William

"What I am still hung up about is what defines potentially knowable from that which is 'nonsense.'"

It is not potentially knowable vrs nonsense, but potentially knowable vrs not knowable. Indeed what is knowable might be nonsense, in the sense that it is only a particular form of existence, as manifest to us, and 'really' what 'actually exists' is something completely different. This is a possibility, but it is of the not knowable, because, even if it exists, it is not manifest to us. Remember, we are existing in what must be regarded as an existentially closed system. Whether it is or not we can never know, because if A there is always the possibility of not-A.

Now, within knowable, ie existence as manifest to us, we can generate knowledge thereof which is either objective or subjective (ie nonsense), that is it either corresponds with what was potentially knowable (physical existence) or it does not.

Change is an form of physical alteration. How one discerns what constitutes a degree of change in respect of any given physical characteristic is another matter. Time is concerned with the turnover rate, ie the rate of change, of existent states (ie the reality at that time).

"The crux of my unwillingness to comply with your definition is that what is knowable seems to lay in the hand of the human made definition of "physical."

No we (or indeed any sentient organism) does not 'create' it in any sense, we receive it, which is a physical process. The fact that this means there is the possibility of an alternative, ie something outwith this process, is irrelevant, because we cannot know it. In other words, there comes a point where we have, scientifically, to accept that what is, is what is. We cannot transcend our own existence. And that is one of the major problems at the moment, under the guise of hypothesis assertions which transcend what is knowable are being put forward as potentially knowable.

Paul

PS: I am all to aware I have 'too many' knows (or derivatives thereof)but have yet to come up with a better label. The alternative is around aware.

Paul,

What I meant by "nonsense" was the considering the state of a not-A. So it is like waiting for a bus to stop, and finally asking a passer by when the bus is coming, to find out that there is no bus coming, because it is not a stop. Asking the question of what color was the non-existent bus would be nonsense in that case. It could be a million non-existent colors. So what is the line between and all of the possibilities which don't exist. I take the stance of saying everything is knowable to us, and that which is unknowable eventually gets drawn into the knowable as we develop as thinkers and human beings. The things which are known are drawn from the great unknown but reason and feeling of wonder. I don't know how that fits into a logical system, but perhaps the best leaps are intuitive rather than part of a regime or system. I don't mean that it is too rigid, only that thinking with these requirements in mind instead of about the physics limits the power spent otherwise. This mentality may also be why the physicist is called the poor philosophizer, yet in this muddled way we must strive.

When we receive individual bits of information, they mean nothing. being showed a graph of a box, and then another different, by itself does not mean they moved. It is only by thinking that the two are linked by the mental connection this box is the same and was displaced. There is nothing inherent about nows or isolated instances that gives character to space or time-like behavior in itself. It is a human creation to say space is what the box went through, and it had to have a rate of change.

It is tough not to use the same words over and over again when the same idea is repeated. I ran into this with "information" in my essay.

Best,

W. Amos.

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  • Post #37

Amos,

A very important point you bring up is that of "space being made out of the same thing as the matter in it." I noted that Einstein said, "there is no space absent of field."

I'm curious about other points in your essay. For example you say "there would have to be evidence to disprove [it from bit]" I would think that one would ask for evidence to prove it. The artwork is a very nice example, but it is an analogy, not a proof.

I'm confused by your claim that "the info is part made out of bits and part of the sum or big picture, and also that the laws of reality are nothing more themselves and compositions of bits" I certainly agree with you that the 'bit' take on the world is *useful* for some purposes, just as the derived concept of temperature is useful. But the world is not created from derived concepts, just conveniently described by them.

I was not aware of Fisher information before your essay. A review of Frieden's book on Fisher info claims it is at best mathematically equivalent to orthodoxy and adds nothing empirical, while it is associated with "some really bad metaphysics". Do you believe that is a mistaken interpretation?

You seem to be presenting a speculative approach to understanding information, and rightly claim that science is pursued by initially granting the truth of some statement, at least temporarily. So I am uncertain what you believe and what you are merely testing as speculative science. You've read my essay so you know that I believe that energy exchange produces information when the energy changes the state of (writes into) some system.

From comments above it seems that you base your idea of 'physical' information on Bell's Alice and Bob experiments. It is worth the effort to ask yourself what conclusions one would draw from these experiments if Bell had not stated his theorem "proving" that local reality is incompatible with the results. While most physicists apparently accept his theorem as the final word, there are still ongoing analyses of what is, in essence, a very simplistic theorem.

