Essay Abstract

J.A. Wheeler's It from Bit program is examined and compared with C.F. von Weizsäcker's Ur Theory. The properties of their respective 'atoms of information', the classical bit and the ur, or qubit, are summarized, and implications are drawn from Spekkens' 'toy' theory which give a deeper understanding of each structure. Wheeler's and von Weizsäcker's answers to the question, "What is information?" are compared, and it is concluded that both men were approaching a conception of information as 'psycho-physically neutral' in the sense of Wolfgang Pauli. This premise is explored by examining Susan Carey's research on the origin of concepts, with specific attention paid to the origin of number concepts. In particular, her postulated fundamental cognitive process, the 'Quinian Bootstrap', is applied to the conceptualization of complex numbers and analogously to the structural properties of the qubit. Finally, implications for Descartes' 'cut' are explored.

Author Bio

Charles R. Card studied physics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Reed College, receiving a BA degree in 1971. For more than three decades his research and publications have focused on the philosophical thought of Wolfgang Pauli and the ideas originating from Pauli's collaboration with C.G. Jung and M.-L. von Franz. Card is a tutorial and laboratory instructor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria.

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Dear Mr. Card,

Thank you for presenting your nice essay. I saw the abstract and will post my comments soon. One can not produce material from 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.

    Joe: I don't understand your comment. What do you mean when you say that information isn't real? My computer transits information. Is what it transmits unreal? Of course not. It is entirely real. Information is stuff in the world. It is the stuff the world is (mostly) made of.

      Marcus,

      Is the computer real? Yes

      Is transmitted information real? No

      Joe

      Dear Charles,

      A rich presentation and well researched. From my biased perspective I see you identifying the answer to the question posed in this essay contest but skirting around it with ?trepidation, ?fear or just being circumspect and careful. Note that I write from my biased position.

      But do you contemplate the possibility that Res Extensa can represent one of the two binary states, while Res Mensa represents the other?

      Rene Descartes, calls both substances,"res extensa" being an "extended thing" while "res cogitans" exists only in thought. Further, both are PRIMITIVE and ORIGINAL. Then, you mention... "the assertion of atomicity--of UNDIVIDABLE WHOLENESS".

      And again, you say, "With somewhat more clarity than Wheeler, von Weizsäcker has reached the perspective that information (A BINARY DIGIT) is the COMMON BASIS UNDERLYING both matter (RES EXTENSA/ CORPOREAL SUBSTANCE) and mind (RES COGITANS/ MENTAL SUBSTANCE).

      These statements bring me satisfaction and joy. When you read the first 8 paragraphs ONLY of Leibniz(most of the rest are spiritual) and my essay, you will realize why your essay has thrilled me. It supports my suspicion and claim!

      Very good. Lets do a bit of dialectic and reductio ad absurdum arguments when you must have gone through my essay. You profoundly understand what It from Bit actually should mean.

      Regards and best of luck!

      Akinbo

      *All capitals mine.

        Dear Akinbo,

        I have just taken the opportunity to read your essay and have enjoyed it very much! It is beautifully and lucidly written, and it provides a valuable excursion through the various conceptualizations of the monad. Perhaps you are aware that Wheeler compared his 'elementary quantum phenomenon' to Leibniz's monad in his essay, "The Computer and the Universe", Int.J. Theo. Phys., V. 21, N. 6/7, 1982

        The overwhelming issue for any discrete space-time theory such as the one that you have advanced is to find the road to quantum mechanics. If someone can find a way to do that, they will have done a great thing!

        With regard to my submission, I felt that I could not possibly say every thing that I would have wanted to say in just nine pages, so I have presented an argument that leads to the door of an ongoing exploration of the possibility of formulating a psycho-physically neutral language. Interested readers can pursue this through my last cited reference.

        I will be traveling for the next few days and off-line, but I will be happy to continue the discussion that you initiated when I return on July 5.

        Cheers,

        Charles

        Dear Reader,

        I will be away traveling for the next few days and unable to respond to your posts. Thank you in advance for your interest in my submission. I will be happy to respond to your remarks when I return on July 5.

        Sincerely,

        Charles Card

        4 days later

        Charles,

        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

        Dear Charles

        I am also admirer of Wolfgang Pauli.

        I submit several years ago article devoted some his quote.

        "What Wolfgang Pauli did mean?"

        http://vixra.org/abs/0907.0022

        Did you familiar with this?

        Regards

        Yuri

          7 days later

          Dear Charles,

          I am impressed by the breadth of the historical context that you laid out surrounding the contest theme. Several others had mentioned and compared von Weizsaecker's contributions to the debate, but yours is the most extensive I have read. Given that evidently many different physicists worked on it and its development spanned several decades, I wonder why it was never developed beyond essentially being the blueprint for a theory. There may be lessons for us to draw from knowing the reasons.

          I also found the comparison of the missing 'additional ingredient' in Spekkens' toy theory with quinian bootstrap surprising, though I must admit that I am skeptical that they are the same. The former seems like a leap in a territory that is much more abstract than that which characterizes the context of the leap in the latter.

          I was originally attracted to reading your essay because the title sounded to like a contradition, and I wanted to find out how you would "pull off" considering information as a substance. Your pointing out the most basic etymological meaning of substance, however, has clarified things for me.

          My own view is that a fundamental message of the Born rule is that our current concept of "substance" (in the usual sense) is not sufficiently differentiated and if we could realize this, we would come to regard it vs. bit a false dichotomy.

