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?
What is Information by John Brodix Merryman
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?
5 days later
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
[deleted]
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.
[deleted]
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.
John,
To be more precise ... you state "The causal process can be modeled in terms of scalars; temperature, pressure, weight, speed." In the scope of geometric algebra, these are the scalar, vector, bivector, trivector and pseudoscalar information structures - information structure - the Clifford algebra elements. Everything measurable can be reduced to elements and combination thereof of these elements.... right to the general relativistic principles ... from the quantum combinations of space/spin eigenstates through the expansion rate of the universe ... and visa versa ie., information flows in both directions and is equivalent information once the limit of each outer bound is reached (ADS/CFT).
Also, you state "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." OK, You are simply stating that we collect data in the moment, and, we control the information within the moment physically (measure) from one event to the next. It is your "will" applied to create action to stroke the key. Your mind geared up in Feynminian thoughts to do the miraculous event of stroking each key ... and in a coherent, deliberate fashion such to create information that has deep context (which I may add is rather brilliant).
Your comment "Much as economic statistics are a measure of the cumulative human activity of lots of people traveling their particular vectors." Yes, our measures are measures of the thermodynamic average, however, each molecule, at any moment, can partake in an event that is a once in a lifetime event ... and possibly tunnel out from the thermodynamic enclosure (like a hot electron in Peltier ... STM, etc.) It is "WE the individual" that controls the knob to the tunneling, for, energetically, geometrically, everything had to be physically correct to achieve the classically impossible event ... and yes... doing this in the midst of the ever changing pull of the thermodynamic average make it a rather rare event..... similar to giving up one's ego and allowing one to become the central element in all that he or she measures... which implies taking the bull by the horns and accepting we are responsible for our own lives .. and the information has always been there but we lost the proper context that allows us to tunnel!
Also, a quick FYI on your comment "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."
A few years back, my dad had a stroke that destroyed the RHS of his brain. He remembers all past events, BUT, had no clue on the time the event occurred (this information came soon thereafter the stroke event). He speaks of things 60 years ago as if they were yesterday, if a computer, a time stamp was scrambled or lost in his FAT ("event" file allocation table). I therefore would not rule out that time (event ordering) plays a big part in the RHS of the brain. What I also observed was that in a full, center page news paper article the two words "Banana Republic" were written - that's it. Banana was on the left most page and Republic on the right. When asked to read this article, my dad simply stated ... with utmost confidence ... "Republic" .... there was NO mention of Banana ... this, and many more LHS optical information losses places the brain RHS as controlling optical image information from the images physical LHS - no doubt here.
Anyway, it's been a pleasure to converse w/ you. Thank you!
Tony
Tony,
I do think current cosmology is on the wrong track. Expansion is matched by gravitational contraction. What seems to be overlooked is that galaxies are not inert points of measurement, but "space sinks," such that they balance the "expansion" between them. It just so happens the light from those distant sources can only travel through the "expanded" areas to reach us. So I think its more of a cosmic convection cycle of expanding radiation and collapsing mass.
In the time factor, energy is constantly expanding, thus either growing what it is entering, or radiating out from what is losing it. Thus energy is constantly moving onto what is new and next. On the other hand, mass/structure is at its most defined when it is at peak energy accumulation. So it will lose energy from that point and thus fade into the past, like mass falling into the core of a galaxy. With a clock, the hand, signifying the present, is constantly moving onto future units of time, while these units, signifying events and structure, are receding into the past. Tomorrow becoming yesterday, as the earth spins and the energy goes onto the next day.
So this cycle of expanding energy and collapsing mass is manifesting the process of time.
As for temperature, keep in mind all those molecules are trading energy around, which results in a localized entropic medium, so it's not just a statistical average, but a real physical effect.
As for our individuality, yes, we can "tunnel out" from the larger crowd, but at the expense of not being part of that crowd. We can create little waves, but we can only ride the big ones. The issue then gets to be; Where do we want to tunnel to? Is it simply to our own personal space and equilibrium(which is not a bad thing, being one who seeks it out), or do we want to find a larger wave to ride? Currently there are quite a few waves, economic, political, religious, physical theory, which appear more foam and bubbles, than upward momentum. So as structure, they appear to be losing energy and thus be imminently on the downside. Having been clocking this situation from the wilderness for the last few decades, I think some interesting new waves will be building and we will all be along for the ride, willingly or not.
John,
At each moment in life you can either choose to ride a wave, or, to make one. My employment requires me to originate the wave that usually starts off in a most non-linear, abrupt fashion simply by my supplying measured data from a correlating chain of physical events and gluing these events together with a quite measurable physical process path (semiconductor processing). Getting others on board as the wave crest builds is not an easy task, because other folks follow other waves (which isn't bad, it just is, and, information they collect usually also supports the process path I deduced). It is the time from conception to the time of administering process fixes that takes the most patience, lip biting, however ..... cream always rises to the top when you stop shaking the milk jug - and slowly each shaker conforms. That's life, science ... everything.
Regards,
Tony
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.