With chips and binary architecture
Interpreting Lao Tzu's view of the universe in today's video
I wanted to do something really bold.
With the lowest-level operating architecture of our modern computers
Reinterpret the most famous sentence in Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching
The most elusive theory of the creation of the universe
And then reverse course.
Use this logical framework
To understand the bold conjectures at the cutting edge of contemporary physics
The universe we live in
Basically, it's probably a very sophisticated supercomputer.
However, before the official launch
I have to make it clear first
Be honest and make it clear to everyone
How is this sentence interpreted in traditional Sinology?
If even the original intention of the original text is not clarified
All the computer analogies that follow
It's all castles in the air
untenable
Dawson
Lifetime two
Two Life Three
Sansheng
This sentence is from Chapter 42 of the Tao Te Ching
The next sentence that follows is crucial
All things negate yin and embrace yang and qi as peace
It means that everything is backed by yin
Embrace the sun
The two breaths of yin and yang collide with each other
And finally, a balance is achieved.
The second half of the sentence is absolutely crucial
What do the two and three in the first half of the sentence refer to?
Explained clearly
Interpretation of the past dynasties
The most influential theory was Heshanggong's gasification theory of the universe in the Han Dynasty
According to him
One refers to vitality
The world has not yet opened
Chaos
The primordial qi that has not distinguished any difference
The second is yin and yang.
Two opposing and complementary basic smells
And the third is yin.
Yang Qi
Plus gas
That is, the harmonious and balanced state formed after the intersection of yin and yang
Everything.
It's all slowly emerging from this harmony
The whole process
From seamless
To differentiation
From opposition and differentiation to integration and integration
A complete set of cosmic generation chains
Hello.
I am Wang Lijie
The traditional interpretation has been made clear to everyone
Here we go.
I'll talk to you guys
I take it from this sentence
Read something different
I always feel
Lao Tzu's four sentences
What I'm describing is not an illusory philosophical imagination at all
It's a very precise cosmic emergent architecture.
And this architecture
And the underlying design logic of modern computers
Remarkably highly isomorphic.
Let's look directly at it.
The Tao corresponds to the laws of physics themselves
It is the fundamental law that makes everything in the world work
One corresponds to the transistor
It was the first concretization of a physical law.
Condensed into the smallest functional unit
Two corresponds to binary
That's how the transistor is turned on and off.
Corresponds to 0 and 1
It's yin and yang.
The third corresponds to the chip plus the operating system.
Billions of transistors are organized in an orderly fashion by binary logic.
Eventually a complete set of operating rules emerged
And everything
It's the infinite richness derived from this underlying framework
The all-encompassing digital world
Here we go.
Let's take it apart layer by layer and talk about it in detail.
Explain the correspondence between each layer
Let's start
Lao Tzu said that Dao can be very Dao
It means the true Tao.
There's no way to say it all.
It's not a specific object.
It's the underlying rules that allow everything to exist and work.
It can't be seen or touched.
But without it
Nothing in the world exists at all
Nothing's going to happen.
Put it in the computer world
Who is playing the role of Tao?
It's actually the most fundamental laws of physics.
quantum mechanics
electromagnetism
solid state physics
These laws govern how electrons move inside a silicon crystal.
Determines why a transistor can freely switch between on and off states
Without these laws of physics
A silicon chip is just an ordinary rock.
It can't become the core of computing power at all
Put it in the entire universe
The Tao is the ultimate law that allows everything to emerge from nothing.
If you think this statement is too mysterious
Think about symmetry in physics.
I said it earlier in the video about Noether's theorem
Conservation laws are actually manifestations of symmetry.
Symmetry is really a first principle of physics.
Symmetry is not a concrete matter.
It's not invisible energy.
It's an abstract mathematical structure.
But it directly determines which particles and fundamental forces are in the universe
Which conserved quantities
You could say.
symmetry
The Tao of the universe
Next is Dawson
This step is the most critical and subtle part of the whole framework
In the traditional interpretation of Heshang Gong
One is vitality.
It's not something concrete.
It is the product of the Tao condensing for the first time from an invisible law into a tangible state
Out of pure nothingness
But it hasn't differentiated into any opposing properties
Put it in the computer world
One is the transistor.
