Spin States of Selection: Predetermined Variables of ‘bit’ by Manuel S Morales

Manuel,

This does seem to me to be a very interesting essay. While I do not have any math skills to speak of, my interest in physics is that I'm forced to encounter it on a moment by moment basis and the field seems to have little to say about what I experience. Your approach does seem to be fundamentally dynamic, where the convention is more of a static geometry. Which is all well and good, but only describes a limited fraction of reality. While my entry in this contest is a bit of a throwaway, it does give my view of the limits of information. A deeper factor in this would be the subject of my entry in the prior contest. That time is an effect of action which physics treats as parameter because we experience it as sequence, so it becomes a measure of duration, when the underlaying cause is change. To wit, it is not a fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, but that tomorrow becomes

yesterday because the earth rotates. While I go into this in the essays, one correspondence with your approach is the inherent dynamism of cause/effect. To often it is assumed to be sequential, yet one event no more causes the next in the sequence than one rung in a ladder causes the next. Yesterday doesn't cause today. Cause and effect is, often non-linear, energy transfer. Light shining on a spinning planet causes the sequence called days.

I also think there is a basic explanation for gravity. We treat quanta of light as point particles, why why would they travel as such, having no internal structure? Wouldn't even quanta of light expand when released and contract when absorbed? Such that when light is released from mass, it expands. Think atomic explosion. So when absorbed into mass, it creates a vacuum. There is no observed dark matter, but there is lots of excess cosmic rays around galaxies and stars lack heavy metals on the perimeters of galaxies, but get progressively heavier as they form further in. So gravity is not so much a property of mass, as an effect of energy condensing into mass. The result is a cosmic convection cycle of collapsing mass and expanding radiation. With redshift being an effect of this intergalactic expansion of light being matched and balanced by the gravitational collapse of mass, so that the universe as a whole is not expanding.

This means space is both inert and infinite, since it has to properties to move, bend, bound, etc. This makes space both absolute and infinite. Mass is the attraction of the inert, while energy is the attraction of the infinite.

That non-linear transfer is better understood in thermodynamic terms, rather than temporal ones. Time is to temperature what frequency is to amplitude.

Could go on, but it's your thread. Good luck.

Manuel,

I would describe it as the other way around, that information is only part of reality, much as mass is only part of what constitutes energy. To my view, mass is structured, as is information, but energy is the more objective aspect of reality. Consider taking a picture as analogy for the uncertainty principle. If we want clarity/position, we use a very fast shutter speed, but if we want action/momentum, we use a longer shutter speed, that catches more of the actual dynamic, yet creates a fuzzy image. Energy and information are like that. In order to record information, there has to be some connection between observer and observed. Now the Copenhagen interpretation is that only what is observed is real, yet presumably the observer is real, even if it doesn't observe anything, so why isn't what might otherwise be existent, but is not observed, be equally real? So if something is moving, it cannot be said to have exact spatial boundaries, as it wouldn't be in motion. Consider that if you were to completely freeze all action, reality as we know it, would disappear, as even the most elemental level of quantum action would have to freeze as well. So while we can have very real energy, we cannot know its exact parameters and that is not a problem with just quanta, but everything. You can no more separate a car from its action(and context) then you can with a quantum of light.

All information is framing. There is no such thing as objective information, as it would quickly go to white noise and cancel out. Like with photography, there was to be focus, filtering, lens, shutter speed, aperture, etc. We can study detail, or we can generalize, but there is no middle perspective that can see both the top down big picture and all the constituent detail. It is a dichotomy. Both are ways of framing. There is no god's eye view. (A potential spiritual absolute would necessarily be the essence of being from which we rise, not an ideal from which we fell.)

So what I see in your description is how we frame/filter/etc. the states/cups and how that creates the results. ?

The fallacy of free will is that to decide is to determine(as you point out), so the very fact of expressing will is what it means to be deterministic. This doesn't mean fated, because the process is deterministic, but the cone of potential input is incomplete prior to the event. We set the cup, but the coin may not cooperate.

I realize you seem to be saying things similar, but a few levels removed from this and so I'm just describing how I see the situation to see if it makes some sense to you.

Hi Manuel,

Truly beautiful and well thought out. This forum should also be for criticism and comments, so here goes...

RE: This asserts that existence is not caused but instead is a manifestation of various states of itself,

COMMENT: Wouldn't you then say we can have a binary choice, e.g. 1 for existence and 0 for non-existence?, These being the most fundamental of choice. As Wheeler would say the two-bit answers that lie at the "very bottom", upon which other subsequent choices can be made, if the answer is 1.

RE: John Archibald Wheeler, who coined the phrase 'it from bit', once asked, "How does something arise from nothing?"

COMMENT: I agree, he also said, "what else is there out of which to build a particle except geometry itself?"

