John
The movie functions because it is a sequence of discrete states, known as frames. It has nothing to do with the shutter, which just needs to be left open, otherwise you will not see it. It is "extracting information from the larger reality" because it is a movie, it is not physical existence. Reality is reality, it exists, it is not information.
Paul
Paul,
I was referring to how the movie is made, not how it is shown. When it is shown, the projector light flickers on and off, as each frame moves by, or you would see the transition between frames.
John
So was I, because that is how what we see as existence is made. The speed and degree of alteration is so vanishingly small that we will never 'see' it. But it must be there, otherwise there would be no existence and difference, in the same way that there would be no movie without the frames.
Paul
Paul,
At its most basic, much of reality is composed of light radiating about, or bound up in the atomic relationships of mass. So how do you see it as "moving?" As a sequence of dots blinking on and off?
Paul,
As I see it, one reason for discretion is that when polarities bounce against one another, the resulting reflections create distinctions. Then this gets multiplied billions of times in normal mass environments.
John
"much of reality is composed of light radiating about"
No it is not. Reality comprises an existential sequence, and as that progresses, interaction with other physically existent entities, particularly photons, which are not inherently part of the sequence, creates existent representations of that sequence, eg light. There is also noise, vibration, temperature, etc, etc.
You know light moves because you receive photon based representations of spatially separate occurrences. The real question here is how light and whatever comprised the existential sequence being represented, interacted. That is, to what extent the light, as a representation of the occurrence, is accurate and comprehensive. Light, or more precisely that which conveys light, is existent, so itself occurs as a sequence. But what sight utilises seems to, more or less, maintain its physical configuration whilst in existence. Otherwise, it would be a bizarre world, and indeed, the use of light would not have evolved. The discreteness is in the existential sequence.
Paul
Paul,
Why do you need something to "convey light?"
It seems light is about as elemental as it gets, so what is this underlaying mechanism?
John
Because without going beyond a point I do not understand, what constitutes light, in the sense of what the eye utilises, is not the entirety of the physical entity. That configuration, or whatever it is, somehow moves and exists over time in the same, or more or less the same, physical format. I did ask once but never got an answer. There are two basic possibilities, either the light (narrow terminology) literally moves, or it is effectively moved by a chain reaction.
Paul
Paul,
Even a chain reaction requires transfer of energy and there is no proof space and time are quantized, in fact, the opposite.
Why is it so hard to consider motion as fundamental, given all the mechanical and conceptual problems otherwise?
John,
I greatly enjoyed your essay. I do have reservations regarding your last statement "So we exist as manifestations of this dichotomy of energy and information, as medium and message."
If you imagine physical objects being physically constructed from the same type of information represented by the spreading energy (local and global) you can have your cake and eat it too. Afterall, ALL the information you will ever obtain in your concious life span comes from the spreading energy, and, this same information is encoded into those solid objects we collect information from.
That above implies that what we, as a living race of people, may have lost over time is the physical location of our place and direction in the scope of ALL that we physically measure (what we hear, see, etc.,). We are each at the centers of our own measured universe of information, and this universe intersects (subsets) with the measured universe of ALL other living things. Just as we are built from the physical information in our gene coding, all life is coded within an ecosystem ... and so on.
Someday we may finally settle in on the idea that our physical measures place each of us at the very center of everything measurable in the universe. We are physically central to top/down and bottom/up measures. We can then begin to calcualte, measure and predict life physiology to astounding accuracy, etc., by knowing that information from the singularity characterizations sought (black hole information)is a duel to that information gained by a concious, living, observer. The singularity provides information that is a mere reflection of ourself and our physical measures exist on the surface of entropy (the ADS/CFT 4 surface of the 5D sphere - We are here! ... well ... this is where we measure from!). ALL we measure woould naturally have a "life connection!!"
