After the Transition “from It to Bit”: Is This the Science Formerly Called Physics? by Lev Goldfarb

Dear Lev Goldfarb,

I am working on somewhat different direction than your work is. However I find in your essay some approaches close to me and have decided just to ask you to check my work. Particularly, there are some short description about of drama that become share of Einstein and other luminaries of physics.Dumayu Vi vladeete russkim?

I hope on your response.

ESSAY

Sincerely,

George

Dear Lev,

You are right when you say that 'mind' is the primary source of knowledge but at the same time you cannot deny the 'objective' existence of both It and Bit. For, otherwise, this becomes just 'solipsism' and science being objective wants to avoid it at all costs. Although both It and Bit are objective, they have meaning if there is mind to comprehend them. This is just like the absolute view of space and time, and in themselves both have no meaning without reference to change. That is why relative view of space and time is preferred. I hope this point makes my stand clear. We can have more discussion on it, if you like.

I will post my comments on your essay soon.

best regards,

sreenath

Dear Lev,

Your essay is quite innovative and in which you try to comprehend reality (It) from information (Bit) through computer generated simulation. How far you succeed in this endeavor only time will tell. But, I have some problems regarding predicting scientific observations from your stand point. For example, according to QM, same kind of experiments (Bit) may give different results (Its) as it is the nature of reality in the quantum world; so every time you feed the same Bit as input, you are likely to get different It as output.

Secondly, in the classical world, It (reality) is having many facets and this corresponds to different Bits (information); so there is 'no' one to one correspondence between It and Bit as different Bits may point to the same It.

The above two views are, obviously, apposite in nature. Now the point is, how do you explain both on the same platform; i.e., on the basis of your ETS formalism and also 'Struct' concept?

I hope you succeed by finding an amicable solution to this problem.

Wishing you best of luck in the contest,

sreenath

Lev,

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

Lev,

after talking to you in Brendan's blog, I naturally wanted to read your essay again. I skimmed it in mid. June and was very impressed by it. Last night I welcomed the opportunity to escape the bustle of bbqs to read it carefully (happy holidays by the way!) I finished this morning and then read the comments here.

Oh how I understand your frustration! Without a doubt --and grumblings of the old guard notwithstanding-- yours is the most pertinent essay in this contest. Have you brought it to the attention of Prof. D'Ariano? I read his beautiful essay only once and have not had a chance to look at the posts there. He should be able to fully appreciate your revolutionary approach. Citing from memory, he too advocates the use of computers in order to advance our understanding of nature -- and not just as tools for data processing, but to actively adopt and build upon the algorhythms already developed in computer science.

If I may share my first _raw_ impression of your work, I wrote back in June in my notes, 'wow he wants to program the universe in C++!' After the initial shock I was struck by realization: indeed, why not employ the advanced methods already developed in computer science to analyse and structure information in physics. Suddenly, a new vista opened up and I could not help noticing how _sophisticated_ these methods are indeed in comparison to even the most advanced 'numerical' approaches used in physics today.

I have to run now but will return with more soon. By the way, your essay has the most.. true definition of information I've ever seen (by Arlychev):

"the information process can be defined as a free movement of an invariant structure in the material carriers of various nature, and the information can then be thought of as this invariant structure circulating through the communication channels"

Well, I thought you may not take my allusion to C++ kindly. Sorry. But why hide from the fact that the origins of your proposal lies in it? I understand that you are concerned about how traditional physicist may receive your idea and do not want it to be trivialized as 'programming'. In your place, rather than trying to veil this fact or taking an apologetic stance for infringing with CS into the physics' territory, I would simply adopt the straightforward stance based on the fact that the future of physics lies with CS.

I tried to find that quote from Prof. D'Ariano but now think that I must have read it elsewhere. That day I also read his 2011 essay, where he says, "Recovering the whole Physics as emergent from the quantum information processing is a large program: we need to build up a complete dictionary that translates all physical notions into information-theoretic words." Isn't this where you come in?

The idea that algorithm is mightier than equation is certainly not new. D'Ariano speaks openly about the value in translating traditionally 'physical' terms into a computer-programming language. Your shyness in this regard only weakens your position.

The other weakness is that you propose that "structure of ETS events allows a uniform treatment of all events in Nature, including physical, chemical, biological, and mental events" -- and then fail to demonstrate it on one simple, well-understood, familiar example and go with poorly understood duality and entanglement instead -?

Then you pose several intriguing questions but then leave a reader disappointed:

"This brings up the key questions: How can we plan an experimental verification of the ETS formalism? And in particular, how do we approach the verification of the structure of (instantiated) events for photons, electrons, etc.?"

oops! it appears that I used an 'illegal' character and the sys truncated the end. So:

".... electrons, etc.?" -- indeed, how?

"Finally, some of the other big questions are: How are the structs stored and retrieved in Nature, and what is the physical nature of instantiated events?" -- and?

"If this structure will be experimentally corroborated, the scenario captured in the title of the essay is not that outlandish." -- anything concrete yet?

I also could not help noticing your post to Akinbo above: "I intentionally avoided the issue of the nature of space, since if the latter is __secondary__ to the informational representation" (emphasis is mine). Space secondary to informational representation? I'm not talking about space here in simplistic terms of distances. I talk about spacetime as emergent as a result of processes underlying what we call reality.

In view of the above, I cannot give your very interesting and pertinent to this year contest idea the high rating it otherwise deserves. In my notes back in June I tentatively rated your essay as 8, thought to up it higher this morning, but now will stay with my first impression.

(I invite you to retaliate in my thread ;))

kstati, pochemu vy mne dali tol'ko chetverku?

Lev,

your just reminded me that I forgot to address the main weakness in your essay. You wrote:

"By the way, the questions at the end of the essay are for theoretical and applied physicists, since they concern the very foundational concepts in physics."

Indeed. And how exactly, in practical terms, you propose to use the new language which is supposed to describe the processes which are not yet fully understood? -- Unless it has some dynamics of the type cellular automata built-in that would permit __ETS to emerge by itself__ (rather than being programmed based on an a priori knowledge). In other words, the presumed value in your idea, as I see it, is in this 'backward' approach with emerging ETS showing thus far unnoticed hidden structure governing seemingly simple or even disjoint events.

It seems it is precisely the implementation where your major problem lies. Does it?

It is as if you put a cart before the horse, like in your amazon review of an AI book where you lament that Mind is excluded, as if there is a working definition --or even a common opinion-- of what Mind is. How would a new language make the unknown better understood?

Gotta run. I wish you spectacular fireworks today :)

You wrote: "ETS consistency with the (physical) reality has to be verified experimentally."

Why wouldn't you give an example of applying ETS to a something well understood?

And what do you mean by verified experimentally? Does ETS give specific predictions? What such an experiment would entail?

Dear Lev,

A nice challenge to conventional informational thinking. Great approach re-structs/ETS. Ubiquitous discreteness was even mentioned, which doesn't shy away from conventional claims, yet you challenge established thinking, which I believe is what the contest asks.

Please take a look at my essay if time permits.

Well done & all the best,

Antony

Hello, Lev,

There is a potentially important relation between your ETS system and my Logic in Reality which sees processes as evolving through concatenations of actual and potential states. It is also a challenge to orthodox physics, but does not require going outside its laws. If you will look at my article, you will see there my critique of "geometry".

Best regards,

Joseph Brenner