The In-Formed Universe by John C Maguire

John,

I'd just like to congratulate you on a very interesting approach to your essay. I could almost imagine it being narrated on television. It already looks like an article fit to be published. There was a nice balance of illustration, quotes and left the reader unable to stop. Thanks again for commenting on my essay.

Well done!

Antony

Hi John,

Well deserved, and I meant to say earlier - thanks for your comments.

All the best,

Antony

John,

A definition of information practically requires a theory of everything--from what exists, to how it evolves to produce humans and their minds. Information and meaning are terms that refer specifically to aspects of our mental functioning, of our linguistic representational system. They are not inherent in lower levels of Cosmic organization--but something analogous to them is.

You're right, one can't explain Cosmic evolution with just a bunch of similar particles flying around in space. Since atomism hasn't explained anything, people continue to resort to mysticism. We can do better.

When I tried to figure out how all this complexity arose in the Cosmos, I started with Einstein's mass-energy and space-time (MEST). Having studied some philosophy, I quickly realized that relativity was subjectivistic and MEST was only measurements, made by the observer, with his rods and clocks, in his frame. MEST is certainly not the primordial "stuff" of the Cosmos. I exchanged MEST for physical space and its evolution. I realized that because we have no theory of physics, we cannot form any theory of what exists and how it evolves. Also, we cannot use any of the ideas spawned by observer-physics in our quest to understand the world. We must the data, but toss out Bell's inequality, photons, entanglement, space-time, singularities, infinities, etc.

The rough outline I made up when I first tried to describe Cosmic evolution can be found here:

http://henrylindner.net/Writings/Hierarchical.html

It shows that the evolution of life described by Darwin is just one of many similar events of emergent evolution in the history of the Cosmos. The recurrent theme is that entities at one level of complexity, in the right circumstances, can interact in a new way that produces a whole new level of complexity, of being. Consider the 3 subatomic particles, and how they contain the structure necessary to form 98 atoms, and these contain the necessary structure to arrange themselves into thousands, indeed millions of different natural molecules. I would not say that "information" makes this possible, I would say that it is the inherent complexity of the substrate of all of this--space itself--that makes this hierarchical evolution possible. It does not have to contain all the structure, just enough to allow this hierarchical evolutionary process to occur and to continue.

Henry

John,

A quite brilliant essay, thank you. I certainly agreed 7 months not seconds in advance with each point, though much was new and important to me. You'll see why if you read my essay. You describe my 'IQbit' far better than I could! I then test what's also your theorem, and suggest a solution to the EPR paradox from the vast information store in the (3D) wave structure not parametrised by John Bell. You will need to bear with me on the quite dense construction of the full underlying physical ontology. Gordon Watson has just also posted what I think is a consistent 'mathematical' proof.

I particularly pick out; "truth and authenticity are the only things worth pursuing," " linear, irreversible time," your postulate A) B) dynamic 'stores', "Information as the pattern, form, or structure of a system that has the capability to convey meaning." "Substance (Matter/Energy) does the work of Information." and then also;

"...a form of chaotic determinism ruled by attractors underwrites..." (order).

"Pretending that something doesn't exist if it's hard to quantify leads to faulty models"

"Information is stored in Nature... sympathetic resonant feedback occurring between two or more oscillating systems. (and) wavefront interference..."

"...all known particles (as well as the bonds between them) within a quantum lattice continue to vibrate/oscillate and exchange Information about their states. Dynamic phonon exchange within these lattices helps to facilitate this process."

Dirac'; "..if you can't correctly describe the vacuum, how is it possible to expect a correct description of something more complex?"

And I thank you for the Funaro and Meyl links which I'd missed, agreeing; "charge-density replaces the antiquated notion of 'mass-density' within dielectric free-space. As a result, EM-waves are able to form as vortex structures, especially in the near-field of antennae/receivers." which I've derived as a solution to the non-linear TZ field transition problem elsewhere, including a quantum mechanical physical derivation of the LT, giving a 'discrete field' model (DFM).

Lastly Meyl's; "the ambient air around us is filled with white-noise EM-vortices... ...able to store an abundant amount of Information."

I also commend you bravery for implying an equivalent to an ether frame. I discussed this in my last 2 essays, both community score 7th but no placing! I think you'll do better, and will certainly get the top score from me. I hope you may also glance at those if you find time. The last one was probably too dense, and I think I've done the same this year. I'd greatly appreciate your comments.

You may not immediately see that the 'Quantum foam' is just as essential for my thesis as there's little option for WHAT is 'waving' or spinning.

Very well done and thank you again.

