Dear Sreenath,

Thank you for your very nice comments on my essay. I have gone through your nice essay also, and conceptually your is similar to mine. I am giving account of both below. Your concluding words

- - - - Although Information & Reality (Bit & It) have physical origin, without mind they are in themselves empty and blind. Bit comes from It, but mind can know of It only through Bit- - - -

That is very nice, and in my opinion, we have physical 5 s-enses and a sixth sense called mind. We form pictures of all the real things around us in our mind from these senses. Mind interprets these real things around us for forming these pictures. All these information will be lost when we die.

We invented the communication to transfer these pictures to fellow humans.

This communication uses information which is nothing but description of our mental picture.

- - - -

Your comments - - - - The theme up on which your essay is based is having deep rooted meaning and you have aptly said that it is 'IT from Bit' - - - -

Here I mean to say, whatever the manner one describes the material or matter with words, mental thoughts, using information technology or computers, his descriptions will not produce matar bits or atoms. This explanation can give information describing the material bits only and nothing more.

Here I used words - -IT- - for: - -Information technology- - and - -Bit- - for : --a piece of material or a bit of material- -

Please reply in my thread so that I will get a communication from FQXi, and I can reply you. .

best

=snp

    Hi Sreenath,

    I just read your essay and noticed that of all the ones that I have read so far, yours is the closest in organizational structure to mine, although I did not cast my net as wide so as to include biology and mathematics.

    As for whether reality can be really considered separate from it, I think it would have helped if you could have mentioned some quantitative relations that support your assertion. What equations in physics point to the existence of a reality apart from it or bit? I am genuinely curious because I believe that existence is not a binary concept, so it would be stimulating to see your idea tied more precisely to known relations in physics.

    All the best,

    Armin

      Dear Armin,

      Thanks for reading my essay and I appreciate your comments. Your query is an intriguing one and is at the basis of 'our' epistemology. I have made it clear in my essay while concluding that 'mind can know It only through Bit although It (reality) is having an independent existence'. So the problem of knowing It apart from Bit by the mind wouldn't exist and that is why I have concluded in my essay that 'for our knowledge to exist all three (It, Bit and mind) must coexist'. Speaking in terms of physics (or, in general, in science), It is having different forms and it depends on how you cognize It by interpreting different Bits in different terms. One of the best examples is gravitation itself; you can view it in Newtonian-way, Einsteinian-way, phenomenological-way, etc. The same thing happens in the quantum world also. So as to your question "What equations in physics point to the existence of a reality apart from it or bit?" I would have to answer in the negative. In this sense I agree with your belief that the 'existence is not a binary concept'.

      It is only in religions that the 'absolute reality' (usually called God) can be grasped in its 'purest' form as it is, in the 'mystic experience' and this experience is 'indescribable' in terms of language or mathematics and it can only be 'felt'. Here also the existence of 'subject' and 'object' is not a binary concept.

      I look forward to hear from you more and I have down loaded your essay and soon post my comments in your thread.

      All the best,

      Sreenath

      Dear SNP Gupta,

      Thanks for your fine analysis of my essay and for your kind compliments and in the final analysis, in treating It as primary to Bit, we both agree. The meaning that you have given to 'IT from Bit' simply substantiates that.

      All the best in the essay contest.

      Sreenath

      Hello Sreenath

      I rated you essay very highly (8). This may seem rather over the top, but I thought it was better than the other essays; at least in that it had an ordered structure and explained why you believe what you believe, and was about foundations of our disciplines and models of reality. I focused particularly on the mathematics. Von Neumann argued that mathematics actually finds it roots in empiricism, contrary to the assumptions of others (I guess including Kant).

      In my essay, while there was not time to discuss it, the mathematics is entirely evolved from the GPE, and has no reliance on contemporary mathematics at all, for to do so would introduce errors leading to infinities and inconsistencies all over the place, as presently happens in physics. Because it is derived from a single indefeasible principle it is immune to Godel incompleteness (Godel confined his arguments to formal systems of axioms and the laws of thought). Maybe that will a subject for next year's contest.

      Best wishes

      Stephen

        Dear Stephen,

        Thanks for rating my essay and I too do so.

        Best wishes,

        Sreenath

        Dear Sreenath Garu,.

        Thank you for your post on my essay

        I did not rate your essay earlier. I am very much in need of Good ratings. People are down rating me! Congratulations! Now I gave 9 to you. Earlier your score is 3.9 with 29 ratings, now it jumped to 4.0 with 30 ratings. Please give me your e mail ID, I will send some my books published in Germany.

