Something about Information by Georgina Parry

Georgina,

I find your essay interesting but feel that too many times we only speak quantum language and apply it equally to the micro and macro world, or perhaps ignore the macro. With my non-scientific, non-mathematical background, perhaps my views are too simplistic, perhaps too humanistic, but I feel modern man has built the Anthropic Principle in his own image.

Jim

What do you think?

Dear Georgina

I enjoyed reading your essay. You have a a talent for turning a scientific discussion into a journey of discovery in a land of ideas. Not just any ideas, but ones you have carefully researched, mulled over and presented honestly and clearly to your listeners. It is a bit like storytelling. The wonderful illustrations make your intention the clearer. I would agree with almost everything you said, but would have worded some examples differently (Pauli's principle is usually applied to electrons not nuclei, although it is not actually wrong to do so.)

I enjoyed the reference to chocolate fillings towards the end, but then that inevitably brought to mind an absolutely hilarious passage in the novel I am now reading Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. The novel is not for everyone, but the passage about exotic English candy fillings. Apologies if this is too distracting.

With best wishes

Vladimir

Georgina

Nice to see you again,Unfortunately, your essay is too large for automatic translation capabilities of my computer. Anyway,also wish you success.

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1802

Thanks Georgina for putting my mind at ease - I was wondering how you would find the reference. When I was a kid Charms made delicious candies with cinnamon (now discontinued), and Charm is a type of quark - so its back to physics and your highly regarded essay. Good luck in the contest.

Vladimir

Georgina,

I have down loaded your essay and soon post my comments on it. Meanwhile, please, go through my essay and post your comments.

Being yourself a biologist, you may like what I have written on It and Bit in my 'biology' section.

Regards and good luck in the contest.

Sreenath BN.

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1827

Georgina,

I always look forward to your essays and was not disappointed. I was also exceptionally pleased to find so much harmony with my own core propositions.

In particular you may the very good and quite originally expressed point;

"Information is also the carried potential to direct change (function) in Object reality and carried potential meaning that may lead to manifest meaning in subjective Image reality." which seems to imply a coherent 'it from bit', or rather the recognition of the 'bit' itself as an 'it'.

Related to this you point out;

"When information is processed by a machine, meaning is fabricated by the process... ...meaning is 'uncovered' when the machine acts upon the direction of the input. I conceptualise this in terms of the wavefunction not just being "collapsed" on interaction (processing) but a new one (reality) being "created", and hope you can see the analogy.

But I think you correctly identify the real key to better understanding of nature in the simple line; "In nature there is more than a binary choice of atom or no atom." Which is also the massive choice range embedded in my 'Intelligent Bit' between 0 and 1.

Well done again. A nice easy to read and well argued essay. I feel my own may again be a little too densely packed and testing, but hope you can find the time to read it carefully and follow the references as the ontological construction is assembled, showing that the 'information' sent combines with the detector state to create the complex subjective 'measurements' neurally 'recorded', complete with quantum uncertainty.

I look forward to any comments or questions.

Very best of luck in the results.

Peter

Dear Madam,

Welcome to the contest. Your essay is a pleasure to read and thought provoking. We had just glanced over it. We will go through it in detail and post our comments. You can visit our essay:

"INFORMATION HIDES IN THE GLARE OF REALITY by basudeba mishra

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1776".

Regards,

basudeba

Dear Madam,

Thank you for presenting your nice essay. I saw the abstract and will post my comments soon. I feel just information can not create material. . . .

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.

Dear Madam,

A big problem hampering progress science is the cult of incomprehensibility. A word has certain meaning, which can vary according to context, but not arbitrarily. Whenever a word is used in a different sense, it should be precisely defined and its scope clearly demarcated. Otherwise it would perpetuate incomprehensibility like color and flavor of quarks. Most scientists fail to explain what these stand for and talk in mysterious terms to hide their ignorance. There is a similar problem relating to the term information in physics. The scientists you have quoted have neither given a precise nor correct definition. For example, "it is about communication of binary choices" should be "it is about communication by binary choices". Unless 1 and 0 represent some concepts through a language, they have no meaning. Hence you had to develop their definition. You can compare it with the definition given in our essay.

Your description of perception is similar to ours. Reality must be perceived as invariant under similar conditions at all times for all people. All invariant information consistent with physical laws of measurement, i.e. effect of distance, angle, temperature, etc, is real. However, if the measuring instrument is faulty, the reading would also be wrong. Dopamine affects the functioning of the neurotransmitters, making the instrument of perception faulty. Other people do not get similar results making the information variable for that person. Thus, the result is not real. You can tell this invariance as participatory.

Noise, by definition, cannot be information. Noise is never communicated. It creeps in during communication as an undesirable, but unavoidable uncertainty. White noise does not belong to this category, as it gives a null result; hence a part of the binary system. You are right that all information may not be meaningful to all. It is because, as you have put it, "output is formed by association of existing knowledge via working memory with object tokens". That is the software. DNA, RNA, etc, are hardware.

Information is always a reported concept about some material object. In the ever changing universe, we give a specific combination of atoms a name and freeze that as a concept. The concept of the form remains invariant even as the material itself changes its form like those in radioactive substances. The form is affected by dimension, which is the differentiation of perception between the internal structural space and external relational space. If these are fixed, the object is solid and two objects cannot occupy the same position. If it is not fixed, it is fluid. Hence not attached to a fixed position and two particles can occupy the same space. Thus, it is not a unique quantum phenomenon. Discrete models like cellular automata can be effective approaches to physics. Rule 110, which requires an infinite number of localized patterns to be embedded within an infinitely repeating background pattern, can be the basis. But unless we know how the images are generated, we would end up disappointed. You have correctly pointed out that charge directs change. But it is not due to information. It is due to physical laws governing these interactions including embryo-genesis. Information is only reporting of such interactions.