Best of luck

Peter

Hello John.

Thank you again for reading my essay, I hope the following helps you.

Every unresolved argument in physics points to something missing, and every unresolved argument in philosophy bring us to the same thing, but in philosophy we see that thing as two things. René Descartes put it best when he said that anything that can be imagined accurately and perfectly must not only exist in his head, but in actuality, and he came to that at the very end of his musings. Others ignored his conclusions because they wanted to. Emmanuelle Kant took a cleaver to cognition, actually I do him an injustice because in cognitive mechanics he was a skilled surgeon, anyway, he dissected cognition and laid it out for all to see. But, even though we can see transcendental space and time laid out with accuracy, precision and without contradiction, there is nothing to compare it with in actuality. And in all this we see the relationship between the virtual world and the actual world; and the two faces of argument, one based on the accuracy of imagination and its corresponding actuality, and the other based on the lack of contradiction which demands actuality. But, however much the lack of contradiction in an argument demands actuality, that is, the actuality of things accurately imagined, it falls in a hole when we can not observe that actuality. We still see this conundrum at play in our scientific arguments today, the argument between discrete and continuous, the argument of which came first and which came second, the argument about whether space is room for things or not. Albert Einstein would have us believe that space is continuous, and that when we remove everything from space, it becomes featureless, and by featureless I mean no room for things because all places are one and the same place. In other words there is nothing to distinguish one place from another. But space which is nothing is a problem, so we invent a virtual coordinate system made up of an infinite number of points, each without extension, and that helps, but it also means these points have energy, and the question then is whether we are accurate in this imagination or not, not whether it's a contradiction or not. Those who argue that all things which exist must have extension, and this includes energy, must show that their imagination is accurate. My imagination says that space is composed of places which constitute a fluid coordinate system, and at every place we find a local-sign, something with extension, something which has energy and something which points to and influences others of its own kind in one way or another. Call it a bit if you want, but I call it a pointy bit, i.e. (pbit). This imagery, conjured up with the help of Descartes, Kant and Uexküll, sees the world within as a virtual reflection of actuality, and if I believe in what I know of the world within, it tells me that a centrifugal domain exists at the centre of a local centripetality. It helps me trump mathematics with common sense, and I like that. Everything tells me that accurate imagination, and reason without contradiction, and the need to observe it in actuality, is science.

And, again, I can't believe how quickly you got to the gist of my essay.

Regards

Zoran.

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.

John,

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 John,

Notwithstanding my reductionist ontology sentiments I must congratulate you on a good essay. There are a number of well-thought out ideas.

However, there are also areas where mind and consciousness are given roles to play which I find hard to swallow.

The parts I like is where you suggest that information can be embedded into the 'quantum foam', even though how this can be implemented is still unclear. I love that part. If you take a look at my essay I portray some initial steps how this can be implemented. You may disagree with how I suggest this information storage can be done, but tell me why?

Lastly, is 'existence' an information?

Best regards,

Akinbo

Hello John -

I was particularly interested in your inclusion of life and evolution in the structure of the Cosmos, and linking this to information as you do is also intriguing.

I myself describe a cosmic paradigm of correlated energy vortices that include the evolving observer while describing a quantum/classical world correlation. The evolving observer, I show, is the missing link in many of our quests. I think it is this that impels Physics' expansion into Bio- and Neuro-Physics.

We are continually realizing that the Cosmos is fine-tuned to develop life.

You might be interested to see how I treat this argument, and - like you, I believe - expand the definitions of It and Bit far beyond those signified by Wheeler. I'm sure you'll find the resulting structure useful.

I totally empathize with your point of view, and have rated essay; I hope you will find much to cheer you in mine!

All the best in the competition,

John.

John,

I enjoy your essay and I gave it very high rating.

I agree with your notion that the universe is not the byproduct of aimless, uninformed interactions between inert substances leftover from the Big Bang. Your "Universal Systemic Memory" can be the result of an orderly and controlled absolute motions of particles moving in the E-Matrix.

Good luck with your entry.

Regards,

Ken

John

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 each of us surely must have touched some corners of it.

Good luck and good cheers!

Than Tin

John,

Thanks. My 2011 essay describes a unique resolution how the only disqualification to a background frame is kinetically removed, by removing the 'absolute' quality without removing local backgrounds. (Expanded on in 2012). There are implications to rationalise Maxwell's equations without 'partial time derivatives' and finally recovering Snell's Law.

Applying some scores now and still agree a top one due for yours.

Best of luck.

