Gravity and the Nature of Information by Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Edwin,

I have down loaded your essay and soon post my comments on it. Mean while, please, go through my essay and post your comments.

Regards and good luck in the contest.

Sreenath BN.

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1827

Hi Edwin,

A Big Bang Universe (BBU) is not a self-creating entity. This is extremely hard to explain and comprehend, yet crucial if we are to comprehend quantum mechanics (which to me seems a prerequisite to develop quantum gravity), to understand our universe. Though like you ''I do not see reality as something we could step outside of'', we actually do so in Big Bang Cosmology (BBC) as the entire 'theory' is drafted from an imaginary observation post outside of it. The psychological barrier we have to overcome seems to be that even the hard core atheists among us, tend to think about ourselves as having an absolute existence, transcending the universe, as if there's Someone outside of it with respect to which we exist, Who is witness to our existence, a habit from times when we believed to be at the center of God's attention, the idea which caused Galilei so much trouble when he questioned it.

If there would be only a single charged particle in the entire universe, then it wouldn't be able to express its charge in interactions. Since it in that case it cannot be charged itself, charge, or any property, for that matter, must be something which is shared by particles, something which only exists, is expressed and preserved within their interactions: the 'its' indeed are as much the cause as the effect of the (exchange of) bits so you cannot have one without the other.

Similarly, in the seemingly innocent assumption that we can regard the universe as an ordinary object which has particular properties as a whole, which change IN time, we actually assume there's something outside of it it interacts with, owes its properties to, and, implicitly, that it has been created by something outside of it. This is why I say that a BBU lives in a time (and space) realm not of its own making, that it is not a self-creating (or self-contained) entity. BBC, in looking at the universe like we may imagine God to look at His creation, in fact paints a religious picture of the universe. Evidently, this attitude can be justified only if and when the inside objects only are the cause of interactions, not when we have to concede that particles they are built out of, ultimately must be as much the cause as the effect of their interactions. Indeed, the fact that the meter, second, gram and joule are not defined outside the universe already takes any significance out of any statement about the universe BBC cares to make. If it does not make any sense to speak about its properties as 'seen' from without, then we also cannot speak about its properties, as a whole, as seen from within. This is what I mean when I say that, unlike a BBU, a Self-Creating Universe (SCU) does not live in a time realm not of its own making. While a BBU is thought to be quite homogenous and isotropic, about the same everywhere (but not at all times: a BBC obeys the Cosmological Principle (CP)), as if it 'contains' a single, unique reality, in a SCU where we can only make statements from within, any observer, no matter when he lives and where he looks from, sees objects in all possible phases of their evolution, and, unlike in a BBU, not as they were in ''the'' past. Though a SCU obeys the Perfect Cosmological Principle (PCP), it shouldn't be confused with Hoyle's Steady State Universe as this suffers the same conceptual flaw as a BBU, as it is thought about from an imaginary observation post outside of it. Indeed, if to avoid having an outside Creator, we must discard causality, and hence the concept of cosmic time, then we can no longer determine what in an absolute sense precedes what and say that the emission of a photon by A causally precedes its absorption by B. In a SCU an observer doesn't see a distant galaxy as it was in a distant past but as it is at present to him.

In the 'virtual particle' description in my previous post I proposed that the energy a particle has according to a nearby observer contains contributions from all particles within its interaction horizon. While in a BBU it is the same cosmic time everywhere (ignoring the effect of gravitational fields on clock paces) so a photon has to travel at finite velocity so its contribution to the energy of the observed particle originate in a distant past, in a SCU they contribute in real time to its energy, no matter their spacetime distance to the particle. If you agree that particles only exist to each other if and for as long as they interact, exchange energy (so they in some sense can be said to exist 'out of each other') and have no physical reality to an observer who doesn't physically interact with them, who finds himself outside their interaction horizon, their universe, then in this sense to him everything inside of it cancels, is unobservable so he cannot make any statement about that universe. So my objection to BBC isn't just that as we cannot step outside of it to actually observe what happens inside of it, we cannot say anything about it; it is because in a universe which obeys the law which says that what comes out of nothing must add to nothing, everything inside of it must cancel so there's nothing 'left' for an imaginary outside observer to observe, unlike a BBU where the observer would find things to look at.

To be continued in the next post

Though at macroscopic scale a property of an object indeed is what the dictionary says it is, something it privately owns, only the cause of its interactions, independent from interactions, here the observer doesn't affect the observed in a perceptible manner. If, as classical mechanics, big bang cosmology and general relativity assumes that the properties of objects are eternally unchangeable, they obviously can, in principle, be observed without being affected by the observation, so in this, outdated, view, there indeed exists an objectively observable reality at the origin of our observations: as Einstein said: ''We all, more or less in the same way, say that a rose is red, smells like perfume, and feels like velvet. In other words, there is an objective reality which is conceived by the senses, and behind this objective reality are natural laws which are the privilege of the scientist to discover.'' However, things are entirely different at quantum level: if particles are both cause and effect of their interactions so the particles of the rose and those of the observer contribute to each other's energy, each other's properties, then he cannot observe the rose as it is since without his own existence it wouldn't be the exact same rose. Though as a rose is a macroscopic object, the effect of the observer on the rose is negligible, at quantum level an observing particle does affect the observed particle to the extent they are 'made out of each other', exchange energy. Einstein continues: ''Nature doesn't know chance, it operates on mathematical principles. As I have said so many times, God doesn't play dice with the world.'' Though despite this statement, he said that he didn't believe in God, in insisting on causality, on determinism (which made him reject quantum mechanics), he actually did, the result of which is that general relativity in its adaptation to big bang cosmology became corrupted.

