Any model or theory in physics akin to "Law without law"?

[Suekdccia]

TL;DR Summary

Is there any theory of model in theoretical physics akin to Wheeler's idea of "Law without law"

When trying to explain from where did all the laws come from, John Wheeler proposed the anaphorism of "Law without law". He proposed that at the "beginning" there were no laws whatsoever, only pure chaos, and that they emerged from randomness and chaos when our universe was created. In his own words:

Every law of physics must be at bottom like the second law of thermodynamics, higgledy-piggeldy in character, based on blind chance. Physics must be in the end law without law. Its undergirding must be a principle of organization which is no organization at all

My question is: Has any other physicist published any model or theory closely related to this notion? (Apart from perhaps Ilya Prigogine and Holger Bech Nielsen)

 

[DaveC426913]

'Law without law' as you call it would be preposterously laborious and complex for the universe to do, because every single individual entity would have to make up its own properties just for itself.

The reason laws arise, and arise early, is because the universe is very simple. Very simple. There's only four forces in total.

All protons are identical; all electrons are identical. Put them within range of each other anywhere in the universe, and they will behave exactly the same.

Same with all forms of energy. Photons of a given frequency, when encountering an atom anywhere in the universe, will behave exactly the same.

That's all that "laws" are. Lots of very simple things doing their very simple things, the same way, everywhere, all the time.

 

[Demystifier]

(Apart from perhaps Ilya Prigogine and Holger Bech Nielsen)

 

[Quarker]

Pure chaos would have been an infinite number of particle types emerging from the Big Bang, each with random masses, charges, etc. In such a scenario, interactions would be chaotic. However, the universe only allows certain types of particles to exist, and these particles interact in a shockingly predictable manner, almost as if they were designed to do so. Each particle type seems to have a function, and we know of no particle that doesn’t interact in some way with other particles. If anything, Wheeler has it backward. Three basic particle types are the building blocks for the entire physical universe. This seems the opposite of chaos.

 

[Suekdccia]

?

 

[Demystifier]

?

Those two guys are geniuses, but are also known for some rather farfetched ideas. (BTW, Nielsen was my officemate for a couple of months in Croatia.)

 

[PeroK]

I'm trying to imagine a variation on "natural selection" for laws of physics, with different sets of laws fighting for supremacy. Even then, there must be a law for how laws mutate into the next generation of laws.

 

[Demystifier]

I'm trying to imagine a variation on "natural selection" for laws of physics, with different sets of laws fighting for supremacy. Even then, there must be a law for how laws mutate into the next generation of laws.

Lee Smolin wrote a book on it. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0195126645/?tag=pfamazon01-20