Thanks Joseph,

I've noted your book, which I will look into after the contest. I did, by the way, rate your essay.

Best of luck,

John

Joseph,

I read your excellent essay twice (first in June and just now). Out of the number of entries I've read thus far you give the most comprehensive answer to the contest's main question. Your essay is also very well-written and your position is stated clearly; thus my high evaluation of it.

I have one question though and it has to do with your caution concerning the following: "that matter-energy and information emerge together from some more fundamental underlying but at this time unknown substrate". Why unknown? It is very tempting to assume (I do!) that this 'substrate' is spacetime itself.

And indeed, if a theory of everything is ever to be found, ontological monism demands that "reality is ultimately composed of one basic kind of stuff" (Dr. Maria Carrillo-Ruiz essay). In addition, such a theory would naturally have to be background independent -- in fact the background would emerge from it and -- everything else would emerge from this background. What better candidate but spacetime itself can it be? This is what I imply in my essay, even though I do not go into this issue in depth, expecting the readers to make this connection themselves.

You state, "In my preferred picture, information and energy are the components of all higher level processes". I agree, but is it only true of 'higher level' processes? Perhaps you you could review your position on the "categorial separability between energy and information" in the notions of the 'dynamic structure of space'. In this view, dynamics = energy and structure = information (while time emerges naturally from the ground of this substrate => I guess it is fitting to call it 'spacetime', but I prefer not to use it in order to avoid limiting the implications by our familiar notions).

In this view organization emerges out of primitive processes following just a few basic principles. A good example of emergence of It from Bit can be found in Prof. D'Ariano essay where he discusses how spacetime itself is generated by the underlying quantum cellular automata. Or take Dr. Carolyn Devereux's essay where she shows how a harmonic oscillations within the vibrating primordial substrate can lead to emergence of 'matter'. (I especially like her view, because it resonates so well with my last year essay on the nature of space -- essentially, we see it exactly alike).

Explaining your position you state that "the quantum vacuum does embody energy, but as it does not undergo thermodynamic change, information is absent and only evolves from energy at the particle-field level." Here, I believe the definition of information as entropy is limiting. From reading the essays this year I came to appreciate the fact that what we mean by information has two major aspects: 1 reflective aspect, and that's what we mostly mean by info in our daily lives. 2. organizational or structural aspect, which is usually hidden and yet which we take for 'essence' or the 'core' of a thing or an event in question. Regarding quantum spacetime, it is true that we so far have not found its organizing principle -- which does not mean that it's not there. So, am I correct that the caution in your position lies in the fact that "there is something missing in modern physics"?

I like your conclusion, "Therefore, whether information or energy is more fundamental, neither can be the most fundamental entity" even though I see details differently and I am in full agreement with your ref. [20], which suggests that "both matter-energy and information are two different, associated aspects of the same underlying and still unknown primordial structure of the world. The best picture is that they emerge together from this substrate."

Again, I found your essay most thoughtful and most comprehensible in answering the main question of the contest, even though we have a somewhat different position on matters of space lol. Maybe you could adjust your view on this after reading the essays mentioned in my post: Prof. D'Ariano (also his 2011 essay) Dr. Maria Carrillo-Ruiz, Dr. Carolyn Devereux.

-Marina

    Dear Marina,

    Thank you for your very perspicacious and well-expressed critique. If you knew how few of these I get, both agreements and disagreements. . . I will comment on your essay off-line, since I am convinced it will be useful to me and I want to think it through.

    Pending this, please let me make one point: since the existence of a background space-time is itself not universally accepted, it cannot be assumed that it is "what" is most fundamental either. Both in Lupasco's theory and today Rovelli's, space and time are artifacts of the underlying matter-energy and could not (in this theory) be ontologically primitive. But you are right in one epistemological sense: space-time certainly /appears/ to be primitive. In my approach, however, we have here a critical dialectics between appearance and reality, an instance of the categorial feature of non-separability. I look forward to further discussion of these points.

    Best wishes,

    Joseph

    Dear Joseph,

    I am hopeful yet got your valuable comments to my work (let it be even short) that I have ask you early (see my post above)

    Regards,

    George

    Dr. Brenner

    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 best regards,

    Than Tin

    Dear Than Tin,

    Thank you for your perspicacious reading of my essay. I will look at your paper and comment in due course, but there is one point I would like to make now: not only do the dualities you mention exist, but the /relation/ between them evolves, in my jargon, according to the Principle of Dilaectical Opposition, that is, as one element is ppotentialized, the other is actualized, alternately and reciprocally the probability of emergence of a new entity at the point of maximum opposition. This is what is missing in most discussions of extension of the "mother of all dualities" to the macrocopic domain.

