Spacetime weave - Bit as the connection between Its or the informational content of spacetime by Torsten Asselmeyer-Maluga

Torsten,

Really a wonderful entry, which I think very naturally connects the work you've been doing to the concept of discrete information. If I understand things correctly, you diverge from Wheeler's original idea of a "Bit" by using the handle decomposition of spacetime as a *set* of discrete data, rather than the binary YES/NO which Wheeler envisioned. I wonder if you consider this to be fundamental - can we not reduce this set down further to a set of binary questions? Can this be done in a unique way?

Two additional sections I was particularly interested in. Emphasizing that there is not a unique algorithm to differentiate between two fundamental groups is an interesting choice - it suggests there is quite a bit more to talk about. In Wheeler's view I suppose this would mean that the fundamental group is not part of the fundamental apparatus?

You also bring up a result which I was not familiar with, and that is the connection between sphere bundles and the gravitational interaction. It seems that maybe the geometric models you have been working with might provide a path to a proof of this?

In any case, really great entry for the contest; clear, thought-provoking, and novel. I wish you the best of luck!

Chris Duston

Chris,

thanks for the excellent question. In my opinion, every discrete information cane transformed into a sequence of yes/no question. But I think you are interested in the concrete example of a 4-manifold.

Has the handle (attached to the 4-ball) an index larger than 2?

Yes: it is a 3-handle

NO: Has it index 2? No: It is a 1-handle

Yes: Now I have to ask question about the attaching of the 2-handle, i.e. you have to ask about the knot. (For instance, use the braid representation of the knot and ask about the generators: Do you produce an overcrossing of the first two strands of the braid? etc.)

For the next handle start again with these questions.

The problem with the fundamental group is a little bit more puzzeling. You can do an experiment to determine the fundamental group. You can also describe this group by yes/no question but you cannot reproduce your experiment. So, the fundamental group is part of the apparatus but you cannot decide whether this group is isomorphic to the fundamental group of the second experiment.

Yes, I have a proof for the sphere bundle/graviton equivalence but it is not in good shape to present it. The main idea is the usage of a Cartan connection. Then one may ask what characterizes a (simple-connected) spin 4-manifold. Using Freedman: the Euler characteristics and the signature. Both invariants can be expressed as integrals over the Euler and Pontrjagin form, respectively.

Then using the sphere bundles and the Cartan connection one can change these invariants into the Einstein-Hilbert action (plus the cosmological constant) and into the other part of the Holst action (with Immirizi parameter).

As soon I will complete this construction you will get the paper.

Thanks for the wishes

Torsten

Torsten,

I finally got a little bit of time to write more on what I had mused about a couple of weeks ago. This all seems to center in a way around a type of cobordism with respect to these replacements of handles or Casson handles. The replacement of a circle with a knot suggests a type of theory that involves Hopf links. The trefoil for instance is by the Jones polynomial such that a left - right trefoil equals a Hopf link.

The manifold constructed from the knot K is

M_k = ((M^3\D^2xS^1)xS^1)∪_T^3 ((S^3\(D^2xK))xS^1).

On the left the R^1 in M^4 = M^3xR is replaced by S^1, and we can think of the S^1 as a periodic cycle with a real number line as a covering. Think of a wheel rolling on the real number line, or a spiral covering of a circle. In this setting the crux of the matter involves replacing a circle S^1 with a knot K. Physically this avoids topologies with circular time or closed timelike loops such as the Godel universe. The S^1 to the right of each expression is the embedding "time cycle" and the three manifolds of interest are (M^3\D^2xS^1) and S^3\(D^2xK). In a thin sandwich, a narrow section of spacetime separated by two spatial surfaces, we may think of the bottom spatial surface or bread slice as (M^3\D^2xS^1) and the second one as S^3\(D^2xK). We might further be so bold as to say the bottom surface is a left handed trefoil and there is a superposition of two surfaces, one with a right handed trefoil and the other with two S^1s in a link. There is then a type of cobordism between the bottom slice of bread and the top, which in this case might be a map from (M^3\D^2xS^1) ∪_T^3 S^3\(D^2xLT), for LT = left refoil to (M^3\D^2xS^1★S^1)∪_T^3 S^3\(D^2xRT). There the star means linking.

This is a theory of topology change in spacetime, or of some underlying topological change in topology which still maintains an "overall smooth" structure. This is then a type of topological quantum field theory (TQFT). A TQFT just means a theory that is a quantum field theory up to homotopy. This is a way of looking at fields (eg the knots as Wilson loops of fields) according to the underlying space they exist on. This approach amounts to cutting up the space into pieces, examining the fields there and then looking at the entire ensemble (pieces up back). This then has an underlying locality to it this way. However, the connection between knot polynomials and quantum groups indicates there is also something nonlocal as well.

