Essay Abstract
The "from" in "it from bit" is the focus of this essay. Not just conceptually or figuratively, the task of how to technically formalize the transformation of "bit" into "it" with an algorithm in the era of Big Data is taken head on. The result is a startling new interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Author Bio
Mike Helland is a computer programmer, philosopher, musician, and inventor.
Michael, I like the idea of thinking about what happens in a computer program to understand the relationship between it and bit. I wonder what the future will bring when we have computers that can calculate situations that come close to reality
Hi Mike,
Your idea although very far from complete, there is a hint of truth in it. To see why, please look at my theory where I create a universe(sort of) in a computer using ONLY random numbers .
I gave toy a 10 for the nice try !
Hi Mike,
I am not competent in programming but I think you would be interested in computational loop quantum gravity formulated by Paola Zizzi and some other scientists. They combine digital physics with loop quantum gravity (by Lee Smolin). Maybe you are familiar with CLQG but if not look at Zizzi P. Computability at the Planck scale. arXiv:gr-qc/0412076v2 (2005).
In my opinion when QM and GR are computable and deterministic, the universe evolution (naturally evolving self-organized critical system) is non-computable and non-deterministic. It does not mean that computability and determinism are related (an excerpt from my FXQI essay in 2011).
In conclusion you claim that the most of what we deal with is of a relative reality, of a relative truth, sprouting from an absolute reality that is fundamental to it. OK, I would say that EVERYTHING is of a relative reality and we are not sure if there exists only one absolute reality. That is the problem of QM interpretation and that causes that the essay subject is not trivial.
Good luck Mike!
Thanks for reading and the comments. I think what will happen in the future will be:
"Just as Einstein banished the ether as a medium for electromagnetism we must now complete his work by banishing space-time as a medium for string theory. The result will be a model in which space-time is recovered as a result of the relationship between interacting strings. It will be the first step towards a reconciliation of physics and philosophy. Perhaps it will be quickly followed by a change of view, to a point from where all of our universe can be seen as a consequence of our possible experiences just as the old philosophers wanted us to see it. What other ways will we have to modify our understanding to accommodate such a theory? Not all can be foreseen."
Look familar? :)
The main way we will have to modify our understanding is that time and space will come in relative and absolute flavors, And so does matter.
Bits are absolute matter, and its are relative matter.
This is, as far as I can tell, what Leibniz was going on about with monads.
Monads are premeasurement, atoms are post measurement.
Thank you!
"We are not sure if there exists only one absolute reality."
Is that meant as absolute reality having an absolute reality of its own, turtles all the way down?
If we state our goal as a complete and consistent theory for all measurements, it isn't surprising ala the Incompleteness Theorem that when employing a superset to our measurements, the new superset poses some unprovable statements of its own.
if that makes any sense.
Thanks for your comments!
Michael,
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the first part of your essay. As I have gone to great pains to explain in my essay, BITTERS, one real Universe can only be occurring once. The problem with information is its apparent repeatability, but no part of unique reality is repeatable. Mathematicians, even quantum mechanists, use the same numbers and symbols and functions over and over again, which is futile as only the unique exists. Unique reality is not subject to calculation. There are no real its and bits of anything. Each real snowflake is unique, once. Each real photon is unique once. I know that both you and I are unique, once.
"We are not sure if there exists only one absolute reality" has meant only that there is the many-worlds interpretation of QM. But it is not my favourite.
Mike, an enjoyable and fresh essay. As a side note , I realized by reading your essay that the dream of artificial intelligence will never be met, yes we can design computers to play chess or win in Jeopardy, intelligent they are not. Can these same machines play tiddlywinks, no they have not been programmed to do so, and in the same way they cannot create something new which is the true sign of intelligence. However, that is not the subject matter.
I fully agree with your conclusion that an underlying absolute reality exists and our reality is relative to it. The idea that our QM models (which are based on wave functions) ignore the fact that we are travelling through space at some 370 km/s is absurd. Your idea to use Big Data to model this has one flaw, a simple mathematical algorithm or formula for an absolute point of view must first exist, all our formulas are based on relative point of view. As long as science is short sighted, by being adamant that the relative point of view is the only point of view, we have a loose-loose situation.
Ah, I see.
The Many Worlds interpretation says that there is many different relative realities.
I'm not sure it stakes out a position on an absolute reality.
So absolute -> relative (bit to it) is an alternative interpretation to many worlds which is relative | relative | relative | ect
Also, in this new interpretation is there is no waveform or a collapse of any kind.
Hi Michael,
I liked your 'soup' approach. The conclusion that there is a "hierarchy of the real" was interesting and thought provoking. Perhaps you might like to take a look at my essay too - any feedback would be appreciated.
Best of luck!
Antony
Dear Michael
Very well !