    Best regards,

    Joseph

    Dear Joseph,

    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

      Hello, Sreenath,

      I think you wrote a very good review essay. I liked one phrase in particular: "the logic of unseen relations". That is what my logic is all about.

      I look forward to you comments and rating on my Essay.

      Best regards,

      Joseph

      Brenner,

      This essay flowed with a logical clarity that marks it as the most beautiful in the (rather limited) batch that I have had privilege to read.

      What is the difference between matter and energy? I hear them used different in view of fields and simply don't know whether they are different, the same, or have a connotative meaning based on who says them, in which case that doesn't seem a solid basis.

      Best of luck,

      Amos.

        Hello, Amos, and thank you for the nice words. The simplest answer to your question (and I am not a physics teacher but a recycled organic chemist) is that the term matter is commonly used to refer to more or less stable macroscopic objects and energy to gradients where something is moving, water, heat, etc. But macroscopic objects are composed of atoms in turn composed of particles, electrons and protons which are energy in different forms. But there are also flows here, as of of electrons in a current. The easiest thing is to speak of matter-energy which, literally, covers everything.

        Best wishes,

        Brenner

        Dear Brenner,

        Thanks for your response to my posting in your thread. I will shortly post my comments on your essay in your thread and rate it accordingly.

        Best regards,

        Sreenath

        Dear Joseph,

        Your essay is highly original and it is based on modern computational models. Your views can be concluded in your own words "matter-energy and information emerge together from some more fundamental underlying but at this time unknown substrate - the ground of being". This something unknown substrate is the reality underlying the facts of the world. This situation reminds me of Kant when he says 'noumenon' is the reality underlying the 'phenomenon'.

        This is also the sort of conclusion I have come to in my essay. Considering these points I have rated your very impressive essay highly.

        Best wishes,

        Sreenath

        Joseph,

        A very comprehensive coverage of the topic. I am very much in agreement with your conclusion that reality is a dichotomy of energy and information. I think though that this relationship can be mined more deeply. Energy manifests information, while information defines energy. Since energy is conserved, in order to create new information, old information has to be erased. This produces what we commonly refer to as the "arrow of time."

        The problem is that as we view reality from an essentially point perspective, our understanding of it is then filtered though the limitations of this frame. The result is that since we experience this effect of time as a sequence of events, we treat it as a vector from past to future and physics, in all its reductionistic focus, enforces this by treating it as a measure of duration.

        The actual physical dynamic is that the changing configuration of this "energy" creates the "flow" of events, but it is not this physical "presence" that moves from past to future, rather those events coalesce and disperse, thus go from future potential to past circumstance.

        To wit, the earth is not traveling some fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow. Rather tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth rotates.

        Clocks run at different rates for the very practical reason that they are separate processes. The cat's fate doesn't branch out into multiple possibilities, but rather it is the actual occurrence of events which determine the cat's fate, ie. future potential becomes past circumstance.

        Duration doesn't transcend the present, but is the dynamic processes occurring between the occurrence of events, so it is not a "blocktime" vector.

        The problem this poses for relativity is that time is reduced to an effect of action, similar to temperature. One could say time is to temperature what frequency is to amplitude.

        This means "spacetime" is not some underlaying metaphysical fabric, but correlations of measures of distance and duration, using the speed of light as mediation. One could do something similar with ideal gas laws and create "temperaturevolume," but temperature is only the basis of our organic processes, not our narrative and logical ones, as sequence is, so we have a more objective perspective of temperature.

        This leaves space as background. Physics dismisses it largely as an artifact of measurement, but three dimensions originated as the coordinate system and are how one models space from the point perspective of the individual. Three dimensions are no more foundational to the nature of space than longitude, latitude, and altitude are foundational to the surface of the planet. Yet distance, area and volume are measures of space, while time is a measure of change. Without the time vector, space has no structural properties which can limit, bound, warp it, etc. Not only does this make it infinite, but absolute as well, since it is inert. This can be measured as centrifugal force of a spinning object. Necessarily the effect of centrifugal force is due to the relation between the spin of the object and the inertia of space(call it an infinite frame, if your model requires), not the relation of the object to external references. So filling space is this "energy" cycling between contracting mass and expanding radiation, which express those parameters of infinity and inertia. Radiation expanding out to infinity and mass collapsing into inertia. In this description, background radiation is not residue from some primordial singularity, but the solution to Olber's paradox; the light of ever more distant sources, shifted completely off the visible spectrum. Could go on with all the issues with cosmology, but will stop here.

