Philip

You need to have another go at my essay.

Paul

Philip

Ah ha. So you really need to re-visit my essay! I am trying to convince Jochen of the same point (amongst others)

Paul

I know, I will get round to reading it again, there is plenty of time.

Philip

Meant to say, there was a piece in the Times today (its actually published in Nature Communications) about why we forget some things short-term then they come back. This is the sort of knowledge we need, because obviously the sensory system/brain processing 'interferes' with what we physically receive, ie we cannot presume physical input equals perception output. So leaving aside individualism (another issue-remember input is inly received at individual level, we need to understand, generically, how these processes work, so that from the output we can extrapolate the input. Which is the start point for physics.

Paul

The formulation that they used for quantization is probably not too important now. The idea comes from decades ago and is probably a bit dated. I just like the multiple quantisation idea in general. I think Weizsäcker ended up with some large number type arguments that don't really make sense anymore.

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  • Post #34

Hi Philip,

Thank you for the detailed answers. I will study your reply to get a better understanding of your idea and then I will formulate more specific questions.

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  • Post #35

Philip

Look, when I was young, a wind up toy was the new technology. Hardcopy. Not sure if you can read it on their web site without paying, but the reference was from something called Nature Communications.

Paul

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  • Post #36

Dear Philip,

Do you think that bits could have real form to make it?

If so, I would propose that those bits have a complex 4 fold convertible torus

to fill the particle bill. See 2x attachments and:

3-D particles the deeper bit-reality of it (matter)

http://vixra.org/abs/1103.0002

http://www.flickr.com/photos/93308747@N05/sets/72157633110734398/Attachment #1: It_from_4x_macaroni_Bit_rotation.jpgAttachment #2: quarks_it_made_from_bits.jpg

Leo, Good to see you over here.

I think bits of information are real but they do not have any physical form or shape themselves. However, they have relationships with each other such as entanglement and these relationships have real form. That is just the way I see it.

I like you pictures. I will reread your essay.

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    • Post #38

    Thank you very much Philip,

    So, Bits of information have relationships with each other such as entanglement and these relationships have real form.

    With real form you mean "can be described by math Formulas"?

    By "form" I mean some kind of geometric representation

    Philip

    "I think bits of information are real but they do not have any physical form or shape themselves"

    What about light, vibration, noise, etc, then? This is information, because it is representational of something else, but is also physically existent in its own right.

    No information, as in knowledge, is physically existent, unless one expresses it in terms of neural activity, or a chemical known as ink on a substance known as paper, etc. But of course that I not the point. So this cannot do anything physical.

    Paul

    I would not say myself that light is information. I would say it carries information and it might be emergent from a theory of pure information.

    In any case statements like "It From Bit" "Bit From It" "It Is Bit" etc are just philosophical interpretations. These are just things that help guide us to a more concrete mathematical theory that is consistent with observation. If you think of it a different way round from me I can't argue with it. The important thing is where does it lead to in real operational terms.

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    • Post #42

    Excellent summary I have learned very much from your essay!

    Philip

    "I would not say myself that light is information. I would say it carries information"

    That sounds semantic. And what is "emergent" & "a theory of pure information"?

    Light is physically existent. It results from an interaction with something else, which is also physically existent, and it is known that an understanding of that something else can be extrapolated from it. So it is therefore information, because it is representational of something else. I am only thinking in terms of what occurs, well generically anyway. Whatever form of knowledge (maths, words, graphics) is used to depict that must correspond with it.

    Paul

    OK That is quite interesting. Look at it this way.

    If I had a bag full of books I might say that the bag is carrying information in the books. That is clearly different from saying that the bag of books is information. The bag has properties of their own aside from the information.

    However, you might say that everything we know about the book and the bag is described by information and there is nothing else. OK I like that way of looking at things but I want to come at it from the other direction. I want to start with some pure information that looks like something more fundamental but then when I look at the information more carefully I find that it has the same characteristics as a book of books. In other words, if I use the information to answer questions in a particular way the answers are the same as I would get playing twenty questions when the answer is a bag of books.

    Coming back to light and particles I might start with bits of information on a grid. The information might evolve according to some simple rules. In other words it is a cellular automaton. When I study how the system evolves I might find that different types of particles form an travel across the grid. With luck I might replicate something that looks like the physics of photons. Then I would say that the light was emergent from a theory of pure information.

    Some people have looked at cellular automata (Fredkin, Wolfram, etc.) The results are interesting but the problem is that quantum field theory includes non-local entanglement and you cant get that with classical cellular automata. 't Hooft has explored quantum cellular automata where he has a hilbert space spaned by the possible states of the system. This is more interesting. He first described the holographic principle using a model of that form and now he claims that string theory can be described that way. Perhaps he can really get it to work.

    However, I think this is not enough. Cellular automata already have grid structures that represent space and time is a discrete process put in by hand. I want to see a theory that starts from something more fundamental so that space and time are also emergent/ I think that symmetries are important because they reflect the idea of redundant information. So I want to start from algebras that describe symmetries over Hilbert spaces of information and then reproduce physics as emergent structures from that. It is ambitious but there are mathematical principles that suggest it might just be possible such as the mappings I describe in my essay.

    I hope that makes it a little clearer how my thinking works.

    Philip

    But that all just turns on what we are labelling as being light, ie is light really the physical state which eyes can, upon receipt, utilise. And the rest of the physical entity is the 'carrier'. But this distinction, as with many others one can identify when going into detail, is irrelevant to the point. Light is a representation of something else, ergo, it is information.

