本文探讨了从“无”到“有”的哲学困境，并将其与物理学中的“无”概念联系起来。作者通过一个简单的模拟实验，展示了如何通过随机分布的点和它们之间预设的吸引或排斥力，涌现出类似引力的宏观现象和复杂结构。文章还介绍了物理学家 Erik Verlinde 的观点，即引力可能并非基本力，而是微观粒子相互作用的涌现属性，类似于温度是大量粒子平均动能的表现。最后，作者强调了熵增定律在创造稳定环境和生命存在条件方面的重要性，为后续讨论“涌现”奠定了基础。

💡 **从混沌中诞生秩序的思考**: 文章以“无”到“有”的哲学问题为引子，探讨了在物理学语境下，真空并非真正的虚无，而是充满量子涨落的动态过程。作者借用此概念，试图解释有序性如何从无序的初始状态中产生，这是物质世界演化的基础性问题。

🌟 **简易规则模拟引力现象**: 作者设计了一个模拟实验，其中包含随机分布、无质量、无维度的点，并为每种颜色的点设定了相互吸引或排斥的固定规则。实验结果表明，即使是如此简化的规则，也能涌现出类似引力的宏观形态和复杂模式，证明了秩序可以从简单的互动中自发产生。

🌌 **引力作为涌现属性的猜想**: 文章援引物理学家 Erik Verlinde 的理论，提出引力可能并非一种基本作用力，而是微观粒子相互作用的宏观表现，类似于磁力是粒子磁场对齐的结果。这种观点将引力视为一种“涌现”现象，而非独立存在的实体。

🔄 **熵增定律与生命存在的基石**: 作者强调了熵增定律在宇宙演化中的关键作用。它不仅驱动了能量和物质的流动，更重要的是创造了稳定、可预测的环境条件，使得生命得以存在和发展。熵增过程为更复杂的结构和现象的出现提供了必要的基础。

🚀 **“涌现”作为下一阶段的主题**: 文章通过对引力和生命存在条件的探讨，引出了“涌现”这一核心概念。作者预告将在后续内容中深入阐述“涌现”机制，即新的现象如何在现有基础上，通过对熵增的贡献而不断产生和演化。

Published on July 18, 2025 7:26 PM GMT

This story is reposted from nonzerosum.games where it appears in it’s intended form, full colour with functioning interactive elements, jump over to the site for the authentic experience.

The picture above is from a simulation you can explore at nonzerosum.games and is the result of some very…

… Simple Rules

Randomly positioned pointsEach assigned one of five coloursEach colour has a randomly assigned but consistent attraction or repulsion from each colour

As with Conway’s Game of Life, we see that, from these simple rules, complexity arises — and specifically, we see gravitational forms and patterns that feel like bodies, cells, or atomic oscillations.

A Speculation

What you are about to read is no doubt a stunning example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. That is, that I have done so little actual study of theoretical physics that I am unaware of the extraordinary magnitude of my ignorance on the subject. Nonetheless, I will go forth with the confidence of a tone-deaf X-Factor participant.

“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe” — Carl Sagan

Gravity is a key missing piece in the quest for a Grand Unified Theory. And indeed, I stumbled on this subject not out of burning curiosity about gravity, but by trying to conceive of a logically coherent model where something could come from nothing — how order could arise from chaos; the philosophical materialist’s foundational dilemma.

What Is Nothing?

As mentioned, I was trying to develop this idea with no physics education. So, I enrolled the help of Lawrence Krauss, in as much as I watched some of his lectures on YouTube. In his talk A Universe From Nothing he makes a nod to the problematic nature of nothing stating…

“… philosophers and theologians know a lot about nothing and require you to talk about it in the way they like.” — Lawrence Krauss

If you are feeling masochistic and want to know how philosophers talk about nothing, try Heidegger’s essay What is Metaphysics?

It turns out that the nothing of physics; that being the emptiness of space is in fact a bubbling brew of quantum fluctuations. This actually aligns with the philosophical nothing — better described as chaos, something immeasurable, God’s dark materials*.

“… A dark
Illimitable Ocean without bound,
Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height,
And time and place are lost…”

— John Milton (Paradise Lost)

Can Something Come From Nothing?

The void, nothing, chaos by definition is not limited (as any limit would be an assertion of order) and so can create anything, in fact given infinite time scales it can create incredibly complex things. Something (some order) might well be inevitable.

What Is Something?

Something, in order to be distinguishable from nothing, needs to be measurable, and so needs to accumulate in some way, whether it’s by combining with other “things”, or replicating, or developing consistent properties. What we are looking for is the simplest form of self-ordering, because as soon as we have any simple self-ordering process, order can grow indefinitely.

So, what is the simplest thing that might self-order? How about a very weak force that draws points together… Wait, that’s cheating, right? That’s simply positing the thing we’re trying to explain (Gravity). To explain that, we need to find something even simpler.

How do we make something simple even simpler? We eliminate specifications.

Gravity requires particles with mass, so let’s do away with that.Gravity sucks, so let’s do away with that.Gravity has one particular measure of force, let’s lose that.

So, what are we left with?

A field of randomly positioned zero-dimensional massless points… that move toward or away from each other… with arbitrary relative force

These are the conditions of the simulation at the top of the page. The simulation was essentially a proof of concept that, given random relative forces, gravitational bodies will emerge, and the results confirmed what I’d expected. What it seemed to show was that as these simple rules created complex structures, the apparent attributes of gravity arose simultaneously, as an aggregate of individual particle forces ( particular forces?).

It was exciting, but I had a sneaking suspicion that there might be one of those annoying “facts” or “observations” in physics that made my position untenable.

Is Any Of This Real?

It turns out perhaps — I found that physicist Erik Verlinde, in his talk Gravity Doesn’t Exist, held a similar contention that gravity is not actually a force but a byproduct of multiple different micro-forces, in the same way as the force of a magnet is a byproduct of the alignment of the magnetic fields of the particles.

Verlinde relates gravity to temperature, which is a byproduct of the average kinetic energy of particles. He says that while we cannot measure the temperature of a single particle at the microsopic scale, we can measure the temperature of a group of particles and other macroscopic phenomenon such as pressure. Also, we can predict, based on the law of entropy — explored in Emergence Vs Entropy, that gas will flow from a high pressure area to a lower pressure area, and the temperature will transfer from hotter areas to cooler areas. He suggests that in the same way, gravity is a byproduct of the alignment of the quantum particle fields.

Emergence From Entropy

Imagine a world where heat did not transfer in a predictable way; you dress for a nice day out, in your t-shirt and shorts, only to find that two steps out of your door, the temperature drops to -30 degrees, then another step to find you are roasting to a fiery death. Of course, given there is no heat transfer, the idea of roasting ceases to make any sense at all. But you get my point; if we did not have an entropic process that created consistently temperate environments, there would be no place we could live, at least not as we know it.

So…

The Law of Entropy actually turns out to create the predictable, consistent conditions on which the ascention of life depends. It forms a substrate of uniformity, eking out a niche for a new phenomenon or dissipative structure that, through its contribution to entropy creates a new substrate on which further phenomena can arise. This mechanism of emergence will be the subject of the next part.

Discuss