p-Adic physics as a correlate for Boolean cognition

I have had some discussions with Stephen King and Hitoshi Kitada in a closed discussion group about the idea that the duality between Boolean algebras and Stone spaces could be important for the understanding of consciousness, at least cognition. In this vision Boolean algebras would represent conscious mind and Stone spaces would represent the matter: space-time would emerge.

I am personally somewhat skeptic because I see consciousness and matter as totally different levels of existence. Consciousness (and information) is about something, matter just is. Consciousness involves always a change as we no from basic laws about perception. There is of course also the experience of free will and the associated non-determinism. Boolean algebra is a model for logic, not for conscious logical reasoning. There are also many other aspects of consciousness making it very difficult to take this kind of duality seriously.

I am also skeptic about the emergence of space-time say in the extremely foggy form as it used in entropic gravity arguments. Recent day physics poses really strong constraints on our view about space-time and one must take them very seriously.

This does not however mean that Stone spaces could not serve as geometrical correlates for Boolean consciousness. In fact, p-adic integers can be seen as a Stone space naturally assignable to Boolean algebra with infinite number of bits.

1. Innocent questions

I was asked to act as some kind of mathematical consultant and explain what Stone spaces actually are and whether they could have a connection to p-adic numbers. Anyone can of course go to Wikipedia and read the article Stone's representation theorem for Boolean algebras. For a layman this article does not however tell too much.

Intuitively the content of the representation theorem looks rather obvious, at least at the first sight. As a matter fact, the connection looks so obvious that physicists often identify the Boolean algebra and its geometric representation without even realizing that two different things are in question. The subsets of given space- say Euclidian 3-space- with union and intersection as basic algebraic operations and inclusion of sets as ordering relation defined a Boolean algebra for the purposes of physicist. One can assign to each point of space a bit. The points for which the value of bit equals to one define the subset. Union of subsets corresponds to logical OR and intersection to AND. Logical implication B→ A corresponds to A contains B.

When one goes to details problems begin to appear. One would like to have some non-trivial form of continuity.

1. For instance, if the sets are form open sets in real topology their complements representing negations of statements are closed, not open. This breaks the symmetry between statement and it negation unless the topology is such that closed sets are open. Stone's view about Boolean algebra assumes this. This would lead to discrete topology for which all sets would be open sets and one would lose connection with physics where continuity and differential structure are in key role.

2. Could one then dare to disagree with Stone;-) and allow both closed and open sets of E³ in real topology and thus give up clopen assumption? Or could one tolerate the asymmetry between statements and their negations and give some special meaning for open or closet sets- say as kind of axiomatic statements holding true automatically. If so, one an also consider algebraic varieties of lower dimension as collections of bits which are equal to one. In Zariski topology used in algebraic geometry these sets are closed. Again the complements would be open. Could one regard the lower dimensional varieties as identically true statements so that the set of identically true statements would be rather scarce as compared to falsities? If one tolerates some quantum TGD, one could ask whether the 4-D quaternionic/associative varieties defining classical space-times and thus classical physics could be identified as the axiomatic truths. Associativity would be the basic truth inducing the identically true collections of bits.

2. Stone theorem and Stone spaces

For reasons which should be clear it is perhaps a good idea to consider in more detail what Stone duality says. Stone theorem states that Boolean algebras are dual with their Stone spaces. Logic and certain kind of geometry are dual. More precisely, any Boolean algebra is isomorphic to closed open subsets of some Stone space and vice versa. Stone theorem respects category theory. The homomorphisms between Boolean algebras A and B corresponds to homomorphism between Stone spaces S(B) and S(A): one has contravariant functor between categories of Boolean algebras and Stone spaces. In the following set theoretic realization of Boolean algebra provides the intuitive guidelines but one can of course forget the set theoretic picture altogether and consider just abstract Boolean algebra.

1. Stone space is defined as the space of homomorphisms from Boolean algebra to 2-element Boolean algebra. More general spaces are spaces of homomorphisms between two Boolean algebras. The analogy in the category of linear spaces would be the space of linear maps between two linear spaces. Homomorphism is in this case truth preserving map: h(a AND B) = h(a) AND h(B), h(a OR B) = h(a) OR h(B) and so on. These homomorphisms are like always-the-truth-tellers, which are of course social catastrophes;-).

