Essay Abstract

There is an age-old question as to whether geometry (form) or matter (energy) is more fundamental in the universe - the "ground of being". The current debate - the subject of this contest - is cast in terms of information and quantum mechanics. Wheeler's position, following Wiener, can be summarized by the following statements: 1) information is not energy; and 2) information and not energy is fundamental. A related view is that the universe operates like a digital computer, and the emergence of Its as things from Bits as immaterial digital information is the only acceptable cosmogony. In his 2011 essay "Bit-from-It", Julian Barbour, contra Wheeler, argued in favor of the primacy of energy as things - Its, but that nature is fundamentally discontinuous and digital and continuity an illusion. However, as an either-or dichotomy, the contest question may be badly posed, excluding a possible interactive alternative, It-and¬-Bit. I first present my views of three major possible positions: • It-from-Bit: refers to an interpretation of some limited experimental data and computational hypotheses about the way the universe operates. • Bit-from-It: suggests that energy is primitive but the dynamics of the emergence of complex information is not specified. • It-and-Bit: energy and information emerge from, or are different aspects of, an as yet undefined primordial substrate more fundamental than either. In my synthesis of these positions, at some level of reality, energy is more fundamental than information, and information emerges from but is always functionally associated with it. In the macroscopic world, energy and information, as well as continuity and discontinuity, are non-separable partners.

Author Bio

I have a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin. After my career in the chemical industry, I joined the International Center for Transdisciplinary Research, Paris. With it, and now with the International Center for the Philosophy of Information, Xi'An, China of which I am an Associate Director, I have authored a book (Logic in Reality) and some twenty papers on non-standard logic, information and the philosophy of information. I am Vice-President, Inter- and Transdisciplinarity of the International Society for Information Studies, Vienna.

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Hi Joseph, welcome to the contest!

I am close to the view that information and energy emerge together from AND are different aspects of a primordial substrate more fundamental than either.

I have proposed a candidate for that primordial substrate - the conformally flat spacetime having homeomorphism and elastic properties. Information, energy/matter may be a manifestation of the spacetime geometry. I do not claim that I am right. But that concept generates clear predictions and can be easily falsified by the spin experiment I have proposed (see references to my essay).

This means also that the ground of being (the spacetime) can be equated with the quantum vacuum.

In your essay's conclusion I have found: "a picture of the universe as fundamentally either continuous or discontinuous may be usefully replaced by one in which both continuity and discontinuity are jointly and dynamically instantiated". I would agree and propose to reformulate this statement to this one: the actual universe is computable during Lyapunov time but its evolution is non-computable.

I have some notices from the other entrants e.g. Torsten Asselmeyer-Maluga that the description of my experiment is not quite clear so I could deliver an explanation if needed.

Best regards

    Hello, Jacek and thank you for your comments and agreement on some points. I am afraid I cannot answer at the same level of expertise, but there is one thing that we may usefully agree on to follow. That spacetime geometry may be described as you say is clear, but that energy/matter is more primitive is for the time being at least as possible. Best wishes, Joseph

    Hello Joseph,

    I thoroughly enjoyed your essay and rated it highly because I find not only your conclusion to be very logical and intuitively right that there is something perhaps more fundamental than Bit or It, but also that you challenge the very way the contest's question is posed. This was followed by good exploration of possible outcomes.

    I also think that our two essays do not contradict each other. I hope you get a chance to look at mine to assess if we do indeed have any common ground.

    Best Wishes for the contest!

    Antony

      Hello, Anthony and thank you for the good words. Although I am not a mathematician (I started as you as a chemist), I was always fascinated by the F. sequence and its expression in nature, cf. some of the great pictures in Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science". Having said that, I am simply constituted to look at the physics of the atoms and molecules that, in the subsequent dynamics of their organization, "crystallize", literally and figuratively into something of which we /a posteriori/ define the abstract mathematics. Thus you are right in saying that we do not contradict one another directly. Our pictures address different levels of abstraction (cf. Floridi); I will stay with the intuition that it is energy that moves in and out of black holes, etc.

      Best wishes,

      Joseph

      Dear Hoang cao Hai,

      In my conclusion Section, I wrote: "My response to the question of this Contest is that energy-matter is ontologically prior to, that is, more fundamental than information as digital bits". I then proceeded to examine some of the implications of my position. I regret that you did not consider this a conclusion.

      I also examined the foundational issue of continuity vs. discontinuity which I feel is well within the scope of the Contest theme. Might I ask you to reconsider your view, and your rating? Thank you and kind regards.

      Joseph Brenner

      Joseph,

      Excellent essay of which I have rated highly! I find myself in complete agreement of your statement, "Nothing proves that Bell's infinitesimals (or any others in standard calculus) and those of the physical world, (if such exist), are the same. I thus conclude that there is a fatal error in any description of the universe that embodies either absolute continuity or absolutely discrete Bits as constituting its fundamental parts." as well as your comments, "I suggest that energy is more fundamental than information, and information emerges from but is always functionally associated with it."

      I believe you will find my essay of interest, although different, it attempts to show how self-organization takes place in the universe. I hope you will find my current essay which unifies the four forces into one of interest and worthy of your review.

