Tony,

I have to admit I'm somewhat the opposite. For various reasons of personality, perception and circumstance, I find myself trying to be as still as possible and let the waves wash over and crash around me. In most situations this would simply be passive, yet I find it very educational. Safe to say, I've no luck getting many, if any, on my program. To far into it to change now, not that I have any desire to. What I find most aggravating is simply waiting for the next piece to fall into place. Very non-linear.

John,

Don't wait for things to fall in place ... MAKE them fall in place! It is our innate living gift to make things happen rather then simply live as a bug on the back wall, or a floating bobber in the ocean, etc. The smart bug eventually gets squashed by someone in a frenzy and bobber eventually washes ashore.

You state:

"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."

You speak of the word "framework" as if it is the tower of Babel in science. I believe that what you fail to say is that we each have two stereographic image lenses that differ from ALL others. How we wire these up to focus information, gathered in the moment, that forms our thoughts can steer FAR from the accepted "framework." There is NO logical framework at the moment so you accept a non-existent thing? I believe the only reason why folks hang on to this "framework" is because they lack the proper context to apply their thoughts.... "context" implying the real, physical framework that governs ALL that we physically measure which supplies real physical data to our calculated thoughts (Feynmanian decisions using physical sense input). You have total control of this context .... and to give it to others is to give away the one part of ourselves that exists beyond ourself. "Ourself" implying that what physically exists at each moment, while that other part in us exists beyond the individually stacked moments and has a presence at ALL moments!

Anyway, been nice for chatting w/ you John. I'll stop commenting here.

Best regards,

Tony

Tony,

Thanks for the conversation.

As I see it, when you want to change the system and those running it are busily destroying it, simply studying the situation is not a bad plan. Personally, being an only parent and partner in a family business, I'm not lacking in things to do.

Here is, I think, a rather interesting crack in the facade. When the science journalists start sounding this skeptical, the tide is starting to turn.

10 days later
10 days later

John,

"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."

Wouldn't modern-day scientists, especially advocates of the Anthropic Principle, say consciousness is the link?

Jim

    James,

    No. I would say they are both models or prisms by which consciousness views reality. We all have to frame our view of what we need to know and use whatever tools and insights are most useful. What is useful for someone studying the microscopic may not be quite commonplace for some with another field and frame of knowledge. My argument in this essay is to this inherently subjective nature of knowledge.

    While the anthropic principle is completely valid, in the sense observers have to exist in order for it to be observed, I think it is somewhat overused. Just as with any field, there is a tendency to fall into mental ruts and I think one particular rut is this idea that reality is fundamentally information, as opposed to information being how we process our knowledge of it. Belief systems naturally tend to be self referential and this is a good example of the tendency to assume one's subjectivity is objective. When we met people who "live in their own world," we sense their delusion. Why accept it as a scientific principle?

    Hi John,

    just to let you know it was a pleasure reading your essay. You've packed in a lot of beautifully communicated ideas, set out in an easily digestible form that carries the reader effortlessly through to the end. Your topical biography made me smile.Good to see the positive discussion here too.

    All the best Georgina

      Thanks, John,

      A lot of concepts that are accessible but not sure where you are going and if there is no answer to the "It from bit" question.

      "As living organisms, we are the result of billions of years of evolution. The

      consequence of this process is two fairly distinct systems. One is the central nervous system, to absorb, organize and act on information. The other, the respiratory, digestive and circulatory systems, serve to consume and process energy. It is preserving the flow of this energy that the central nervous system is most concerned. So we exist as manifestations of this dichotomy of energy and information, as medium and message."

      Not sure this is true for most of us who do not find everyday a struggle for survival unless you suggest that intuition is intrinsically built on its on ancestors' survival need.

      Jim

        Jim,

        I suspect that should your sustenance run low, your mind would become rather focused on acquiring more. While we happen to live in an age which has learned to exploit a billion years worth of stored fossil fuels, we shouldn't completely loose sight of the physics of our situation.

        As for it and bit, they are particular concepts which pertain to a particular mindset. To the extent I answer the question, it is that energy and information are two sides of the same coin. If you have energy, it will manifest some form, ie, information. In order to have information, you need some medium/energy to convey it.

        Dear Mr. Merryman,

        Your view that evolution defines the nature of information is one that I pick up in my essay as well.

        You say: '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.'

        Thus, we are defined by evolution, and I follow this train of thought and define what I call a 'Species Cosmos.'

        Your description of time tells me you are inherently describing a vortex, as I am: I'm sure we can both agree that the binary relationship is identical to the relationship between the two halves of any vortex.

        As you'll see - with interest, I hope - I re-visit physics' assumptions in a way that results in the description of the field of observation as consisting of three Principal Vortices - Inorganic, Organic, and Sensory Cognitive - that have no direct interactions but are minutely correlated over the course of Evolution.

