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  • Can There be a Theory of Everything? (Unified Field Theory?)

    #1
    I've just been thinking lately, how there are so many schools of thought and philosophies as well as different subjects and the eternal quest to understand humanity and all that jazz, could there possibly be something that explains it?

    Something that underlies the universe, mankind and a majority if not all of human thought?
    I know this is a weird and difficult thing to imagine, but might there be a common denominator? Or is the world/ universe and mankind just too complex for any sort of “unified field theory”?

    If we pretend there might be a way, what would be the central things such a theory needed to explain and involve?
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  • #2
    My thought on this:

    There's two possible basic premises that I acknowledge for the case that there is a single fabric that could explain everything. One of it says nothing matters, that existence and all that be is incomprehesible, or possible nought to begin with.
    The other one is that such a theory would possibly be too complex to be applicable in actual science (too many variables) and would be forsaken in actual study by simpler, less-dimensional theoretic work that is applicable, rendering the "one theory" nothing more but hobby-value for people with too much spare time.

    One the premise that there is no such theory, ... well, no.


    Either way, a resounding no from me.

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    • #3
      First you need the Grand Unified Theory and when that's done you can start working on the Theory of Everything. If you manage to do that, claim your Nobel Prize and discuss the implications. Physicists have been trying for decades with little or no signs of it bearing fruit.

      Maybe it does exist, maybe not, who knows? When the Standard Model is completed and fine tuned then maybe we can start working on it. Actually the Standard Model comes close but still falls short because there is no apparent way to incorporate dark matter/energy into it.
      Last edited by kilandri; 07-21-2012, 01:10 AM.

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      • #4
        Of course there is. It's 42.

        Being serious now, I'm not sure if I can accurately say. I'll describe my beliefs on the purpose of our existence (which is, in my opinion, to create our own purpose), but that wont exactly contribute.

        The most simplified thing I could think of is the well-known phrase: We are star dust.
        Everything is made up of something (except for nothing, which is made up of nothing), and that's the best common denominator I can think of.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by =LEVIATHEN= View Post
          [...]
          Everything is made up of something (except for nothing, which is made up of nothing), [...]
          If everything is made up of something, then nothing is made be the lack of that something, there you have your smallest denominator.

          The real problem is infinity. If there is a single variable that is infinite (this universe, or in case of multiverses being true, the number of possible universes), then mathematics are screwed. Because a theory is made to measure something, and you can't measure infinity. That is the first problem that'd have to be solved.

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          • #6
            ^ So, basically, if there is a central theory, it hasn't been discovered or properly set yet?

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            • #7
              Originally posted by =LEVIATHEN= View Post
              ^ So, basically, if there is a central theory, it hasn't been discovered or properly set yet?
              It hasn't been, evidently.

              And I think as far as everything there is to explain is finite, it could be possible. Then again, such a theory would, as I said earlier, be so complex that it wouldn't serve as a good theory. Wouldn't be the first theory to get rejected because it was too accurate to properly work with.

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              • #8
                So, you say that if such a theory did exist, it would be too complex to be realistically used?

                Since we kinda reached an impasse with the pure physics approach, maybe there is another way we can come at the problem? (Such as the nature of humanity? and our creations? What might that look like?)

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