Anybody who has coded Game of Life can draw a parallel to this. Simple rules can lead to arbitrarily complex systems. I'm all on board with this concept. Graph theory is amazing and useful in many ways we don't understand yet. I'm all on board with this concept as well.
But a graph has nodes and edges. Nodes, in this case, can be particles.. I guess? But what are the edges? When a "simple rule" is applied to a collection of particles, what is the force that connects them after the interaction? I read some of the material in detail and skimmed some of the rest, but there was a lot of setup and cool graph visualizations and not a lot speaking to this core question.
Disclaimer: I'm not a theoretical physicist but I have read "Quantum Physics for Babies" at least 50 times.
Still not done reading, but in this representation, particles are stable shapes in the successive steps of the hypergraph (e.g. like gliders and other stable shapes in Game of Life).
I don't know anything about Wolfram's theory, but if it were me to create a graph theoretical foundation for Physics then nodes would be events, and maybe edges would be particles. Very Feynman-graph-like.
Yep. A whole lot of this is "Automata are relevant! I'm relevant!" and some hand-waving and "Doesn't this loooook like a mesh? See! We made space-time!"
With respect, I don't think that our derivation of the conformal structure of spacetime, or of the Einstein field equations in the continuum limit of infinite causal graphs, is "hand-waving". See, for instance:
I've just read it based on your recommendation. I enjoyed it but I don't find that it obviates Wolfram's work, or even overlaps with it much at all (and I'm no big Wolfram fan).
But a graph has nodes and edges. Nodes, in this case, can be particles.. I guess? But what are the edges? When a "simple rule" is applied to a collection of particles, what is the force that connects them after the interaction? I read some of the material in detail and skimmed some of the rest, but there was a lot of setup and cool graph visualizations and not a lot speaking to this core question.
Disclaimer: I'm not a theoretical physicist but I have read "Quantum Physics for Babies" at least 50 times.