RE: how those states of 'bit' came to exist in the first place. To avoid the paradox of effectual causality, only non-existence can give rise to existence for causality cannot exist as binary choice states prior to its own existence in order to be truly causal. This understanding frees us to explore the possibility of an 'immaterial source', as suggested by Wheeler, as a foundational explanation of our existence.

COMMENT: By the time you read my essay, you will discover how truly beautiful and foundational your assertions here are.

RE: Then your "coin-in-cup/coin-not-in-cup"

COMMENT: If this is original to you, then a very worthy example of the dialectical way of arguing that established physics as a science before pure and abstract mathematics took over.

RE: On the aspects involving the spin states of quantum theory and unification of forces.

COMMENT: I reserve my comments here. These cannot be fully settled without deciding the nature of space (discrete or continuous and whichever, how?) and how motion and action-at-a-distance can be expressed in it.

RE: Then your last paragraph...

COMMENT: Again beautiful dialectic. But I will like to reword Final Selection Experiment to FIRST Selection Experiment. Before choosing to wake up or to sleep, before choosing to move or to stay still, before choosing to be alive or dead, you must first make a choice to exist (1) or not-to-exist(0)

Expect a top rating from me based on the quality of facts and presentation.

Best regards,

Akinbo

Manuel,

My argument is that information is only a description/framing of a physical state. Time, temperature, frequency, amplitude, integers, etc. are information. Obviously they are only descriptions of the underlaying energy.

Manuel

"This asserts that existence is not caused but instead is a manifestation of various states of itself, therefore effect trumps cause. This paradigm gives us a paradoxical reality of effects causing effects which gives us a reality that is uncertain and subjective"

By definition, being existent means it is "computable" (ie knowable), and existence results in the reception of information thereon, which enables that analysis. The issue is not the primacy of cause/effect, it is that QM asserts an idefiniteness in reality which does not occur. Indeed, you say this in your next sentence. QM is not asserting that effect does not follow cause, or is more 'important'. It is, in effect, asserting that existence, ie the effect, could occur in various states and that the process of sensing has a determinant role in the actual outcome. This is nonsense, because an effect occurs, it does not occur in a variety of states. And it occurs before it is sensed, so sensing/measurement can have no effect on the physical circumstance, which must have been definitive for it to have existed.

However, in sequence what is an effect, from the perspective of the preceding cause (which was an effect) is a cause with respect to the succeeding effect. The tick being to differentiate the discrete states involved.

Paul

Manuel

Your interpretation of what I said fails me. An effect, ie something that exists, does not do so in 'splendid isolation'. It resulted from the preceding effect, ie in that sense that that effect was a cause. And the effect will be the cause of the succeeding effect. Otherwise, nothing will happen. There cannot be something which exists, and then something else, which presumably exists, which is, independently, causing existence.

Paul

Manuel

What caused any given event (ie reality-which is a specific physically existent state of whatever comprises it) must fulfil certain strict criteria, because physical influence cannot 'jump' physical circumstance. That is, in terms of order, any given existent state cannot be the cause of another unless it was the predecessor in the sequence. While in terms of spatial position, it could only have had physical influence if it was adjacent to the position now 'occupied' by the resulting effect, because alteration in spatial position is a difference (ie another reality). And as with any difference, this can only occur 'one degree' at a time. [What constitutes a 'degree' for any given physical attribute is irrelevant to this generic argument]. The point is that either something remains in one existent state, or there is a difference, and difference can only occur in discrete existent stages (a 'degree'). To put this simply, if the two spatial positions being considered are not adjacent to each other, then there were other spatial positions in between, and whatever physically existed must have been in each, sequentially, to be where it is now (the differentiation of spatial positions being a 'degree'). This simple principle applies to any physical attribute.

Now, the other point revolves around what caused the alteration which results in one physically existent state being superseded by another (both of course do not co-exst). That cannot be something which is physically disconnected with what occurs. Neither can something have physical influence and not be physically existent. Indeed, it must be what occurs.

In other words, the whole way in which we conceive reality is ontologically incorrect. There is a tendency to conceive in terms of objects, when in fact what physically exists at any time (the reality) is the physically existent state of whatever comprises it. And there is the concept of something else having an effect on the object, whereas this can only be whatever constitutes what is being wrongly being thought of as the object.

That is, either there is ultimately an inert substance (which could occur in different types) which 'carries' the 'properties' which are the determinant of change, or the 'properties' are themselves the ultimate substance in our reality.

The key to all this is the realisation that any given reality is the physically existent state of whatever comprises it. Then the rules as to how the sequence must occur, etc, are easy, in generic words! In practice, how this manifests is extremely complex and beyond our ability to differentiate in experimental mode. The degrees of alteration and duration are vanishingly small. Apart from anything else, in the context of sight for example, we are dependent upon the ability of light to comprehensively and accurately capture and transmit all that occurs, leaving aside our ability to decipher all that if it did so.

On your question: "Also how do we obtain an initial causal event, that being an event that did not exist until it does?" There can be no answer to this, because it transcends our existence. We just have to accept that whatever is demonstrably the start point for existence as knowable to us, is the start point.