Regards,
Tony
Tony,
I basically agree with the general direction of your view. Keep in mind, though you may have meant this, that it's the very spreading of that energy which both creates the information that is us and causes us to lose it. We are both the cake and the eating of it.
another way to think of us as the center of our own view of the universe would be to say that in whole, the universe is absolute, but if you separate out just one tiny point of reference(us), than the universe is no longer absolute, but is relative to that point.
Possibly each of us is a singularity, or possibly we are all lenses and filters of the same singularity. The problem is that when we try to distill away all that is seemingly inconsequential, we eventually loose everything. Remember gravity is a cumulative effect and if we were to burrow down into the center of the earth, all the gravity would cancel out, as it would be pulling in all directions, not just toward the center. I think the same principle would apply to the galaxy as a whole. If we were to go to the center of it, it would prove to be the eye of a storm, not a pit of infinite gravitational pull. The spinning around would be the overwhelming effect and we would eventually find ourselves jetted out the poles.
Similarly, we are what we are conscious of.
John,
Information being the one and the same 'information used to gain knowledge" appears to weigh heavily on the "context" that embodies the information. Bits of data are nothing in themselves until something living gives the data - or data rate - a context to correlate with. We as a living. breathing, thinking life entity supply information with context, therefore, it may be context that is missing in science today - and NOT that we do not have the information ... we do not have the proper context to apply (correlate) this information to.
If we adopt a context "to aid life" we open the door to a new way of thinking that places life in the center of the universal arena surrounded by information ... and giving the surrounding information context is how we live - we build context in knowledge, ie., to gain knowledge requires us to apply the proper context to information. I believe this is where our ego steps in and disallows us to perceive ourselves at the center of all creation - and if we do not see this - we loose the most important context to gain a quite measurable physical knowledge. We can invent bogus contexts (false idols) and correlate small, distinct measures of information, however, these will always fail to unite in a grandiose connection without a proper context to apply this information to.
You say we loose information, but, I believe what we loose (are missing) is the proper context to apply this information to!
Best regards,
Tony
Tony,
Experts don't look at the big picture and generalists tend not to have the focus necessary to gain sufficient control in the larger society. Catch 22.
This is an essay I wrote about how to modify our current economic system. Whether you agree with any of the various premises, or not, it is an example of how to establish some form of natural equilibrium, rather than having to constantly rush to survive, even if everyone rushing destroys the habitat.
John,
I have read your essay and I must say that is was very refreshing. Thank you. I do have reservations regarding your ~ final sentence:
"Civilization is ultimately bottom up."
If you speak about the physical, measurable actions of civilization, it may be 50% top-down and 50% bottom-up..... these two avenues are believed required to superimpose to create our measurable actions. This would be akin to a standing wave being a localized energy formed by the superposition of two opposing waves. When making a discreet, local energy packet (in 4 dimensions) then we require a full Fourier build up of waves (with a distinct bandwidth of wave numbers) waves coverging from all directions in space (and from both directions in time as Feynman concludes). This wave packet would be the localized energy created from a "not so randomized" spread of moving energy (all being measurable information in disguise). With this, you can build a localized soliton that can physically manuever in its physical enviornment ... unchanging due to how it handles it's non linearities in physically coupling with it's enviornment (your Newtonian, non linear opposite force returns mentioned in your article). We (solitons) are a time evolving, localized source of energy ... created from back to front, top to bottom, left to right, future to past, and past to future (think to - time and - to time if "future" alarms you).
Bottom up can't explain everything we measure - especially when it comes to biology (life). This is why "life" may very well be at the very center of everything measurable and what it lacks is the proper context to attribute all measurable information as conforming to this very "one" distinct context (contexts like your correlations of artery blockage and a failed bank... raising pressure - a excellent correlation of a physical occurance in an individual life to that of the soceities civilized life). We should be able to continue these "scaled life" analogies right back to the functioning of an auto immune system, and to how the brain functions, etc, etc. All information has a direct path back to a context surrounding life at some scaled level ... cell...organ..soceity....ecosystem....solar system... etc., and all having varying information transfer time constants ... ie., your Newtonian "equal and non-linear opposite return forces." We (as a solid object) require this non-linear "force feedback" to sustain our physical form (just like the soliton).