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1802
Dear Michael,
Congratulations on opening up a whole new conceptual area for intelligent discussion concerning the nature of the universe. You may not fully realize all of the implications that can result from a thorough analysis of the concepts that you have introduced into the conversation by your paper, but let me assure you that they are many and can, if pursued, lead to a great increase in man's understanding of the depth of the complexity of the structure of the universe. Although I have always believed that man has the ability to understand levels of structure that are deeper than those currently generally allowed by his current limited understanding of science, I did not think that it would be likely that I would be able to cover such concepts in public media due to the limitations of man's believability quotient in the structure of the current science hierarchy system. What you have done is to introduce structural concepts in a way that can be easily extrapolated in a form that should provide an easy insight into deeper structural possibilities of the nature and source of the universe.
Your model starts with a giant computer that first defines bits within itself as basic its (basic matter particles, energy photons, etc.). Each of these its would not just be one bit per it, but would be an information object that would contain all of the information of the properties and interactions which that particular type of it would contain to define its specific existence and possible actions and interactions. These objects could then interact with each other when they intersect each other in the spatial matrix that you have generated for them to move in. In so doing they could form atoms and then molecules, etc. in order to produce the larger scale structures that you mention in your paper to create a universe that would include internal intelligent observers that could make measurements of things in that universe.
Let's look at how this type of universe actually works:
1. It starts with an intelligent being (you in your example),
2. This being imagines and plans to make the universe in his own mind
(makes bits in mind that are stored as its of the structure of his
mind),
3. He makes intermediary structures (the computer, etc. that are its that
contain the bits of their structure) necessary to build and contain the
universe,
a. He finds a supply of basic material(s) (its that contain the
bits of their structure) from which all of the universe's support
structures are to be made,
b. He finds a source of power (an it that contains the bits of its
structure) to make and operate the support structures,
c. He makes the support structures,
d. He programs the computer with the basic spatial matrix (bits that
are stored as its in the computer's structure) for the particles
to move and act in,
e. He programs each of the different basic particles with its
properties and interaction capabilities (bits that are stored as
its in computer's structure),
f. He makes many copies of each particle and places them in their
proper beginning positions within the matrix (bits that are
stored as its in computer's structure).
4. He then sets each particle in motion in the matrix in the desired
direction and with the desired motion amplitude level, so that they
will interact with each other in the desired way to create the desired
atoms, molecules, and larger hierarchical structures to make the
universe be the way that it was originally planned to be (adds power or
motion to universe).
5. He can then perform any desired modifications over the time of the
universe's development, by making any desired changes to its
programming.
Such a universe would be limited to modeling only a portion of the real universe because each particle in the model would require the use of many real world particles to store its information object that described its internal structure and its external interaction capabilities and you could not use every particle in the real universe in your model. You could, however, make a large enough model to test the viability of the possibility of the existence of such a created universe. The real exciting thing, however, is that if you could make such a model, so that the intelligent beings that exist within it can see and sense other things within the model (their universe) in a way that is similar to the way we observe things in our universe, it would not require a major extrapolation to consider that our universe may be a model created by a much more intelligent and powerful being than us. You have, therefore, just introduced a logical argument in favor of our universe having been created by an intelligent being. You only have to replace yourself in item 1. above with the more intelligent and more powerful being (God) and the rest of the model can remain much the same. Of course, it would be likely that such a being would be able to make a much better universe than we could conceive of with our lesser abilities.
I waited quite a while to send this post because I wanted to allow you to get the greatest response from others that you could because based on my past experiments on man's knowledge tunneling and limited believability quotient, I figured that after I post this comment you probably will not get many more comments (at least positive ones). This is because man has currently attempted to define any mention of the possibility that the world was created by an intelligent being as unscientific. This kind of closing off of one's mind to possibilities is one of the major limiting factors man has had to scientific development for a long time. I, therefore, waited until you had gotten any important responses from others before I sent this comment, since I now think it will have very little effect on outcomes for you. I was also waiting to see if anyone else would have the insight and courage to point out the true significance of your contribution, but I only saw negative comment about the impossibility of making a computer to be truly intelligent, etc. Of course, it is not impossible and the intelligent beings in the computer universe would not need to be as intelligent as we are in the same way that we don't have to be as intelligent as the one who created our universe. They would only need to be able to understand and be able to make measurements for some purpose to meet your minimum requirements, etc. and machines could be built that would far exceed that level. I realize that you may not have considered this implication of the information that you provided in your paper and could even think of this comment as negative to you, but I assure you that I did not intend it to be so because you have really introduced valid concepts that should be considered and I wish you well in that endeavor.
Sincerely,
Paul N. Butler
You say: Mathematicians, even quantum mechanists, use the same numbers and symbols and functions over and over again, which is futile as only the unique exists.
I dont understand precisely why that is futile.
Indeed, your name itself is a symbol you use repeatedly .
Hello!
