What is Information by John Brodix Merryman

John

Reality is reality. Finding out about any aspect thereof 'provides' us with information, but since this is always true, that is a pointless definition. Information is representational of something else. So part of reality is also information (eg light). Physical existence can be characterised as comprising an existential sequence and an existential representation thereof (which being existent, exists in sequence).

Our actions do not affect the environment, because the environment that you are asserting is so affected is not existent to be so affected. There is no existent future.

Paul

Paul,

What is the environment, if not that in which we live and act and therefore affect?

Paul,

"And we can only have knowledge of, there is no alternative 'source' of reality against which we can compare our knowledge."

We do it all the time and it is called other people, with which we frequently disagree as to the nature of reality. That is because we each have a subjective set of information and experience from which to work.

Bias doesn't mean we purposefully view reality from a limited perspective, but that we have to, because we are necessarily limited.

What is this "the fundamental modus operandi of physical existence?"

The "bottom line" is another form of reductionism. If we add everything together, it all balances out.

Unfortunately I have to go to work and affect my physical circumstance, or mine will be grossly affected by others irritations.

John

"That is because we each have a subjective set of information and experience from which to work"

Which is why there is a process known as science.

"What is this "the fundamental modus operandi of physical existence?"

What I said, discrete definitive physically existent states in sequence. Which, as I also said, has been missed, so an incorrect 'world view' has taken over which revolves around indefiniteness, an impossibility given physical existence involves existence and difference.

You do not affect any subsequent physical circumstance, because it does not physically exist for you to be able to affect it.

Paul

John

As said above, you cannot affect something which is not avaliable to be affected.

Paul

Paul,

The environment is what we absorb information and energy from and shed it back into.

Get to the other post later.

Paul,

There is also this social construct called "religion," which tends to assert a particular view of reality as inviolate and absolute., ie. objective. Science, on the other hand, views its constructs as conditional and open to review, because the knowledge based on which they are built is limited, ie. subject to conditions.

"discrete definitive physically existent states in sequence."

This physical existence exists on that fluctuating boundary between light and gravity. While our fate seems definite, the details do seem fuzzy.

"You do not affect any subsequent physical circumstance, because it does not physically exist for you to be able to affect it."

So why should I get out of bed in the morning?

John,

I loved your essay both for its form and content. Your text, separated into short haiku-like paragraphs, carried your ideas seamlessly and without repetition from one concept to the next. Its blessed brevity is deceptive, because the ideas conveyed are concentrated, important and well-thought out - just as in the process you describe when the focus narrows and the detail becomes clearer. I liked your use of perspective which I also used in my later essay.

I would disagree about your concept of time which I think is derivative, but like your idea of ever-active energy as the medium and message of the World. Like you I used McLuhan's 'medium is the message' quip in a previous essay, and I wish I used it this time again because it really answers this year's fqxi contest question nicely. The Uncertainty Principle may not be an indication of the fundamental fuzziness of the world but as I concluded in my Beautiful Universe theory, emerges from a deep order.

Your physiological simile of bit and it towards the end was thought-provoking, like everything else in this succinct and brilliant essay. If ever poetry and physics meet it is here and the reader is the richer for it.

Vladimir

Vlad,

Thank you, though I'm a little cofused by your comments on my point about time. I have no problem with it being derivative, As I set out to find what is true, not what is original, so if you disagree with it, do I assume you disagree with what you consider it to be derivative of, as well?

In the 24 years since it first occurred to me, I've found innumerable references to particular events "receding into the past," "fading from memory," etc. As someone put it, "We live life forward and see it backward." I've also been told that traditionally, in the East, the past is considered to be in front of the observer, as it is known and therefore can be seen, while the future is behind, as it cannot be seen or known. This contrasts with the Western assumption of moving into the future, equating time with personal movement. So the Eastern view is much more objectively contextual, as what we see is of past events, while the Western view is much more subjectively motion based.

Given you do live in Japan, is this observation correct? If so, is this what you consider it to be a derivative of?

I should note that physics does essentially treat time as a measure of duration, as per its focus on calculation and this does reduce it to the most basic consideration of sequence, distilling away any deeper considerations. For example Julian Barbour's winning essay in the Nature of Time contest

Not to be argumentative, but I do try to understand why this point doesn't seem as obvious to others, as it does to me. Especially since it goes to my views on the relationship of energy to information. Finish that point later.....

John

Re Cristi blog exchange. I never said anything about blocktime. The point was about discreteness.

"You seem to see it as a series of distinct presents, while I see it as what is present is energetic and thus constantly changing"

This is contradictory. So what is present? Answer: something discrete. What is continuous? Answer: something discrete which does not alter. The word energetic is superfluous. There cannot be existence and difference in that existence unless there is something discrete.

"Since it is what exists that is the constant, not the forms it takes"

This is irrelevant. Whether there is something which of itself does not change, ie is in effect inert, or whether the something is whatever alters, makes no difference to the point. Though it obviously is what physicists need to find out. Physical existence at any time (ie whatever is present then) is a function of the physically existent state of whatever comprises it. There is a natural tendency for humans to think in terms of 'it changes', rather than different, which is the ontologically correct depiction.

"it is these forms that come and go, ie. the events going future to past"

Again this is contradictory. Forget the detail re form or not. The events are not "going" anywhere. The event occurs, ie that is the present. Then a different one occurs and is the present. None of these co-exist. There is no physically existent future or past, just the present state is a sequence of states.

"Now since our actions are every bit as real as the insensate activity occurring around us, they are part of what forms these events"

No. All that is happening is that a different present occurs from what would have otherwise occurred. You do not affect the future, because it is not physically there. But that is true of any present, ie it is a function of the immediately preceding state. There were countless possibilities for this state, but that is irrelevant, because it was that one which occurred, which then lead to the next present. Somewhere on Cristi's blog, Robert countered this false concept with a car collision example. The point being that the car collision happened because of the preceding situation, had any aspect of that not occurred, then the collision (the present which did occur) would not have happened. The collision is not some pre-existent event.

"if we think of time as a sequence of events"

It is not a matter of "if" or thinking. It is. It relates to the rate of turnover of realities, ie presents.

"It is only when time is an emergent effect of action, do our actions have effect"

Well time is not that, so we don't.

Paul

Paul,

Having to run, but it's not that I don't see the need for discreteness, but that there is the need for both discreteness and continuity. Both action and statis, to provide balance and change.

John

" but that there is the need for both discreteness and continuity"

Exactly, though I would not call it continuity, it is difference. And the only way this can happen is sequence, a definitive discrete physically existent state at a time, the successor replacing the predecessor.

Paul

Paul,

I understand the need for discreteness and sequence. How would a movie function if the shutter was just left open and the film run through it. Yet that sequencing of still images is a mechanism for extracting information from the larger reality, where the light is constantly flowing, even if it is as photons. They don't travel instantaneously, but at a constant rate. You seem to accept the need for this mechanism to create the form of information, yet insist there is no underlaying process from which this information is extracted.

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