The Last Theory is an easy-to-follow exploration of what might be the last theory of physics. In 2020, Stephen Wolfram launched the Wolfram Physics Project to find the elusive fundamental theory that explains everything. On The Last Theory podcast, I investigate the implications of Wolfram's ideas and dig into the details of how his universe works. Join me for fresh insights into Wolfram Physics every other week.
Stephen Wolfram is an extraordinary thinker. He doesn’t seem to think like other scientists. He doesn’t seem to think like other technologists. And he certainly doesn’t think like an academic. So I asked him how he thinks. How does he have all the ideas I’ve been exploring at The Last Theory? Here are 10 ways to have big ideas, derived from Stephen’s answer: Drill down to the foundations Experiment with your ideas Try to understand your findings Have the humility to doubt your expectations Have the confidence to push ahead regardless Explain your ideas to others Discuss your ideas with others Get to know when an idea will take flight Don’t miss a step: imagine, experiment, explain Visualize your ideas — Stephen Wolfram Stephen Wolfram The Wolfram Physics Project Wolfram Institute Wolfram Institute Community Discord Concept mentioned by Stephen Computational irreducibility — The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here . Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.
If physics is computational, then what gets computed when? This is a surprisingly deep question. The seemingly even computation of the universe gives us a clue , not just to the nature of time , but to the nature of the universe . And it leads us to a wider question: Why are we in the universe we’re in? Let me introduce you to three different answers to that question... so different that they don’t even agree on whether one universe exists, or every possible universe exists. — References Anthropic Principle Credits Image of Messier 101 galaxy by ESA/Hubble licensed under CC BY 4.0 Image of galaxies by NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the HUDF Team licensed under CC BY 4.0 Retina image by د.مصطفى الجزار licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 — The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here . The full article is here . Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.
Stephen Wolfram has many philosophical ideas, but I’ve not heard him talk about pure philosophy. When I asked him about the relationship between physics and philosophy, I understood why. Stephen revealed that he’s much more at home in the concrete world of computer experiments than in the arguments of the philosophers. “When I look at the arguments,” he says, “I can’t tell if they make sense or not. There’s too much wiggling...” — Stephen Wolfram Stephen Wolfram The Wolfram Physics Project Wolfram Institute Wolfram Institute Community Discord People and concepts mentioned by Stephen Immanuel Kant Kant’s antinomies Computational equivalence The Ruliad The Concept of the Ruliad — The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here . Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.
Do different observers think differently? Or does the principle of computational equivalence mean that all observers think the same way? Stephen Wolfram takes this question and runs with it. If we had brains the size of planets, he suggests, the finite speed of light would force us to think of space and time differently, and abandon the fiction of an instantaneous state of space. If we had brains the size of molecules, he says, we’d no longer think of the motion of molecules as random, and we’d find the heat death of the universe a far more interesting prospect. And if we were able to hold multiple paths through the multiway graph in our minds at the same time, we’d have multiple threads of experience... and some complicated conversations! We think the way we think because we are the way we are... if we were much larger-scale, much smaller-scale or if we had multiway minds, then we’d think very differently. And this has some serious consequences, Stephen suggests, in fields as diverse as molecular biology and parallel computing. — Stephen Wolfram Stephen Wolfram The Wolfram Physics Project Wolfram Institute Wolfram Institute Community Discord Credits Fullerene by YassineMrabet licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 — The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here . Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.
Physics, the way we’ve thought about it for the last few hundred years, requires us to make assumptions about time. In our old way of thinking, just as we must assume three axes of space – scales along which we can measure what’s where – so we must assume an axis of time – a scale along which we can measure what happens when . It doesn’t matter whether, like Newton, we assume an absolute scale along which we can measure what happens when according to a giant clock in the sky, or whether, like Einstein, we assume a relative scale along which we can measure what happens when according to a tiny clock in each and every reference frame. Either way, we must assume an axis of time. Wolfram Physics, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to make any assumptions about time. We need only posit the application of rules to the nodes and edges of the hypergraph, and time emerges . The evolution of the hypergraph is time... ...which gives us a profound clue , not just to the nature of time , but to the nature of the universe . — References The canonical mass of a neutron star is 1.4 solar masses The mass of the Sun is 1.988416 × 10^30 kg The mass of a neutron is 1.67492750056(85) × 10^-27 kg So the number of neutrons in a neutron star, assuming neutron stars are made entirely of neutrons (which they’re not), is 1.4 × 1.988416 × 10^30 kg / 1.67492750056(85) × 10^-27 kg ~ 10^57 Credits Pulsar animation by Michael Kramer licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 Retina image by د.مصطفى الجزار licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 — The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here . The full article is here . Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.