      Regards,

      Manuel

        Hello again Joseph,

        Great to see another Chemist on here by the way! I think both approaches are great. The Fibonacci idea would work for photons falling into a Black Hole too, so perhaps there is a scheme where our two ideas merge.

        I've devised a theory where symmetry is broken from nothingness resolving the three laws of cosmogony.

        I think you are right that energy is the best way to describe information falling into Black Holes - with Hawking Radiation coming out.

        Cheers,

        Antony

        Hello, Manuel and thank you for the good words. I have read your essay with much interest, although I cannot evaluate your physics as such. I would like to establish a dialogue with you, as I believe my Logic in Reality may complement your approach by providing additional physical descriptions of parallel chains of cause and effect (cf. my book). How do I get in touch with you to send you the relevant portions?

        Best wishes,

        Joseph

        Dear Joseph,

        I like how your essay goes through various alternatives, presenting them equidistantly, and trying to find the answer to the contest's main question. The essay is well written and well documented, and your position is clearly stated and well explained. I also like that you are interested in Stefan Lupascu's writings and derive your own logic from his.

        Best regards,

        Cristi Stoica

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          • Post #12

          Dear Cristi,

          Thank you for your good words. It has been a privilege for me to work with Professor Basarab Nicolescu of the International Center for Transdisiplinary Research, Paris, of which he and Lupasco were the principal founders. I hope that more people, both in and outside of Romania, will discover the importance of Lupasco's work.

          Best wishes,

          Joseph

          Dear Joseph,

          In your consideration of various possible scenarios for the relationship between the "informational" and the spatial realities you didn't cover all possibilities, and one of them, which I dare to say important, is considered in my essay.

          Also, I wish to draw to your attention to a considerable *ambiguity* of both "information" and "energy", which makes them poor candidates for understanding the nature of "reality".

          Hello Joseph,

          It is a great pleasure to read your excellently written essay. It presents a review of different author's statements about "information versus matter". Some of these statements raise my objections.

          I will formulate my objections in general terms: There seems to be a general misunderstanding about the function of a physical theory. Whereas an experimental physicist collects data, which means information, about the "physical world", the task of a theoretical physicist is to study these data and try to find characteristic structures and interrelations within these data that would allow to "explain" these data by a "general logical principle", also called "theory". Therefore, a physical theory is always about information. Consequently, when Wheeler presents

          "the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom ... an immaterial source and explanation ... in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin ...,"

          then he refers to a most fundamental logical principle that could replace all other logical principles, formulated so far. It is evident that a logical principle is immaterial. Therefore, in search for a logical principle, the question is not: What is more fundamental, information or matter? The question is rather: Can we find an universal logical principle that "explains" all kinds of information about the physical world? More about this in my essay.

          Regards,

          Walter

            Hello, Walter,

            I am afraid that we are fated to agree to disagree. I think that what we as physical creatures comprehend as physical reality is physical reality, not the result of some process of abstraction. And your statement about all the things one can do with binary elements is exactly what the question is. I have a logical principle that expléains a great deal, but I followed the rules and did not discuss, except in a brief paragraph in the Appendix, "my" logic..,

            Regards,

            Joseph

            Hello, Joseph,

            Don't worry. Disagreement is often more creative than agreement, because it may lead to new insights.

            Regards,

            Walter

            Walter wrote: " Whereas an experimental physicist collects data, which means information, about the "physical world","

            Do you think hats what is really meant by information in this contest?

            I'm not so sure.

            Many of the essays in this contest seem to view computer hardware as physical, and information as something stored in a physical computer.

            Surely there is more to the topic of this contest than that pedestrian observation.

            Dear Joseph,

            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, Satyavarapu,

              I did read your paper, but was puzzled by your definition of Bit and It which seemed opposite to those of Wheeler to which the Contest is supposed to reply.

              Please clarify if you have time.

              Regards,

              Joseph

              Dear Joseph,

              Well researched and logically presented.

              RE: Elementary particles can be programmed...the universe is a physical system that can be programmed to perform universal digital computation

              See an example amateur program for digital motion in my essay.

              You also quote Barbour severally, I quote him as well but I concur only in his saying the binary digits, 0 and 1 must stand for a thing or a state and can not just be abstract figures.

              For another perspective on the discreteness vs. continuity you discussed see same essay. I will subsequently take you up on this aspect.

              Best regards,

              Akinbo

              Dear Joseph,

              I have borrowed this sentence to David Mermin

              "The key to freeing quantum mechanics from the tyranny of measurement is to note

              that a measurement consists of the establishment of a particular kind of correlation between two particular kinds of subsystems, and to insist that everything that can be said about the physical reality of the correlations established in a measurement applies equally well to the correlations among any subsystems of a quantum system. If physics is about correlations among subsystems then it is a fortiori about measurement. But to insist that physics is exclusively about measurement, is unnecessarily to relegate to an inferior ontological status the more general correlations among arbitrary subsystems."

              It seems that relational quantum mechanics has to do with Mermin's view, and he is a favorite thinker of mine, as you can read in my essay. In my view, the geometrization of correlations (mutually commuting operators and the resulting contextuality) is useful for understanding the ultimate meaning of quantum measurements.

              Mermin again

              "Correlations have physical reality; that which they correlate does not."

              Acoording to him the it is correlation, do you agree with him?

              Best regards,

              Michel