THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING & THE ITSY QUBITSY UNIVERSE by Vladimir F. Tamari

Vladimir, still, from a 'conceptual' point of view, it is more productive to keep the two separate. But, of course, it's your essay. ;-)

Vladimir

But sadly they didn't. So I still await proof that there is observation in Einstein, how observation relates to physical circumstance, or indeed response on other areas of difference. Incidentally, when others started quoting Einstein at me in an attempt to demonstrate that what I was saying was flawed, I put up the first 24 paras of an abridged paper on why he was wrong on my essay blog.

Paul

Lev

The point is, as I have pointed out in commentary on your own blog, there is no such thing, physically, as 'cat'. And physics is supposed to be considering what physically occurs. Cat, is a conceptualisation of physical existence at a much higher level than what occurs. That is, we deem cat on the basis of certain superficial physical attributes, and then assert that this conceived 'thing' persists in existence so long as those attributes pertain. Indeed, we even allow the attributes to alter at that level of conception, but still assert its continued existence. Which is a contradiction. But is rationalised by the concept that 'it' has changed.

So even at that level we ignore what is actually happening, which is understandable in order to get on with ordinary life. But physically, cat is a sequence of definitive discrete physically existent states, which are such that at a much higher level of conception manifest certain similarities. And physics needs to understand this if it is to make proper progress, ie it needs to understand how what it is investigating (ie physical existence) occurs. In other words, any given cat is not physically the same at different times, and no cat is the same as another, except at an artificially conceived level.

Paul

Vladimir

"I wonder if there is a sound mathematical analysis along the lines you describe for Relativity sans the constant speed postulate?"

But the second postulate was not deployed as stated, it was just a constant, which happened to be an example of light. There is no relativity in physical existence. At any given time, something occurs. The relativity, or more precisely, time differential, is in the receipt of a physically existent representation of that occurrence (ie in the case of sight-light), which leaving other factors aside, fundamentally revolves around relative spatial positon. There is no observation in Einstein, because there is no observational light, occurrence and representation thereof, were conflated, so this time differential in the receipt of light, which does occur, was been attributed to existence. This simple mistake was counterbalanced by another simple mistake, ie his failure to understand timing (after Poincaré) which resulted in the creation of an extra layer of time (ie "common time").

Paul

Paul, by the way, a stone today is different from the same stone tomorrow, which is true for most objects/processes in Nature. But that does not mean that "there are no such thing, physically". This is an absolutely typical mode of "physical existence".

Lev

A stone, or indeed any other object, is different at any given time, never mind about tomorrow. So there is no such thing physically, ie as stone is conceived. Obviously there is something physically existent, and that is a physically existent state of whatever comprises it at any given time. But what is happening is that whilst there is actually, physically, a sequence of different states, superficially, it appears to persist in existence. Because we are deeming stone on the basis of superficial attributes.

This is all understandable at the 'getting on with life' level. We know there are bits dropping off St Pauls, the stone is discolouring, and if we examined it with an electron microscope...But we just rationalise that as it is changing. Not it is different, and there is no such thing as St Pauls. We only relent in the assertion that there is a St Pauls when it is reduced to a pile of rubble and debris. But physics should not be falling into this ontologically incorrect mode.

Paul

Vladimir, I really enjoyed your essay. You manage to juxtaposition your artistic or humanitarian talent with your scientific knowledge in a way that makes us, or rather me, sit up and think over what you have written .

I particularly agree with your observations "Only when such challenges are satisfactorily answered in a consistent theory of everything can the fundamental essay Question about Reality be answered." and "We use our untrammeled imagination and a wide range of mathematical tools to create theories of Reality and are so spellbound with our ideas - our own creations - that we assume Nature has to fit their mold."

I am reminded of Feymann remarks in his Appendix to the Rogers Commission, which investigated the Challenger disaster - "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." and would like to reword it to "For a successful universal theory of nature, reality must take precedence over presumption, for nature cannot be fooled"

Vladimir,

Your essay is very cogent and insightful, but I still have a problem with the conclusion, one which goes to the nature of the contest question in the first place. I suppose I did not make clear enough that while I paraphrased Marshall McLuhan's equating the medium with the message, I do not agree with it. To me, medium and message are a dichotomy, so to say one is the other would be like saying up=down, or good=bad, or left=right, or night=day. Or more related to the nature of this contest, that node=network.

