Hi, Roger!

Your line of thinking, I fully support. Quite timely to raise the question: «What is the fundamental building block of existence?»

I agree with your conclusion: «Based on this, I suggest that more and faster progress towards a deeper understanding of the nature of existence could be made if we argued less about whether or not to call the fundamental building block of existence an" it "or a "bit" and worked more on figuring out what the properties of a generic existent state might be and how these properties could be used to build a model of the universe. »

I would add only the dialectic - the dialectic of absolute forms of existence of matter. I invite you to see my essay. I wish you every success, Vladimir

    Vladimir,

    Hi. Thanks for reading my essay and the feedback! I look forward to reading your essay, too!

    Roger

    Roger,

    Nice concise and to the point. In many ways I agree; and while I emphasized the importance of Bit in my essay (i.e. how does form 'know' how to form?), I concluded my own writing w/ a similar conclusion that says both It and Bit are necessary/fundamental. I think the arguing over which is more important is somewhat pointless; because as you seem to be driving at each one sort of loses its identity/usefulness if not seen in the context of the other.

    All the best,

    John

      John,

      Hi. Thanks for reading the essay and the feedback! I agree that it doesn't seem the most effective use of time to argue about which is more important. I would just like to see our leading academic physicists and philosopher use a bottom-up type reasoning process and move on from the it/bit, analog/digital type debates.

      I look forward to reading your essay! Thanks.

      Roger

      Dear Roger

      Yes - It from Bit or Bit from It? Maybe, It Doesn't Matter - it is important that true nature of them.

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

        Hoang,

        Hi. Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate it.

        Roger

        10 days later

        Hi Roger,

        Nice essay. I can see that we have a similar way of thinking, keep it simple and start with a bottom-up approach.

        I also started my theory with the simplest thing I could find (for me, it was a bit of two states: existence/non-existence). But if you consider this bit as a sphere and just add simple spheres around the first sphere, your world looses coherence if you suppose that all the spheres are the simplest thing (you can't apply the 4PiR2 formula anymore because your R is now 2). I have found a solution to that problem in my theory.

        I think that you will understand what I mean if you read my essay. If you like my ideas then you might want to read my 3D Universe Theory.

        Cheers,

        Patrick

        Patrick,

        Hi. Thanks for the comments! I look forward to reading your essay. Because there are so many of them, it's been hard to keep up, but I'll check it out.

        Good luck on your thinking and in the contest.

        Roger

          Hi Roger,

          just to let you know I've read your essay, teeny tiny text wasn't helpful : ) Felt a bit like you had thrown the towel in by calling both information and material an existent state, before the match had really begun. You could have concluded it there, with 'don't bother about it any more'. Nevertheless read it to the end and found it an enjoyable,comprehensible, not too long read. Good luck, Georgina

          Georgina,

          Hi. Thank you for reading the essay. I don't agree that arguing that "it" and "bit" are basically the same thing, existent entities, is a waste of time as you apparently do.

          Roger

          Roger

          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

          7 days later

          Dear Roger,

          I have down loaded your essay and soon post my comments on it. Meanwhile, please, go through my essay and post your comments. Perhaps, the biology section of my essay interests you.

          Regards and good luck in the contest.

          Sreenath BN.

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

            Sreenath,

            Hi. Thanks in advance for any comments you might have on my essay. Sorry about the small font. I typed it on a text editor and it looked fine on my home computer, but I guess that didn't translate to the PDF format. I'm going to check your essay out right now.

            I have no illusions about getting anywhere in these contests, and that's one reason I made my essay short. Sometimes, I think they're just a way for the academics to keep us amateurs busy and off their backs. But, I do appreciate those few academics who actually read our essays and respond to our comments. That speaks highly of them.

            Sorry for the cynicism, and I wish you luck in your own thinking! See you!