Regards,
Tony
Tony,
I agree it is a fundamental dichotomy of top down/bottom up. They are like two views of the same situation, like left/right. It is just in the context of that essay, I need to make the point that structure necessarily grows bottom up, even if it might be organized top down and the top down view cannot sustain a structure with a corrupted foundation.
I think in many ways we are still at a very primitive/embryonic stage and that life on this planet is forming into a conceptually singular organism, with human civilization as the medium of the central nervous system. Intellectually though, we are more into the cell division, rather than the network connections. I think alot of this has to do with the fact that rationality is based on making distinctions and then making the connections between them. So in the meta-process, we are now very focused on units, particles, nodes, individuals, quantization, etc. While we certainly recognize the connectivity, contextuality, etc, there is the impression it is emergent from this underlaying discretion, rather then they are two sides of the same coin, like top down/bottom up.
Alot of this goes to the fact that it is more politically and tactically effective to take a singular, action philosophy, rather than trying to see the more dualistic, contextual big picture, as that tends to cause indecision. Now we are at the point this forward drive has gone parabolic and the whole world is in a frenzy of environmentally destructive activity, which will result in the very natural feedback of the resulting blowback.
In this situation, there is very little one can do to affect the course of events, so it is a matter of seeding ideas that might take root after the storm passes.
Tony,
To draw a connection, bottom up is the energy radiating out, while top down is the information/structure pressing in and down, gravitationally contracting.
Einstein posited a cosmological constant to balance gravity and we include it as a factor in expansion. I think the light radiating out is the ultimate balance to gravity contracting in and that light does not travel as a point, but is only received at the point of atomic structure. Light has no internal attractive element to hold it to a point when released. I think redshift is an effect of this expansion of light. It is only due to the assumption it travels as a point that recession is needed to explain redshift.
I happened to be in a discussion over at Jennifer Ouellette's blog at SCiAm, pointing out there is an inherent contradiction to an expanding universe theory, in that it still assumes a constant speed of light against which to measure this expansion.
I think there are quite reasonable explanations for other cosmic observations, such as that the CMBR would be a logical solution to Olber's Paradox, as the light of ever more distant sources falls off the visible spectrum.
Alot of this ties into a point I made in the prior essay contest.
All the blocktime, inflation, multiverses, dark energy, etc. are patches to theory, not observed.
John,
When you say:
"I agree it is a fundamental dichotomy of top down/bottom up. They are like two views of the same situation, like left/right. It is just in the context of that essay"
You are almost there in making the "life" connection. Imagine thinking about a future event that you "will" to materialize in your life .... now imagine the event occurs and you again think about the SAME event at a measured time post the event occurring.
Place your two "integrated thought processes" (ie.,Feynman thought paths) on a timeline axis behind and in front of the event (one thought period is "prior" and one is "post" the event). If you then consider your train of thoughts prior to the event (this is your "conception" of sub events that will lead up to, and then follow, the main event) .... then compare this to those thoughts post the event physically occurring - you DO NOT get a dichotomy. The train of sub events you conceive to lead up to and then follow the main event, when compared to the actual measured trail of sub events that measurably followed the main event .... are not by any means equivalent.
Imagine the event being "bring information from England to the United states prior to the invention of the telegraph, wireless, etc." The perceived sub events MUST include a long boat ride that has many sub/sub, etc., physical events that must be conceived. However, the same information transfer today simply requires us to pick up a phone. This immediately implies that looking at equivalent events in "two" directions in time will inevitably lead a different path of conceived sub events at the planning of the event, and, differing in the "retrospect look" at the event when the event lies in the past.
