Are Eric Weinstein and Brian Greene barking up the wrong tree?
Eric Weinstein is a mathematician working on a theory called, “Geometric Unity”. Brian Greene is a physicist working on a theory called, “String Theory”. Both are hoping the theories they are working on become the master, all-encompassing, coherent, theoretical framework of physics that fully explains and links together all physical aspects of the universe! In other words, both are trying to discover the Theory of Everything!
I think Weinstein, Greene, and many others, may be on a fools errand. There probably is no theory of everything. Consider the following argument.
Premise 1: Emergent systems require, multiple, separate, distinct, and completely unrelated rules in order to exist. You can't have an emergent system with just one underlying rule.
Premise 2: The universe is an emergent system.
Conclusion: Therefore no single rule, physical law, or theory can ever fully explain the existence of the Universe in its current form.
Premise 1 is as far as I know just my own conjecture. If I am the first to propose this conjecture, then lets call it “Migala's conjecture”. I don't know if it is true. It seems to me to be intuitively true but I can't prove it. You can't describe how the slime mold solves a complex maze with just one rule or procedure. The novel phenomena seen in Conway's game of life can't occur if the game is built around just a single rule.
Premise 2 is obviously true. The universe transformed from a quark-gluon soup to a machine which manufactures things which ponders it as result of rules operating on matter/energy. If the universe isn't an emergent system what is?
So in conclusion, a set of different and unrelated theories is the best you can ever do. There is no theory of everything available to us that we can discover.