            Roger

            Dear Roger,

            Thanks for your brief but lucid essay and in which you are thinking of building a model of the universe by figuring out what the properties of a generic existent states are. So in this model the priority between It and Bit is only of secondary importance and this approach you call "philosophical engineering". In this very terminology, "philosophical engineering", according to me, everything is contained which can be used/ applied to build the model of our universe. This is good thinking as you are trying to unite fundamentals of our philosophical thinking with the technology to achieve the above goal. If this technology is bio- technology, for me it looks good because our mind/ brain is an off-shoot of this bio- technology in a broad sense. This sort of explanation also satisfies you too, for you are a molecular biologist.

            Have you developed a simple physical-mechanical model of an expanding space that displays symmetry breaking and energy creation?

            You don't have to be a cynic in your life but on the contrary be always optimistic just the way I am till we achieve the goal we have set up for ourselves is reached and in reaching that you find happiness in your life.

            All the best in your endeavor,

            Sreenath

            • [deleted]

            • Post #36

            Sreenath,

            Thanks for the encouragement! I'm still trying in my spare time to work on my ideas and hope to make progress on them someday! I agree that we have to never give up.

            Pretty much the simple physical-mechanical model of an expanding space that displays symmetry breaking and energy creation is the one I had in my essay, that is space is made of the existent entities that make replicas of themselves. As these spherical entities overlap and create pressure on, and push against, each other, this leads to shape changes in and energy transferral between the spheres. It's very complicated to model shape changes in flexible spheres after you get out to even the second or third layers of spheres, so it's taking time, but I think it leads naturally to transfer of energy at a constant speed no matter what the energy, as in a photon. I'm still working on it, though.

            Good luck in your thinking, too!

            Roger

            Hi Roger,

            Good to see you here again. The first part of your paper reminds me a little of another entry, written by Sundance Bilson-Thompson. His is also very short.

            I can see that your example with the packed spheres you are trying to construct a model for an existent state with a minimum of assumptions, but somehow the model still seems a little contrived, in fact I was reminded of your professional background where I imagine one frequently sees models similar to the one you mention as representations of molecules. However, I commend you for sticking your neck out and making an attempt.

            To me, the question of whether or not something exists is incomplete, because it does not specify where it is that the thing's existence is asked about. It is natural for us to assume that everything exists in spacetime, but is it not possible that that in assuming that we are making the same mistake as our ancestors, who 500 years ago thought that the earth was the center of the universe? You may find this paper interesting, which is not my contest entry but a paper that might be in tune with your lifelong interest: Do photons exist in spacetime?. If this idea has any merit, then your Wittgensteinian approach to ontological questions may need to be differentiated some more.

            Anyway, I wish you all the best

            Armin

            PS: Are there any new developments on your idea pertaining to infinities, which we discussed last year?

              Armin,

              Hi. Thanks for the comments! I'm looking forward to reading your essay, hopefully sometime this week. I actually commented on Dr. Bilson-Thompson's essay about the similarities between our thinking.

              I can understand why my model might seem contrived, but when it's compared to other models in physics, like string theory with its 10 or 23 or however many dimensions, I think my contrivances are pretty minimal!

              I agree that my model using spheres is kind of like the methods they often use in biochem. to model the components of biomolecules (proteins, DNA, etc.) as hard spheres. But, I've actually had this idea from even before I went into college, so I don't think I got it from there. The idea of the sphere as the shape an existent entity would be when there's no information provided by the entity about shape provided seems to make sense to me.

              In terms of where the existent entity exists, my view is that they don't exist in any pre-existing domain. Otherwise, we'd have to explain where that domain comes from. Instead, I think that each of these entities creates a position in space by its very existence. The expanding set of them then is the space part of spacetime. Each location in space is one of these entities. I think the time part of spacetime is not fundamental and is just a function of these entities interacting with each other and transferring energy via their shape changes. If these spheres were totally inflexible and didn't move at all, I can't see how there would be any time. I don't actually see my model as much different than vibrating strings in string theory except I provide a reason in my model for why my entities are vibrating/changing shape.

              I looked briefly at your "Do photons exist in spacetime?" article and will look at it in more detail over the next week since it's not quite light reading! But, I certainly agree with you that we should never assume the existence of anything like spacetime. Everything has to be explained.