This conjecture means that TQFT assigns data to all possible geometric element to a space, from a 0-dim point to the full manifold in an n-dim cobordism. For a space of n-dimensions there is a functor F

F:bord_n^f --- > A

For A an algebra. The algebra is the generator of the group G = quantum group. Physically the algebra corresponds to the connection coefficients A which form the Wilson loops ∮A•dx = ∫∫∇•Ada (to express this according to basic physics). This is a sort of Grothendieck topos or category system, which relates a knot group with a cobordism. I conjecture that a complete understanding of this system is a TQFT.

I will write in greater detail later on this, for I have sketched out some of this. Physically (or philosophically if you will) the description of spacetime this way is I think equivalent to a description of TQFT in general. In fact one result of the AdS/CFT correspondence is that a 4-spacetime as the boundary of an AdS_5 is equivalent to 10-dim supergravity. The exotic structure of 4-dim manifolds may then be a manifestation of 10-dim supergravity.

I copied this on my essay blog site, so if you respond to this there I get an email alert.

Cheers LC

from my blog page:

Torsten,

I have more of this sketched out. I wanted to write further today, but I got busy reviewing a paper. As for a classical invariant, check out Agung Budiyono's paper. It is the sort of idea of quantum mechanics that sends most quantum physicists screaming in horror. This is a stochastic approach to QM which along with the Bohm QM is weak, but these ideas I think can have their place.

Cheers LC

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.

Dear Torsten,

I have down loaded your essay and soon post my comments on it. Meanwhile, 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

Torsten,

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

Dear Torsten,

You have tried a novel geometric approach to solve the problem existing between space, time and matter by identifying space-time first with Bit, then with It (that is matter); hence you could write space-time = Bit = It = matter. But how far this could be true when you say that space-time is a 'smooth' four dimensional manifold and out of which you can construct a 'discrete' manifold in order to identify it with the Bit? In other words, how do you 'quantize' smooth space-time in to a Bit?

Secondly, how do you link the collapse of the wave function to the gravitational interaction? Is it sheer imagination?

Wish you best of luck in the essay contest.

Sreenath

DearTorsten Asselmeyer-Maluga:

I am an old physician that does not know nothing of mathematics and almost nothing of physics. Why I am writing you?, because I think I can hel in some ways in "space-time" with the experimental meaning of "time" I send you a summary so you can decide in reading or not my essay "The deep nature of reality"

I am convince you would be interested in reading it. ( most people don't understand it, and is not just because of my bad English) "Hawking, A brief history of time" where he said , "Which is the nature of time?" yes he don't know what time is, and also continue saying............Some day this answer could seem to us "obvious", as much than that the earth rotate around the sun....." In fact the answer is "obvious", but how he could say that, if he didn't know what's time? In fact he is predicting that is going to be an answer, and that this one will be "obvious", I think that with this adjective, he is implying simple and easy to understand. Maybe he felt it and couldn't explain it with words. We have anthropologic proves that man measure "time" since more than 30.000 years ago, much, much later came science, mathematics and physics that learn to measure "time" from primitive men, adopted the idea and the systems of measurement, but also acquired the incognita of the experimental "time" meaning. Out of common use physics is the science that needs and use more the measurement of what everybody calls "time" and the discipline came to believe it as their own. I always said that to understand the "time" experimental meaning there is not need to know mathematics or physics, as the "time" creators and users didn't. Instead of my opinion I would give Einstein's "Ideas and Opinions" pg. 354 "Space, time, and event, are free creations of human intelligence, tools of thought" he use to call them pre-scientific concepts from which mankind forgot its meanings, he never wrote a whole page about "time" he also use to evade the use of the word, in general relativity when he refer how gravitational force and speed affect "time", he does not use the word "time" instead he would say, speed and gravitational force slows clock movement or "motion", instead of saying that slows "time". FQXi member Andreas Albrecht said that. When asked the question, "What is time?", Einstein gave a pragmatic response: "Time," he said, "is what clocks measure and nothing more." He knew that "time" was a man creation, but he didn't know what man is measuring with the clock.

