A View From the Top

George,

The top/down bottom/up view of our existence (life) and the mathematics that govern these two very real physical information paths, possibly already exists. Surely the mathematicians have stepped further up the unification trail, albeit a bit blinded to what may actually physically be described when steering through their mathematic rigor. This implies that the mathematics to describe top/down & bottom/up paths of transmitting physical information may already exist and are currently being utilized for highly localized information transfer studies.

Recall the many transmit & receive experiments performed in information reflective chambers. These experiments are generally performed in a closed chamber having random scattering centers filling the volume & the enclosed chambers have a reflective outer wall. Consider acoustic information transfer performed in a acoustic chamber w/ localized acoustic scattering centers filling the volume of the chamber with the chamber having acoustic reflecting walls. This also works with light as the information source having electromagnetic scattering centers within the volume and chamber walls that reflect this radiation. Imagine that you line up a few electric dipole antennas and place them in very close proximity to one another inside this chamber (consider each dipole a communicating life form).... and let one of the dipoles "chirp - ie., dipole transmits information." In the chamber we have multiple scattering centers reflecting the "chirp." By placing many detectors in the chamber we can listen to the time delayed, multiply scattered reflections that originated at the exact location of the one dipole that chirped. The scattering & reflections then dampen out. If we recorded the time dependent amplitude and phase that each detector reads, then, play back this record in the chamber as the time reversed, recorded image of each detector...... a period of time after time reversed signals are emitted, the single antenna that let out the original "chirp" - but is now a switched to a listener - receives a chirp w/ NONE of the other local dipoles (also configured as a listeners) getting any information at all. It is as if diffraction -information spread- did not take place for the time reversed signals that reformed the chirp pulse at the "exact" physical location the chirp pulse originally emanated......

If we consider information from the chirp expanding outward "reductionist" information then we can possibly call the time reversed information broadcast from the detectors the "encoded" holistic information return path. Processing had to occur in the recording detectors to precisely store, then time reverse and emit information that is to be delivered back to the exact location of the single antenna that chirped.

That above implies that the time reversal of information requires one to record and process information prior to making a concerted effort with others to interact back with a single source. Think of all the recorders in the chamber as either neurons (within confines of skull), individual persons (in confines of the atmosphere), a cell (in the confines of a cell wall, etc.,) and all of these enclosures must also follow the same concerted procedure to deliver concise information back to every highly localized source within the chamber.

Each recorder has unique information requiring each to play back in a time reversed order to excite the single emitter (emitter and listener - reciprocity), and, each recorder must playback their time reversed information at precisely the correct moment. This implies holistic information resembles a record, time reverse then transmit process to target a single listener (ie., just like these antenna). Since each listener is "encoded by an exact detector location in the chamber" we can then do things like attempt to correlate a genetic code to each listener's pre-programmed, time dependent, concerted efforts with others, etc., positional responses.

Encoded listeners acting as a coordinated team of time reverse transmitters transmitting information that superimposes to target very local regions of space. Like the concerted effort of particle physicists attempting to gather information about the Big Bang singularity (holistic) with each physicist being depended by others for having a novel, personal, input (reductionist information from within).

Who knows? Cheers!

Best regards,

Tony

Tony

How can "interact back with a single source" occur? What existed does not now do so, something different exists. It might appear to be the same as previously, but that is from the perspective of superficial physical attributes, not what constitutes its physical existence. Neither will any such action influence the future, because the future is non-existent. All it will do is influence what happens next, ie something will occur which is different from what otherwise might have occurred. But then so is every occurrence different from what might have been, because it is what occurred, rather than what might have done. In other words, what occurs is a function of whatever caused it, not all the possible alternatives which did not exist and were therefore could not be a cause.

Paul

Paul,

That above just establishes "the physical paths" that information takes. Information can come from a single entity and spread to the whole, or, encoded in the whole is an "encoded response - reverse time - path" in where the whole can transfer information to a single point in space - at some given future time. Causality was not mentioned, just the physical mechanisms used to transfer information to infintesimal points in space using the whole of listeners/emitters living in the same space - with NO propagation limiting diffraction affects that disperse this information (....sounds like Feynman's advanced wave property used in his resolving radiation reaction - the advanced wave travels with "not" obeying the standard dispersive laws of physics when propogating). Once each "chirping" dipole is recorded by the rest of the whole (encoded in a precise "reverse time response to "speak" w/ "each" single listener that is also a selective emitter - we - life- can speak and listen just like the dipole) we can then encode the entire volume of space to obtain the exact time dependent reverse time responses required for each individual "listener to the whole." (You bet cell phone companies are looking into this!)