        We set down borders, and evolution is such that we perpetually have to correct the location of these borders - with the result that, as you say, 'Generalized perspective does blur the fine detail and loses some information, just as a detailed view limits the broad perspective.'

        Thus, we are perpetually involved in a Cosmos with blurred edges - or, as I put it, Zones of varying dimensionality.

        Since you sense that the distinction between classic reality and its quantum foundations must contain a missing link, I think you will agree with me that my paradigm incorporates organisms and cognition into the field of observation in a well-defined structure that solves the problem.

        In the correlated Inorganic, Organic, and Sensory Cognitive Vortex System, I show that each vortex exchanges energy with a greater field (a General Field of Cosmae) in a very similar way, thus producing the three Vortices' correlation with each other.

        This distinction and correlation essentially creates three 'mini-universes', in which the inner space of particles is sub-divided into States of varying dimensionality. As these Inorganic, Organic, and Sensory-Cognitive particles then aggregate into their distinct and corresponding Vortices, their States are expanded into three corresponding and correlated environments.

        Thus, I show that the correlation of the three Vortices produces the perceived Cosmos - a Human Species Cosmos that includes the Observer, and incorporates the same Zones of dimensionality found in the three types of distinct Particles.

        The missing link, then, is the simple aggregation of particles in three distinct Vortices that are in perpetual Correlation within a General Field of Energy.

        Of course, this is very brief - but I believe you will find the fuller account to be quite logically deduced and useful.

        I enjoyed reading your essay, and have rated it accordingly. I look forward to hearing your views in due course.

        Best of luck!

          Hello John,

          I enjoyed your essay, for the most part. I agreed with almost everything but the ending, ..abruptly. That is; it seemed to end too soon, without coming to a distinct climax or making your point. At about the point where the reader wants to hear what you have to say next, it stops. Otherwise; it was rather good.

          All the Best,

          Jonathan

            Hello John,

            I like that you say energy and information are two sides of the same coin. Also that we need a medium such as energy to convey information. I too reach the conclusion that Bit and It are just as fundamental. Great essay - clear and concise. Pleasure to read.

            If you find the time, please read mine. I'm still trying to get through them all, but enjoying the process.

            Best wishes,

            Antony

              john,

              I did read your entry earlier and while it makes some interesting points, I didn't find the particular hook that would make me respond. One of the points I make here is how knowledge is inherently confined to a frame and I appreciate the extreme variety of perspectives possible, so given my own lack of time, I do need a compelling reason to get involved with starting a conversation. I will try to get back to it though.

              Jonathan,

              Besides my own time and inclination reasons for writing a short essay, I considered the actual entry as more the price of admission to the conversation than a complete piece. I find in debates, it is best to make a basic argument and then let people respond. Those who don't like my views have fewer pieces to pull at, if they don't like the central theme but don't want to attack it directly and those who do see some value will hopefully feel compelled to ask more questions.

              I could have potentially taken the concluding point, that our physical makeup reflects this dichotomy of information and energy, to break down how the two sides of the brain also reflect a scalar(right) and vector(left), that are reflective of the effects of time and temperature, ie. sequence and thermodynamics, but at the time I wrote it, I thought that would divert from the central point of how information must be manifested and doesn't exist in some platonic realm, devoid of medium.

              Ah so,

              This time around; I wrote what came out, rather than making an outline and trying to fit my points in. But I wanted to be sure I said enough to actually make my point, and to have something that could be published when I was done. I didn't do the usual 'tell them what you are going to tell them, then deliver your message, then tell them what you just told them,' but I was careful enough to get my whole message out.

              As luck would have it; that left me on the other side of the fence from you, if your main point is the non-existence of a platonic real for information. I really tried to sit myself squarely on the fence this time, but championing the platonic view is where I ended up when I had stopped writing. Too bad Plato can't be around to join the debate. I'm sure he would take both of us to task, for something obvious we have overlooked, if he was part of this forum.

              All the Best,

              Jonathan

              Jonathan,

              Sometimes both sides of an argument do have their points.

              Though to me, I see order as an absolute, which is what I would take platonism to be, to be something like the inside of a black hole; Endless theoretical possibilities, because all order and structure is sucked into it, but the actual result, in case anyone has noticed, is jets of all the constituent energy being shot out the poles.

              How much of the current version of platonism is based on the assumption of blocktime, by those who think spacetime is a "physically real model," that can have wormholes, expanding universes, multiverses, etc?

              My point is that by requiring a medium, information is distinctly structurally bound by what can be manifest by energy. That means no blocktime, because the energy is conserved, therefore in order to record new information, old information has to be erased.

              That also means that measurements of action are not more fundamental than the action being measured, whether it is the rate of change, or the level of activity, ie. time or temperature.

              So I suppose we will continue to agree to disagree on this one.