If I was to paraphrase your conclusion, to make it work for me, I would say, It=Qubits. Remember a qubit simply does not exist, distinct from context.

If I was to paraphrase MuLuhan's quote, I would say; The medium is the message of the previous medium. Much as children are the message of the parents and medium to their children.

In my essay, I didn't say the energy is both medium and message, but that energy is the medium and information is the message.

The problem this raises with the contest question; It from Bit, or Bit from It, is that "it," the "reality," is both information and energy, message and medium, yet "bit" is just information. There is no message without a medium to convey it, as I argued in my essay. Like a dimensionless point, even mathematically it doesn't exist, because it is a multiple of zero. So just like an infinite series of dimensionless points will never add up to a line, since even infinity multiplied by zero is still zero, a reality composed of some platonic realm of information does not physically exist.

So there is no "It from Bit" and "Bit from It" is just the static (in)formation of dynamic processes.

The problem I have with Planck lengths is they are inherently fuzzy, as any further defining distinction would have to be even smaller, thus refuting the premise of "smallest." It goes to the problem of the aforementioned "dimensionless points." We want absolute clarity, but absolute and distinction are contradictory concepts, as at the level of the absolute, there is no distinction. Which is another reason for accepting fuzziness as inherent when trying to make distinctions.

Vladimir,

I certainly agree the most concise expression is that It=It.

The way I distinguish between energy as medium and information as message goes back to my point about time. The physical reality is a sea of "energy." It is moot to call it eternal, since the notion of time really doesn't apply. It is simply physically present. We would describe it as "conserved," ie. neither being created or destroyed. Since it is "energy" and thus dynamic, it is constantly changing. The forms arising from this process are the information. For us, it is the message, because it is how our minds register the energy manifesting its "presence." So if I am to draw a line between what is the energy and what is the information, the energy/medium is that which simply exists, while the information is what is created and dissolved. Has a beginning and end.

Keeping in might the very act of absorbing the energy alters its form, so even the destruction of information is a form of information. "You can't have your cake and eat it too."

Vladimir

He did not make the speed of light absolute (or constant) because he did not use light. That is the point. He just deployed a constant, as is necessary to calibrate distance and duration, and chose the speed of light in vacuo, c. He could have chosen any number, it would have made no difference. The presumption for the past 100 years has been that because it is c, then it is observational light. But it is not, because there is no observational light in Einstein. Designating certain entities observers does not make them observers, unless they receive observational light. Otherwise, they are just references.

Which means his second postulate is irrelevant. It is not so much a matter of what he said, literally, but what he did with what he said. So although he did not say it, but did come close to doing so (Einstein para 4 section 9 1916), he effectively asserted that the time differential, which is actually in the receipt of light, to be an innate characteristic of reality. The freak circumstance being that he did not understand timing, so he had a counterbalancing extra layer of time in timing (ie "common time"). This was then followed up with spacetime and then QM with yet more attributions of indefiniteness to reality, rather than to the physical processes whereby we are aware of reality.

So, if this had really been the case, ie that observational light is constant, then as you say, that means the variance has to be in reality (your "space and time"). But as you quite rightly say, this is not the case. And indeed, is not even the case in Einstein, where there is no light. This is a classic example of where if one holds on to what must be true, ie how physical existence occurs, then one finds out what was wrong with a theory that asserts physical existence occurs differently to that. Please do not adjust your television sets we are experiencing problems with the transmission!

Paul

Vladimir,

One of the points I keep making is that perception is inherently subjective. Clarity and distinction require some form of framing from the larger context. Such as with a camera, having to set the aperture, lens, filter, speed, position, direction, etc. Math is abstraction. A generalized view blends details. I went into this a little in the essay, but it goes to the subjective nature of information. It's not as though things do not happen, but that any information about them is incomplete. Consider something as simple as two billard balls hitting each other. How can it be really understood outside of the larger context, how is it perceived from the position of the balls themselves, as opposed to someone watching them. While the reality seems quite objective and clearcut, there is no fully objective view, because even in so simple of a situation, the potential information could go to infinity, as every atom and molecule of the balls, the surface, humidity, etc. plays some part.