2. For any Boolean algebra Stone space is compact, totally disconnected Hausdorff space. Conversely, for any topological space, the subsets, which are both closed and open define Boolean algebra. Note that for a real line this would give 2-element Boolean algebra. Set is closed and open simultaneously only if its boundary is empty and in p-adic context there are no boundaries. Therefore for p-adic numbers closed sets are open and the sets of p-adic numbers with p-adic norm above some lower bound and having some set of fixed pinary digits define closed-open subsets.

3. Stone space dual to the Boolean algebra does not conform with the physicist's ideas about space-time. Stone space is a compact totally disconnected Hausdorff space. Disconnected space is representable as a union of two or more disjoint open sets. For totally disconnected space this is true for every subset. Path connectedness is stronger notion than connected and says that two points of the space can be always connected by a curve defined as a mapping of real unit interval to the space. Our physical space-time seems to be however connected in real sense.

4. The points of the Stone space S(B) can be identified ultrafilters. Ultrafilter defines homomorphism of B to 2-element of Boolean algebra Boolean algebra. Set theoretic realization allows to understand what this means. Ultrafilter is a set of subsets with the property that intersections belong to it and if set belongs to it also sets containing it belong to it: this corresponds to the fact that set inclusion A ⊃ B corresponds to logical implication. Either set or its complement belongs to ultrafilter (either statement or its negation is true). Empty set does not. Ultrafilter obviously corresponds to a collection of statements which are simultaneously true without contradictions. The sets of ultrafilter correspond to the statements interpreted as collections of bits for which each bit equals to 1.

5. The subsets of B containing a fixed point b of Boolean algebra define an ultrafilter and imbedding of b to the Stone space by assigning to it this particular principal ultrafilter. b represents a statement which is always true, kind of axiom for this principal ultrafilter and ultrafilter is the set of all statements consistent with b.

   Actually any finite set in the Boolean algebra consisting of a collection of fixed bits b_i defines an ultrafilter as the set all subsets of Boolean algebra containing this subset. Therefore the space of all ultra-filters is in one-one correspondence with the space of subsets of Boolean statements. This set corresponds to the set of statements consistent with the truthness of b_i analogous to axioms.

3. 2-adic integers and 2-adic numbers as Stone spaces

I was surprised to find that p-adic numbers are regarded as a totally disconnected space. The intuitive notion of connected is that one can have a continuous curve connecting two points and this is certainly true for p-adic numbers with curve parameter which is p-adic number but not for curves with real parameter which became obvious when I started to work with p-adic numbers and invented the notion of p-adic fractal. In other words, p-adic integers form a continuum in p-adic but not in real sense. This example shows how careful one must be with definitions. In any case, to my opinion the notion of path based on p-adic parameter is much more natural in p-adic case. For given p-adic integers one can find p-adic integers arbitrary near to it since at the limit n→∞ the p-adic norm of pⁿ approaches zero. Note also that most p-adic integers are infinite as real integers.

Disconnectedness in real sense means that 2-adic integers define an excellent candidate for a Stone space and the inverse of the Stone theorem allows indeed to realize this expectation. Also 2-adic numbers define this kind of candidate since 2-adic numbers with norm smaller than 2ⁿ for any n can be mapped to 2-adic integers. One would have union of Boolean algebras labelled by the 2-adic norm of the 2-adic number. p-Adic integers for a general prime p define obviously a generalization of Stone space making sense for effectively p-valued logic: the interpretation of this will be discussed below.

Consider now a Boolean algebra consisting of all possible infinitely long bit sequences. This algebra corresponds naturally to 2-adic integers. The generating Boolean statements correspond to sequences with single non-vanishing bit: by taking the unions of these points one obtains all sets. The natural topology is that for which the lowest bits are the most significant. 2-adic topology realizes this idea since n:th bit has norm 2^-n. 2-adic integers as an p-adic integers are as spaces totally disconnected.

That 2-adic integers and more generally, 2-adic variants of n-dimensional manifolds would define Stone bases assignable to Boolean algebras is consistent with the identification of p-adic space-time sheets as correlates of cognition. Each point of 2-adic space-time sheet would represent 8 bits as a point of 8-D imbedding space. In TGD framework WCW ("world of classical worlds") spinors correspond to Fock space for fermions and fermionic Fock space has natural identification as a Boolean algebra. Fermion present/not present in given mode would correspond to true/false. Spinors decompose to a tensor product of 2-spinors so that the labels for Boolean statements form a Boolean algebra two.