        Best

        =snp

        snp.gupta@gmail.com

          Dear Guptaji,

          Thanks for rating my essay and I too have rated your essay with maximum honors.

          All the best in the essay contest.

          Sreenath

          Dear Sreenath, To respond to your recent comment on my thread I made it a habit to rate an essay as soon as I read it. I usually gave scores of above 7 but did not keep a record of what I rated yours a few weeks ago.

          I wish you all success in the contest, Vladimir

          Dear Sreenath,

          Your essay is very well written. In particular, I like the connections you make between it, bit, and mind.

          Best regards,

          Cristi

            Dear Christinel,

            Thanks for your nice compliments.

            Best regards,

            Sreenath

            Dear Sreenath,

            The breadth of your knowledge is so vast, this essay deserves book length treatment.

            I know next to nothing of biology and little of physics -- where mathematics is concerned, however, I think you have well captured the attitude of most research mathematicians toward the meaning of their art. It is quite telling that you cite Paul Ernest (have you also read his work on mathematics as social constructivism?) as well as Brouwer. Your hypothesis -- that classical physics is discovered and quantum physics invented, and yet both are objective -- is deep, and I'm going to be pondering it for a while to come.

            I agree with Dr. Corda that the statement "Bit comes from It, but mind can know of It only through Bit" is wonderful. It is an elegant way, I think, of getting to Murray Gell-Mann's (*The Quark and the Jaguar*) hypothesis of a continuum of consciousness from the very small to the very large, with which I agree without reservation. Recent research in the evolution of consciousness that combines computability with organic evolution includes Chaitin's *Proving Darwin: Making biology mathematical.* I have one semantic nitpick regarding " ... prerequisite consciousness and intelligence as inherent traits." I can accept conscioussness (represented as free will) as fundamental, which preempts intelligence (represented as adaptability) as fundamental. In other words, conscious organisms cooperate to form intelligent adaptive systems; we know that even a human body is at core a corporation of cooperating cells and organisms.

            Yours is a wonderful essay to which I can lend my highest compliment -- I was compelled to read it slowly and carefully. It also made me feel good, which is another rarity.

            Expect a high score from me, and all best in the compeitition.

            Tom

              Dear Ray,

              Thanks for your compliments and wish you all the best in the essay contest.

              Sreenath

              Hello again Sreenath,

              I appreciate the kind remarks left on my essay page, and that you read my essay. Now it is my turn to return the favor. Judging by your abstract; there is indeed a lot of common ground explored in our essays, and it should be affirming as well as enlightening for me to explore. I wish you good luck in the contest.

              Have Fun!

              Jonathan

              Thank you for the high rating, Sreenath! Will reciprocate when I am on my home computer where code is stored.

              Best,

              Tom

              Dear Sreenath,

              I read it once and I will retread again to understand it better. But I do like your conclusion:

              Although Information & Reality (Bit & It) have physical origin, without mind they are in themselves empty and blind. Bit comes from It, but mind can know of It only through Bit. Thus the relationship between them is triangular and so all three are equally essential for knowledge to coexist. For classical physicists, 'It' is basic and more important than Bit; but for quantum physicists, Bit is basic and more important than It. For biologists, both are equally important and for mathematicians, both are engraved in their axioms. Biological Reality (BR) basically differs from quantum Reality (QR); QR is a probability allowed by QM to show up at any time in Time; BR is the Reality created by the biosphere out of the Information content available to it from the environment over Time; so QR exists as virtual Reality in the quantum sea before it is found, but BR exists or realized only after it is created by the biosphere at its will. Mathematical 'It' would be in semi-realized state in the axioms and when conclusions are derived from them, it becomes self-realized. In math, Bit is contained in the axioms; but in biology, environment feeds Bit to the biosphere..

              After I read it again I will comment and rate your excellent essay.

              Best regards,

              Leo KoGuan

              Hi Sreenath,

              I read your essay very carefully and I liked the clear and down to earth analysis. That is very refreshing compared to the many mind bending and complicated analysis that I find in many essays. Many essays mangle basic concepts so that even an expert will get confused, but I think you have written a very good essay that a layperson can really benefit from it. I have even learned few things from it.

              So you deserve the high standing and you get a very good grade from me. Thank you.

              Adel

                Dear Adel,

                Thanks for your compliments and I too rate your fine essay accordingly.

                Best,

                Sreenath

                Dear Sreenath;

                Following your post: I gave a high rate to your essay (at the time I red it), I like it very much. Hopefully we can still have fruitfull scientific exchanges about this topics or others.

                Good luck,

                Michel