So it is a subject that itself could go to infinity.

If I was to suggest some basic necessity for information, it would be that there first has to be some distinction, both within what is being observed and between the observer and the observed. Then there has to be some form of connection in order for these distinctions to be relatable. The connections would have to be more dynamic and the distinctions more static, otherwise any information would be disturbed/lost before it is registered. Light makes a good form of connection, while mass makes good distinctions. Part of the "explaining water to fish" problem.

Obviously this is a broad category, from fleeting thoughts to thousand year old structures. and beyond.

Yet at the stage of the absolute, there is no distinction and so no information, unless viewed from a non-absolute state and then the relationship is not an absolute. Toward infinity, all information blends into white noise. So it is in these relativistic configurations between the extremes.

Vladimir,

I also wanted to ask you about another, more important, statement in your abstract:

"Information is an artifact of human thought imposed on Nature to describe some of its aspects."

Why don't you like an opposite view according to which the "information" in our heads is of the same *nature* as the "information" in the Universe, basically because this is what was 'given' directly (from the very beginning) to the biological evolution?

John

Yes and the factual point I keep making is that "perception" can have no affect on the physical circumstance, which is received, ie it exists independently, and therefore, within the limitations of what we can receive (or hypothesise based on that), it is possible, but difficult in practice, to have a "fully objective view".

Paul

Paul,

Yes, within your view of time as a sequence of distinct event, there is no function by which one can affect the future, or change the past, but within my view, where action generates change and thus time, our actions and perceptions are integral to their context.

As for objective, can you know every action, quantum, molecular, distant input, etc. which goes into your every moment?

Vladimer,

This is an interesting essay to read. I found the frank admission in the "Absolute Reality and Relative Observers" segment that abstract scientific information is only glorified unrealistic guesswork truly refreshing. As I have pointed out in my essay BITTERS, the Universe can only deal in absolutes. One (1) real Universe can only be eternally occurring in one real here and now while perpetually traveling at one real "speed" of light through one real infinite dimension once. One is the absolute of everything. (1) is the absolute of number. Real is the absolute of being. Universe is the absolute of energy. Eternal is the absolute of duration. Occurring is the absolute of action. Here and now are absolutes of location and time. Perpetual is the absolute of ever. Traveling is the absolute of conveyance method. Light is the absolute of speed. Infinite dimension is the absolute of distance and once is the absolute of history.

An abstract human brain may have abstractly evolved over abstract millions of abstractly counted years from abstract primitive cells made of abstract molecules that were abstractly identical to those making up the rest of the abstract universe, my real unique brain only knows unique once. If I only know unique once, you can only know unique once. Unique cannot evolve. Unique cannot be primitive or fundamental or teachable or purchasable. Unique can only ever be unique once.

Vladimir

Tainted is just another problem to overcome, along with individual capability, in trying to reverse engineer perception in order to discover what was physically received. Which then needs to reverse engineered to ascertain what happened, because what you receive is not what happened.

Paul

John

Time is the rate at which the sequence progresses, ie a reality (present) becomes another. You cannot affect the future, it is not there, and you cannot affect the past, it has been and gone.

Re objective. No, nobody ever will, but the potential is there, ie an objective exists. The point is a practical not metaphysical one.

Paul

Paul,

You can affect what is happening at this very moment and then the moment will become past. Meanwhile that effect will have consequences in other moments and other situations.

For very practical reasons, we have an inherently subjective perspective, ie, we are not god.

John

No. You cannot physically affect what is happening, because it has happened. What your action does is cause a different happening in the sequence from what would have otherwise occurred. But that is the same for any cause. Whatever prevails (happens) becomes a cause of what happens next, having been itself the outcome of a previous such circumstance. The point is it is not what could have prevailed, but what did, ie there is no future to affect, it is not pre-existent. The only "inherently subjective perspective" is the fact that there is a possibility of an alternative existence to the one we can know of. But since we cannot know of it, then that is irrelevant in science. And we must restrict ourselves to what is knowable, that being a function of an identifiable physical process and not some philosophical ramblings.

