← Glossary · Glossary: Theories of Everything
Frameworks that claim to account for the structure of reality as a whole. This section works differently from the rest of the app on purpose: Giants and angels catalogue what traditions record, while a theory of everything is a contested contemporary claim.
So every entry carries a standing — the same honesty move as the source classes on Named Giants. Standing says where a claim sits relative to testing and review. It is not a verdict on whether the claim is true, and it is not a comment on its author.
| Standing | Means |
|---|---|
| Established | Survives experimental test. Mainstream physics. |
| Research programme | Active mainstream research; not experimentally confirmed. |
| Philosophical framework | A metaphysical model. Not constructed to be falsified, so ordinary physics tests do not apply to it. |
| Outside mainstream review | Published outside the normal review venues, with little or no academic engagement. |
Author: Christopher Michael Langan (b. 1952)
Published: 2002, Progress in Complexity, Information and Design (PCID) 1.2–1.3
Reality is identical to the language that describes it — a Self-Configuring Self-Processing Language that generates its own syntax as it runs. Not a physical theory in the testable sense, but a metaphysical framework about the structure of self-reference.
Author: Many; SM assembled 1961–1973, GR by Albert Einstein, 1915
Published: Continuously, in the peer-reviewed physics literature
The two theories that actually work. Between them they describe every experiment ever performed — and they cannot both be right as written, which is the entire reason a theory of everything is wanted.
Author: Many; M-theory synthesis by Edward Witten, 1995
Published: Peer-reviewed physics literature, 1970s onward
Point particles are replaced by one-dimensional strings whose vibrational modes are the particles. Requires extra spatial dimensions, and produces a graviton without being asked to.
Author: Abhay Ashtekar, Carlo Rovelli, Lee Smolin, from 1986
Published: Peer-reviewed physics literature
Spacetime itself is quantised — woven from discrete loops with a smallest possible area and volume. No extra dimensions required.
Author: John Archibald Wheeler (1911–2008)
Published: 1989, “Information, Physics, Quantum: The Search for Links”
Every physical thing — every “it” — derives from binary answers to yes/no questions. Information is not a description of reality; it is what reality is made of.
Author: Max Tegmark (b. 1967)
Published: 2007–2008, Foundations of Physics
Reality is not described by mathematics — it is a mathematical structure. Every structure that exists mathematically exists physically.
This is the start of a knowledgebase, not a finished list. Frameworks worth adding next, each with its own standing: the Standard Model and General Relativity (established — and the fact that they do not yet join is the whole problem a TOE exists to solve), string/M-theory and loop quantum gravity (research programmes), Wheeler’s “it from bit” and Tegmark’s Mathematical Universe Hypothesis (philosophical, and the closest mainstream neighbours to the CTMU’s core move), and integrated information theory where it makes cosmological claims.