Thanks, Paul!

1. "I like your approach to pictorial depictions (e.g. Fig 2) but am concerned that it may have some limitations. For example, you say that the two primitives are not temporally ordered, but it seems to me that they are: by the inputs and outputs to other common elements (primitives)."

By the (formal) definition, event1 "precedes" event2, if some initial links of event2 are the terminal links of event1 or of some other event which event1 "precedes".

2. "Also, your formalism (as it is at present) appears static, making it difficult to deal with evolution of links and primitives."

Please note that the struct evolves when new (relevant) events occur. So that the whole thing is evolving with time.

3. " In a nutshell, I would like to see you express the concept of reversibility and dynamic evolution more fully in your formalism."

Paul, the ETS formalism suggests that there is no such thing as reversibility: you cannot undo the events that have already occurred, even though some of the "parameters" may coinside.

Thanks, again!

Thanks, Hugh!

I read your essay a while ago (and rated it then), and found that it covers much informational ground. Of course, we agree that "cosmos leaves room for processes to be operative below the level of the physical". Not only does it "leave room" for this but it appears to demand it. I came to this conclusion from a non-physical (related to the biological classification processes) perspective.

Best wishes and good luck in the contest!

--Lev

Lev- there are certainly limitations -- see the comments on my web page about the difficulty of expressing this pictorially (with other than Feynman Diagrams).

As for your essay (which I truly enjoyed):

"Paul, the ETS formalism suggests that there is no such thing as reversibility: you cannot undo the events that have already occurred, even though some of the "parameters" may coinside."

My point precisely ;-)

Kind regards, Paul

Nice exchange, Lev and Paul.

I too am in accord on the question of reversibility -- processes are time reversible, even though events are not.

It's why I like the concept of "struct" so much -- it appears to allow self organized time dependent structures, without obviating the evolution of other structs, at different rates.

All best,

Tom

6 days later

  • [deleted]

  • Post #145

Lev,

I came across your essay only after the end of the competition. Nevertheless, I want to tell you that I very much enjoyed reading your essay, because it meets many of my own thoughts. You are touching a couple of essential points. Let me comment only some of them.

On page 3 you quote Gell-Mann asking Seth Lloyd: "... But is there a mathematically precise way of quantificance of a bit?" When setting up "a fundamentally new scientific language" it can be helpful to see how linguists handle a language: They would refer to a bit as a "symbol". A symbol does not have any specific meaning. To give the bit a meaning we have to add the "semantics". A bit then may have the meaning of up/down, when referring to a spin, or particle/antiparticle, when referring to a particle. On page 7 of your essay you essentially say the same: "... each bit by itself ... is not meaningful without the question to which it provides a binary answer."

In the text above you suggest "to informally associate the term (information) with both "organization" and "structure". I am following a similar idea in my essay, where I describe "informational structures", resulting from bits that are described in a "covariant" way with respect to transformations of the semantic frame of reference. I think these structures correspond to what you call "a representational formalism," because "all data is being collected and processed in that form."

"This brings up the key question: How can we plan an experimental verification of the ETS formalism?" If you agree that my "informational structures" are somewhat similar to your representational formalism, then I can in fact offer you such an experimental verification.

"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?" You will find a tentative answer to this question in my essay.

I very much hope you will have a chance to look into my essay and tell me your opinion, because you seem to be the only author in this contest who pursues similar ideas.

Best wishes,

Walter

    Lev,

    I did not intend to anonymously post my comments, but somehow my login was lost. My full name is Walter Smilga.

    Walter

    Thanks Walter!

    I will definitely reply in your essay forum.

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