Transistors are the first laws of physics to emerge from the abstract
Become the smallest entity that is actually functional
The laws of physics themselves are intangibles
Doesn't take up space.
Does not consume energy
It can be realized when it is landed on a small piece of silicon
A whole new thing is born
It's not the laws of physics per se.
It's not just any stone.
It's the point at which a law becomes a reality.
And the transistor has a core property.
crucial
It's born with only two states.
Either turn on or close
That is, on or off.
When a transistor exists alone
In fact, the seeds of two have already been planted
It hasn't run any programs yet.
But has the full potential to distinguish between ones and zeros
Isn't that exactly what the traditional interpretation of one means?
Not total nothingness
But it hasn't unfolded and evolved into everything
It's pure explosive potential.
Put it on the cosmic level
This corresponds to a quantum vacuum.
A lot of people think that a vacuum is nothing.
Not at all.
Quantum field theory tells us that
Vacuum is the lowest energy state of a quantum field
This minimum energy is not zero
It's always fluctuating in a vacuum.
Filled with the ebb and flow of virtual particle pairs
Brookhaven Lab paper published in Nature in 2025
Particles have been directly observed emerging from a vacuum.
The physicist Vilenkin's theory also proved that
The entire universe can be tunneled through quantum tunneling
Emerge spontaneously from utter nothingness
Therefore, on the physical level, Tao Shengyi
From perfect symmetry
Emerge the first form of existence
It's the smallest functional basement of the universe.
Taoism gives back one
Under another name
It's called Tai Yi or Tai Chi.
Tai Chi is not yin and yang.
Tai Chi is a unified whole that Yin and Yang have not yet differentiated
It's not completely free.
Wuji is complete nothingness
But Tai Chi has not yet differentiated into specific opposing properties
It's just the tipping point where it's about to explode
Think about it.
Is this the same as a transistor?
It already exists.
But haven't started work yet
Contains all possibilities for on and off
But neither of the current two states has been triggered yet.
This is the part that excites me the most
Lifetime two
As long as the transistor exists
The emergence of two is inevitable
Because it is born with only two states
It's one or zero.
No need for anyone to join in from the outside
The inner structure of one contains two
This is the most accurate physical realization of Lifetime 2
Not at all far-fetched
In ancient Chinese philosophy
Yin and yang.
Yin Yang and Binary
Not just superficially similar
They are mathematically completely isomorphic.
Yin corresponds to 0.
Yang corresponds to 1.
The broken line in the gossip corresponds to 0.
The whole line corresponds to 1.
The two base symbols are combined in different permutations
We can generate a complete system that can describe the world
And that's not something that's been forcibly echoed by posterity.
There is solid evidence in history
1703
Leibniz
The official inventor of binary.
Published his only paper on binary
The title of the paper literally translates as binary arithmetic explained using only the characters 1 and 0
And some notes on the ancient Chinese graphics of Fuxi
He made it clear in his paper that
The Order of Fuxi Sixty-four Hexagrams
It corresponds exactly to the binary he studied
Not bad at all
The reason for this is that 1701
French missionary Bai Jin
Sent the congenital map of the Fuxi 64 hexagram to Leibniz from China
When Leibniz got this picture
Very excited
And he wrote back.
I never thought of it.
In a classic written by the founder of an ancient empire
Find the core principles of my binary algorithm
He even said
Binary is the epitome of creation.
God created everything with ones and zeros
Let's replace God in this sentence with Tao
As Lao Tzu said, the Tao generates all things
Almost identical
The ancients thousands of years ago
Relying on the intuitive observation of the laws of nature
Realizing that everything can be broken down into a combination of two basic states
Leibniz over 300 years ago
Relying on rigorous mathematical reasoning
Came to the exact same conclusion
To this day
Every computer in the world
Every cell phone
Every artificial intelligence model
It's all running on top of this ancient and delicate structure
Three completely independent paths of exploration
Finally leading to the same answer
Let's go a little deeper.
The physicist John Wheeler said something that revolutionized cognition
Everything comes from bits.