So now you have the code to each individual listener and you can do things like sending frequency modulated chirps back to it... which was done with 3 "closely placed" dipole antenna listeners in an article I recall (ie, first the three listeners chirped individually, and, were recorded by listeners(ie., encoded) then the information from each listener could be time reversed and played back to each dipole inddependently - different transmit codes for each listener). The three antenna encoded were used for the R, G and B signal for prodicing a bitmap image in HD that was broadcast from the Whole of listeners to these three individual antenna and the Bitmap image projected was a beautifully color image. This established that the whole can precisely speak to an individual w/o leaking information to others in a VERY LOCAL vacinity (where standard methods to propagate information would certainly be leaky to those in close proximity).

Once the model of the physical information paths have been established, it becomes a matter of applying (correlating this information) to some real, measurable physical systems.... that for the system described above has been done many times and with many different physical information propagation paths (E&M, acoustic, etc.,). Could it apply to things like mitochondria existing within cell walls - are the walls coded to speak with each element within the cell? This has a holistic tone to it and does not really imply anything not being causal.....

Regards,

Tony

Tony

"That above just establishes "the physical paths" that information takes"

It does not actually, it describes how cause and effect must occur. However, the simple response to this is: so what, physically, is this "information" you refer to?

Paul

Paul,

Everything you measure! This is the simplest answer to your question. Information derives itself from measures (ratioed measures to be more precise - like an illumination contrast measure .. on/off light intensities). In these experiments, maybe the measured reductionist physics does not behave properly when the whole transfers the ultimate in consise information to the single entity. Only the listening dipole hears - no other listening dipole (in VERY close proxmity) hears a smidgen of what was sent by the whole. Maybe we have a physically measurable holistic affect at work .... implying, coherent, coded, returned information emanating from the whole and arriving in a very NON reductionist, non dispersive fashion at an infintessimal point in space.

All we ever really do is correlate ....

Regards,

Tony

Tony

Fine, but that is not physically existent, is it? It is a representaion thereof.

In trying to counter what I said about the physical sequence of cause/effect you are asserting that 'information' has something to do with it. Which it cannot, because it is not physically existent.

Paul

Paul,

If I can measure (with information supplied by my 5 senses & with all the different, high precision metrology extentions to my senses that are at my disposal - then I am (am a measurer of course). These measures build my reality of physical information, as does yours and the information we agree apon we called science. The agreement comes from an accurate physical measure to prove a particular line of physical thought. The proof is in "measuring" someones pudding!! Therefore, we must get out the correct model to apply our physical measures and it is always derived from the "degrees of freedom" given for us to move from within, literally. This is Casmir's space on steroids and having physical boundaries that define the quantum mexchanics that is physically restricted to exist within the measurement space - whether a probablistic space or not! The information degrees of freedom rules for measuring are physically set at the boundary - these are the rules set by the quantum playing field! ...... to which we are all coupled to .... this is the information space from where our measured correlations are derived. Rules set at the boundary, and, encoded returns sent by the whole (line of experiments to infintessimally focus information) sounded correlated

Science is all about correlated measures and we are the measure-ers. Time to pull out the meter stick and stop watch!

Tony

Tony

As much as matters I agree with all that, and indeed as proof this is in my essay. In respect of knowledge/information and its relationship with reality, you are not telling me anything I do not already know.

But none of that addresses my original point, which was:

"How can "interact back with a single source" occur? What existed does not now do so, something different exists. It might appear to be the same as previously, but that is from the perspective of superficial physical attributes, not what constitutes its physical existence. Neither will any such action influence the future, because the future is non-existent. All it will do is influence what happens next, ie something will occur which is different from what otherwise might have occurred. But then so is every occurrence different from what might have been, because it is what occurred, rather than what might have done. In other words, what occurs is a function of whatever caused it, not all the possible alternatives which did not exist and were therefore could not be a cause" Or my post above that of 13/4 07.07.

Information cannot 'override' the fundamental way in which reality occurs.