Paul

Vladimir

Indeed. If you start off with incorrect presumptions about the nature of physical existence then you are going to reverse up a blind alley!

Paul

Quite right too Vladimir.

Joe, light is just a physical entity, but with the evolution of sight we see with it. It does not have any other particular significance in physical existence. It may not be the fastest travelling entity in existence. It certainly does not travel at the same speed in all circumstances, though its starting speed is always the same because it is the result of an interaction, not a collision, ie the speed of that which it interacts with, which then results in a light representation thereof, is irrelevant. And like anything else its speed would remain constant in vacuo, but we do not live in vacuo.

Paul

Hi Vladimir,

Very interesting essay with beautiful and smart drawings - especially 'the five blind men and the elephant'. Congratulations!

It seems to me we have a lot in common and only sometimes we use different names. E.g. your 'Cloud of Unknowing' is what I call H. Sapiens' perception. Nature (IT) I call a Platonic entity because we do not have direct access to it but only through our perception (Cloud of Unknowing) etc.

Referring to a cave dweller: since she was not able to explain the nature, she has been inferring the existence of some invisible forces being in charge. The most likely that way religions have been born. At the present time, Newton's law of gravity (with GR corrections) has been well-established on spatial scales from the order of millimeters out to solar system scale. However at much larger distances all tests have been found to fail. Where Einstein's equations failed, researchers (trying to save them!) have been looking for dark forces (dark energy and matter) to explain the lack of 95.5% (almost all) of the content of universe. Could we therefore consider that belief in dark forces to be a kind of modern religion? Something that cannot be proved or falsified, but the vast majority are believers?

In my opinion looking for the foundations, we should abandon the temple of dark forces and return to the laboratory and the department of mathematics. I would bet the crucial task is to find an appropriate metric, being not only spatial but temporal scale invariant too. Why a metric? I propose the strongest equivalence principle claiming that any interaction is entirely geometrical by nature (that is, the metric alone determines the effect of the interaction). The metric should be foundational in one and the same system from the order of quanta out to the universe itself, for the entire observable time scale and ... falsifiable. Obviously assuming that such a metric exists it would change GR and QM.

You claim that Nature and information can be regarded as one and the same thing. I think it depends on definitions of Nature and information. For me both are manifestations of the spacetime geometry so in that sense I would agree. However the lattice of nodes arrayed as in the cluster does not convince me. Maybe this is a good thing that not everyone agree in everything.

And finally I have to refer to Einstein's SR. It indicates that our reference frame is not the one and not the most important one but only a one out of infinity of other reference frames. So I guess Einstein was not so wrong.

Dear Vladimir,

I very much enjoyed reading your wonderful, clarifying and funny essay! You definitely make the cloud of unnowing become more transparent. But I cannot agree about the universe being a quantum computer - not even a kind of. As little as it is a kind of hammer. This opinion is a "Baconian Idol" of mine. Perhaps, as such, it adds dust to my personal cloud of unknowing. But I take the risk.

Best regards!

Inger Stjernqvist

Vladimir,

Your gracious comments are much appreciated. The main point I wished to make about light was that it must be the absolute of speed only because light is actually the only stationary substance in the Universe. You will note that I did not list an absolute of inertia.

Dear Vladimir!

Sorry - careless me - for mixing up sort of with kind of. For my "Baconian Idol" (perhaps it has bad cholesterol) see Francis Bacon's Novum Organum Scientium (1640) about how our prejudices (Bacon calls them Idols) stand in the way for our capacity to know; adding to our cloud of unknowing.

Thank you for asking, but no, I'm not going to write any contest essay this year. I'm still busy reading and re-reading essays and conversations from last year, trying to put together a meta-essay about what I learn from it.

My very best wishes to you in this contest!

Inger

Vladimir: how is your essay's basic point, the "cloud of unknowing", any different from Immanuel Kant's famous distinction in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781) between the phenomenal (things as they appear to us) and the noumenal (things in themselves)? As far as I can tell, you're just giving the same argument: that, due to the nature of measurement, we can only know things as they appear to us never how they are in themselves. Am I missing something? If so, what?