By 2016 I had developed a hypothesis over a number of years since 1977 to explain a principle behind the operation of memory, which I described as Duplication theory. This was a system of resonance of structures over time, similar to near quantum levels of indecipherability, as a basis for long term memory which does not resort to subjective physical storage of relevant information, but instead relies on an external system. This resonance effect would be reinforced if such systems or sequences of past experience in the form of dynamic neural structures, were increasingly complex and thus is an additive effect. I had also concluded that such a result might be closely involved with the concept of symmetry. Being very aware that the concept of symmetry was a central element of modern physics, it later occurred to me that there might also be a link in principle between symmetry, the theory of probability and the way in which Duplication theory operated. As far as I know, probability is just another fundamental given: there is no specific explanation of why it exists: it just does, rather in the same way that light velocity is another basic constant of physics. It just is, but nobody knows why, even though a major part of modern physical science relies on this fact.

One of the basic tenets of duplication theory is that similar structures have a tendency to duplicate themselves through all time in the same place (or relatively the same location). It also posits as a corollary, that series of similar events (actions in time) will likewise duplicate themselves through all space at that one moment in time (i.e., EM radiation at light speed). 

For this brief definition to be rationalised and qualified the paper on Duplication theory would have to be taken in to be understood, or disputed, but it would appear to lead to a way of explaining the basis of probability and why it operates in the way it does. Fifty tosses of a coin might result in 45 heads and 55 tails but with 100,000 tosses of the same coin (similar events), the split will be 50/50 almost exactly. This is very similar to the resonance through time effect of duplication theory which compounds and grows stronger as the complexity of the structures and degree of similarity increase: in short it is an additive effect, as per the increasing efficacy of frequency in EM radiation. Likewise, any structure to become easily perceivable has to have form and order and thus comprises collections of similar intervals in space, rather than existence as an entropic mass of particles.

In the specific case of coin tossing, there are only two possibilities, assuming that the coin and the tossing mechanisms are perfectly and equally balanced. The number of times that the coin falls heads will be duplicated by the number of times it falls tails. This exactly matches duplication theory’s basic premise and definition as mentioned above: that similar structures will duplicate themselves through all time in the same place (or relatively the same location in an expanding universe). The equal distribution of heads and tails may seem to an obvious truism, but to anybody who considers the question deeply there has to be a mechanism or driving reason for the astonishing fact of this repetition of similar events becoming more equally balanced with the passage of time. It seems inadequate to accept probability without a rationale for its existence.

The relevance of duplication theory occurred to me recently as a basis of explanation for how and why probability acts in the way it does as far as I am aware: there is no explanation that describes the mechanism at work behind probability, other than it just seems obvious. It is a very mathematical subject in which I have little competence in that ability, but it strikes me as inadequate not to want to know more about its existence in the first place.

One of the main themes of duplication theory is that it postulates an order forming tendency to counter that of entropy, the tendency for everything to run down and fall into increasing chaos. The negative entropic action of duplication theory is a process of increasing order which is results from structures duplicating themselves.

If such a duplication effect of both structures and events was close enough to near perfection, albeit impossible to achieve being singularity states due to the Uncertainty Principle, then my conjecture was that this should result in accompanying effects previously unanticipated. One already well known is that of the rationale for transmission of EM radiation over distance at light speed. This   exists in many different versions still lacking universal agreement after many decades of dispute, and there is now experimental proof that quantum entanglement over time is possible (Megedish et al 2013). Duplication theory explains memory as a resonance effect summarised as follows:                                                                                                                   

“Equal intervals in one location -similar structures- tend to duplicate themselves through all time at that one location.”  In the case of the brain and memory, the ‘same’ location has to be regarded as the same relative to the scale of its immediate surroundings, bearing in mind the universe is expanding in absolute terms. However, if the words time and location are reversed the following results as a surprisingly direct corollary in brief summary of EM transmission:       

“Equal intervals in time -similar actions- tend to duplicate themselves though all locations at that one time.”   Forty odd years ago I noticed at once that the words time and location were reversible, almost symmetrically, without losing the sense of both definitions. This seemed to me more than just a fortunate coincidence at the time.

There is another supportive connection between symmetry and order forming via Feynman & Wheeler’s Absorber theory. This was apparently formulated to demonstrate how EM radiation could be considered as symmetrical, which currently is ostensibly retarded or outwards only. A further implication is that such transmission acts non locally, i.e., as a quantum effect as in Duplication theory. This is also similar to the conclusions of Karl Friston’s free energy principle which accounts for self-organisation of all biological systems, which is also supported by the Dissipative Structure theorem of Ilya Prigogine. As such, Duplication theory is the embodiment of the way in which life develops and progresses to greater degrees of stable patterns and complex structures. Nowhere is this explained better than by Schrödinger in his most estimable booklet ‘What is Life’ from which the following quote describes his conclusions in this respect admirably.

How would we express in terms of the statistical theory the marvellous faculty of a living organism, by which it delays the decay into thermodynamic equilibrium (death)?  We said before: ‘ it feeds on negative entropy’ attracting as it were, a stream of negative entropy upon itself, to compensate the energy increase it produces by living and thus to maintain itself on a stationary and fairly low entropy level………. It appears that there are two different ‘mechanisms’ by which orderly events can be produced: the ‘statistical mechanism’ which produces ‘ order from disorder’, and the new one producing ‘order for order’.  To the unprejudiced mind, the second principle appears to be much simpler, much more plausible.  No doubt it is.  That is why the physicists were so proud to have fallen in with the other one, the ‘ order form disorder’ principle, which is actually followed in nature, and which alone conveys an understanding of the great line of natural events, in the first place, of their irreversibility……..

30/04/17   But reduced & amended   09/04/21
Nick Greaves    ngg@champerty.net