In any case, you have written a very nice essay. Thanks for participating, and good luck with your career!

Edwin Eugene Klingman

William

OK so "nonsense" equals not potentially knowable. And OK with your example in the sense that this incident, ie of a bus passing, will not occur (assuming this is mot a bus route and a bus just doesn't happen to use that roads!). The real point is it did not occur, so it is not potentially knowable.

"So what is the line between and all of the possibilities which don't exist "

Answer: whether it potentially could manifest to us. Something does not exist, for us, if it did not occur, or possibly occurred but not within the form of existence knowable to us. Because, for a scientific explanation of our physical existence, we cannot just 'make it up'. There has to be a basis built on, and a derivation confined by, what has proven experienceability. There are countless occurrences happening billions of miles away which we do not know, but they are potentially knowable. Nearer earth, there is an anomaly in an orbit which demonstrates that something else is there which we cannot detect directly.

"I take the stance of saying everything is knowable to us, and that which is unknowable eventually gets drawn into the knowable as we develop as thinkers and human beings"

No. Everything which is potentially knowable, is potentially knowable (apologies for the grammar). It is then a matter of whether we will get to know that or not. Although it appears superficially intellectual to start with no presumptions, this is not only not possible, it is wrong. Because we are part of existence, so there is an inherent presumption, and, putting that a different way, physical existence is not an abstract concept, it occurs in a definitive form. So, the danger in ignoring that and thinking 'all options are possible' is that one is selected which does not correspond with reality, as it is to us. Of course, having selected that then a theory based thereon can become self-fulfilling. If at any time there appears to be a contradiction, because actually it does not correspond with reality, one just invokes some corrective mechanism. The underlying problem being that since it has no real basis, then it is difficult to falsify.

Paul

Hello Klingman,

The basis of what I am saying there is that the information view is right until it is very evidently and clearly wrong, and may be pursued without harm up to that point where it may be a dead end. It's kind of like this. If you have a theory, say on heavily using information, and some experiment or observation shows support of not it but another theory which does justice to the numbers, then this is in a way evidence that disproves the info one, or at least makes it distasteful to one who like correspondence with reality in result. But also on the other side of it, if one has a theory of info with predictions, and confirmation of these garners support. So before any of these two happen or come to pass, there is the pursuit of an idea to develop it to the point where incoming experimental results can have a say on the issue. This is with any idea, and goes along the lines of presenting one's own thoughts cleary enough to be analyzed by another or a comunity.

On your second point, or should we say objection, I meant only that combining the view of information being manifest as a more physical quantity, like heat or resistence in a wire, would make it a canidate for treatment in physics like other ponderable bodies are, like energy even. Simply put, if information interaction lead to manifested physical states, they must be treated as such. This requires bringing a definition to information which is either physical in itself, or lets arise a physical situation.

Onto the third, everyone is entitled to their interpretation of a subject matter, but some better fit reality than others! Not being a mathematician with a keen sense of intuition in their field, I would be hard put to say whether it will be important in the long run or not. However, sometimes such less founded ideas act as important steps in problem solveing, even if they are temporary. I mainly included it as a counter point. But I would say it adds nothing new, but may be a new way to look at the old. In what it deals with entopy, there may be some value, but the bottom line is if it is useful, and this won't be known until some physics view is formulated that might benefit by being espoused to this type of information.

Dealing with the fourth, which may be molded with the last, I am speculatively proposing that information be delt with physically as an energy or it's own. This entails that information it worth a certain amount of energy, and it is the change of information which leads to energy chaning and not a physical change that excites a difference in information. The exactness of bringing a physical definition to info is up in the air, yet it is meant that info itself has physical qualities. Here, perhaps it comes to mind that this is like a carrier for a field, yet this is not known either without more than a feeling to back up the type of losely bound progression here. The only thing I can think of to help out Bell's friends have a more normal relationship is to suggest vaguely that if the local is to be compatible with experiments, then the other things measured must change somewhere, enabling a more realistic view of things. What these exacts are is a question to ponder, and I think you express a valid point in that old accepted results or interpretations of them need to be continuely questioned until understood enough in a different way to not raise the hairs on one's skin!

Thankful of the interest and valid points,

W. Amos.

William

The response to that is that they are not beliefs. Beliefs are assertions about the not knowable in the guise of statements about the knowable, or incorrect assessments of the knowable. What I say is just a simple generic (ie we still need to find out what occurs) statement about how we are aware of existence and how that must occur.