          In any event, I found your essay and its elucidation of the historical context of this debate very interesting.

          All the best,

          Armin

            Hi Charles,

            I love the delightful weaving of geometry, algebra, psychology and history you have created with your essay! Congratulations for an excellent presentation.

            You conclude:

            "When Descartes partitioned human understanding of reality into separate domains, he did so with good reason and with good effect...However, his simplifying assumption must now be seen to be a first-order approximation whose limitations have been reached, and a new understanding entailing greater complexity must follow in its place."

            In my own research, I have found that geometric algebra and quaternion representations are useful, and the 3-sphere central, to a workable cosmological picture. Now you have me wondering if they might serve as well for mental representation as for physical representation.

            While I did not have the space in my Software Cosmos essay to dwell on the possibilities for mental representation, I think that my model affords (with its unobserved "implicate" space) a venue for such. In any case, I conclude with "It from Bit and Bit from Us", meaning that the source of things is information but the source of that information is Mind.

            Information about the physical world is arranged hierarchically into objects of increasing size. Are minds arranged the same way? Does an individual mind partake of a species-mind (responsible for instinctual knowledge) and does a species-mind partake of a greater mind (capable of, say cellular functioning)? If so, then the underlying invisible fractal mechanisms used to structure the physical realm that I describe might also be serving the mental realm. At least, that would be my guess.

            Hugh

              Hi Charles,

              What a wonderful paper!

              What a surprising correspondence between Wheeler's idea of It from Bit and von Weizsacker's idea of Ur!

              And what a new connection you have discovered between these and Pauli's concept of ``psycho-physical neutral" !

              This is a very very well written paper. I must give it a high score.

              Sincerely,

              Gary Glenn Miller

                Hello Charles,

                Very, very nicely written essay which taught me a lot of historical development in this field, so it was extremely relevant and interesting!

                I like the way you set the stage for the humanity's ongoing quest and it felt like a challenge to motivate the reader into physics - which is great.

                Reminded me a little of Brief History of Time with an It from Bit slant.

                Well done and all the best for the contest!

                Take a look at my essay if you get chance. Information in the context of Black Holes, geometry, entropy & Fibonacci!

                Kind regards,

                Antony

                  Hi Yuri,

                  You can find a discussion of Pauli's statement in which you are interested in Suzanne Gieser's "The Innermost Kernel", page 330. I hope this helps.

                  Thanks for your interest in my essay.

                  Charles

                  Hi Armin,

                  Thank you for your thoughtful response to my essay! I understand your skepticism with regard to the possibility that Spekken's 'additional conceptual ingredient' and Carey's 'conceptual leap' are the same, or perhaps are pointing to some factor or aspect held in common. In my essay I've reframed and refocused the discussion of it, bit, and information and have arrived at this conjecture rather than at a 'solution' which I do not believe is at hand. It would be wonderful if this competition proves me wrong! In any event, there is more that can be obtained as background to my conjecture by exploring the associated reference, the last one listed in the paper. After reading your paper, I've come to understand why you wanted to explore my usage of the term 'substance' and why it may have caused some initial confusion, as it would for most people who commonly associate 'substance' with 'physical stuff'. 'Substance' as I have used it harks back to Aristotle's work.

                  I must say, I really enjoyed your paper, as well! Your discussion of 'patterns of distinction' and of 'actualizable objects' are particularly insightful for me. One question that I think it would be nice for you to engage is, "Why does the background of a binary distinction require a complex state space such as the Block sphere associated with the qubit?"

                  Thanks again, Charles

                  Hi Hugh,

                  First of all, let me say how much I enjoyed your essay. I found that it was a well thought-out, creative response to the competition topic. You have a very interesting compilation of relevant references to your stated intention of constructing software for a digital universe. As well, I really value your appeal to geometric algebra in a number of instances for the theoretical underpinning of your approach. I do believe that there are some general/generalizable aspects of GA that may prove relevant to discussions of mental structures and representations, but I think that it would be premature to try to make too much of these possibilities at this point. If you care to pursue where my thoughts have largely been concentrated, you might wish to check out the last reference cited in my paper.

                  Thanks again for your interest,

                  Charles

                  Hi Gary,

                  Thanks again for all of your support and encouragement for my work. I trust you will have seen some of the influences of our many years of conversations in what I have written. I look forward to the continuing conversation!

                  I truly enjoyed your paper, too. You tabled many wonderful topics, and I hope that you will take the opportunity to expand upon them outside of the confines of this essay competition. I know that you have much to say that will require a monograph (or two)to encompass it.

                  Cheers,

                  Charles

                  Hi Antony,

                  Thanks for your interest in my paper. I'm glad that it was useful to you. I have a warm spot in my heart for logarithmic spirals and golden numbers, and I look forward to reading your paper.

                  Thanks again, Charles

                  We know that, historically, conceptual discontinuities do provoke strong, sometimes even violent reactions from individuals whose views of reality are threatened simply by the contemplation of the possibilities of the discontinuities. Consider as examples in mathematics, the discovery of the incommensurability of the side and diagonal of a square by the Pythagoreans (irrational numbers), the possibility and potency of negative square roots (imaginary numbers),and in physics, the departures from Newtonian common sense and outright paradoxes brought forth by special and general relativity and quantum physics. In each case, a beautiful vision of the world is destroyed, but we have reason to hope, again as we have learned from historical examples, that if we persist, an even more beautiful view of the world will eventually arise in its place.