Paul

Paul,

I had not intended to indicate anything about past and future, cause and effect ... I only speak of that information we physically measure - in the NOW. This is all we got to work with, and, we may have alternative, physical ways to represent it, ways in where holostic and reductionist information superimpose to produce the physical, measurable actions life performs to sustain itself in being a physical measurer - in the NOW. If "life" behaves like the dipole antenna/transmitter in these experiments, it may then be possible to consider alternative ways to represent information that life utilizes (through mathematical modeling). If each of our individual gene codes represents the encoding required to unlock the code that the universe utilizes to feed us individually with specific information (like the novel coding in the transmitters to target a single dipole with information).... maybe this can unlock the details of our individual immune systems responses .... provide Sara answers as to why biological physical measures show that reductionist biology is not an accurate representation of what is actually occuring .... etc.

Mach was a proponent of holistic thought that also influenced Einstein. Maybe this is going on the same path (information path). Entanglement gives us tools to consider outragous possibilities on how the universe is connected up - and - life may just be the key here coupled through genetic coding?

Best regards,

Tony

Tony

"I only speak of that information we physically measure"

We do not measure information, we measure something, which renders information. And yes one can only be, at least trying, to measure/discern the current existent state at the time that this activity was effected. And the representational devices used (narrative, graphic, math) are irrelevant so long as they correspond with what occurred.

Everything thing effectively is a source of information, but if one does not limit the concept to 'representational of', then it becomes pointless.

Entanglement gives you a basis for getting it wrong. The start point must be what constitutes the form of existence we can know and how does that occur, not what alternatives we can believe in. Have a look in Jochen essay blog & Mikalai blog, at my posts in order to save me repeating it & indeed I must now get off to do a day's building work

Paul

The problem with this approach is that dreams fundamentally, ultimately, naturally, and theoretically unify gravity, inertia, and electromagnetism consistent with our experience as it is seen, felt, and touched.

I demand and expect honesty and truth from FQXi.org in physics.

I am fascinated by causality and have long wondered why modern science gives it such little attention. Ellis's ideas may or may not prove compelling, but I love the fact that someone is finally talking about it.

Our being conscious/alive in conjunction with the FUNDAMENTAL (and ultimate) experience of our growth and becoming other than we are would naturally, theoretically, generally, and fundamentally unify physics and physical experience (seen, felt, AND touched). Dreams do this.

The sun makes everything happen. It makes molecules jiggle, assemble, membranes grow etc. When the sun sets, everything dies, and the story starts again the next morning. The first challenge for life to be was to make it through the night, to still be there the next morning. Stick to a hot place and pack up some supplies for the night. Then, life becomes this extended reaction through time, days.

The second challenge of life is to continue beyond the lifetime/expiry date of its components. Transfer the recipe into a new structure, with new components. These structures are still created at random. (micelles)

The third challenge of life is to include into the recipe the making of the required structure; no waiting for chance to create the structure.

That's how I see it. The short story of life.

Marcel,

The [linked and separate] fundamental experience of our growth and becoming other than we are fundamentally, naturally, AND theoretically unifies physics. I already proved this.

George F. R. Ellis and FQXi.org must admit to this foundational, extremely important, and fundamental fact.

Answering George Ellis about Einstein's General Relativity

GENERAL RELATIVITY: A CELEBRATION OF THE 100th ANNIVERSARY - Paris, November 16 to 20, 2015. George Ellis (Cape Town): "Einstein's General Theory: What Makes It Different From The Rest Of Physics? Why Does This Make It Difficult To Deal With?"

Unlike the rest of physics which is deductive (based on mechanistic models in the sense described below), Einstein's general relativity is just an empirical model:

"The objective of curve fitting is to theoretically describe experimental data with a model (function or equation) and to find the parameters associated with this model. Models of primary importance to us are mechanistic models. Mechanistic models are specifically formulated to provide insight into a chemical, biological, or physical process that is thought to govern the phenomenon under study. Parameters derived from mechanistic models are quantitative estimates of real system properties (rate constants, dissociation constants, catalytic velocities etc.). It is important to distinguish mechanistic models from empirical models that are mathematical functions formulated to fit a particular curve but whose parameters do not necessarily correspond to a biological, chemical or physical property."