Thoughts building the "retrospect look" took place at a later time, a time where more physical possibilities became available .... new degrees of freedom open up that were not available in the planning of the event. Therefore, looking at a well defined event when the event lies in our future (planning), and looking at the SAME event existing in our past (post event measured outcomes) allows us to accumulate correlations to what we perceived the future to become due to physically applying our "will" to create events, and, to that of what measurably happened - a basic life sustaining action, not a dichotomy, a dichotomy would not allow extra degrees of freedom to evolve. Therefore, when looking at events in time, it is more of a false dichotomy.
Regards,
Tony
John,
Good to be back and reading your refreshingly direct and sensible words again. But I think you've come up with some real jewels this year! I particularly liked;
"There is no fundamental essence of up, or on, or yes, or good, or white. Any value, meaning or reality is in the contrast with down, off, no, bad and black."
and;
"Intuition is...every individual's accumulated knowledge," but that "If conceptual errors become incorporated into the framework, they become part of the lens through which further information is viewed and the resulting distortions become natural, ie. intuitive to that mindset."
I really wish I'd written that! Then you suggest.
"So we have the classic reality that somehow seems separate from the quantum
foundations on which it rests. Obviously the connection must exist, yet there seems to be a missing link."
You betcha pants on it! What I've done this year is actually try to identify that missing link, and remove it, which can for instance resolve the EPR paradox! I hope' you'll read it as it is a bit testing and I'd like to know how well it can be followed by someone not indoctrinated but with good intuition like you. (I seem to also need some good scores as I was trolled on entry!)
I await your views or questions with interest.
Best of luck.
Peter
Tony,
I guess the model for thinking about directions of time is of lightcones. The broad spectrum of potential input into any event, vs. the broad spectrum of effects any event might have.
While I get alot of grief for making this argument, I think time and temperature are two sides of the same coin, similar to frequency and amplitude. So if you were considering ways to judge potential input and output of any event, as a scalar might be a more useful concept, rather than a vector. When you try to follow every possible thread of energy transfer, the computational complexities quickly go off the scale, as not only are there lots of potential direct threads, but interactions between these various vectors. Yet when we look at it as a scalar, it is more about overall input.
One thing to keep in mind is that sequence is not inherently causal. Yesterday doesn't cause today, anymore than one rung on a ladder causes the next. What is causal is energy transfer. Me tapping on these keys requires some form of energy transfer for the words to appear on the screen. The sun shining on a rotating planet is the sources of energy which create the sequence of events called days. So if you are trying to use a vector of sequential events to model causal factors, you go off track. The causal process can be modeled in terms of scalars; temperature, pressure, weight, speed. Think of cumulative human activity, vs. individual activity much as a pot of water, vs. one of the molecules of water in that pot. The motion of that molecule is constantly being affected, both adding and losing energy as it bounces around the others. So when you think of it in terms of the lightcone of input and output, it is more of a scalar, of all the combined factors going into it and proceeding from it. Which is not to say there are not many vectors of direct energy transfer, but that they need to be keep in context with all the cumulative and non-linear transfers. Much as economic statistics are a measure of the cumulative human activity of lots of people traveling their particular vectors.
The point being, not so much what is happening, but how do we mentally process it. I think the left, linear side of the brain is a form of clock, the vector of time, counting out sequence, while the right, intuitive side is more of a scale, weighing all the possibilities and seeing what emerges/rises to the top.
Peter,
Thank you very much. Admittedly I have somewhat lost track of the contest, since they quit putting recent posts to it on the sidebar of the blog section. I think it is a little weak this year, especially after last years. The question is much less broad and the explicit bias toward FQXI members are likely a few of the reasons. That I got seriously trolled as well has reduced my interest too. Too many other things happening anyway. My daughter and I are taking a trip toward your direction. A week traveling around Scotland, 11th to 18th, as a graduation/birthday present.
I will get to reading yours, but it takes a lot to really understand what others are saying and their built in models and my brain hasn't been sufficiently clear lately. For example, spent the day at the doctors, with aforementioned daughter, getting splint on her wrist and then sending her off to another horse show, where she will be till Saturday, then her 18th birthday is Sunday, then we ship out Monday.