Encoded within the form of an object is the properties and not information necessary to give all of the possible image manifestations of it. The whole is not the bare summation of the parts. A mixture of hydrogen and oxygen atoms in 2:1 ratio is not the same thing as water. They interact at a particular temperature level to "become" water. This transformation to 'becoming' from 'being' differentiates the whole as a distinct entity from part. The temperature level is a part of the mixing mechanism. Similarly, different sensory organs perceive different aspects of Nature through different interactions. These are mixed in memory to prepare a composite form of the whole, which is retained as a concept. When similar impulses are received, it is compared with the stored impulses. If it matches, we perceive it as such. Otherwise, we simply record it in memory and treat it as 'no match found'. The observer function and behavior depend upon the result of comparison of the incoming impulse with the stored memory. This image reality (as perceived by a conscious agent) refers to a concept about an object (objective reality). The concept may be true (universally invariant) or false (varies with individual perception). This is the reason why binary system is used in communication.

We see superposition in everyday reality regularly. The result of measurement is always related to a time t, and is frozen for use at later times t1, t2, etc, when the object has evolved further. All other unknown states are combined together and are called superposition of states. For example, look at two water waves coming from different directions on a beach. They are continuously evolving in time. When we saw them as coming together, one might be a crest and the other a trough. After meeting together, it becomes a flat surface and move away again to be another crest and trough. If we want to know where the crest and trough were, there is no way of knowing it. They could be anywhere - they are in superposition of all possible states. The problem becomes complicated when the image reality is perceived differently from the objective reality like mistaking a conch shell partially hidden in the sand in reflected sunlight for silver.

Top, bottom, left, right, etc, are not natural descriptions, but the description of the order of arrangement of objects with reference to an arbitrarily chosen origin (coordinate system), which may be the observer himself. These are not permanent descriptions either and could be differently described by changing our position. Our description or otherwise does not affect their state or temporal evolution. A suspended die falls on a particular face due to the force, angle and height from which it was cast, its mass, shape, etc, and its interaction with the air and the friction with the base including gravitational attraction. If we could judge these correctly, we can predict its result. Hence it is not information, but physical laws that determine how a die is cast.

And lastly you reach the right conclusion: interconnectedness of the macro and the micro, the atom and the Universe, the 'it' and the 'bit'.

Regards,

basudeba

Hello Georgina,

A few comments/ questions for you:

RE: "A 'bit' is not a particle but an associated attribute, eg. spin or polarization"

I have found that in this essay contest some misinterpret the word bit to mean tiny parts of a material thing instead of the correct meaning you used which is an attribute that can have either of two alternatives. In this regard, would you consider 'existence' as an example of an attribute?

RE: "Julian Barbour's award winning essay ... makes a very good case for 'Bit from It'. He argues that 'bits' are nothing without 'its'. So its are more fundamental. It can be seen that information has to be carried and does not exist on its own. There can't be spin or polarization without something to have

those attributes".

Largely true. But if 'existence/non-existence' are binary choices (bits), then one of those choices does not need an It to 'carry it'. Food for thought.

Best regards,

Akinbo

*You can give me your thoughts on my essay. Harsh but logical criticism preferred!

Dear Madam,

The interconnectedness and interdependence of everything with everything else as cause and effect cannot be denied. But we may come to different conclusions while examining the same thing, like the transmission of a conversation on the platform and noise, which are interconnected. Let us take the example of boarding announcement of a flight. For the passengers, what the announcer says is the only information. The rest is noise. Shannon calls this entropy. But for an investigator who is hearing the recording, this noise may contain information. In both cases, the focuses are different. The investigator is focusing on the entire sound and not only the flight announcement. Thus, noise is the unintended part of communication - hence it is not information.

What we call form, is what we perceive through any one or more of the sense organs. For example, we see color as through ocular perception by electromagnetic interaction. We feel the shape through tactile perception by gravitational interaction from each point of the object, etc. These perceptions are combined in our memory and compared with it to generate a response. This response can be for the body to react in a particular way or to the mind only as is done by the mirror neurons. Similarly, perception of form has two divisions. The electromagnetic interaction by which we "see" relates to the exterior of the particle. The gravitational interaction by which we "touch" belongs to the other "core' part only. Thus, what we see, we can not touch and what we touch, we cannot see. Similarly, when we hear a word, the sounds of the letters of the alphabet come in a sequence, and not at the same time. We combine these impulses and draw an inference on its totality. This inference may be right or wrong. But properties are the total effect of the object that directs all of its interactions and thus, the possible image manifestations of it. The reporting of this interaction or manifestation is information. The properties can exist independently without information. Hence we said so. You can read our essay for better understanding of our ideas that may be mutually beneficial.

The last line of your post (for which you thanked us) gives an impression that our comments are viewed with awe or may be as nuisance. If it be so, it is unintended and we apologize for it.

Regards,

basudeba

Hello Georgina,

I think that you are right that observation is important to the essay question. Also I have concluded likewise in my essay that It from Bit and Bit from It seem more likely.

Great essay.

Best wishes,

Antony