The making of Einstein's general relativity was analogous to "curve fitting". As the following two texts clearly show, Einstein and his mathematical friends had to change and fudge the equations countless times until "excellent agreement" with known in advance results and pet assumptions was reached (that is, their model was empirical, not mechanistic):

Michel Janssen: "But - as we know from a letter to his friend Conrad Habicht of December 24, 1907 - one of the goals that Einstein set himself early on, was to use his new theory of gravity, whatever it might turn out to be, to explain the discrepancy between the observed motion of the perihelion of the planet Mercury and the motion predicted on the basis of Newtonian gravitational theory. (...) The Einstein-Grossmann theory - also known as the "Entwurf" ("outline") theory after the title of Einstein and Grossmann's paper - is, in fact, already very close to the version of general relativity published in November 1915 and constitutes an enormous advance over Einstein's first attempt at a generalized theory of relativity and theory of gravitation published in 1912. The crucial breakthrough had been that Einstein had recognized that the gravitational field - or, as we would now say, the inertio-gravitational field - should not be described by a variable speed of light as he had attempted in 1912, but by the so-called metric tensor field. The metric tensor is a mathematical object of 16 components, 10 of which independent, that characterizes the geometry of space and time. In this way, gravity is no longer a force in space and time, but part of the fabric of space and time itself: gravity is part of the inertio-gravitational field. Einstein had turned to Grossmann for help with the difficult and unfamiliar mathematics needed to formulate a theory along these lines. (...) Einstein did not give up the Einstein-Grossmann theory once he had established that it could not fully explain the Mercury anomaly. He continued to work on the theory and never even mentioned the disappointing result of his work with Besso in print. So Einstein did not do what the influential philosopher Sir Karl Popper claimed all good scientists do: once they have found an empirical refutation of their theory, they abandon that theory and go back to the drawing board. (...) On November 4, 1915, he presented a paper to the Berlin Academy officially retracting the Einstein-Grossmann équations and replacing them with new ones. On November 11, a short addendum to this paper followed, once again changing his field equations. A week later, on November 18, Einstein presented the paper containing his celebrated explanation of the perihelion motion of Mercury on the basis of this new theory. Another week later he changed the field equations once more. These are the equations still used today. This last change did not affect the result for the perihelion of Mercury. Besso is not acknowledged in Einstein's paper on the perihelion problem. Apparently, Besso's help with this technical problem had not been as valuable to Einstein as his role as sounding board that had earned Besso the famous acknowledgment in the special relativity paper of 1905. Still, an acknowledgment would have been appropriate. After all, what Einstein had done that week in November, was simply to redo the calculation he had done with Besso in June 1913, using his new field equations instead of the Einstein-Grossmann equations. It is not hard to imagine Einstein's excitement when he inserted the numbers for Mercury into the new expression he found and the result was 43", in excellent agreement with observation."

"C'est à ce moment de l'histoire que commence celle, méconnue, du manuscrit Einstein-Besso. Le physicien convoque son ami et confident suisse pour l'aider à mener les calculs et tester son ébauche de relativité générale sur un problème bien connu des astronomes : l'anomalie de l'orbite de Mercure. "Depuis la fin du XIXe siècle, on sait de manière de plus en plus précise que le périhélie de cette planète (le point de son orbite le plus proche du Soleil) avance un peu plus que le prévoient les équations de Newton : l'excédent est de 43 secondes d'arc par siècle, c'est-à-dire l'angle sous lequel on voit un cheveu à une distance d'un mètre... Einstein se dit simplement que sa théorie sera validée si elle prédit correctement cette "anomalie" de l'avance du périhélie de Mercure." Une part du manuscrit Einstein-Besso est consacrée à ce test crucial. Aux pages d'Einstein, des lignes d'équations, sans ratures, presque vierges de tout texte, succèdent celles de Besso, un peu plus hésitantes et annotées de nombreuses explications. Le résultat est calamiteux. Au lieu d'expliquer le petit décalage de 43 secondes d'arc par siècle, la nouvelle théorie propose une avance de plus de 1 800 secondes d'arc par siècle. Très loin de la réalité des observations astronomiques ! "Mais, un peu plus loin dans le manuscrit, les deux hommes se rendent compte qu'ils se sont trompés sur la masse du Soleil"... Une erreur d'un facteur 10, qu'ils corrigent finalement, pour parvenir à un résultat moins absurde, mais toujours décevant : 18 secondes d'arc par siècle... Echec complet ? Un peu plus loin, en conclusion d'un tout autre calcul, Einstein écrit : "Stimmt" ("Correct"). "En dépit de l'échec de sa théorie à expliquer l'avance du périhélie de Mercure, Einstein croit avoir démontré autre chose, au détour d'une équation... En mai 1907, il avait eu l'intuition qu'une chute libre peut "annuler" un champ de gravitation. Ici, il pense avoir démontré qu'un mouvement de rotation peut, lui aussi, être considéré comme équivalent à un champ de gravitation. Il croit avoir généralisé son principe d'équivalence." Mais, plus de deux ans plus tard, Einstein comprend que son calcul était faux : il n'a rien généralisé du tout. C'est alors qu'il accepte d'utiliser dans sa théorie le premier tenseur, jugé trop complexe, que lui avait proposé Grossmann. Et en 1915, il teste ce nouveau tenseur sur l'avance du périhélie de Mercure. Cette fois, le résultat est le bon !"

