The Variables of SU(3) x SU(2) x U(1) are Formally Capable of Collective Autocatalysis

Abstract

Our current conceptual framework to ask “Why these laws? Or “Why these values of the constants?” is the hypothesis of a multiverse and the Anthropic principle. The Anthropic Principle, conditioning on the existence of life on earth, is also advocated to explain the “life-friendly” values of the 25 known Constants of Nature in our universe within a multiverse. As formulated, these proposals seem untestable because we cannot be in contact with other universes. Here I show that it is possible to test the Anthropic principle.I report here for the first time that the variables forming the SU(3) x SU(2) x U(1) group structure of particle physics, in which all the particles transform directly or indirectly only into one another, can formally function as a “collectively autocatalytic system”.A capacity for the variables of SU(3) x SU(2 ) x U(1) to be autocatalytic invites new questions: “How might the capacity to be autocatalytic have come to be true of our laws and constants?”; what might be the implications for “Why our laws? Why our constants? If the variables of SU(3) x SU(2) x U(1) can be autocatalytic, what might be the implications for Cosmogenesis itself? If we imagine the standard Big Bang, why is there a capacity for autocatalysis? Could a capacity for collective autocatalysis itself drive the Big Bang?Autocatalysis suggests the possibility of Darwinian evolution in which the fittest variant universe, for example, the fastest growing variant, “wins”. Given our laws, SU(3) x SU(2) x U(1), we can try to explain our specific values of the Constants as arising from an adaptive evolutionary process over the space of all possible values of the 25 Constants. An evolutionary process can select for that combination of the Constants that maximizes the rate of autocatalytic behavior by maximizing some feature such as quantum actualization events.Selection for any “figure of Merit” here “actualization”, induces a fitness landscape over the 25 dimensional parameter space of the Constants. Given such a selective process we can ask: Are our values of the Constants at or unexpectedly near local or the global optimum on that landscape? If “YES” we would have substantial evidence both that our values of the constants did evolve and did so to maximize quantum actualization events.The collectively autocatalytic capacity of the particles of SU(3) x SU(2) x U(1) may explain Cosmogenesis itself. I introduce the “Toy” Particle Apothecary Model, PAM, to study the stochastic branching collectively autocatalytic processes among the fundamental particles. This autocatalytic process among the particles yields a kinetic phase transition breaking matter – antimatter symmetry, so creates baryogenesis. Baryogenesis creating particles, together with the hypothesis that actualization events among these particles as they entangle yields a construction of spacetime, thus gives a new candidate for the unknown physics of Inflation. Together these hope to go beyond the Standard Model and find a pathway from SU(3) x SU(2) x U(1) to the lambda-CDM standard model of the Cosmogenesis.The PAM model supposes a quantum construction of spacetime upon actualization events among entangled particles. Given PAM, a natural approach to quantum gravity is based on taking non-locality among entangled coherent variables as fundamental. Hence there is no pre-existing Spacetime. This requires an account of an emergence of locality itself. An emergence of locality requires behaviors among entangled variables, hence an emergence of spacetime requires matter. This flatly contradicts General Relativity, which is local, can be formulated without matter, and has no “construction of spacetime”. A capacity for autocatalysis among the particles and starting with non-locality as fundamental suggests taking the initial condition of the universe as “no matter and no spacetime” under conditions that allow cosmogenesis. But this requires abandoning the universal validity of the Newtonian Paradigm with its prestated and fixed phase space. In turn, the Second Law requires a prestated fixed phase space as afforded by the Newtonian Paradigm. We will find grounds to go beyond the universal validity of the Newtonian Paradigm, and perhaps beyond the Second Law itself, to a tentative 4th law of thermodynamics for non-ergodic systems that do thermodynamic work to construct their expanding phase space, where entropy can decrease. A requirement for an emergence of locality due to behaviors of entangled variables leads to an hypothesis in which successive quantum actualization events among entangled variables yields a sequential construction of a discrete and purely relational classical spacetime among these events, with a metric among these actualized events as fermions exchange bosons, a natural interpretation of NOW among the still entangled variables upon each actualization event, and a possible quantum arrow of time.

Did the Universe Construct Itself?

“…If we can formulate a family of laws, and for each law all the values of its constants, a mode of heritable variation of the laws and constants, and a selection criterion, called a Figure of merit, the cosmic analogue of Darwinian Natural Selection can ultimately select the single best law and the best values of the constants of that law, (38).…”