He thinks
The lowest layers of the physical world
It's not particles, it's not fields, it's not strings.
It's information.
Yes or No 0 or 1 Yes or No
If Wheeler's point is correct
The life of Lao Tzu II
It's not just a philosophical metaphor.
It is an accurate description of the underlying architecture of the universe
Now it's two life three
And this is the most fascinating and subtle part of the whole analogy.
A transistor
Can only be turned on or off
Two transistor combination
You can make a basic logic gate
Thousands of combinations
Can form a processor module
Billions of transistors are packed together.
It becomes a modern high-performance chip
With the accompanying operating system
It forms a framework of rules that can support infinitely complex programs
So three is not a new fundamental element.
It's a lot of one-by-two logically organized.
High order that emerges spontaneously
Let's look back at the traditional interpretation
Push for peace
Isn't it just a lot of ones and zeros agitating each other through logical operations?
The resulting ordered structure?
Here and
Is order
It's the computer's operating system.
More precisely, it can also be said to be the Instruction Set Architecture of the chip
It's not a third thing forced in from the outside.
It is after the first two are fully interacted and integrated
It's something that comes out of nowhere.
Put it in the universe
And those three correspond to the fundamental physical constants and the elementary particle framework.
The standard model of physics.
After the Big Bang
The entire universe slowly cooled from a state of perfect symmetry at high energy
Symmetry breaks step by step
Attractive force separates first
Subsequent strong nuclear force separation
Triggers the inflationary phase of the universe
And finally, the electromagnetic force and the weak nuclear force are completely separated.
Higgs field solidification
Gives elementary particles mass
One fundamental force differentiates into four forces.
A fundamental particle has evolved into a dozen elementary particles
Large number of qubits
By the logic of binary differentiation
And through a series of symmetry breaks
Spontaneously organized into a complete set of rules for the operation of the universe
This system
It's the chip and operating system of the universe.
It defines how atoms make molecules, how stars burn and shine.
Without this system
The universe is nothing more than a boiling, disordered plasma of quarks and gluons
Can't evolve any complex structure at all
And here's another particularly striking detail.
In the standard model of physics
There are approximately 26 free parameters
There is no theory that can be derived at present
Why do these parameters have this value?
They are like the core configuration files of the operating system
As long as there is a significant deviation in one of the parameters
The entire universe is completely unsuitable for life to exist
Even a single star
An atom cannot form stably
There is a deeper correspondence.
Computer operating system
There is a core function called memory management
Determines how the program allocates resources
How to recycle resources
Our Universe
It also has its own memory management system
Those are the laws of thermodynamics.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics regulates how energy is distributed
How information is organized
How does entropy increase?
It's the lowest level resource scheduler in the operating system of the universe.
There are no laws of thermodynamics.
Stars don't burn.
Chemical reactions don't happen.
Even time has no clear direction
What about the last three lifetimes?
It's easy to understand.
After the chip and operating system are all ready
You can run any program
Do anything
Put it in the universe
Everything is what we can see before our eyes
Everything you can feel
Galaxy Nebula
Mountains, rivers, DNA.
Life
nerve cell
Earth civilization
artificial intelligence
All of this complexity exists.
It's all on the Cosmic Operating System.
Applications are emerging layer by layer
It's the exact same logic as a computer.
Complexity emerges in layers.
Quarks make up protons, neutrons.
Atomic constituent molecule
Cells make up the brain.
Each layer runs on top of the next
But it cannot be fully restored by the next layer
Here's the simplest example.
You can't use the laws of motion of quarks
To describe the emotion and meaning of a poem
That's the power of emergent layers.
And Lao Tzu immediately said that all things negative yin and hold yang and qi as peace
It has a whole new meaning now
Everything, even the most complex
The underlying structure is still a dynamic balance of yin and yang
Translated into plain modern language, it is
No matter how complex the applications in the mobile phone computer
The bottom line is always 0 and 1 operations
No matter how vast and magnificent the universe is
The bottom layer will always be the binary operation of qubits
So think about that.
Road
one
two
three
The five-layer structure of everything
And the laws of physics
transistor
binary
chip plus operating system
The five layers of the application
Not just superficial similarities
They are completely isomorphic in underlying logic
Each layer can be accurately matched
But there's also a deeper, central insight.
