Dear John
As you write, can be defined for information is : The absorption and transmission the impact of material or not ?
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1802
What is Information by John Brodix Merryman
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
[deleted]
Georgina,
Thank you. THis contest, by explicitly examining the nature of information, is creating some degree of mental disconnect.
John,
If given the time and the wits to evaluate over 120 more entries, I have a month to try. My seemingly whimsical title, "It's good to be the king," is serious about our subject.
Jim
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.
Anthony,
Thank you and I will definitely get around to yours.
Now it's off to a mornings work.
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.
No problem. There are so many. I'm struggling still. Hope work went well :)
Hello John,
what a nice, concise, sensible essay. However, I found it somewhat dry. And I wish it was longer. That is because I very much enjoy reading your posts in various threads and also in Brendan's blog. I noticed that most people express themselves better in the posts -- their thoughts are more engaging and flow easily. But I guess when faced with that empty sheet -- or blank monitor screen nowadays -- many tend to tense up and start speaking in grave pronouncements.
You wrote:
"Bias is fundamental to the construct of knowledge, so it needs to be factored into the model. Whether it is a particular perspective, or a generic model or pattern inductively distilled from circumstance, knowledge is a focused distillation of a larger context."
I could not agree more. I also speak in my essay about how our perception of the world is limited by what sort of info our senses and sensors are able to get. In our discussions of the nature of reality, we often forget how biased we are by our familiar, habitual vision of the world. We also assume that we know everything there is worth knowing. I allude in my essay that there are other types of info out there, waiting to be discovered with either improved or entirely new technology.
I also noted in Brendan's blog your interest in the neuroanatomy. For this reason I am curious to know your opinion about the end part of my essay. You will notice the style is very different there (very non-academic, to say the least, lol). You may notice that the flow has a rhythm and even some rhymes, there is a strong emotion, and the analogies are very graphic. The language is very simple and action-oriented.
The reason for this is that I wanted to engage the right hemisphere into the discussion that is traditionally dominated by the left. Hence very simple terms (right hemisphere does not understand abstractions). The right hemisphere is good at seeing a picture as a whole, as if seeing it from high above. It is able to grasp in one glance the relationships between various components of the whole, how they all fit together -- something the left hemisphere, due to its inherent linearity, has a hard time doing. I am not saying that the right is better than the left, only that the 2 working together in tandem are better than either one alone.
Anyway, I did not quite do it on purpose. It happens naturally with me when the right hemisphere "wants to participate" I can see it in the style of writing. I did not change it, as i normally do, but submitted the essay as is, partly because it was already due and partly as an experiment. I'm afraid most people are shocked by it lol. But I am curious to hear you opinion on this.
Anyway, regarding your essay: very good but I wish it was longer and in not academic but your usual, casual style, reading which I so much enjoy.
-Marina
Marina,
Thank you. It is short and to the point, but I find in these discussions, it's best to start with one clear point and go from there. I'm not expecting to win anything, so it really was intended as just a conversation starter.
The right hemisphere just doesn't show its work. More of what the cumulative knowledge pushes to the surface and even trained physicists use it much more than they think.
John,
I like the concise approach you've taken here and enjoyed reading your thoughtful essay; I also think you've touched on some of the aspects, at least at a high level, that will need to be addressed as physics moves forward. That said, it's generally risky to put forth a topical solution based on incomplete definitions, especially given something so abstract. But, I gather you are of the persuasion that suggests (and reasonably so) that the 'concept' of energy represents information; energy (as currently defined) has a firm basis based in conservation aspects, not to mention GR consequences, irrespective of its own inherent tangibility - yet in conjunction, there is always something physically manifest from where the energy is determined.
I am not settled on if your biological examples were meant literally or metaphorically, but while such seems perhaps like an unconnected or out-of-place contrivance that may stop certain readers from recognizing some of the overarching concepts, it seems surprisingly difficult (at least in an cursory fashion and within a physics context) to find a robust counterexample whereby something (whether biological or not) does not 'act' on 'information' (at least in some manner) and 'process' energy (again, at least in some manner) based on our current definitions and when given a broad interpretation of such definitions.
Although I do have reservations regarding some of your conclusions, in my estimation, you probably think deeper than many will appreciate; especially if those you are trying to reach consist of a niche audience accustomed to a particular 'language' that you may not share (or perhaps may not opt to use). While it's challenge enough for us in interdisciplinary or even directly related fields to have abstract concepts enthusiastically accepted by heavily specialized audiences when using expected context, a presentation with an outside style faces a seriously Herculean hurdle, especially when given the disadvantageous virtual constraint of immense dogma rampant across the scientific community.
Chris