In TGD Universe life and thus cognition reside in the intersection of real and p-adic worlds. Therefore the intersections of real and p-adic partonic 2-surfaces represent the intersection of real and p-adic worlds, those Boolean statements which are expected to be accessible for conscious cognition. They correspond to rational numbers or possibly numbers in n algebraic estension of rationals. For rationals pinary expansion starts to repeat itself so that the number of bits is finite. This intersection is also always discrete and for finite real space-time regions finite so that the identification looks a very natural since our cognitive abilities seem to be rather limited. In TGD inspired physics magnetic bodies are the key players and have much larger size than the biological body so that their intersection with their p-adic counterparts can contain much more bits. This conforms with the interpretation that the evolution of cognition means the emergence of increasingly longer time scales. Dark matter hierarchy realized in terms of hierarchy of Planck constants realizes this.

3. What about p-adic integers with p>2?

The natural generalization of Stone space would be to a geometric counterpart of p-adic logic which I discussed for some years ago. The representation of the statements of p-valued logic as sequences of pinary digits makes the correspondence trivial if one accepts the above represented arguments. The generalization of Stone space would consist of p-adic integers and imbedding of a p-valued Boolean algebra would map the number with only n:th digit equal to 1,...,p-1 to corresponding p-adic number.

One should however understand what p-valued statements mean and why p-adic numbers near powers of 2 are important. What is clear that p-valued logic is too romantic to survive. At least our every-day cognition is firmly anchored to a reality where everything is experience to be true or false.

1. The most natural explanation for p> 2 adic logic is that all Boolean statements do not allow a physical representation and that this forces reduction of 2ⁿ valued logic to p< 2ⁿ valued one. For instance, empty set in the set theoretical representation of Boolean logic has no physical representation. In the same manner, the state containing no fermions fails to represent anything physically. One can represent physically at most 2ⁿ-1 one statements of n-bit Boolean algebra and one must be happy with n-1 completely represented digits. The remaining statements containing at least one non-vanishing digit would have some meaning, perhaps the last digit allowed could serve as a kind of parity check.

2. If this is accepted then p-adic primes near to power 2ⁿ of 2 but below it and larger than the previous power 2^n-1 can be accepted and provide a natural topology for the Boolean statements grouping the binary digits to p-valued digit which represents the allowed statements in 2ⁿ valued Boolean algebra. Bit sequence as a unit would be represented as a sequence of physically realizable bits. This would represent evolution of cognition in which simple yes or not statements are replaced with sequences of this kind of statements just as working computer programs are fused as modules to give larger computer programs. Note that also for computers similar evolution is taking place: the earliest processors used byte length 8 and now 32, 64 and maybe even 128 are used.

3. Mersenne primes M_n=2ⁿ-1 would be ideal for logic purposes and they indeed play a key role in quantum TGD. Mersenne primes define p-adic length scales characterize many elementary particles and also hadron physics. There is also evidence for p-adically scaled up variants of hadron physics (also leptohadron physics allowed by the TGD based notion of color predicting colored excitations of leptons). LHC will certainly show whether M₈₉ hadron physics at TeV energy scale is realized and whether also leptons might have scaled up variants.

4. For instance, M₁₂₇ assignable to electron secondary p-adic time scale is .1 seconds, the fundamental time scale of sensory perception. Thus cognition in .1 second time scale single pinary statement would contain 126 digits as I have proposed in the model of memetic code. Memetic codons would correspond to 126 digit patterns with duration of .1 seconds giving 126 bits of information about percept.

If this picture is correct, the interpretation of p-adic space-time sheets- or rather their intersections with real ones- would represent space-time correlates for Boolean algebra represented at quantum level by fermionic many particle states. In quantum TGD one assigns with these intersections braids- or number theoretic braids- and this would give a connection with topological quantum field theories (TGD can be regarded as almost topological quantum field theory).

4. One more road to TGD

The following arguments suggests one more manner to end up with TGD by requiring that fermionic Fock states identified as a Boolean algebra have their Stone space as space-time correlate required by quantum classical correspondence. Second idea is that space-time surfaces define the collections of binary digits which can be equal to one: kind of eternal truths.In number theoretical vision associativity condition in some sense would define these divine truths. Standard model symmetries are a must- at least as their p-adic variants -and simple arguments forces the completion of discrete lattice counterpart of M⁴ to a continuum.