Paul

Manuel

I read your nicely illustrated essay with interest and in trying to understand what you are up to better, read links to some of your other papers and the Linkedin discussions. Very interesting. As Paul knows, I have just enough energy at my age to deal with my own research and some left to discuss only a few new issues cropping up in the many fqxi essays. I think I understand your reasoning and feel you have pinpointed an important flaw in thinking through experiments in QM: it is automatically assumed that everything is statistical, probabilistic (coin-at edge of cup concept). You say there is an additional alternative (coin in the cup). You then carry this scenario - to make conclusions about determinism and - on rather thin grounds I feel - the four forces.

Using your thought-experiment I go further and say (contradicting in some ways my philosophical conclusions in my present fqxi essay!) that there is no inherent probability in nature - the coin is always in the cup. Probability arises from an exquisite order underlying the Universe. My ideas are described in Beautiful Universe Theory . I think it is important for a researcher with your original clear-headed thinking to understand Eric Reiter's discoveries about the photon . I had long suspected that the photon was not a point particle - an idea that gave rise to the probabilistic interpretation in QM. I was thrilled to find that Eric had proven that experimentally. I know that my comments leave much to be said, but for now allow me to leave it at this. I am no great sports fan, but as a fellow artist I enjoyed your dynamic football paintings in the billboards you created.

With best wishes,

Vladimir

Hello Manuel,

Your quote: - "We find that we have the ability to choose because we do not have the ability to not choose in order to exist" - really jumped out at me. I think you've hit on something key here. Like Wheeler pointed out yes/no decisions always are made. Choice is merely an illusion.

Nice work - please take a look at my essay if you get the time.

Best wishes,

Antony

Manuel

"There is indeed an answer to ALL of this and yes it does transcend our existence. This 'knowledge' of existence is not the starting point"

I am surprised by this response, because I thought that was the simple bit. There is existence of some form or other. We are enabled to be aware of it through a physical process (forget how proficient we are at identifying all there is to be aware of, and the accuracy with which we do so). This means that what we can know has to be regarded as possibly only one form of existence. However that is irrelevant in so far as it is all we can potentially know, ie we must just accept that there may be an alternative. The important point is that we can only know, and we can only know what is potentially knowable. This is the existentially closed system within which we are trapped. We can of course invoke any belief (ie knowledge without any experienceable-direct or hypothetical-substantiation), but that is not science.

In simple terms, we could, though it is very unlikely in many areas, eventually know all there is that is knowable. We will become aware of this by default, because we can only know from within the closed system, ie after sufficient time and continued investigation, no new knowledge arises. Now, this is not the same as knowing everything/what is ultimately happening/or any other such phrase. Because there is always the possibility of an alternative, and we cannot transcend our own existence. Neither is this the same as hypothesis, proper hypothesis being in effect virtual sensing. That is, it follows the rules of sensing and overrides certain identifiable issues in order to establish what could have been sensed had we been able to do so.

This seems to be a key statement: "If we are to uncover the fundamental interaction

of our physical universe then we need to establish what is causal and what is not. Here we find Wheeler's 'it from bit' doctrine of how physical laws are cast as states of information to be insufficient by not stating how those states of 'bit' came to exist in the first place". This is not true. We cannot know how or why whatever comprises our existence occurred. We can only arrive back at a logical start point based on an understanding of what has subsequently occurred. Neither does this assist in identifying the fundamental interaction(s). Something, or a range of such, is causing alteration in whatever comprises existence (which may also be a range of types). Indeed, these two may be different aspects of the same thing (or things) but that is detail(!). The important point is that something is 'going on', and we need to find out what that is. But what is 'gong on' is only manifest to us in what might be a particular form, ie we can only know what is 'going on' as it is potentially knowable to us. And that is difficult enough, and in many case unachievable, but the potential is there. We then just have to accept we can know no more.

Reality is not pre-determined. It appears to be so because it is functioning to certain rules. Another way of expressing this is to identify what, in generic terms, a reality is. And that is a discrete, definitive, physically existent state of whatever comprises it at that time. Existence necessitates discrete/definitive, which is where relativity/QM has gone wrong, because they, effectively, assert some form of indefiniteness in reality. They did not mean to, which goes back to my first post. I am not sure that anybody is consciously stating anything other than cause trumps effect ( to use your phrase). The differential is between what was said and, given a proper understanding of reality, what that can actually mean. [Incidentally what we do and think is irrelevant to the physical circumstance, because it has already occurred. Or in the case of the 'future', it has not occurred, ie something then occurs which is different to what would have otherwise have done so. But that is just a definition of cause/effect, so is meaningless. The future is not pre-existent. But I do not think you are saying any of this].

Paul

Manuel,

Thanks for your inciting comments. I will go through your essay and post my comments soon.

Thanking you,

Sreenath.