I am well aware that what I propose constitutes a completely different paradigm so cannot be understood very well in the terms of the present one: ''To adopt a new theory or paradigm means to accept a completely novel conceptual scheme that has so little in common with that of the older; now rejected, theory that the two theories are "incommensurable," for no objective yardstick exists that makes it possible to compare them. Furthermore, as the meaning of every scientific term in a given theory depends upon the theoretical context in which it occurs, even the individual scientific terms of the new theory are incommensurable with the terms of the old one, despite the fact that the same terminology is often retained.'' (''Concepts of Mass in Physics and Philosophy'' M. Jammer, p 57)

Regards, Anton

Edwin, make no mistake, I meant "logical and daring" as a high compliment. Logical is fairly easy, and daring is even easier, but it is often very hard to combine them. Keep it up. Mark

Dear

Thank you for presenting your nice essay. I saw the abstract and will post my comments soon.

So you can produce material from your thinking. . . .

I am requesting you to go through my essay also. And I take this opportunity to say, to come to reality and base your arguments on experimental results.

I failed mainly because I worked against the main stream. The main stream community people want magic from science instead of realty especially in the subject of cosmology. We all know well that cosmology is a subject where speculations rule.

Hope to get your comments even directly to my mail ID also. . . .

Best

=snp

snp.gupta@gmail.com

http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.com/

Pdf download:

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/essay-download/1607/__details/Gupta_Vak_FQXi_TABLE_REF_Fi.pdf

Part of abstract:

- -Material objects are more fundamental- - is being proposed in this paper; It is well known that there is no mental experiment, which produced material. . . Similarly creation of matter from empty space as required in Steady State theory or in Bigbang is another such problem in the Cosmological counterpart. . . . In this paper we will see about CMB, how it is generated from stars and Galaxies around us. And here we show that NO Microwave background radiation was detected till now after excluding radiation from Stars and Galaxies. . . .

Some complements from FQXi community. . . . .

A

Anton Lorenz Vrba wrote on May. 4, 2013 @ 13:43 GMT

....... I do love your last two sentences - that is why I am coming back.

Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on May. 6, 2013 @ 09:24 GMT

. . . . We should use our minds to down to earth realistic thinking. There is no point in wasting our brains in total imagination which are never realities. It is something like showing, mixing of cartoon characters with normal people in movies or people entering into Game-space in virtual reality games or Firing antimatter into a black hole!!!. It is sheer a madness of such concepts going on in many fields like science, mathematics, computer IT etc. . . .

B.

Francis V wrote on May. 11, 2013 @ 02:05 GMT

Well-presented argument about the absence of any explosion for a relic frequency to occur and the detail on collection of temperature data......

C

Robert Bennett wrote on May. 14, 2013 @ 18:26 GMT

"Material objects are more fundamental"..... in other words "IT from Bit" is true.

Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on May. 14, 2013 @ 22:53 GMT

1. It is well known that there is no mental experiment, which produced material.

2. John Wheeler did not produce material from information.

3. Information describes material properties. But a mere description of material properties does not produce material.

4. There are Gods, Wizards, and Magicians, allegedly produced material from nowhere. But will that be a scientific experiment?

D

Hoang cao Hai wrote on Jun. 16, 2013 @ 16:22 GMT

It from bit - where are bit come from?

Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on Jun. 17, 2013 @ 06:10 GMT

....And your question is like asking, -- which is first? Egg or Hen?-- in other words Matter is first or Information is first? Is that so? In reality there is no way that Matter comes from information.

Matter is another form of Energy. Matter cannot be created from nothing. Any type of vacuum cannot produce matter. Matter is another form of energy. Energy is having many forms: Mechanical, Electrical, Heat, Magnetic and so on..

E

Antony Ryan wrote on Jun. 23, 2013 @ 22:08 GMT

.....Either way your abstract argument based empirical evidence is strong given that "a mere description of material properties does not produce material". While of course materials do give information.

I think you deserve a place in the final based on this alone. Concise - simple - but undeniable.

Hello Ed,

I greatly enjoyed reading your paper. It was well-reasoned and you make a great case for your main point. I find a lot to agree with, but as you know I find the Platonic view appealing. Why can't we all just get along?

It is my opinion that your main point is well supported by the logic and evidence you cite, and that your Plato bashing is a side trip - wholly unnecessary to your point or its establishment. So I'll treat that separately later, once my own essay has posted.

All in all, yours is an excellent paper. I got mine in early on the final day, so I imagine it will appear by Tuesday or Wednesday, but that my paper is one of many in a queue.