I insist, that for "measuring motion" we should always and only use a unique: "constant" or "uniform" "motion" to measure "no constant motions" "which integrates and form part of every change and transformation in every physical thing. Why? because is the only kind of "motion" whose characteristics allow it, to be divided in equal parts as Egyptians and Sumerians did it, giving born to "motion fractions", which I call "motion units" as hours, minutes and seconds. "Motion" which is the real thing, was always hide behind time, and covert by its shadow, it was hide in front everybody eyes, during at least two millenniums at hand of almost everybody. Which is the difference in physics between using the so-called time or using "motion"?, time just has been used to measure the "duration" of different phenomena, why only for that? Because it was impossible for physicists to relate a mysterious time with the rest of the physical elements of known characteristics, without knowing what time is and which its physical characteristics were. On the other hand "motion" is not something mysterious, it is a quality or physical property of all things, and can be related with all of them, this is a huge difference especially for theoretical physics I believe. I as a physician with this find I was able to do quite a few things. I imagine a physicist with this can make marvelous things.

With my best whishes

Héctor

Hi Torsten,

Thanks for a very informative essay.

I agree with you on the important role that S3 can play in cosmology, and have developed a model using compactified Minkowski space S3xU1 for dynamics. In my Software Cosmos essay the overall picture is the simulation paradigm, and I show how using S3 can address several observational puzzles in cosmology.

Perhaps my model has some usefulness to your research; in any case I would love to hear what you think of it.

Hugh

Hi Torsten,

The main reason for joining this contest was not to win, but to see if I can get any professional physicist with interest in foundational issues, to evaluate my idea. I appreciate any criticism no matter how harsh, although I do prefer constructive ones. I have rated you fairly high ( I follow up on your work regularly), but as I said I don't care for rating mine, but that is your prerogative. I will also ask you some basic questions about your theory a bit later.

Many thanks

Adel

Nice Paper. Worth reading again.

I liked the introduction to Von Weizsacker. I wish I could read this reference in English.

Similar conclusion to Lawrence Crowell's paper --> undecidable.

Interesting ideas. I'm not sure if I agree with them, but worth thinking about:

- because of diffeomorphism invariance, spacetime itself is the Bit.

- gravitation enforces the state reduction after a measurement.

I agree, time is the big issue. Wheeler identified this long ago, and the standard quantum formalism in Hilbert space contains hidden assumptions regarding a background for time.

Is this a task for the future? I think other papers in this contest (and previous ones going back to 2008) are likely to have already made major headway on this task.

Overall, the paper covers too much ground. Everything from information theory to Higgs. I suspect the author would have done better to focus and be clear on one or two concepts, instead of so many.

I still enjoyed it very much, and will read other works from this author.

Dr. Torsten

Richard Feynman in his Nobel Acceptance Speech (http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-lecture.html)

said: "It always seems odd to me that the fundamental laws of physics, when discovered, can appear in so many different forms that are not apparently identical at first, but with a little mathematical fiddling you can show the relationship. And example of this is the Schrodinger equation and the Heisenberg formulation of quantum mechanics. I don't know why that is - it remains a mystery, but it was something I learned from experience. There is always another way to say the same thing that doesn't look at all like the way you said it before. I don't know what the reason for this is. I think it is somehow a representation of the simplicity of nature."

I too believe in the simplicity of nature, and I am glad that Richard Feynman, a Nobel-winning famous physicist, also believe in the same thing I do, but I had come to my belief long before I knew about that particular statement.

The belief that "Nature is simple" is however being expressed differently in my essay "Analogical Engine" linked to http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1865 .

Specifically though, I said "Planck constant is the Mother of All Dualities" and I put it schematically as: wave-particle ~ quantum-classical ~ gene-protein ~ analogy- reasoning ~ linear-nonlinear ~ connected-notconnected ~ computable-notcomputable ~ mind-body ~ Bit-It ~ variation-selection ~ freedom-determinism ... and so on.

Taken two at a time, it can be read as "what quantum is to classical" is similar to (~) "what wave is to particle." You can choose any two from among the multitudes that can be found in our discourses.

I could have put Schrodinger wave ontology-Heisenberg particle ontology duality in the list had it comes to my mind!

Since "Nature is Analogical", we are free to probe nature in so many different ways. And you have touched some corners of it.

With regards,

Than Tin

Dear Torsten,

I was informed about your interesting idea of `the geometrization of matter' by one of the participants. I have, in fact, also used this concept in my essay which may interest you. It has been shown there that the matter fields (as well as the gravitational fields) are represented by the metric field of the so-called `vacuum' Einstein field equations and the energy-stress tensor is a redundant part of Einstein's theory.

You claim that spacetime is the Bit. What about matter in the new perspective?

Best Regards.

___Ram