              There's not much new on my infinity stuff. With what little spare time I have after work and stuff, I work on trying to flesh out the model in the current essay.

              How's school going? You're an undergrad. right? You've got some pretty good thinking skills, I'd say, before you even go to grad. school! My best friend just moved from Ann Arbor to Toronto where his wife is from so I won't be coming up there much anymore. It's a very nice town. People here in Columbus, OH, where Ohio State is, hate it, though. Pretty strange!

              Good luck on your essay and everything else! See you.

              Roger

              Dear Roger,

              A couple of quick comments:

              "The idea of the sphere as the shape an existent entity would be when there's no information provided by the entity about shape provided seems to make sense to me."

              This is exactly an example of the central principle that I mention in my entry as underlying quantum superposition e.g compare a sphere specified only by r=3 with one given by the double integral [math]9\int_{0}^{2\pi}d\phi\int_{0}^{\pi}sin\theta d\theta[/math]

              I am glad to see that you have already arrived at the essence of this insight yourself.

              "If these spheres were totally inflexible and didn't move at all, I can't see how there would be any time."

              I think the central lesson of relativity is that space and time are on an equal footing, though of course they manifest themselves differently. What distinguishes massive objects from massless energy is a finite proper time, and proper time is proportional to the four-dimensional interval.

              That you can have time even in a spacetime with inflexible solids which do not move with respect each other is, I believe, due to a deep connection between proper time and gravity (Since gravity in effect a manifestation of the deviation from distances in flat i.e. Minkowski spacetime). Specifically, each of the solids still sets up a gravity field that propagates outwards at a finite speed. This is in effect a clock because you can distinguish the shape of spacetime before and after the gravity field has reached a given region that is a certain distance from the solids.

              Pertaining to your question, yes, I was supposed to graduate last term but couldn't decide whether to continue on in philosophy or in physics, so I decided to stay a little longer. Too bad about Ann Arbor, but if you do happen to know that you will be coming up here let me know, my email is armin@umich.edu.

              All the best,

              Armin

              Armin,

              Hi. Well, in terms of spheres, I guess great minds think alike! :-) I noticed you'd posted a comment over on Sundance Bilson-Thompson's essay. I had commented there also that I thought his idea of minimal arbitrariness which says that if there's no info. telling a body to curve, it will keep going straight was very similar to the reasoning I use in the sphere example. That is, when there's no information given by a physically existent entity about the shape of the entity or about corners or angles (e.g. nothing other than that it exists), then the sphere must be the same in all directions, e.g. a sphere.

              About the idea of time being given by a gravity field propagating through a region, if there were no motion and no energy which I'm suggesting there would not be if these spheres are totally unchanging and inflexible, there would be no propagation of gravity fields or of anything. I doubt there'd be gravity. My view is that these spherical existent entities aren't just a background spacetime in which energy and matter move. Instead, they're the source of energy and change in the universe (as in the last step in the model in the essay), and all energy, matter, change, etc. in the universe is due to their shape changes and how they propagate these changes to their neighbors. If it weren't this way, then we'd also have to explain where the energy, matter, gravity come from in addition to explaining where the background spacetime comes from.

              On deciding between philosophy and physics, I sympathize. It's hard as heck to figure out what to do in life. I went through all that with biochemistry/physics/business. Eventually, I had to get a job so I wouldn't have to borrow from others and have decided since then that you can't do everything in life. You just have to pick the field that will let you most pursue the thing you want to accomplish before you get to age 90 or so. Anyways, good luck. It's hard.

              Go Buckeyes! :-)

              Roger

              Dear Roger,

              I welcome your essay that written in attractive - readable style (as the good essay and no else!) And you came to a healthy-realistic conclusion. The color of cat is not so important, but important is - is he hunting the mice? (I think this is Russian parable!) I will read your work one more time to say something more important. And I offer you my work ESSAY hope it will in your test then we can exchange opinions. I will wait you in my forum.

              Good wishes,

              George