Different observers, from different regions of the ruliad, experience the universe in different ways. To what extent can these different observers communicate their different experiences? Can dogs, with their olefactory ways of mapping their worlds through scent, truly understand humans, with our one-dimensional ways of mapping our world through language? Can humans, with our one-dimensional streams of language, truly understand AI image generators, with their parallel diffusion models? If we ever met aliens, would we be able to communicate with them? How might it be to think like an alien? Stephen Wolfram explores some of the mind-bending implications of different regions of the ruliad giving rise to different experiences of the universe. — Stephen Wolfram Stephen Wolfram The Wolfram Physics Project Wolfram Institute Wolfram Institute Community Discord References Ruliad definition Ruliad article — The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here . Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.
The ruliad is every possible computation. What could you possibly say about such an enormous, all-encompassing object? Well, that’s where we come in. Particular observers sample the ruliad in particular ways. Observers like us sample the ruliad in ways that give rise to physics as we know it. Ruliad + observer = physics. In this excerpt from my conversation with Stephen Wolfram, he explores how physics, mathematics and biology all arise from this same enormous, all-encompassing object, the ruliad. He gets to aliens, too, asking such provocative questions as how far from us in rulial space are the nearest aliens? — Stephen Wolfram Stephen Wolfram The Wolfram Physics Project Wolfram Institute Wolfram Institute Community Discord References Ruliad definition Ruliad article Second Law of Thermodynamics article Second Law of Thermodynamics history Metamathematics article Metamathematics book Biological evolution article Biological evolution follow-up Computational irreducibility — The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here . Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.
The hypergraphs generated by Wolfram Physics are complex and chaotic. The multiway graphs that trace every possible evolution of these hypergraphs become extremely complex and extremely chaotic after only a few iterations. The causal graphs that plot which of the events in these multiway graphs has to happen before which of the other events look like spaghetti . If we’re going to find mass/energy or momentum in Wolfram Physics – or special relativity or general relativity or quantum mechanics – then the causal graph is the place to look. But if we’re going to have to find all of physics in a causal graph that looks like spaghetti , then I give up. If we’re going to find all of physics in the causal graph, then we’re going to have to simplify. How to simplify the causal graph? Two ways: use a simpler rule; and collapse multiple nodes representing the same event into a single node. Don’t worry, by the time we’re done, that’ll all make sense! This is the pivotal episode in my exploration of Wolfram Physics. It establishes a firm foundation what comes next. From here on, we’ll be able to make serious progress... towards mass/energy, momentum, special relativity, general relativity and quantum mechanics. — The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here . The full article is here . Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.
It’s been a while since my last episode of The Last Theory or Open Web Mind. Where am I? It might look like I’m lazing in the sun, but actually I’ve been working hard. For The Last Theory, I’ve been working on a long episode, more involved than any I’ve ever made, and more important than any I’ve ever made. It’ll unlock mass/energy, momentum, special relativity, general relativity and quantum mechanics. And I’ve been working on Open Web Mind, too, making serious progress towards launch. So I’m sorry for the delay, but it’ll be worth the wait. In the meantime, make sure you’re subscribed to my newsletters at lasttheory.com and openwebmind.com to be the first to know when the train’s leaving the station. — The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here . Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.
Electrons may be tiny black holes propagating through the hypergraph. After all, electrons and black holes have much in common: they’re carriers of pure motion, they’re all the same – from the outside, at least – and we don’t know what’s going on inside them. Just as black holes may cloak the remants of collapsed civilizations, so electrons may hold secret histories of their paths through the universe. Stephen Wolfram takes this idea further. If particles, such as electrons, are the carriers of pure motion in physical space, what are the carriers of pure motion in branchial space and rulial space? Maybe, in rulial space, it’s the discrete concepts we use to communicate ideas from one mind to another. These are fascinating speculations, but Stephen insists that we need not know what a particle is to make progress with his framework. We can understand energy without knowing what a particle is; we can understand momentum without knowing what a particle is; maybe we can even derive Quantum Field Theory from the Wolfram model without ever knowing what a particle is. — Stephen Wolfram Stephen Wolfram The Wolfram Physics Project Wolfram Institute Wolfram Institute Community Discord References Black holes Black hole mergers Kuratowski’s theorem Wagner’s theorem Conway’s Game of Life resources include Alan Dewar’s implementation , Chris Rowett’s Life Viewer , playgameoflife.com and ConwayLife.com Energy is the flux of causal edges through spacelike hypersurfaces Causal graph Quantum electrodynamics Quantum chromodynamics The Standard Model Richard Feynman Feynman diagram Quantum Field Theory S-matrix or scattering matrix Virtual particles Brancial space Rulial space Computational irreducibility Videos and images Eddy line over the Eastern Pacific video by GOES imagery: CSU/CIRA & NOAA public domain Perpetual Ocean 2: Western Boundary Currents video and image by NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio / Greg Shirah reproduced under NASA Images and Media Usage Guidelines Flight around a black hole video and image by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / J. Schnittman and B. Powell via NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio reproduced under NASA Images and Media Usage Guidelines Merging Black Holes video by NASA / Dana Berry via NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio reproduced under NASA Images and Media Usage Guidelines Black Holes: Monsters in Space (Artist’s Concept) image by NASA / JPL-Caltech reproduced under NASA Images and Media Usage Guidelines — The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here . Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.