        Regards,

        John Merryman

        Hi Joseph,

        I was worried, your bio indicated a professional philosopher, I was prepared for the worst.

        What a pleasant surprise! Your essay is very readable, wide ranging, and incisive. It gets a very high rating (yes some bits that are really energy someplace).

        Do come over to my blog. I favor a continuous space-time in conjunction with a digital concept of change (that has been masquerading as a continuous velocity). Sounds like a deep subject, but I manage to keep it humorous. It follows some of your intuitions and I think you will enjoy it.

        Thanks,

        Don L.

          Joseph,

          Your essay is a clear-cut and well-defined discussion of the contest problem. It is deliberate, yet conversational, logical, and complete.

          I agree that energy is more fundamental than information and I do tend to debunk the role of consciousness in measuring or observing matter and the ambiguities of describing examples in the micro and macro world.

          If in the BB the quantum vacuum (you mention it embodies energy) was the source of a cascading sea of virtual particles, did they contain energy and no information? Did gravity result from their formation? We can assume so but I have no idea how, but my essay proposes that the foundation of our perfect universe couldn't possible be observed by consciousness until 1 billion years after the BB, since we had no mixture of atoms to form into our bodies.

          I would be interested in your view of my essay.

          Jim

            Hello, Don, and thank you for the kind words. Re my bio, the key words are "Ph.D. in organic chemistry and career in the chemical industry". I started my second career only about ten years ago. Thank you for the invitation to join your blog. I will look at it, but have difficulty keeping up with even my one current newsgroup (Foundations of Information Science) But your description is certainly interesting. A good laugh about logic is what we all need!

            Best,

            Joseph

            Hello, Jim and thank you for your comments on my Essay. I found much that I agree with in yours. I also cannot stand the Hameroff nonsense. Penrose, however, has somewhat redeemed himself in my eyes in his 2011 or 2012 book, /Conformal Cyclic Cosmology/. In Steinnhardt's story, I see an unsolved problem of a first cycle, because his cycling does lose energy. How would you approach this aspect - draw on an infinite energy source "far beyond" the 2nd Law?

            Best regards,

            Joseph

            Joseph,

            I guess the earlier cyclic models failed because of heat death. The more recent, Steinhardt's too, evades energy loss with a expansion each cycle, preventing entropy from building up. None of us have the knowledge to understand colliding branes, I would think including string theorists, and will the big crunch Steinhardt speaks of change the particle interaction strength. Maybe we need to run into more advanced aliens to find out.

            May your score soar.

            Jim

            Hi Joseph,

            Thank you for a masterful tour through the possibilities of It from Bit and Bit from It. You wrote:

            > "These five It-from-Bit positions are contradicted by general relativity; which requires an inertial frame of reference; relational quantum mechanics (see below); and current cosmology which supports a configurational view of the universe in which there is neither a containing space nor a standard background time."

            It is important to note that there are many unresolved problems with current cosmology, among them Dark Matter, Dark Energy, CMB anisotropy, quasar energies, source of inertia etc. In my essay Software Cosmos I attempt to show by construction a software architecture that addresses such cosmological issues within the simulation paradigm.

            While my conclusion, that a computational view is tenable, differs from yours, I think it may be because we have a different concept of computation, not because we have a different concept of reality. In my view, the material world, and the physics we divine from it, are only the *top* layer of a simulation. Lower layers could have different computational rules. It is essential to note that upper layers of a software architecture can know very little about the lower layers they are based on. To an agent or algorithm within a layer, the fundamental operations defined by the layer architecture "just happen". It is only the lower (implementing) layer that knows *how* they happen. We might say it is the responsibility of lower layers to "animate" the upper layer, as it is too abstract to do so by itself.

            I read your wonderful paper "The philosophical logic of Stéphane Lupasco (1900-1988)" last night. His insights confirm for me the idea that there is an architectural layer lower than the material. The conventional view is that Life emerges from Matter and Mind from Life. But my simulation model suggests another possibility: that Life animates Matter, and Mind animates Life. I hope you get a chance to read my essay as I would appreciate your insight.

            Hugh

              Dear Joseph,

              One single principle leads the Universe.

              Every thing, every object, every phenomenon

              is under the influence of this principle.

              Nothing can exist if it is not born in the form of opposites.

              I simply invite you to discover this in a few words,

              but the main part is coming soon.

              Thank you, and good luck!

              I rated your essay accordingly to my appreciation.

              Please visit My essay.