What is Information by John Brodix Merryman

Israel,

There is a very basic reason I use the term energy. While lacking any other particularly exacting attributes, it is primarily described as being conserved. Even entropy only applies to useful energy in a closed set. Energy is not lost, unless it is actually radiated away from that container, rather any energy gradients within the container are lost, as it reaches a thermal medium. This also means temperature is not simply an average of molecular/atomic/etc. activity, but a local entropic end state, since these component entities are actually trading energy around to reach that median.

Now the concept of information is not something that can really be described as being conserved, even though it is inherently static and structured, except in some blocktime formulation. So if we are to use these concepts as the two halves of a dichotomy, they reflect each other quite well, with information as the defining form of energy and energy as the manifestation of information. So in order for new information to be created, as the energy, being dynamic, changes form, old information is erased. This is the solution to the "arrow of time." The sense of some eternal present, but a constantly changing and irreversible process, as the energy does not turn on itself.

I have to admit, I haven't been engaging m/any of the regulars. Given limited time resources and even more limited capacity to think through some very dense exposition, I've been mostly "exploring." Both new ideas and different interactions are not an opportunity to be passed on.

I'm sure I'll be by.

Regards,

John

Chidi,

I did get into your essay and I will try it again. The problem I was having is that you use various ideas that are fraught with a lot of loaded meanings that might not be conveying what you mean them to say, to other people. I am probably like you, but a bit older and I found what I was looking for was just some very basic concepts to explain reality, without all the academic baggage.

I think that eventually we will discover there is no such thing as a big bang cosmology and it is basically a convection cycle of radiation expanding out and falling/precipitating back down/into gravitational vortices as mass, then radiating out, or shot out the poles as cosmic rays and the cycle starts over again, eternally. That gravity is simply the vacuum effect created by this contraction of energy, much as when energy is released from mass, it creates pressure. Think atomic explosion. Radiant heat, etc. So there are a lot of concepts out there that have been created to fill the many gaps and when you try using them as stepping stones to further enlightenment, you have to be very careful they are not leading you off into the wilderness instead.

Here is a blog post at FQXI, listing many of the recent observational problems for cosmology.

Here is my entry in last year's, Questioning the Foundations contest, which further develops my point about time being an effect of action, thus eliminating "spacetime" as a causal property and that is the basis for an expanding universe. Suffice to say, this is a very controversial position, but then my income isn't dependent on the study of physics.

Regards,

John

Brancho,

I am horrible at calculation, so I mostly analyze. The problem with just calculation is that it is only bottom up and not top down. Epicycles are a product of only calculation and they were consequently quite accurate, but created confusion for the analysis. I think the same problem exists with spacetime. It is very accurate, but by treating time as only a measure to be calculated, but not considering how it is created, has caused much confusion.

As thermodynamic processes create temperature and temperature is a measure of thermodynamic processes, change creates time and time is a measure of change.

You are right that it will be their problem and it seems to be starting to occur to them, but they are not going to climb down willingly, only put more weight on the top until it all falls down.

I'm fortunate to be born in an English speaking country, otherwise I'd never learn it as a second language, so don't worry about the translation on my part.

Regards, John

Marcoen,

I mean it in terms of the assumption within physics that physics is non-intuitive. I then go on to argue that intuition is not just some basic set of assumptions we are born with, but the cumulative knowledge from which we instinctively draw. This necessarily will be somewhat different for everyone, as we all have different knowledge bases, so in fact physicists draw from intuition, just they use their own set of assumptions.

I meant that in the Von Neumann sense, but then elsewhere I also argue the first, in terms of the fact that in order to record information, the information the transcribing medium did contain is erased. This due to the energy being conserved, which means that not only is it saved, but more cannot be produced, so it has to be reused as a medium. This is what creates the asymmetric arrow of time, since the energy will not turn on itself.

Both these points serve to show the different ways that information and knowledge are highly contextual and subjective. There is this essentially theological assumption that there must be some larger, objective state of information and knowledge, but I'm trying to show that objective knowledge is an oxymoron.

Information is definition and to define is to limit. Unless you isolate, clarify, focus, distill, filter, etc. the input, you just get fuzziness, blurriness and white noise. All the colors, sounds, information, etc. just run together and in the Von Newmann sense, the information that is there, is not received.

The point also is that those "individual processes" are no more, or less real, than the larger picture being viewed. It is simply a matter of selecting the particular focus one desires to extract information and definition from. Like a camera, you can take a wide angle shot of the larger view, or focus on a particular detail. What Von Newmann overlooks, is that you can focus on A individual process, but not all of them at once, which means you can really only focus on one, since the others will change, by the time you switch to looking at each one of those particular processes.

Regards,

John

Thanks for the vote!

Regards,

John

Israel,

Quantum mechanics is platonic. Relativity is as well. Black holes are the result of modeling gravity as four dimensional geometry. The cosmological constant is likely just the light and other radiation escaping from actual gravity vortices. It just isn't included in the model, since light is always treated as a point particle, rather then as an expanding field, when released.

Reductionism inherently overlooks a lot of what actually happens, which is necessary, but when you make it some sort of platonic belief system, it is difficult to go back and fill in the missing gaps, so the high priests have to make something up, like dark energy, etc.

Oh well. The way culture works.

Regards,

John