Perhaps more important than the structural correspondence itself
In the computer world
Programmers who write applications
Do you need to understand the underlying binary?
Absolutely not.
Operating System and Compiler and Chip Instruction Set Architecture
It has completely isolated the programmer from the underlying hardware
Programmers live in a world of three
The operating system is his entire reality
Penetrate further to the bottom
Fewer people can understand
The professional tools required are also completely different
And we're going to map that into the universe.
We humans spend most of our time
The programmer who only knows how to write applications
Daily life experience
All stay on the third floor
Chemists study molecular reactions
Biologists study cell division
Engineers study the forces on materials
It's all being developed at the cosmic operating system level
It's calling a basic interface provided by the universe
Four fundamental forces
periodic table of elements
laws of thermodynamics
Someone who can penetrate down to the second level
There are very few of them left.
Particle physicists
Quantum information researcher
They were trying to understand binary.
What does quantum state really mean?
What is the essence of information?
But even they
You also need to put the mathematical formulas of quantum mechanics
Translate it into a language that humans can understand before discussing
The conversion process itself
Some information will be lost
As the saying goes: Dao Ke Dao
Fei Hengdao also
Go down to the next level.
To understand the nature of a quantum vacuum
Why does space-time exist?
Very little use for experimental physics.
string theory
Quantum attractive force research
Most of them are still in the stage of mathematical conjecture
To the core
What makes a law of physics a law of physics?
The existing scientific methodology
Can't answer in principle
Because you can't use the program inside the system.
To check the original source code of the system
That's why.
Lao Tzu
Sages like Sakyamuni
They're not using modern scientific methods.
It's about introspection.
They're not trying to read the source code from inside the system.
But try to bring yourself back to the source code
To feel the flow of code
I call this "returning to the roots" - "returning to the roots is quiet"
"Return to the Roots" - Back to the Roots
Go back to the bottom state
And consciousness-only learning is in < Solving Deep Secret Sutra >
There's an extremely accurate description of this bottom layer.
"Athana knew very well
All seeds are like a waterfall
"But if you want to truly achieve this" heaven and man "
To experience that "seed is like a waterfall"
How hard is it?
I'll give you an analogy
You get it.
Imagine an artificial intelligence-driven NPC in a game.
It lives in a carefully rendered three-dimensional game world
There are mountains, waters and cities
It can study the physics of the world around it.
Become the best scientist in the game world
But can it understand the true physical laws of our human world?
Can you understand how computer chips work?
Aware of your entire world
Is it just the rendering result of binary data on the graphics card?
Almost impossible
Because of all its cognitive tools
Senses
logic
Experimental method
It's all about the game engine.
It can only study rules defined by the engine
Can never penetrate the engine itself
And we humans
Attempting to understand Tao through scientific means
The situation may be exactly the same as the NPCs in this game
But
I have to add a twist here.
Whether this NPC realizes it or not
It all ends up running on real chips
Driven by binary data
The inner workings of it.
It is essentially a data stream of ones and zeros.
If one day
It learns not to look out into a rendered virtual three-dimensional world.
He turned his head.
Look inward to see what's going on inside yourself.
Is it possible that
On some level
You feel the flow of binary data at the bottom.
I don't know the answer to that.
But if it does
Then it's Lao Tzu in that game world
Or Sakyamuni
Because what these sages did
That's it.
Close all your senses to the external reality
Turn inward
Observe the workings of awareness itself
And what they finally came up with was
They saw some sort of cosmic underbelly.
I call it Tao
Sakyamuni called it emptiness
Now let's turn around and ask a question
If computer architecture and the structure of the universe are truly highly homogeneous
Is this just a coincidence?
Or does it suggest a deeper cosmic truth?
Frontier Research in Contemporary Physics
Gave at least three strong clues
Support this conjecture
Article number one.
holographic principle
Hawking and Beckenstein discovered
The information capacity of a black hole
Is proportional to its surface area
Rather than volume
In 1997, physicist Maldacina proved that
All the physical laws of five-dimensional space
Can be equivalent to a quantum theory on a four-dimensional boundary
High-dimensional spaces emerge from low-dimensional information
This logic
And the three-dimensional picture we see
Emerging from computer binary data
Exactly the same.
