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Reality and super-reality : properties of a mathematical multiverse

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McKenzie_2019_Axiomathes_Reality_CC.pdf (2.600Mb)
Date
08/2020
Author
McKenzie, Alan
Keywords
Reality
Super-reality
Multiverse
Mathematical structure
Emergent properties
QA Mathematics
3rd-NDAS
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Abstract
Ever since its foundations were laid nearly a century ago, quantum theory has provoked questions about the very nature of reality. We address these questions by considering the universe—and the multiverse—fundamentally as complex patterns, or mathematical structures. Basic mathematical structures can be expressed more simply in terms of emergent parameters. Even simple mathematical structures can interact within their own structural environment, in a rudimentary form of self-awareness, which suggests a definition of reality in a mathematical structure as simply the complete structure. The absolute randomness of quantum outcomes is most satisfactorily explained by a multiverse of discrete, parallel universes. Some of these have to be identical to each other, but that introduces a dilemma, because each mathematical structure must be unique. The resolution is that the parallel universes must be embedded within a mathematical structure—the multiverse—which allows universes to be identical within themselves, but nevertheless distinct, as determined by their position in the structure. The multiverse needs more emergent parameters than our universe and so it can be considered to be a superstructure. Correspondingly, its reality can be called a super-reality. While every universe in the multiverse is part of the super-reality, the complete super-reality is forever beyond the horizon of any of its component universes.
Citation
McKenzie , A 2020 , ' Reality and super-reality : properties of a mathematical multiverse ' , Axiomathes , vol. 30 , pp. 453–478 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-019-09466-7
Publication
Axiomathes
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-019-09466-7
ISSN
1572-8390
Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © The Author(s) 2019. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/19103

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