    Indeed, there is only information about/knowledge of reality. We cannot 'directly access' it. But this is not the point either, because that is a statement of the obvious, and pointless. In the same way that everything provides us with information, so the concept of information again is pointless, as there is no differentiation from not-information. Incidentally, physically, the book is not information, it is ink & paper, or whatever.

    Space and time are not emergent. Distance is an artefact of physically existent entities, it being a difference between them in terms of spatial position. Existence necessitates physical space, but that can only be assigned via entities. So distance can only involve entities which exist at the same time. And they can only exist in one physically existent state at a time. Time is the turnover rate of existent states (ie realities).

    Paul

    Paul, that is a very reasonable view of information and I cant disagree with it.

    I am however confused by your last statement. You say space and time are not emergent but then you express the relational view of space and time which is usually identified with an emergent approach. I am probably misunderstanding what you mean.

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    • Post #47

    Okay Phil,

    Once again, a thought provoking essay! Of course I'm sympathetic to your position but I feel you open yourself up to a bit of critique so I'll take advantage. Where did you open yourself up? I quote:

    "Should we base our theoretical foundation on basic material constructs such as particles and space-time or do these things emerge from the realm of pure information? Wheeler argued for the latter. But no amount of philosophizing can tell us if this is how the universe works. There is no point in asking where the information comes from, or where it is stored."

    So, with this in mind, I'm going to actually propose to you a fundamental question!

    For the last couple of weeks I've been reading FQXi essays, past and present, together with some of the fascinating articles provided. Julian Barbour's essay [JB] is, of course, relevant to this year's subject and although I'm not sympathetic to Mr. Barbour's position it seems to me Mr. Barbour does a rather excellent job of analyzing the nature of information. He divides information into three categories:

    "In summary, we must distinguish three kinds of information: Shannon's information, the uncertainty as to which message will be selected from a source; factual information, the content of such a message; and intrinsic semantic information, which distinguishes a random message, or configuration, from one that carries meaning and to some extent explains its very genesis."

    After establishing the different kinds of information, Mr. Barbour spends a great deal of time talking about probabilities in the context of quantum information theory; his position is that ITs, quantum configurations or fields, create qubits:

    "The key point is this. If we are to speak about ontology, as opposed to efficient coding in communication channels, the most important symbol in (1) is not p for probability but i for the thing, or configuration, that has the probability pi. Probabilities are for outcomes: what you find when you open the box. Thus, even if quantum probabilities are an integral and essential part of the world [PBR] (reference mine), they are meaningless in themselves. They are at best secondary essentials, not primary essentials. They must always be probabilities for something."

    Now this is the thing that struck me! When speaking of quantum mechanics, whether regarding the Standard Model or Cosmology, the emphasis is always on probabilities and statistical configurations; but what about the Hilbert Space?

    Consider the winning FQXi essay by mathematician George Ellis [GE]:

    "Causation: The nature of causation is highly contested territory, and I will take a pragmatic view:

    Definition 1: Causal Effect - If making a change in a quantity X results in a reliable demonstrable change in a quantity Y in a given context, then X has a causal effect on Y.

    Existence: Given this understanding of causation, it implies a view on ontology (existence) as follows: I assume that physical matter (comprised of electrons, protons, etc.) exists. Then the following criterion for existence makes sense:

    Definition 2: Existence - If Y is a physical entity made up of ordinary matter, and X is some kind of entity that has a demonstrable causal effect on Y as per Definition 1, then we must acknowledge that X also exists (even if it is not made up of such matter)."

    Now, it's generally agreed that Bell's work proves the mutually exclusive relationship between locality and counterfactual definiteness and, of course, Bell's work has been further elaborated upon since, for example by Mateus Araujo in [MA]. The EPR experiments of Aspect et al. and the Mach-Zehnder experiments of Herzog et al. unequivocally support counterfactual definiteness at the expense of locality. Furthermore, the experiments of Aspect et al. would seem to place quantum entanglement on a firm ontological footing. So then while Hilbert Space is the space of all possible configurations it's much more than a simple Universe of Discourse; the inseparability of Hilbert Space describes quantum entanglement! Therefore, based on experimental evidence and according to the definitions of George Ellis, the Hilbert Space must have an ontological referent!

    So I propose to you a "Hogwartian" and certainly fundamental question:

    What ontological entity does the Hilbert Space refer to?

    References

    [MA] Araujo, M., Bell inequalities refined to Boole inequalities in: Quantum Realism, Quantum Surrealism (http://arxiv.org/abs/1208.6283), accessed 26 April, 2013.

    [GE] Ellis, G., An excellent exposition revealing the essence of organicism in: Recognising Top-Down Causality (http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Ellis_FQXI_Essay_Ellis_2012.pdf), accessed 26 April, 2013.

    [JB] Barbour, J., An informative discourse on information in: Bit from It (http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Barbour_Wheeler.pdf), accessed 26 April, 2013.

    [PBR] Pusey, M. F. et al., Are wavefunctions ontological entities? in: A boost for quantum reality (http://www.nature.com/news/a-boost-for-quantum-reality-1.10602), accessed 26 April, 2013.

    I shall wait for a few more essays to present themselves before I rate your essay but, rest assured, I'll levy an upper range rating.

    With regards,

    Wes Hansen