The Universe Is Not Like a Computer by Lorraine Ford

[deleted]

I pulled yet another bonehead maneuver:

Let's consider a Huffman encoding of a string of three symbols "abc", where the Huffman codes are a = `0', b = '10', c = '11', so that the string is rewritten as "01011". The Shannon information content per symbol is S = ln(3)/ln(2) = 1.58. The data content per symbol is 5/3 = 1.66.

should have been:

Let's consider a Huffman encoding of a string of three symbols "abc", where the Huffman codes are a = `0', b = '10', c = '11', so that the string is rewritten as "01011". The AVERAGE Shannon information content per symbol is S = ln(3)/ln(2) = 1.58. The AVERAGE data content per symbol is 5/3 = 1.66.

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Of course, the actual content per symbol is not necessarily the same as the average content per symbol. The actual info content per 'a' is ln(1/probability)/ln(2) = ln(3)/ln(2) = 1.58, and the actual data content per 'a' is 1. For 'b' and 'c', the actual info content per symbol is 1.58, and the actual data content per symbol is 2.

This is another reason why I take the distinction between info and data literally -- the actual info content per symbol can be higher than the actual data content per symbol in special situations.

(... substitute sign for symbol when there is no mystery, etc... ie. a signal is made up of signs ....)

[deleted]

Hello Lawrence,

don't shot in the dark but insert domains and limits :)

You know the informations can be fermionic or bosonic. The consciousness is a result of evolution physically speaking.If we take this infinite light above our walls, so this aether.so this consciounsess exists.If this aether above our physicality has created a physical sphere in spherization, so the consciousness evolving in this physicality is relevant. The informations complete the mass and the correlated consciousness. So it implies that we are in a wonderful project, the physical sphere and its spheres.If the informations permit the evolution of this consciousness inside the physicality, so both of informations, bosonic and fermionic are relevant when the volumes are inserted. What is a good information, that is the question after all. Have you a selective memmory? My psychiatre said me that I had a selective memmory.I beleive that it is important for the encoding of informations. The dterminism works in the same logic. The universal sphere also at my humble opinion. In fact the sortings are essential. It is very important even.

The consciousness is this infinite light, this aether, we evolve inside the physicality....so the mass is correlated with the consciousness in the physicality.Like the singularities are linked with the central sphere, so all is linked with this aether.

It is fascinating Lawrence in fact this project isnt'it?

Best Regards

Lorraine Ford

Hi Shawn,

My view of information is different to yours because I view meaningful information obtained from a physical message as a physical reality that leads to (possible) physical outcomes. I'm talking about (what might be envisaged as) an unbroken succession of physical outcomes mediated by laws of nature, symmetry, fundamental constants and what is known as "quantum indeterminacy". I think that, by contrast, the "info content" and the "data content" don't seem to lead to physical outcomes.

I think that information is physical, or to put it another way, physical reality is largely but not entirely accounted for by information that we can represent symbolically. E.g. mass and charge are categories of information that exist at the "particle level"; but living things utilize more complex executive-level categories of information derived from more basic categories of information. This is what I mean by information.

What I try to argue in my essay is that subjective experience is the entirely natural way that information is apprehended in the universe. Subjective experience is meaningful information. This information is not coded, it is just pure information; it doesn't exist as (e.g.) zeroes and ones which must then be interpreted (by a code book) in order to obtain what the zeroes and ones are meant to represent.

Cheers,

Lorraine

[deleted]

Hi Lorraine,

I'll try to show you how I see things from a purely physical point of view, without computers involved.

Imagine that you and I both own not quite adjacent castles, and there is a forest full of dangerous beasts that surrounds and separates our castles. We can't send our messengers on foot or by wing because the beasts always end up eating them for lunch. So, we devise a communication system by which we yell sentences at each other from across the forest, such as "All is quiet on the western front" and "Danger, monsters attacking" and "Can I borrow a cup of sugar?". But it's really quite tiresome to yell these long sentences, so we decide to instead use a shuttered blue lantern and a shuttered red lantern to send our sentences -- one blue pulse for "All is quiet...", one red then one blue pulse for "Danger..." and two red pulses for "Can I borrow...".

