms, he does so sometimes hilariously. He treats the de Sitter Universe idea as follows:

The argument that Hawking has offered may be conveyed by question-and-answer, as in the Catholic catechism.

Q: From what did our universe evolve?

A: Our universe evolved from a much smaller, much emptier mini-universe. You may think of it as an egg.

Q: What was the smaller, emptier universe like:

A: It was a four-dimensional sphere with nothing much inside it. You may think of that as weird.

Q: How can a sphere have four dimensions?

A: A sphere may have four dimensions if it has one more dimension than a three-dimensional sphere. You may think of that as obvious.

Q: Does the smaller, emptier universe have a name?

A: The smaller, emptier universe id called a de Sitter universe. You may think of that as about time someone paid attention to de Sitter.

Q: Is there anything else I should know about the smaller, emptier universe?

A: Yes. It represents a solution to Einstein's field equations. You may think of that as a good thing.

Q: Where was that smaller, emptier universe of egg?

A: It was in the place where space as we know it did not exist. You may think of it as a sac.

Q: When was it there?

A: It was there at the time when time as we know it did not exist. You may think of it as a mystery.

Q: Where did the egg come from:

A: The egg did not actually come from anywhere. You may think of this as astonishing.

Q: If the egg did not come from anywhere, how did it get there?

A: The egg got there because the wave function of the universe said it was probable. You may think of this as a done deal.

Q: How did our universe evolve from the egg?

A: It evolved by inflating itself up from its sac to become the universe in which we now find ourselves. You may think of that as just one of those things.

This catechism, I should add, is not a parody of quantum cosmology, it IS quantum cosmology.

What can be said about the mini-universe according to either interpretation is that Hawking has designated it as probable because he has ASSUMED that it IS probable. He has done this by restricting the wave function of the universe to just those universes that coincide with the de Sitter universe at their boundaries. This coincidence is all that is neede to produce the desired results. The wave-function of the universe and the de Sitter mini-universe are made for each other. The subsequent computations indicate the obvious: The universe most likely to be found down there in the sac of time is just the universe Hawking assumed would be found down there. If what Hawking has described is not quite a circle in thought, it does appear to suggest an oblate spheroid.

The result is guaranteed - one hunnerd percent, as used-car salesmen say.

Among philosophers concerned to promte atheism, satisfaction in Hawking's conclusion has been considerable. Witness Quentin Smith: "Now Stephen Hawking's theory dissolves any worries about how the universe could begin to exist uncaused." Smith is so pleased by the conclusion of Hawking's argument that he has not concerned himself overmuch with its premises, or with its reasoning. ....

Quantum cosmology is a branch of mathematical metaphysics. It provides no cause for the emergence of the universe, and so does not answer the first cosmological question, and it offers no reason for the existence of the universe, and so does not address the second. If the mystification induced by its modest mathematics were removed from the subject, what remains would not appear appreciably different in kind from various creation myths in which the origin of the universe is attributed to sexual congress between primordial deities. (pp. 104-108, excerpts)
 
:lol:

I will definitely read this now. Been awhile since I've read the Hitchhiker's Guide.

Thanks. :cool2:
 
So is spacetime, like DNA, a code? And if so, what does that imply about the code's source?

Unexpected variations of growth.

It's a Seed Environment.

Whatever may come...

Ours is easy. Painful, frustrating, beautiful, longing, but thankfully short. Quick squirt in, and out.

We die at ~70 years down here for a reason.

Why that is, is only a variable.....

Apologies, don't mean to distract this thread.
 
I don't understand quantum computing very well, but If I understand the discussion on this thread, It's that the researchers came to their realization using an anti-de sitter model of the universe, when most modern physicist and cosmologists just assume that our universe is a de sitter universe, and hawking and others just state it as fact.

The "Hawking Bashing" and talk of black holes reminds me of Mathematician Steve Crothers giving a lecture at an electric universe conference. I do not understand a lot of the complicated math (he does present it in an easy to follow format), but basically he is saying that the current mainstream models in cosmology are mathematically mutually exclusive. He compares the big bang universe against the black hole universe, and they are mutually exclusive, they all can't be in the same universe. He also points out some general foundational mistakes in the math, and points out using just math does not mean its physics or reality.


At 2:35 he shows a graph on the incompatibility of universes.
 
I don't understand quantum computing very well, but If I understand the discussion on this thread, It's that the researchers came to their realization using an anti-de sitter model of the universe, when most modern physicist and cosmologists just assume that our universe is a de sitter universe, and hawking and others just state it as fact.

The "Hawking Bashing" and talk of black holes reminds me of Mathematician Steve Crothers giving a lecture at an electric universe conference. I do not understand a lot of the complicated math (he does present it in an easy to follow format), but basically he is saying that the current mainstream models in cosmology are mathematically mutually exclusive. He compares the big bang universe against the black hole universe, and they are mutually exclusive, they all can't be in the same universe. He also points out some general foundational mistakes in the math, and points out using just math does not mean its physics or reality.


At 2:35 he shows a graph on the incompatibility of universes.

Fascinating video furryfrog He lays out all the MUMBO JUMBO that exists in Math and Physics.

That is why we have to take all conventional Math/Physics with a grain of salt!.
 
He lays out all the MUMBO JUMBO that exists in Math and Physics.

That is why we have to take all conventional Math/Physics with a grain of salt!.

That's why Berlinski's book is so much fun; he does exactly that, only from the side of someone who actually knows the math and physics.
 
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