Thanks Tony, I enjoyed your comments. We are definitely thinking along the same lines. As you noted, there are different interpretations of what "It" was in the essay challenge. Some contributors like you and I think "It" refers to life while others think "It" refers to the physical universe. I agree that the observer is fundamental and we must come full circle and identify how we participate in using information that everything consists of. I will read your reference and essay.

If you are interested in Cosmology, read my new papers posted May 30.

Tony, thanks for referring me to the Corrine Piekema article. I didn't know there were studies being carried out in quantum biology. It was interesting that a molecule can be read as a fragrance by reading the frequency of the bonds. As you inferred this is related to my proposal that the frequency of light is read by Feynman's Psi function. The key point to me is that the Psi function translates the frequency to an information code (a probability or N in my work) that the brain can act on. I had not appreciated the value of Psi being entangled (robin navigation example and leaf photosynthesis example). Although the brain is much more than a computer it may need a uniform code to create meanings from so many inputs.

The following work was done in response to a question posted in the June 2012 FQXI contest and modified in response to your interest.Attachment #1: Post_for_Tony.pdf

10 days later
5 days later

Dear Gene

"It from information" is also my conclusion, though happy with many different methods, but we have the same result.

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1802

17 days later

Gene,

If given the time and the wits to evaluate over 120 more entries, I have a month to try. My seemingly whimsical title, "It's good to be the king," is serious about our subject.

Jim

5 days later

Dear Gene,

I think you have approached this from a very good viewpoint, after all we are observers. Life emerging from chemicals and energy can't be refuted. I think too that information that we perceive is a culmination of multiple other sources, and colour highlights this perfectly.

Great essay! If you get chance please read mine, though I appreciate there are many in the contest.

All the best,

Antony

9 days later

Dear Gene H Barbee,

Thanks for your nice essay, well done

I enjoy reading it and rate it accordingly

and from a different point view, my essay may interest you

Bit: from Breaking symmetry of it

Hope you enjoy it

Regards,

Xiong

"The average human being is a naive realist: i.e., like the animals, he accepts his sense impressions as direct information of reality and he is convinced that all human beings share this information. He is not aware that no way exist of establishing whether one individual impression (e.g. ,of a green tree) and that of another (of this tree) is the same and that even the word "same" has no meaning here."

Max Born My life & my views p.53

Hello Gene,

I'm enjoying your essay so far. I agree that it is indeed relevant to know how it is that the brain sorts things out, in order to see how nature operates, because after all brains evolved to fit the specific perceptual demands of physical reality - and in a sense, it provides us with the other side of the same coin. At the 10th Frontiers of Fundamental Physics conference, there was a lecture by Helmut Kröger about 'Binocular rivalry.." in vision, and how the domains of left eye and right eye perception are formed and then change when one pattern is switched. I think I can locate and post the paper.

So while I did wonder at the start of your paper how some of it relates back to the "It from Bit" question and Physics, I think I can see that it does indeed apply - and I'll comment further when I'm done reading. But it's 1 AM here and I think I need some sleep before I continue.

All the Best,

Jonathan

    Seeing I was more than half done..

    I went ahead and finished reading, and then rated your essay highly. Perhaps you can read my essay when you get the chance.

    Have Fun!

    Jonathan

    Hi Jonathan,

    Thanks for your comments. I read your essay also and found it deep and thought provoking. My essay from last year "cracked the information code" and found that energy and information (N) were related by N=-ln P. N for various particles found in nature was identified and in this system a dimensionless energy ratio (E/e0) is just the inverse of probability P. In other words E=eo*exp(N). This years essay takes the thoughts one step further and attempts to understand how life develops in the information/energy structure. I agree with you that there is interplay between information and energy. I watched my grandchildren's intellect "come on line" and join the information side of the structure. The differentiator for me is this definition of intelligence. Intelligence is "seeing differences" and I think I see evidence of information differences being created in the code. This makes me think that the information side came first.

    By the way, thanks for your blog regarding SK Kauffmann's paper. I had a good dialog with him by email. He is classically trained but my arguments and his analysis resulted in a paper posted on vixra.org/cosrel 1307.0085 entitled "The case for a low energy gravitational scale". Last year's essay is updated and posted as 1307.0082.

    Gene Barbee

    Thanks for your reply.

    I'm happy you got to see your grandchildren 'come on line' intellectually. That is really cool to watch. Much less fun was to see my Mom's intellect unravel over time, due to the effects of Alzheimer's (an she passed away in May), but it was educational in a way to see how one of the first things to disappear was the capacity to gauge, time, size, and distance. Without this capacity; cognition has nothing to latch on to and no way to re-calibrate. Very sad...