The average information content per symbol (sentence) is S = ln(3)/ln(2). What one considers as data is subjective. It could be casted as bits, or it could be the entire data of light pulse in terms of frequencies and the Mie scattering and etc, etc, or it could be the sound waves version from yelling. Regardless of the data, the information content per symbol is the same -- the point is that the symbols here are entire sentences, and this is regardless of how they are transmitted (just as long as the method of transmission grants some way of distinguishing between the distinct sentences).

In any case, I understand where you're coming from regarding composites, but from my computer science studies I have come to know a class as a composite data type, not a composite information type. Object oriented programming is an application of category theory. I do agree that complex life forms utilize complex data and large information, insomuch that it is precisely the complexity (depth and breadth of the "compositeness") of the data that grants the possibility of a combinatorial explosion of value combinations from which a large amount of information can emerge. And that's only with just one datum. Add in many more data, and the combinations explode even further. Make those various combinations manifest over time, and you get information. The key word is time. Things need to change over time in order to get from state to state.

You asked earlier what the information content and data content of a single "Yes" was. I said 1 bit of data, 0 bits of information (as per Shannon's theory). I believed that what you were meaning was that there is 1 bit of data, and 1 bit of information -- they were the same in this case. If this is what you are indeed saying, then I am willing to rename "information content per symbol" to "ideal information content per symbol" and rename "data content per symbol" to "manifest information content per symbol" (the ideal and manifest content are different for almost all cases, so at least this distinction is unquestionable), but this leaves no room for the word data anywhere. Those who study data compression (source coding) would likely not be so easily convinced to rename their field of study.

I'm sorry to hear that we cannot come to an agreement. you've been extremely patient with me, and I appreciate that.

- Shawn

[deleted]

I hope that no one thinks that I'm saying that individual sentences cannot be ripped apart and analyzed for information content, because that's clearly not true. Information content is based on context and level of distinguish-ability.

This like the Huffman code example.

'a' = '0', b = '10', c = '11'.

The 'a' = '0' symbol has an actual information content of ln(3)/ln(2), as does the 'b' = '10' and 'c' = '11' symbols.

But of course, there is another context from which we can view 'a' = '0' to be alone, if we totally ignore the other symbols. In this context, the information content of the string "0" is ln(1) = 0. It all depends on the context, and clearly we need 'b' and 'c' (multiple, distinct symbols) for information to emerge.

[deleted]

To be fair, there is indistinguishability amongst particles of the same type, so I suppose it's better to say "permutation" explosion rather than "combination" explosion, ie. a system state consists of 13 photons of energy x, and 2 photons of energy y, and it does not matter which of the photons are of energy x or energy -- just their total counts per energy matters. There are different state counting rules for fermions too. Regardless, it is the total distinct number of states (or if you prefer the continuous approach, the probability density) that gives the entropy. I don't want to appear to be abusing the physics too much.

[deleted]

Hi Lorraine,

Thinking harder about it, perhaps I can see where our difference in opinion comes from. It springs from an assumption about the probability of the states over time.

Consider a coin flip. How much information content is there in one flip? 1 bit, but *only* if one *assumes* that the coin is perfectly balanced and the 2^1 states are equally probable. But, there is such a thing as an unbalanced coin, and when one flips it repeatedly -- over time -- and finds out that it's not balanced, then the information content per flip is actually less than 1 bit. If the coin is so perfectly imbalanced that it always comes up heads, then the information content per flip is 0 bits. That said, the data content per flip is still 1 bit, and will always be 1 bit... heads, heads, heads, heads, etc.

This is analogous to an 8-bit integer. What's the information content? 8-bits, but *only* if one *assumes* that the bits are perfectly balanced insomuch that all 2^8 states are equally probable. So, when one says that 8 mechanical bits of memory have a total information content of 8 bits, those mechanical bits better be pre-tested for balance amongst the 2^8 different states over time. And these mechanical bits are indeed pre-tested for balance, in the factory, over time. If you buy a computer off of the store shelf and you "tell" a particular group of 8 mechanical bits to store the value 255 and those specific bits always end up stubbornly and incorrectly storing the value 254 in this case, then you've got a faulty bit and the information content is no longer the full 8 bits -- they didn't spend enough time testing the bits in the factory to see if there was a preferred state (or non-preferred state, as it were).