Peter

Hello John from Margriet O'Regan from DownUnder - This essay competition is so cool !! one of the many reasons being that we contestants can discuss each other's work & clarify our own !! How cool is that - I'm blown away.

In my own essay I claim to have discovered 'information's' true identity which is : 'the full set of geometric objects otherwise quite properly & quite really (observably/demonstrably/measurably/quantifiably !!!!) present here in our universe' - as distinct from any of the abstract ones inside mathematicians, physicists & cosmologists (etc) minds & textbooks. Which definition resonates rather closely with your own definition as 'the pattern, form, or structure of a system that has the capability to convey meaning' - with substance doing the work.

Nevertheless, my own findings have led me to conclude that 'information' - as quite literally the full set of geometric objects here in our universe - is THE one real thing which although real is completely agency-less - completely energy-less, & as such could not possibly be the 'prime mover' as you suggest - which suggestion, furthermore, seems to be a contradiction of your characterisation of matter as being that which does all the work, that is to say, is that which possesses the agency to 'do stuff' - to act, to move, to respond to & interact with other fellow interactees.

In my hypothesis I see matter as literally reading information as advertised on the bodies of their fellow interactees - that is, reading the geometricity of their fellow interactees & then 'simply' mounting their response to their fellows in accord with whatever they read as to their fellows' shapes.

Recall that even rocks & stones 'kick back' at anything or anyone foolish enough to assault them. I believe we should take note of the facts that not only do these fully solid bodies kick back in their own self-defense - because they possess the agency to do so - but they do so in principal exactly the same way we ourselves do - that is by 'taking a reading' of the information 'advertised' on 'fellow interactees' & then gauging their responses accordingly.

As we now all know - but many fail to keep it in mind - is the fact that each & every solid object here in our universe, regardless of its size, shape, composition, location, life history, animate status or possession of specially-built on-board thinking-machine or not, is enveloped in an all-surrounding repulsive electrostatic force field by which entity each solid object here not only literally READS - 'takes the exact measure of' - the electromagnetic properties of anything which comes into direct bodily contact with it, but also via the repulsive force within this electrostatic force field, literally, physically, forcefully pushes itself away from its erstwhile attacker.

In my own research I could not find anyone who defined 'solid object' - nor real 'geometric object'. What I did find was much talk of 'systems' !! Forgive me, but this appears to me to be a MAJOR WEAKNESS within physics generally including subatomic physics & a weakness that reaches all the way out to cosmology too - now that we know that events that happen down at the quantum level effect the subsequent history of the whole shebang !!

Where this 'weakness' compromises our understandings of, well, of everything, in my opinion, goes along this line of reasoning.

My 'pet' entities are the aforementioned (real) geometric objects otherwise quite properly present here in our universe, but these phenomena are STRICTLY 'surface-dwelling' entities AND WHILE SOLID OBJECTS POSSESS SURFACES, 'systems' do not.

My position is this (again!) - solid matter possesses the capacity to read the electromagnetic properties of the electrostatic 'surfaces' of their fellow interactees - & respond accordingly - so there is no need for them to somehow be influenced by any 'free-floating' implicit ? 'information' - as it's literally right their on the surfaces of their fellow interactees.

Note if you will that 'shape' (the geometricity of the other interactee) always plays a 'necessary' albeit not 'sufficinet' factor in the response any impacted object mounts towards its fellow impactee.

I have to recommend that we recognise that not only is 'information' insufficiently identified & defined to date, but that neither have the properly identifying & defining characteristics, properties & capacities (like 'taking up space') of ordinary, everyday, common, garden variety 'bulk matter' been firmly established, & further that when we do we will be able to see quite clearly that 'thought' - 'as the use of information to guide & direct action' - is an innate capacity of bulk matter & that it occurs on the most routine of bases no less than each & every time any two individual increments of solid matter interact with one another - that each interactee quite literally reads the information (the geometricity) of its fellow & then (because solid matter has the capacity/agency to so do) mounts its own response accordingly - in other words 'kicks back' with all its might. OR if it reads that it fellow interactee is something with which it is electromagnetically compatible then the two will read this on each others, contacting surfaces & happily join forces together thereby making a bigger, better, brighter whole - a bigger, better, brighter SELF-ORGANISING WHOLE - a larger & or more existentially robust existent (NOT A NEW BIGGER SYSTEM - JUST A NEW SOLID BODY) - which is in point of demonstrable fact, the manner in which all (self-assembled) atoms, molecules, crystals & indeed, all known life forms 'compose' themselves .. .. by reading information on each others' person & acting accordingly ...

I look forward to some more discussion with you John

Best regards'

Margriet.