    From what I know; it is mainly the left brain that is focused on seeing differences, while the right more sees commonalities. One paper of mine still unfinished talks about this in terms of the two hemispheres doing the same thing in opposite directions of time. While one likes to take things apart to see the pieces, the other likes to assemble them and sees how the parts relate. That is; putting a watch together and taking it apart are the same operation, but in reverse direction of process evolution.

    All the Best,

    Jonathan

    7 days later

    Gene,

    Great to read an essay actually based on evidence and analysing real interactions. I was starting to think I was alone! QM has abandoned any such 'messy' dealings, and the other pair in the triumvirate; particle physics and quantum optics, leave a theoretical vacuum at the centre only work such as yours can let us address.

    I was also stunned to find; "it is thought that the brain operates on Bayesian probabilities" (Brockman) which incorporates two ("radical" I thought!) main spars in the ontological construction I build in my own essay. I also particularly agree the importance of;

    "The other hues are comprised of combinations of these colors without full spectrums and it clear that the brain is adept at creating meanings from these curves."..."Partially processed signals from the retina go into the brain where a great deal of processing takes place...the nerves convey ions and it is clear from the connections that signals are added and subtracted."

    Also; "the signals to be processed are probabilities.", ..."...ions leave the eye and are transported along the axion taking the value of the normalized wavelength (probability) and its intensity to the brain." ..."The brains task is to assign meanings to new data signals based on stored information... p(H) (the prior belief and expected signal value)..." etc.

    I suggest there is a critical relation the brain gets wrong! confusing time and speed in the approach medium with speed in the axion, including by not consistently using lambda instead of 'frequency'. My last years essay also addressed the point. I do hope you'll read and comment on this years.

    As for yours, thank you, and brilliantly well done. Top marks due and well earned.

    Best wishes

    Peter

    Hello Gene,

    An informative essay. And I agree Mother Nature is adept at building complex systems from information. In my essay I report my suspicion that Nature has been doing just that using the discrete units of space and the binary information, existence/non-existence.

    Following additional insights gained from interacting with FQXi community members, perhaps you will like to view the judgement in the case of Atomistic Enterprises Inc. vs. Plato & Ors delivered on Jul. 28, 2013 @ 11:39 GMT. Thanks

    All the best,

    Akinbo

    Hello Gene,

    I've lost a lot of comments and replies on my thread and many other threads I have commented on over the last few days. This has been a lot of work and I feel like it has been a waste of time and energy. Seems to have happened to others too - if not all.

    I WILL ATTEMPT to revisit all threads to check and re-post something. Your thread was one affected by this.

    I can't remember the full extent of what I said, but I have notes so know that I rated it very highly.

    Hopefully the posts will be able to be retrieved by FQXi.

    Best wishes,

    Antony

    Dear Gene,

    I've re-read your essay and now rated - top marks! Please take a look at mine if you get chance.

    Best wishes,

    Antony

    Dear Gene,

    We are at the end of this essay contest.

    In conclusion, at the question to know if Information is more fundamental than Matter, there is a good reason to answer that Matter is made of an amazing mixture of eInfo and eEnergy, at the same time.

    Matter is thus eInfo made with eEnergy rather than answer it is made with eEnergy and eInfo ; because eInfo is eEnergy, and the one does not go without the other one.

    eEnergy and eInfo are the two basic Principles of the eUniverse. Nothing can exist if it is not eEnergy, and any object is eInfo, and therefore eEnergy.

    And consequently our eReality is eInfo made with eEnergy. And the final verdict is : eReality is virtual, and virtuality is our fundamental eReality.

    Good luck to the winners,

    And see you soon, with good news on this topic, and the Theory of Everything.

    Amazigh H.

    I rated your essay.

    Please visit My essay.

    Gene,

    Super essay, real science, and worth a higher place. Have you read Peter Jackson's, which is complimentary and shows the important results of understanding optics.

    Richard

    I just rated your essay a ten to give you a boost.

    I hope you like mine too

    http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1616

    Dear Gene,

    I have now finished reviewing all 180 essays for the contest and appreciate your contribution to this competition.

    I have been thoroughly impressed at the breadth, depth and quality of the ideas represented in this contest. In true academic spirit, if you have not yet reviewed my essay, I invite you to do so and leave your comments.

    You can find the latest version of my essay here:

    http://fqxi.org/data/forum-attachments/Borrill-TimeOne-V1.1a.pdf

    (sorry if the fqxi web site splits this url up, I haven't figured out a way to not make it do that).

    May the best essays win!

    Kind regards,

    Paul Borrill

    paul at borrill dot com