So, when I mint a brand new mechanical bit, and someone asks me how good it is at generating information, then I best get at testing it, over time.

This is why I make a distinction between data and information. 8 mechanical bits will always have a data content of 8 bits, but do not necessarily always have an information content of 8 bits. Ditto for the 1 bit coin.

It's all about probability of states over time, just like in physics.

- Shawn

[deleted]

Hello to both of you,

ok I am understanding better now :) the piece is fallen down :) it begins to interest me.

The taxonomy can be imrpoved with the spherical encoding.

So each letter and number , so informations and datas are encoded with the binar codes. ok it is relevant. So each thing have a specific binar code.so a specific turn off turn on system of encoding. A string of datas and why no a sphere of datas converging with the 3D. The sorting and synchro can be optimized with a specific universal algorythm of spherization. I beleive that the datas indeed and the informations,so the basic foundamentals and the sortings can be differenciated.That said it becomes complex in the sortings, harmonical of oscillations. I beleive strongly that the system can be optimized considering the specific deterministic encoding. The continuity can be reached like the turing machine in fact, but like an universal spherical turing machine so in a pure 3D. the holography will give us a beautiful simulation of many things considering the spheres and its domains of analyzes.

It is fascinating in fact. The binar codes are relevant, that said the spherical codes can be a reality. The most important is the SPHERICAL UNIVERSAL CONVERGENCES.

Thanking you

Regards

Jonathan Kerr

Hello Lorraine,

Do you think a universe empty of life would have information in it? It seems to me that if it were not for one complication, this whole question would be the usual problem of trying to distinguish between the description and the reality.

In physics, you have the reality, then you have the mathematical description. Both the main theories have trouble with the reality of what is being described, and in entirely different ways. This is interesting, and suggests to me that the difficulties will not be permanent, but are instead simply puzzles we need to solve (as in my essay). But either way, the mathematics is still just a description of something.

It seems to me that with labels like 'information', the extra complication is that our sensory systems (and apparently our minds) seem to use a similar way of handling what comes in to us, as our minds do when we use mathematical concepts. So two processes that are similar in some ways get confused. But to me both are just about descriptions of something, although they need disentangling - and in a universe empty of life, it seems there would be no information, just objective reality.

I hope that makes sense, best wishes,

Jonathan Kerr

Lorraine Ford

Hi Jonathan,

my contention is that an information infrastructure underlies all other reality: it underlies laws of nature and physical matter. Information is internal to the universe, it has a point of view, it is subjective experience.

Cheers,

Lorraine

Jonathan Kerr

Hello Lorraine,

thanks for your reply. I agree that the information within reality is subjective. To me it's something we extract from reality. It sounds like you think that our universe had a point of view even before living creatures had evolved, to extract information from it.

I meant information is 'subjective' meaning humans as the subject. Did you mean 'subjective' with the universe as the subject? Or something else?

Best wishes, Jonathan

[deleted]

The computer and the universe

John Archibald Wheeler

Abstract

The reasons are briefly recalled why (1) time cannot be a primordial category in the description of nature, but secondary, approximate and derived, and (2) the laws of physics could not have been engraved for all time upon a tablet of granite, but had to come into being by a higgledy-piggledy mechanism. It is difficult to defend the view that existence is built at bottom upon particles, fields of force or space and time. Attention is called to the "elementary quantum phenomenon" as potential building element for all that is. The task of construction of physics from such elements is compared and contrasted with the problem of constructing a computer out of "yes, no" devices.

Preparation for publication assisted by the University of Texas Center for Theoretical Physics and by National Science Foundation Grant No. PHY78-26592.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/ck753337h0515573/

Lorraine Ford

Hi Yuri,

I haven't got access to that article, though I would like to read it. Perhaps my local library can help.

- Lorraine

[deleted]

Dear Friend

Don't forget please impartially evaluate my essay

[deleted]

Hello,

If we take the serie of uniqueness and if we multiplicate this serie.if we consider the serie with the central sphere, the most important volume, so it becomes relevant in continuing this serie where the volumes decrease.The number it increases. If this fractal is considered like a 3d spherical cell.So we can utilize a kind of universal spherical algorythm of spherization. Like a pure cellular automata but focus on 3d and with finite groups. If we utilize the volumes and my equations, so the dynamic of evolution can be seen with oscillations and stabilities.more the rotations proportional with mass.