You said : "Your idea to use Big Data to model this has one flaw, a simple mathematical algorithm or formula for an absolute point of view must first exist, all our formulas are based on relative point of view. "
The programmers view of the model is the absolute pov, but, just as the absolute is unobservable, the the programmers view of the model isn't where the models predictions come from.
The model makes predictions only when there are modeled observes with a pov that is defined inside the model.
So its more like this kind of model uses absolute pov to create the relative povs which is more analogous to reality than less complete models.
Thanks for your comments.
Thanks for the comments. I want to address one thing, you say:
" Your model starts with a giant computer that first defines bits within itself as basic its (basic matter particles, energy photons, etc.). "
This is actually not accurate.
The bits are perhaps similar to electrons and photons, but they are not supposed to be electrons and protons.
The electron-lik and photon-like things are not material and do not obey the laws of physics, namely the uncertainty principle.
However these pseduo-particles arrange into molecule-like objects and then brain-like things that make measurements.
Encoded in the brain-like thing are measurements, and this is where "its" make their appearance in the model, this is finally where electrons and photons and molecules that follow the laws of physics show up.
Particles (its) exist post measurement, encoded in a neural network.
Pre measurement they are not yet matter, stored in the programs variables.
They are bits, or monads.
Notice they are not probabilities and there is no waveform that collapses.
Michael,
You, probably, haven't gone through the 'Biology' section of my essay and there I have said how 'mind' came in to existence; it is as a result of billions of years of the evolution of Life. It is identified as the over all function of brain and brain,in turn, is composed of living matter in the form of 'neurons' and the brain (now we can call it 'mind') is designed to comprehend its surrounding (i.e., environment) through its cognitive powers.
Mind can know of what happens in its environment only through Bit and there by assessing the situation itself is It. We can have more discussion on it, if you like. I will post my comments on your essay soon.
sreenath
Dear Michael,
Thanks for the clarification of your concepts. I had based my comment on concepts that go to the lower level of the structure of photons and matter particles that explains the reasons for the various interaction outcomes and their probabilities, so that there is no need for the use of undefined wave functions and waveform collapse, etc. I, therefore, don't have to consider things to not exist until they are measured. In this concept the "bits" in the computer would represent the absolute real structure of the photons and matter particles. Since the details of this structure cannot be known by man, it would be represented in terms of the properties that generate the interaction outcomes and their probabilities. Since these particles are composed of motions, it would store the current spatial position, motion amplitude, direction of each of the particle's motions, and interaction rules, etc. This information would make up the information object that I was referring to for each particle. This would be the closest to the actual "Its" that you could get in the model. When two such particles would intersect spatially in such a way as to interact with each other, the current conditions of all of their motions at the point of interaction would determine the actual outcome of the interaction. There would be no uncertainty because, in the model, all of the conditions that would generate the specific outcome would be known. Things work this way in reality also. Man just does not have access to the conditions of all of the particles motions at the point of interaction and, therefore, the specific outcome that will occur cannot be predicted. This information can be obtained, but man does not currently understand the motion structure of the particles and man also does not currently possess the technical capability to track the particles' motion conditions before the interaction so that their motion conditions at the point of interaction can be known before the interaction occurs, which would be necessary to accurately predict the actual outcome that would result from the interaction. The fullness of these abilities are not realized until fifth vector structuring concepts are well understood and have been applied to make the necessary test and control (measurement) devices to allow the implementation of the concepts in devices that can measure the particles' motion conditions before the interaction in order to predict the actual outcome that will occur.
These "its" would then join together to form atoms and molecules, etc. to make larger scale "its". The intelligent beings in the model would also be composed of these "its".
When the intelligent beings in the model would make measurements of these "its" through interactions with them, they would create models of the "its" that would be stored in an abstract form in their brains and later on paper or in computers that they would construct from the "its" in the model. This abstract copy of the information contained in the "its" would be "bits" in the model. Of course if the beings were intelligent enough, they would figure out that the actual "its" that they were measuring would have to contain all of the information that determined their existence, actions, and interaction capabilities within their structure in some way and that structural information would be a form of "bits" or information also. They might then try to make a model of their world on one of their computers in a similar way to the construction of your model. Once they got that model to work they might wonder if their world could just be a model created by a more intelligent being than them. Of course, it would be up to you to decide whether or not to let them know that they were created by you. As an example, you could place information in their world that would allow them to determine that their world was created and give them information about your nature and purpose for creating them and their world or you could just appear to one or more of them in some form and tell them about yourself and your purpose for making them and their world. Of course, you could just not let them know that you created their world and they might then come to believe that they just evolved, etc. The choice would be yours to make. One problem that you might have is that unless you have a continual presence in their world, you might find that even if you appeared to some of them and told and convinced them that you were their creator by doing things like healing people and raising the dead, etc., those who saw and heard you might not be able to convince others of your existence or if they did it would be likely that after those who saw and heard you died from old age, etc. you might not be believed by the next generation as it has often happened in this world.
Sincerely,
Paul B.