31.2 Physical models

Physicists have already demonstrated that the physical degree (3.), without consciousness, can be modeled mathematically. Because of the rather uniform metric of physical space, theories of virtual processes can be mathematically formulated and solved for the 3.2 sub-degree, either using perturbation theory or some all-order lattice models on a discretization of space and time that approximates continuous spacetime. In the 3.3 sub-degree of quantum mechanics, instances of the Schrödinger equation have been spectacularly successful in describing low-energy phenomena in nuclear, atomic and chemical physics. In this sub-degree, spacetime is directly taken as continuous, and differential equations are solved to represent the evolution of wave-functions describing propensity fields.

The pre-geometric sub-degree 3.1 has proved more difficult to describe, not least because physicists do not know exactly what processes should be modeled here. As mentioned in Chapter 5, proposals have suggested ‘spinors’ by Penrose and Rindler (1987); ‘loop quantum gravity’ as described for example in Rovelli (1998), Rovelli (2010) in terms of spin networks, and ‘causal sets’ according to Bombelli et al. (1987) and Brightwell et al. (2003).

Rovelli (2010) interestingly characterizes loop quantum gravity in terms of superpositions of different-sized lattices, which implies that the ‘true’ quantum dynamics of the 3.1 pre-geometric sub-degree will involve (in sub-sub-degree 3.11) some kind of propensities for producing geometric spin lattices of various sizes. These are largely speculations still being developed.