In fact we can see relativistically that the Universal Sphere is an Universal spherical intrinsic turing machine of spherization. If the serie of uniqueness is encoded with stability respecting the planck scale.See the volume of the central main sphere, the number 1.So we appraoch the last number. This serie can be multiplicated giving so the space.See that like the spheres decrease in volume, so the entanglement is without lattice in fact in the perfect contact.The smallest spheres are more near that we can imagine of this central sphere in fact(at the cosmological scale also).So we can insert the 3 motions of spheres, so the linear speed, the orbital speed and the spinal speed. see mcosV=constant for all physical spheres.with m mass, c linear velocity, orbital velocity,spinal velocity,V Volume. This constant is universal. So it permits to differenciate the space, the m and the hv. If and only if the gravitation turns in opposite sense than light.It is there it becomes relevant considering the encoding of evolution, the fermions and their serie of finite group. Because the system can be 1 fusioned or 2 binar. the fusion seems more rational. The thermodynamics are relevant with the volumes of spheres and the proportions, relativistic furthermore. The informations so take all its meaning considering the volumes of bosonic spheres.In logic so the fermionic spheres have more important volumes. It implies a simple logic of polarization and increasing of mass, so a correlated increasing of Entropy. If this light above our walls is infinte, it becomes very relevant considering the future physical universal sphere.Because the eternity is there in fact in our future.The volumes are not a probelm in this line of reasoning.

This serie of uniqueness is purely linked with the singularities, these central spheres, quantic and cosmologic which are them linked with this aether. This aether does not turn, in fact, time, space, motions, dimensions are not part of this infinite light. It is when this light turn that it becomes space, mass or light codes. In fact it is essential to insert finite groups for both of systems, fermionic or bosonic.But with several differences implying the spherization of spheres. If the serie of uniqueness is at all scales, so the groups, finite can be understood in their pure meaning of evolution.

The Universe is in fact an automata of spheres,universal and spherical with a pure spherization optimization of mass.It is fascinating in fact. The 2d is one thing , the 3d and the universal sphere an other at my humble opinion, we are so far still of these walls separating this infinite light and its project of spherization of spheres. But we evolve ....

Best Regards

Lorraine Ford

Hi Shawn,

I think our "difference in opinion" comes about because you are talking about coded information, numeric measures like "the average information content per symbol" in a coded message, and measures of probability, whereas my focus is on meaningful information i.e. subjective experience. My essay contends that the universe is NOT like a computer; fundamental level information in the universe is NOT like the coded information that a computer deals with.

Have you considered how the universe apprehends and utilizes information? I contend that subjective experience is the entirely natural way that fundamental-level information is apprehended in the universe. I contend that only subjective experience/meaningful information has a direct input on physical outcomes in the next moment in time. Fundamental-level reality does not utilize the numeric measures and codes you talk about; they are not subjective experience/meaningful information, and they don't lead to physical outcomes.

At the human level, subjective experience/meaningful information can be derived from a message e.g. "one red then one blue pulse" (i.e. "Danger, monsters attacking") or it might not come from a message e.g. it might come from personally observing monsters attacking. Messages are totally inert - they don't lead to physical outcomes like a person running away. Only subjective experience/meaningful information can lead to such physical outcomes. What is important is subjective experience, not coded messages; code is only a tool, a conduit to subjective experience.

Re categories of information: I mean categories more in the philosophical sense, without the associated category theory baggage. My view is that objects are not fundamental; its information categories and information category relationships that are fundamental, and together they can form new information categories. I contend that numbers found in reality (e.g. fundamental constants) must derive from info category relationships and self-relationships, i.e. numbers derive from the basic nature of reality, they therefore have "internal structure", they are not themselves fundamental entities, and they are not external to the universe. Numbers must be accounted for, and they must never be left out of any theories about the nature of reality.

This is just my current view of reality, for what it's worth. Excuse me for presuming to offer you advice, but I think you should spend a lot more time just thinking about my view AND other views about the nature of reality. Its useful to attempt to build your own models of reality: you can check them for consistency, compare them against other models of reality, and regularly change them as required!