The multiway graph shows every possible evolution of the universe. So, if we can compute every possible reality, does that mean that there’s no single objective reality? Well, the causal graph, it turns out, collapses every possible reality into a single objective reality in a way that’s so unexpected that you’ll be left wondering: how did that just happen? — References: The hypergraph video ⋅ podcast ⋅ article The multiway graph video ⋅ podcast ⋅ article The causal graph video ⋅ podcast ⋅ article Causal invariance video ⋅ podcast ⋅ article Different observers might follow different paths through the multiway graph, but they see the same causal graph — The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here . The full article is here . Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.
In this fascinating exposition, Stephen Wolfram connects two of the most important breakthroughs of our time: AI and the ruliad. I ask Stephen how he thinks about knowledge hypergraphs, which I’m exploring at Open Web Mind . He offers several important insights. Stephen draws a distinction between human-like minds and formal knowledge. Human-like minds include both our own brains and Large Language Models. Such minds, Stephen suggests, are good at making broad but shallow connections. Formal knowledge, on the other hand, is deep and precise. Stephen has spent a lifetime building computational towers of such knowledge. He proposes that Large Language Models might serve as interfaces to formal knowledge. He warns, however, that much of this knowledge might be inaccessible to minds like ours. To illustrate the difficulty, Stephen contrasts the 50,000 or so concepts to which we humans have assigned words, such as “cat” and “dog”, with the infinite variability an AI can generate, both within human concepts and in the interconcept space in between. Tying this back to physics, Stephen Wolfram posits that the concepts of space, time, energy, etc. we have internalized occupy only a tiny part of the ruliad. — Stephen Wolfram Stephen Wolfram The Wolfram Physics Project Wolfram Institute Wolfram Institute Community Discord Related writings from Stephen Generative AI Space and the Mental Imagery of Alien Minds How to Think Computationally about AI, the Universe and Everything The Concept of the Ruliad More on knowledge hypergraphs at Open Web Mind: Open Web Mind Open Web Mind YouTube channel Sign up for my newsletter — The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here . Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.
Can you hold in your mind two different threads of experience? In this five-minute excerpt from my conversation with Stephen Wolfram, he introduces the strange idea of a multiway mind. Most of the time, we as observers succeed in weaving multiple different paths through the multiway graph into a single thread of experience. In some circumstances, however, we’re unable to do this. If we’re unfortunate enough to find ourselves on the surface of a black hole – at the event horizon in physical space, at the entanglement horizon in branchial space – we might find ourselves frozen, unable to form a classical thought. In just five minutes, Stephen not only introduces the possibility of multiple threads of experience in a single mind, he also succeeds in weaving in diverse topics from quantum computing to societal decision-making. — Stephen Wolfram Stephen Wolfram The Wolfram Physics Project Wolfram Institute Wolfram Institute Community Discord Concepts mentioned by Stephen Quantum computing Distributed computing Event horizons and entanglement horizons Branchial space — The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here . Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.
Fields don’t exist. I mean, a field with grass in it, that kind of field does exist. But a field in physics? A gravitational field? An electric field? A magnetic field? A quantum field? No such thing. I’m not knocking the physicists who came up with these fields. These fictions can be convenient. But sometimes, these fictions can blind us to the underlying reality. And that’s what’s happening right now in physics. Our long-time love affair with fields is blinding us to the true nature of space and everything in it. — The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here . The full article is here . Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.
In the previous excerpt from my conversation with Stephen Wolfram, I asked him how I can remain a single, coherent, persistent consciousness in a branching universe. In this excerpt, we went deeper into this question. As a conscious observer, I have a single thread of experience. So if the universe branches into many timelines, why don’t I branch into many versions of me? Stephen’s answer touched on many profound aspects of the Wolfram model. He started with the failure of the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics to consider the possibility that different branches of history can merge , in other words, come back together again. This failure is rooted in assumption that the universe is continuous; as soon as we start thinking of the universe as discrete , such merging seems not only possible, but inevitable. He went on to consider the concept of causal invariance, the idea that it doesn’t matter which of countless similar paths you take through the multiway graph, you end up in the same place. In the Ruliad, he said, causal invariance is inevitable. Then we got to the core of the concept of the observer. According to Stephen Wolfram, an observer equivalences many different states and experiences the aggregate of these states. I did not expect Stephen’s next move, to apply the concept of aggregation not just to observers, but to the universe itself. He made the profound proposal that in the Wolfram model of physics, in addition to the computation of the hypergraph through the application of rules, there’s a process of aggregation of possible paths through the multiway graph to weave the future. — Stephen Wolfram Stephen Wolfram The Wolfram Physics Project Wolfram Institute Wolfram Institute Community Discord Concepts mentioned by Stephen Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics Computational irreducibility Causal invariance The Ruliad Sequentialization Equivalencing — The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here . Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.