All the Best,

Jonathan

On Platonism,

It's interesting Ed; I think our stance on the archetypal aspect of Math has a lot to say about the way we got to our present view. What kept me in the Physics game for many years was my investigation of the Mandelbrot Set and how the progression of form at the periphery relates to Cosmology.

So I've spent a lot of time wondering about why a purely mathematical object might influence or shape the evolution of the Cosmos - because I already had the absolute conviction that such a connection exists. I was scheduled to give a talk on this at FFP12, but never made it to Udine - and it has sat on my shelf.

But I am not ready to totally give up on the MUH or other types of mathematical Platonism, as that is what brought me to the table, or is the horse I rode in on. Who knows? I might need a way to get home. And I'll say more when my essay posts. In the meanwhile; I think I see a way our ideas can coexist.

Regards,

Jonathan

Hello again,

I wanted to comment that I especially liked your comments on linearizing equations. My take is that it is not so much a trick of abstract geometry, nor a matter of conflating a mathematical reality with the physical, as it is a tendency to ignore the fact a simplifying assumption was made.

It is common, for example, to replace Cos (theta) with 1 for a small angular displacement. But this breaks down, once there is more than a tiny excursion. As you point out; the behavior of the system is not linearized at all, but the key point is that the assumption that allows linearization of a non-linear equation has a limited range of applicability.

Regards,

Jonathan

Thanks, Edwin. It's a delightful essay full of pearls of wisdom, seemingly simple concepts but steeped in meaning and nuance. I'm impressed.

Perhaps in my simple way I touch upon some of your concepts, probably because you open so many boxes.

Jim

Hi Edwin

It's nice to read you again. You did such an excellent job that I'm afraid I have no points of disagreement. I'm interested in your work because I think we have many points of common, specially, we are suggesting simplicity in theories.

I only have a request. In your work you claim that GR (and perhaps QM) can be derived from your formulation. Of course, the space in this essay is so short that one cannot put all the information. So I'd be glad, if it's not much to ask, if you could show me the derivation of Einstein's equations (and QM if you have it) according to your formulation. Do you have any publication about the derivation?

As well, I wonder if your approach make some new predictions. do you have any comments?

You also say: Gravity is a field, not abstract geometry.

I definitely agree. I'd like to invite you to read my essay and leave some comments. There I discuss about Wheeler's dream and propose a potential way to get out of the present crisis assuming also that space is not geometry.

I'll be looking forward to hearing any comments you may have.

Regards

Israel

Let me answer mathematically.

One can speak of smooth, topological, and measurable objects and spaces - and relations between same. Waves and fields require spaces that admit smooth relations, and this is considered a looser condition than topological or measurable, which are respectively more strictly defined. I first saw this hierarchy spelled out in a 2000 paper by Connes, but I understand it forms the basis for differential geometry and topology.

However; this all comes into play more or less automatically, when considering how some of the very simplest forms arise. An unbroken space possesses the quality of oneness, or not-two, but the presence of an observer (of whatever form) induces a sense of toward and away from some center. But consider a loop in the C-field and the induced geometry - as it is analogous. A circle is a topological object, having an inside and outside, and a 1-dimensional face, but the space is no longer unbroken - oneness is now divided.

Somehow; even though you have but one field, the whole of Mathematics comes into play as it evolves and complex form emerges.

More later,

Jonathan

Ah so My Friend,

I had the pleasure to share a meal with and hear a lecture from Ram Gopal Vishwakarma a few years back, when in Port Angeles for CCC-2. As I recall; he was a student and later colleague of Narlikar, and presented a cyclical universe model at that conference. I think that work may have been related to his essay offering, focusing on one of the solutions mentioned.

And I am very happy to have inspired you by promoting Kauffmann's paper on an upper bound for concentrations of energy. It is interesting that the point of how energy and even gravity are self gravitating is missed. But the subtle point that this leads to an upper bound for energy concentrations is all too easy to miss entirely, so we owe bold thinkers like Steven Kenneth Kauffmann, Christoph, and Gibbons a vote of thanks.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Let me expound further here;

You speak of one thing acting upon itself, and it is notable that the one free standing form which can arise and propagate in a single medium (physical systems in nature) is the torus, as is the case with smoke rings. Now of course; the loop or circle constructed above is actually a special case of a torus. If, as in String Theory, we consider the curved field line to be a flux tube - this analogy is made explicit.

But the question of the dimensionality of the space inhabited by such a loop is not a trivial one. I am coming to favor a bi-metric view of the early universe, where one must keep track of both an upper bound and a lower bound upon the array of dimensions that has evolved at a particular stage of the universe's evolution. If the space in which we reside has a non-trivial topology, at this point, that has some interesting consequences we have discussed elsewhere, but its relevance rests upon the very nature of topology.

So the question of whether such Maths are pre-existing is moot.

Regards,

Jonathan

Hi Edwin,

I really enjoyed reading your essay. It is lucid, well argued and relevant.I thought it was an interesting approach to the question. I liked your introduction referring to the illustration of the two pointing men and how easy it was to just keep reading to the end. Good luck, Georgina