Dear Sir,
Many of your views in this essay has been discussed in our essay published on May 31 from a totally different perspective. You are welcome to visit us and comment on it.
In the field of science, the 19th century was one of experimentation, 20th century of excitement and 21st century of observation. Thus, it is no surprise that Wheeler was excited to find something he thought novel and was excited about it. But in hind sight, if we analyze his views minus excitement, we find a totally different story.
First: "everything we observe in the known Universe (the 'it') is less fundamental than the information that produces it (the 'bit')". Fundamental has been defined as of or relating to the foundation or base; elementary. Thus, the above statement means that the observable is nothing more than the sum total of ALL information (observation or reporting of the result of measurement) about the observable. Since every measurement measures only one aspect, how can we be sure that we have measured and correctly reported ALL aspects of something? Secondly, observation only reports the state and does not create or influence the state. The state can evolve in time independently. Thus, it is invariant to information or the absence of it. Information is the perception of the observer about the state of the observable in a universally communicable way. Hence the statement: "information that produces it" is not correct.
By definition, the first two numbers in the Fibonacci sequence are 0 and 1, and each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two. But what do 0 and 1represent? Number is a perceived property of substances by which we differentiate between similars. If there are no similars, it is one. If there are similars, it is many. Many can be 2,3,4,....n depending upon the sequence of perception. Zero represents the temporal absence at "here-now" of something that exists elsewhere. Only in this way, we can perceive the absence of something and label its number as zero. Thus, Wheeler's 0 and 1 represent the absence or presence of something or false and true about a statement. By themselves, they are meaningless. They acquire meaning only after they are associated with some observable. The concept was known as "ahoratra vaada" in ancient India and there is much literature on this subject. Nature functions in cycles and Fibonacci sequence is one such cycle.
As we have pointed out, observation is the reporting of a state of something at a given time. While the object evolves temporally, it the observation made at time t is "frozen" for use at other times when the state has changed further. Thus, information, which is the result of observation, is time invariant. The object, about which such information is obtained, is time variant. Hence the object cannot have information about itself. It is true that "no information from inside the black hole can be received"; but it due to our inability to measure in the first place. Without measurement, we cannot have information. Hence talking about its directionality is meaningless.
The concept of event horizon is based on false assumptions. A pulse of light evolves in time as a sphere and not as a circle. Hawking in his Brief history of Time has tricked everyone by first taking the Surface of Earth as 2-dimensional (which it is not) and then taking the example of a stone thrown into the surface of water. He added time as the third dimension (which it is not) before adding the third spatial direction as the fourth dimension. The circle formed on the surface of the water evolves in time as a bigger and bigger circle and not as a conic section. If you take the three spatial directions together, it will be an increasing sphere and not a time cone.
Direction has meaning only with reference to other objects, whereas dimension can be described without reference to other objects. Dimension of objects is the perception that differentiates the "internal structural space" from the "external relational space". Since such perception is mediated by electromagnetic interaction, where an electric field and a magnetic field move perpendicular to each other in a direction perpendicular to both, we have three mutually perpendicular directions. The talk of extra dimensions is non-sense. Even after more than a century, no one has any idea about it. When we talk about 1 or 2 dimensions, we really mean cross sections of a three dimensional object. Time does not satisfy this condition to be called a dimension. Yet, since space and time are infinite and co-exist independently as the base on which all transformations take place; we have to use unidirectional time to describe the state at any given moment.
There can be no negative direction for time or cause and effect. Consider an example:
A B → C D.
Here a force makes A interact with B to produce C and D. The same force doesn't act on C and D as they don't exist at that stage. If we change the direction of the force, B acts on A. Here only the direction of force and not the interval between the states before and after application of force (time) will change and the equation will be:
B A → C D and not B A ← C D.
Hence it does not affect causality.
Entropy is related to inertia. Elsewhere in these threads, we have discussed about it elaborately.
Let us apply our mind independently to everything that is told to us or are found in text books. Blind acceptance is superstition, which is harming the cause of science.
Regards,
basudeba
