A Space-Time Information Paradox by Anton Lorenz Vrba

Anton, Very good, I like this kind of thought experiment. I will have to study you appendix more carefully to understand why charlie seems to see more information than Bob. It should not work out that way.

Anton

"From this result it is very clear to the me that information based

physics and Einstein's relativity are not compatible"

Leaving aside whether your concept of information, etc, this is not the issue. Einstein's concept of relativity (forget SR which is irrelevant, it is a conceptualised circumstance-he said so) deems there to be a time differential in physical existence. He did not say this as such, but this is the net effect of what he did say, once one discounts his mistakes. That is, he did not understand the reference used in timing, and thereby created an extra 'layer' thereof, which was counterbalanced by his failure to have any observational light.

In other words, he thought he was attributing the time differential to the relativity of observation, which is indeed where the time differential actually occurs. But he was not, because there was no observational light, which is a pre-requisite of sight. Any light Einstein alludes to (ray of, lightening, etc) is not observational light, just a constant against which to calibrate duration and distance, which he happens to exemplify in terms of an example of light. It could have been anything. But he chose examples of light for fairly obvious reasons, ie this is, if it is observational light, and not lightening for example, what enables observation.

What he said he was going to do is irrelevant, it is what he did that matters. That is, his declared second postulate is null and void as normally interpreted, because he did not have any observational light. It is, literally, just a statement of the obvious. Light, as a physically existent entity, always starts at the same speed (because it is the result of an atomic interaction not collision) and like everything else will continue at that speed unless impinged upon. De facto, in its 'pure' state, it will make a good reference constant, especially since, coincidentally, one needs light to observe, although any example of light is not necessarily observational light just because it is light.

The ensuing attempts, including his own, to rationalise observational light speed and rate of change (as manifest in timing) are pointless, because they are chasing an issue which does not exist.

Paul

Anton,

I am terribly sorry, but I did not understand your essay. Reality is unique and because it is unique, reality must only be occurring once. There is no reason to try to codify and transmit any part of one's reality anywhere else.

Anton,

There is a certain real balance to reality in that one can know when one is informing and when one is being informed of useful real information in all real situations. Since the advent of fabricated communication devices, there is no balance for the purpose of the dissemination of abstract information is simply its uncontrollable size. Machines now distribute practically all information and machines now receive practically all information. Millions of TWEETS and billions of emails are produced daily few of which will ever be read by any human being.

Anton,

The idea to use this thought experiment to prove that information-based physics and relativity are incompatible, is quite original. Whether or not you have succeeded in your purpose is another question.

Let's look at one particular detail. The analysis of the thought experiment yields the equation on page 2; you then claim that this equation forms a contradiction with your axioms of information-based physics. The correctness of your proof thus depends on the correctness of the equation, and the correctness of your axioms of information-based physics.

On the right hand side of the equation, we have c²+v²/c²-v². This is a ratio between two real numbers, which is again a real number. So on the right hand side we have a real number. For the equation to be correct, the left hand side must thus also be a real number. That means that the symbols ICharlie and IBob must also be real numbers. From the text it is obvious that these symbols represent information. Thus, in your essay (or at least in the thought experiment), information is a real number. Can you give a motivation for that? E.g. in quantum physics one says that the wave function contains information. But the wave function is a much more complex entity than a real number. So could you elaborate on your choice to represent information by a real number? Or do you mean not information but the amount of information?

Best regards,

Marcoen

Why do you think that "The information content of the universe is constant."?

Consider observations of early universe: lots of more or less homogeneous stuff. Now, some billions years later, there is way more structure, thus information, and at many levels, e.g. clusters of stars, and clusters of cells.

Er, perhaps because what is generating this 'information'-information being representation of something, ie information is not just existent, per se-is altering??

Paul

Anton

"the sum of information of the two entangled photons is constant"

Leaving aside whether this conception is valid (ie corresponds with reality), this is not information, but a physically existent characteristic, which is why you say before that: "The information content is a constant, the distribution is changing that is what we observe". As I said, information is not what is existent, per se. Otherwise the concept of information is meaningless, everything is in a sense information for us, but that is not the point.

"Do not mix observation with information"

Observation is the receipt of a physically existent representation (aka light) of what actually occurred. Think about that.

Paul

Anton,

Here's just an intuitive thought.

In your thought experiment, information is encoded in a photon ray. A beam is then a number of such parallell rays. Now what if we say that the measure for the amount of information in a ray is just the number of subsequent photons in that ray. The amount of information is then always an integer.

In your thought experiment, the device that cuts off the beam cannot split a photon. So regardless of any relativistic effects, both Bob and Charlie detect a ray with the same number of photons, say N. So then we get IBob = ICharlie = N, in agreement with Philip's comment. So if we define the amount of information as above, then the outcome of the thought experiment doesn't indicate an incompatibility of information-based physics and relativity.

So apparently things depend heavily on the measure that we define for the amount of information. What are your thoughts on that matter?

Best regards,

Marcoen

Anton, the photons are light quanta, which in the thought experiment are released by Alice. Relativistic effects do not create or annihilate photons, so how can Bob and Charlie receive a different number of photons? I would say that the ratio of the numbers of photons received by Bob and Chalrie is not just a rational number, it is 1. What argument is there against that?

Regards, Marcoen