Causal Fermion Systems and Nothing Becomes

I’ve always been upfront that my work comes from a lay perspective – observational, philosophical, and based on personal experience. Even so, I’ve argued there’s potential in these ideas for formal mathematical models of reality.

Recently, I watched an interview Curt Jaimungal did with Felix Finster on Youtube. While I can’t claim to follow all the mathematical details, I understood enough to recognize something striking: Finster’s work demonstrates what rigorous mathematical formalization of similar ideas might look like.

The structural features he describes – discrete fundamental reality, causal relations as primary, emergent spacetime, quantum mechanics built in from the start – align remarkably with the framework I developed from direct experience. I can’t evaluate the mathematics itself, but the conceptual architecture feels deeply familiar.

Of course, our paths to these conclusions couldn’t be more different. Finster through decades of rigorous mathematical physics, me through a single night of meditation and months of philosophical reflection. But the convergence itself is striking: similar basic pictures of reality emerging from entirely different starting points.

For serious scientists interested in these ideas, Felix Finster’s causal fermion systems offer an example of how one might formalize through rigorous physics and mathematics what I approached through contemplation and experience in Nothing Becomes.

Whether either of us is right about reality’s actual structure remains to be seen, but that we’re describing similar structures is worth noting.