1. If one wants Poincare symmetries at least in p-adic sense then a 4-D lattice in M⁴ with SL(2,Z)×T⁴, where T⁴ is discrete translation group is a natural choice. SL(2,Z) acts in discrete Minkowski space T⁴ which is lattice. Poincare invariance would be discretized. Angles and relative velocities would be discretized, etc..

2. The p-adic variant of this group is obtained by replacing Z and T⁴ by their p-adic counterparts: in other words Z is replaced with the group Z_pof p-adic integers. This group is p-adically continuous group and acts continuously in T⁴ defining p-adic variant of Minkowski space consisting of all bit sequences consisting of 4-tuples of bits. Only in real sense one would have discreteness: note also that most points would be at infinity in real sense. Therefore it is possible to speak about analytic functions, differential calculus, and to write partial differential equations and to solve them. One can construct group representations and talk about angular momentum, spin and 4-momentum as labels of quantum states.

3. If one wants standard model symmetries p-adically one must replace T⁴ with T⁴ × CP₂. CP₂ would be now discrete version of CP₂ obtained from discrete complex space C³ by identifying points different by a scaling by complex integer. Discrete versions of color and electroweak groups would be obtained.

The next step is to ask what are the laws of physics. TGD fan would answer immediately: they are of course logical statements which can be true identified as subsets of T⁴× CP₂ just as subset in Boolean algebra of sets corresponds to bits which are true.

1. The collections of 8-bit sequences consisting of only 1:s would define define 4-D surfaces in discrete T⁴× CP₂ . Number theoretic vision would suggest that they are quaternionic surfaces so that one associativity be the physical law at geometric level. The conjecture is that preferred extremals of Kähler action are associative surfaces using the definition of associativity as that assignable to a 4-plane defined by modified gamma matrices at given point of space-time surface.

2. Induced gauge field and metric make sense for p-adic integers. p-Adically the field equations for Kähler action make also sense. These p-adic surfaces would represent the analog of Boolean algebra. They would be however something more general than Stone assumes since they are not closed-open in the 8-D p-adic topology.

One however encounters a problem.

1. Although the field equations associated with Kähler action make sense, Kähler action itself does not exists as integral nor does the genuine minimization make sense since p-adically numbers are not well ordered and one cannot in general say which of two numbers is the larger one. This is a real problem and suggests that p-adic field equations are not enough and must be accompanied by real ones. Of course, also the metric properties of p-adic space-time are in complete conflict with what we believe about them. Note however that discretized variants of symmetries might make sense but would reflect finite measurement resolution and cognitive resolution.

2. One could argue that for preferred extremals the integral defining Kähler action is expressible as an integral of 4-form whose value could be well-defined since integrals of forms for closed surface make sense in p-adic cohomology theory pioneered by Grothendieck. The idea would be to use the definition of K\"ahler action making sense for preferred extremals as its definition in p-adic context. I have indeed proposed that space-time surfaces define representatives for homology with inspiration coming from TGD as almost topological QFT. This would give powerful constraints on the theory in accordance with the interpretation as a generalized Bohr orbit.

3. This argument together with what we know about the topology of space-time on basis of everyday experience however more or less forces the conclusion that also real variant of M⁴×CP₂ is there and defines the proper variational principle. The finite points (on real sense) of T⁴× CP₂ (in discrete sense) would represent points common to real and p-adic worlds and the identification in terms of braid points makes sense if one accepts holography and restricts the consideration to partonic 2-surfaces at boundaries of causal diamond. These discrete common would represent the intersection of cognition and matter and living systems and provide a representation for Boolean cognition.

4. Finite measurement resolution enters into the picture naturally. The proper time distance between the tips would be quantized in multiples of CP₂ length. There would be several choices for the discretized imbedding space corresponding to different distance between lattice points: the interpretation is in terms of finite measurement resolution.

It should be added that discretized variant of Minkowski space and its p-adic variant emerge in TGD also in different manner in zero energy ontology.