When the universe branches, we branch with it. Those branches don’t remain forever apart. They come back together. So we, as conscious observers, are rescued from splitting into an immense number ever-so-slightly different versions of ourselves. When the branches of the universe – and the versions of ourselves – come back together, we don’t worry that the many paths we took to get there are ever-so-slightly different. We equivalence all those different paths. We treat all those ever-so-slightly different branches of history as if they were more-or-less the same. I asked Stephen Wolfram about this strangest of consequences of a branching universe. Through all this splitting and coming-back-together, how can I remain a single, coherent, persistent consciousness? Stephen’s answer takes us through branchial space to quantum computing, the maximum entanglement speed and the elementary length. — Stephen Wolfram Stephen Wolfram The Wolfram Physics Project Wolfram Institute Wolfram Institute Community Discord Concepts mentioned by Stephen Equivalencing or coarse-graining Branchial space Coherence time Infrageometry General relativity Quantum mechanics Statistical mechanics Quantum computing Decoherence time Euclidean geometry Riemannian geometry Category theory Maximum entanglement speed Elementary time and length People mentioned by Stephen Euclid Albert Einstein — The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here . Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.
The causal graph is at the core of Wolfram Physics. It’s crucial to the derivations of Special Relativity, General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. And if that’s not enough to convince you that you need to know about the causal graph, how about this: The causal graph is a reflection of the nature of causality, the nature of objectivity, the nature of reality itself. — Einstein’s train thought experiment What is the multiway graph? video ⋅ podcast ⋅ article What precisely is causal invariance? video ⋅ podcast ⋅ article Causality ain’t what you think it is video ⋅ podcast ⋅ article — The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery , founder of Open Web Mind I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here . The full article is here . Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.
Is everything that’s ever going to happen in the universe already determined? Or does something else – maybe randomness, maybe free will – play a role? Stephen Wolfram’s answer to this question is straightforward: the ruliad is fully determined. But there’s a twist. The ruliad is determined, but how we observe the evolution of the universe depends on where we are in the ruliad. In a fascinating introduction to the role of the observer in the Wolfram model, Stephen touches on some of the deepest philosophical questions in physics, finishing on one of the deepest: is there an objective reality? — Stephen Wolfram Stephen Wolfram The Wolfram Physics Project Wolfram Institute Wolfram Institute Community Discord — The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery founder of Open Web Mind I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here . Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.
Hypergraphs can have any number of dimensions. They can be 2-dimensional, 3-dimensional, 4.81-dimensional or, in the limit, ∞-dimensional. So how does the three-dimensional space we observe emerge from the hypergraph-based Wolfram model? Why is space three-dimensional? Stephen Wolfram’s surprising answer to this questions goes deep into space, time, computation and, crucially, our nature as observers. — Stephen Wolfram Stephen Wolfram The Wolfram Physics Project Wolfram Institute Wolfram Institute Community Discord People mentioned by Stephen Euclid Hermann Minkowski — The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery , founder of Open Web Mind I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here . Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.
Stephen Wolfram reveals that his first major wow along the path towards a fundamental theory of physics was his realization that General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are the same theory, played out in different kinds of space. Many other dominos have fallen along the way, from the derivation of Einstein’s equations to applications of the ruliad beyond physics. But the aspect of Wolfram Physics that Stephen Wolfram himself finds maybe the most compelling is this mirroring of the two pillars of twentieth century physics. Perhaps General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics aren’t as incompatible as they’ve so long seemed. In this first excerpt from my conversation with Stephen Wolfram, he tells the story of how he came to apply hypergraphs and hypergraph rewriting rules to the universe itself, and arrived at the first traces of a path towards what might be the last theory of physics. — Stephen Wolfram Stephen Wolfram The Wolfram Physics Project Wolfram Institute Wolfram Institute Community Discord People mentioned by Stephen Max Piskunov Jonathan Gorard — The Last Theory is hosted by Mark Jeffery , founder of Open Web Mind I release The Last Theory as a video too! Watch here . Kootenay Village Ventures Inc.
Producer's note
Steal the structure. Not the show.
Keep the useful structure, then change the audience, point of view, and voice until the idea is unmistakably yours.