Paul

6 days later

Hello, William!

I enjoyed reading your essay! Very pleased with your non-trivial view of the researcher. It makes delve further into the concepts of "information". "matter". "space", "time", to reach the most remote of meanings, a new look at the philosophical foundations of physics and mathematics and information theory. Good luck in the contest, Vladimir

Vladimir R.,

Your comment is too kind, yet thank you for the wish of luck and looking into it philosophically. I look forward to reading your essay, and am sure it will be enjoyable!

Best,

W.A.C.

Dear William

You have a very practical desire, perhaps the only thing missing is a solution.

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1802

    Hai,

    Thank you for linking your essay to mine in favor of the common interest of a reader.

    Best,

    W. Amos Carine

    4 days later

    Hello William,

    Nice to read your essay - I wonder if the code to which you refer could be linked to the Fibonacci sequence, which has been my approach?

    Beautiful drawing included and well utilised example that information leads to a bigger reality.

    Interesting take - best wishes,

    Antony

      Hello Ryan,

      The code I was vaguely identifying was the idea that all physics comes from information and that if we figure out how and what that information transfers, then we would better understand pur laws, and perhaps come up with a few more. So if this ties into the sequence mentioned, I do not have the mathematical skills or haunch to boast about it, though it may be likely that there is some link.

      And it is a great piece of artwork, so expressive in its plain use of color and shading. The artist girl has talent. I'm sure you could send her a fb request and say you saw a drawing in my essay, to see more of her work.

      Hoping you take care,

      W. Amos Carine.

      Hello William,

      I may very well do that, as I'm keen on art. The mathematics isn't too tough for Fiboancci - each number is the sum of the previous two, so 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 etc, etc. This also extends to the negatives. -3, 2, -1, 1, 0.

      A theory away from the contest I've developed stores information geometrically, so I applied it to singularities for this contest to explore what happens to information "if" it falls into a Black Hole to determine It from Bit or Bit from It.

      All the best,

      Antony

      Antony,

      That sounds like a very interesting bit of argumentation. I'll have to read your essay and look for references for the outside-the-contest papers.

      Is a singularity different than a boundary? Boundaries seem unnatural to any view of the world which try's to encapsulate the whole of nature in one picture like physics does. This is the boundary of a line or point. One of the beauties of relativity in its general form is that the boundary or line between our universe and empty space, envisaged in old Newtonian schemes, is the disappearance of the end of the universe boundary line. Instead, light bends around the edges of the universe, it never "goes on forever" or to infinity (and beyond!). So the natural question arises, are blackholes an "edge" or are they mapped out by physical, geometrical means. Also, is the inside of a black hole uniform, or is that a silly question because, by contraction of figures to their plane form by S.R., the edges really get compacted to a stop in this scenerio. Either way, I think the finite yet unbound view concerning light paths and the presence of black bodies solved for by G.R. give physicists two clues.

      Best,

      W. Amos Carine

      Dear Hai,

      Thank you for your emphatic argumentation. You set up a mighty defense. I find it tough to wage charges on relativity in physical theory when its road has not been taken to its rightful end. It's an argument against a group of theories which acknowledge their incompleteness. It is good enough to be aware of these problems and try to resolve them. Also, stressing strict determinism has negative effects for a realistic approach. It seems like an inner mental vein which feeds on itself and takes up human resources for contemplation of other problems, and hence the "whole picture."

      Hope the research works out for you, but I have no applicability of ideas in this submission for the essay contest.

      Best,

      W. Amos Carine.

      Hello William,

      My extended theory isn't published yet. Interesting point re- boundaries. I'll have to go away to think about this. Fascinating thoughts here!

      Best wishes,

      Antony

      William,

      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

        Hello Jim,

        That would be quite the feat! I have read through some that interest me by title or subject, and always try to return the favor of those who have read and commented here. My thinking is that if others have interest, it in their work will likely be reciprocated by me. The essay batch content seems to be quite relevant to what is going on in physics outside of the contest as well. The essays I see on this contest have topics that come up in more journal-like papers, and those papers often hint at ideas discussed in these essays. So to this end, I will give it a look.

        Best of luck with the reading,

        W. Amos Carine.

        13 days later

        William,

        I found your essay very insightful and well expressed! I like your analogy of using the drawing by artist Taylor Marie to bring across your point, excellent example.

        I would like to ask you some questions if I may via email. My email address is msm@physicsofdestiny.com or please inform me of your email address in your response to my comments.

        Thanks,

        Manuel