1. The discrete space SL(2,Z) × T⁴ would have also interpretation as acting in the moduli space for causal diamonds identified as intersections of future and past directed light-cones. T⁴ would represent lattice for possible positions of the lower tip of CD and and SL(2,C) leaving lower tip invariant would act on hyperboloid defined by the position of the upper tip obtained by discrete Lorentz transformations. This leads to cosmological predictions (quantization of red shifts). CP₂ length defines a fundamental time scale and the number theoretically motivated assumption is that the proper time distances between the tips of CDs come as integer multiples of this distance. The stronger condition that they come as octaves of this scale is not in fashion anymore;-).

2. The stronger condition explaining p-adic length scale hypothesis would be that only octaves of the basic scale are allowed. This option is not consistent with zero energy ontology. The reason is that for more general hypothesis the M-matrices of the theory for Kac-Moody type algebra with finite-dimensional Lie algebra replaced with an infinite-dimensional algebra representing hermitian square roots of density matrices and powers of the phase factor replaced with powers of S-matrix. All integer powers must be allowed to obtain generalized Kac-Moody structure, not only those which are powers of 2 and correspond naturally to integer valued proper time distance between the tips of CD. Zero energy states would define the symmetry Lie-algebra of S-matrix with generalized Yangian structure.

3. p-Adic length scale hypothesis would be an outcome of physics and it would not be surprising that primes near power of two are favored because they optimize Boolean cognition.

The outcome is TGD as the skeptical reader already knowing my tricks might have guessed;-). Reader can of course imagine alternatives but remember the potential difficulties due to the fact that minimization in p-adic sense does not make sense and action defined as integral does not exist p-adically. Also the standard model symmetries and quantum classical correspondence are to my opinion "must":s.

5. A connection between cognition, number theory, algebraic geometry, topology, and quantum physics

Stone space is synonym for profinite space. Galois groups associated with algebraic extensions of number fields represent an extremely general class of profinite groups. Every profinite group appears in Galois theory of some field K. The most most interesting ones for algebraic extensions F/K of field K are inverse limits of Gal(F₁/K), where F₁ varies over all intermediate fields. Profinite groups appear also as fundamental groups in algebraic geometry. In algebraic topology fundamental groups are in general not profinite. Profiniteness means that p-adic representations are especially natural for profinite groups.

There is a fascinating connection between infinite primes and algebraic geometry summarized briefly here. This connection lead to the proposal that Galois groups - or rather their projective variants- can be represented as braid groups acting on 2-dimensional surfaces. These findings suggest a deep connection between space-time correlates of Boolean cognition, number theory, algebraic geometry, and quantum physics and TGD based vision about representations of Galois groups as groups lifted to braiding groups acting on the intersection of real and p-adic variants of partonic 2-surface conforms with this.

Fermat theorem serves as a good illustration between the connection between cognitive representations and algebraic geometry. A very general problem of algebraic geometry is to find rational points of an algebraic surface. These can be identified as common rational points of the real and p-adic variant of the surface. The interpretation in terms of consciousness theory would be as points defining cognitive representation as rational points common to real partonic 2-surface and and its p-adic variants. The mapping to polynomials given by their representation in terms of infinite primes to braids of braids of braids.... at partonic 2-surfaces would provide the mapping of n-dimensional problem to a 2-dimensional one (see this).

One considers the question whether there are integer solutions to the equation xⁿ+yⁿ+zⁿ=1. This equation defines 2-surfaces in both real and p-adic spaces. In p-adic context it is easy to construct solutions but they usually represent infinite integers in real sense. Only if the expansion in powers of p contains finite number of powers of p, one obtains real solution as finite integers.

The question is whether there are any real solutions at all. If they exist they correspond to the intersections of the real and p-adic variants of these surfaces. In other words p-adic surface contains cognitively representable points. For n>2 Fermat's theorem says that only single point x=y=z=0 exists so that only single p-adic multi-bit sequence (0,0,0,...) would be cognitively representable.

This relates directly to our mathematical cognition. Linear and quadratic equations we can solve and in these cases the number in the intersection of p-adic and real surfaces is indeed very large. We learn the recipes already in school! For n>2 difficulties begin and there are no general recipes and it requires mathematician to discover the special cases: a direct reflection of the fact that the number of intersection points for real and p-adic surfaces involved contains very few points.

For details see the new chapter Motives and Infinite Primes of "Physics as a Generalized Number Theory" or the article with same title.