In terms of Einstein's text below, unlike special relativity, general relativity was "a purely empirical enterprise" - Einstein's mathematical friends helped him to compile "a classified catalogue" where known in advance results and pet assumptions (e.g. that of gravitational time dilation) coexisted in an apparently consistent manner:

Albert Einstein : "From a systematic theoretical point of view, we may imagine the process of evolution of an empirical science to be a continuous process of induction. Theories are evolved and are expressed in short compass as statements of a large number of individual observations in the form of empirical laws, from which the general laws can be ascertained by comparison. Regarded in this way, the development of a science bears some resemblance to the compilation of a classified catalogue. It is, as it were, a purely empirical enterprise. But this point of view by no means embraces the whole of the actual process ; for it slurs over the important part played by intuition and deductive thought in the development of an exact science. As soon as a science has emerged from its initial stages, theoretical advances are no longer achieved merely by a process of arrangement. Guided by empirical data, the investigator rather develops a system of thought which, in general, is built up logically from a small number of fundamental assumptions, the so-called axioms."

Pentcho Valev

Theoretical Physics' Method: Deduction (Nothing Else)

http://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/thought_and_writing/philosophy/rationality%20of%20science.pdf

W. H. Newton-Smith, THE RATIONALITY OF SCIENCE, Routledge, London, 1981, p. 199: "By a theory I shall mean the deductive closure of a set of theoretical postulates together with an appropriate set of auxiliary hypotheses; that is, everything that can be deduced from this set."

If the theory is not deductive, then it is an "empirical enterprise", that is, no physical theory at all:

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/einstein/works/1910s/relative/ap03.htm

Albert Einstein: "From a systematic theoretical point of view, we may imagine the process of evolution of an empirical science to be a continuous process of induction. Theories are evolved and are expressed in short compass as statements of a large number of individual observations in the form of empirical laws, from which the general laws can be ascertained by comparison. Regarded in this way, the development of a science bears some resemblance to the compilation of a classified catalogue. It is, as it were, a purely empirical enterprise. But this point of view by no means embraces the whole of the actual process ; for it slurs over the important part played by intuition and deductive thought in the development of an exact science. As soon as a science has emerged from its initial stages, theoretical advances are no longer achieved merely by a process of arrangement. Guided by empirical data, the investigator rather develops a system of thought which, in general, is built up logically from a small number of fundamental assumptions, the so-called axioms."

Einstein's special relativity was deductive (although using a false axiom and invalid arguments) but his general relativity was an "empirical enterprise".

Pentcho Valev

Einstein's Empirical "Theory":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVGAKbRdKcY

Steven Weinberg: "People suspect that if you have a known fact, the theorist will be able to jiggle his theory to get it into agreement. If you know anything about the way Einstein developed General Relativity, that's not true. He did not design his theory to explain that extra little motion of Mercury."

On the contrary, Einstein and his mathematical friends had to change and fudge the equations countless times until agreement with known in advance results and pet assumptions was reached (a typical empirical approach):

http://www.weylmann.com/besso.pdf

Michel Janssen, "The Einstein-Besso Manuscript: A Glimpse Behind the Curtain of the Wizard"

http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2010/04/23/einstein-besso-duo-pour-un-eureka_1341703_3244.html

Stéphane Foucart, "Einstein-Besso, duo pour un eurêka !"

http://alasource.blogs.nouvelobs.com/archive/2009/01/index.html

"L'erreur d'Einstein (la deuxieme)"

Pentcho Valev