I have really appreciated discussing these things with you. All the best,

Lorraine

Lorraine Ford

Hi Steve,

I'm afraid I can't agree with your view of the universe. See my 23 September posts for my view of the nature of reality/the universe.

Cheers,

Lorraine

Hector Zenil

Dear Lorraine,

Despite the recurrent common use of Shannon's work when people refer to a theory of information, Shannon's theory is mostly about communication capacity. Shannon provided the fundamental unit of digital information but the cutting-edge definitions of information content (and meaning) are provided by Algorithmic Information Theory as developed by Kolmogorov, Chaitin, Solomonoff, and Levin, among others. I think the authors you cite are using the term in a more general and less technical way in the quotations you provide.

Lorraine Ford

Dear Hector,

I do understand that "Shannon's theory is mostly about communication capacity" - I've never thought otherwise! I complain about "Information Theories", e.g. in my 9 September @ 12:45 GMT post about the online chapter 1 of The Mathematical Theory of Information by Jan Kahre, because they mix up meaningful information (subjective experience) and coded information in the same sentence, without identifying the important difference. So called "events" are actually subjective experience of events, e.g. from the above book:

(1.2.1) "inf(B@A)"

Here B represents a (coded) newspaper article about an event, and A represents the event. (The newspaper article is coded because words are a code). But actually A does not represent an objective event. So-called event A is actually the reporter's subjective experience of event A, and B is the coded representation of that subjective experience.

My view is that subjective experience is the beginning and end of information: in between you might have coded messages in the form of human speech or via computer/communications.

I think that the quotations I provide/authors I cite are taken from posts I have received. I don't think the discussion was meant to be technical: from my point of view the discussion was about the primary place of meaningful information/subjective experience.

I contend that subjective experience is the entirely natural way that information is apprehended in the universe. Subjective experience is meaningful information. This information is not coded, it is just pure information; it doesn't exist as (e.g.) zeroes and ones which must then be interpreted (e.g. by a code book) in order to obtain what the zeroes and ones are meant to represent. I.e. the universe is not like a computer.

If "cutting-edge definitions of information content (and meaning)...provided by Algorithmic Information Theory as developed by Kolmogorov, Chaitin, Solomonoff, and Levin" do not acknowledge subjective experience, that perhaps they are trying to analyze and represent subjective experience, then I think they fail to present the whole picture.

Cheers,

Lorraine

Jonathan Kerr

Hello Lorraine,

I put a further question after your post, though it is partly addressed in your post above. But I still don't know if you think information exists without life forms around. On the one hand you say:

"an information infrastructure underlies all other reality"

But above you say:

"subjective experience is the beginning and end of information"

These potentially contradict each other. What happens in a universe empty of life, or in our universe before life evolved? Is the 'information infrastructure' in place yet?

Thank you, best wishes,

Jonathan

Lorraine Ford

Hello Jonathan,

Yes, I think information "exists without life-forms around". I think laws of nature and physical matter represent a fundamental information infrastructure, with the elements of the infrastructure being categories of information (which we represent with the symbols for e.g. mass, charge), and information relationships (which we represent with symbols like - / *). These are aspects of reality that really exist - they are internal to the universe. But it's important to remember that there's a big difference between reality and the symbols we use to represent it. On the other hand, quantum mechanics seems to indicate that not all of fundamental reality is precisely representable symbolically.

Another very important fundamental aspect of information is numbers: I think it is clear that all numbers, including numbers found in nature, are constructed from and derive from information category relationships and self-relationships. This question of the nature of numbers confirms in my mind that viewing reality as an "information infrastructure" involving categories makes sense. And, by the way, why does physics seem to forget the fact that numbers are a very important aspect of physical reality that has to be accounted for? Why does physics take numbers for granted, externalising them to a Platonic heaven?

I think that there is also a question of how fundamental information is apprehended. I contend that subjective experience is a basic, primitive thing: it is the entirely natural way that information is apprehended in the universe. Information IS subjective experience.

Re "subjective experience is the beginning and end of information": In relation to human speech or communication via computer, I'm just trying to point out that relevant subjective experience exists BEFORE saying a word or typing a keyboard, and that any subsequent message/communication is not actually received until it is subjectively experienced. Information theories seem to hide the reality of meaningful information i.e. subjective experience.

Cheers,

Lorraine

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