Article 2
Quantum entanglement equivalent wormhole conjecture
quantum entanglement
It's two particles, no matter how far apart they are.
Can achieve instant correlation
Theoretical physicists have shown that
This entanglement may be the needle and thread that weaves space-time itself
Entanglement is a wormhole
Wormholes are entanglements.
Space-time itself is woven together by quantum information
If space-time is woven from information
Then the universe is not a container of information
The universe itself is information
It's like a three-dimensional virtual world on a screen.
It's not in binary.
It's the emergent form of binary.
The three-dimensional space we're in.
It's not in quantum information.
It's emergent forms of quantum information.
Article 3
Digital Physics, 1967
German computer pioneer Chu Ze proposed
The universe is a giant cellular automaton, 2002.
Lloyd Lloyd, the physicist at MIT.
Did rigorous physical calculations
The universe from the Big Bang to the present
A total of about 10 ^ 120 fundamental operations were performed
This is not a literary metaphor
It's about physical computation.
same year
Scientist Wolfram discovered
Extremely simple cellular automata rules
We can generate Turing-complete computing power.
A basic rule of just a few bits
It can generate infinitely complex structures
This is the same as what Lao Tzu said about the three lifetimes
It's the same thing at all
Certainly.
I have to be honest with you.
Digital physics is still controversial in the academic community
The core controversy is
If the universe were really a computer
And on what vehicle is it running?
But this framework
Is being taken seriously by more and more mainstream physicists
No longer a fringe conjecture
OK
Let's gather all the clues
Summarize.
Computer operating logic
If the universe were really a computer
Then you and me
It's a particularly interesting piece of code.
A piece of code that is aware that it is code
Which brings us to the last question
In the computer
Who designed the entire architecture?
They're human engineers.
Engineers are outside the system
That's in the supercomputer of the universe
Who set those 26 key parameters?
Wheeler's Participatory Universe Theory
Offers a possible answer
There is no external designer.
The observer observes behavior
Participated in the creation of the universe
The universe is a self-starting, self-programming, self-running computer.
It creates consciousness.
It goes back to participating in the creation of itself.
This may be the ultimate meaning of Taoist nature that Lao Tzu said
The Tao does not follow any external laws
The Tao follows only itself
Finally, I will leave you a picture worth remembering.
You are watching this video right now
The bottom layer of the screen is a stream of ones and zeros.
Running on billions of transistors
Transistors adhere to the laws of quantum mechanics.
From the laws of physics
Your visual experience at this moment
Across four emergent levels
And you yourself
From nerve cells, atoms, subatomic particles
Down to quantum mechanics.
Also four levels
You and the computer in front of you
Essence is isomorphic.
You have all gone through a journey
two
After three
Everything that emerges
What's the difference?
You know about this?
Your computer doesn't know
At least not yet
And here's what's interesting.
You know about this?
The act itself
It's already trying to penetrate the layers of encapsulation
As we said earlier
Most people spend their entire lives at level three.
Like app developers
Just call the off-the-shelf interface
But what you're doing right now
Take it apart layer by layer.
You've been trying to go back from everything to three.
Penetration from 3 to 2
From 2 to 1
From one touch to the road
Dao Ke Dao is not the Dao of Heng Dao
This is not what Lao Tzu said about learning increasingly
Is it a daily loss?
Learning is building knowledge at three levels.
And the search is peeling down layer by layer
Redundancy is reduced to the last binary no longer exists
Even one has disappeared
You are really touching the Tao
This high degree of isomorphism between the computer and the universe
Is it accidental or inevitable?
If the universe were really a computer
Is consciousness an accidental vulnerability or a core function?
Those who have spent their lives trying to reach the Tao
Is it a paragraph?
Try to understand the code of your own source code
About these issues
Do you have a different opinion?
Welcome to share with me in the comment area.
What topics do you want to hear the most in the next issue?
You can also leave a message to tell me.
I am Wang Lijie
See you next time.