Dear Giacomo and Matt,

Very interesting discussion! I'm sorry to butt in, but I've been trying to have some discussion about the relativity of simultaneity, preferred frames, absolute time, etc., through the last couple of contests, so I was hoping you'd let me join you here.

As one raised on cosmology, I have to give my support to Giacomo's comment that "As most cosmologist admit, we have a preferred frame: the background radiation." Cosmic time is one of the basic assumptions of modern cosmology, although it's not commonly spoken of as being opposed to the spirit of relativity (which it obviously is). Actually, my previous essay argued that standard cosmology goes a step too far by remaining true to the Einsteinian definition of simultaneity as synonymous with synchronicity, albeit only in the cosmic frame.

I tried to discuss the distinction between simultaneity and synchronicity that needs to be made in a realistic version of relativity on Ken Wharton's page, because of a funny inconsistency I see in his essay. He based his essay on the implication from the relativity of simultaneity, that we live in a block universe where all of space-time is real at once. But his analysis makes use of what he calls the Independence Fallacy, which, if you agree with it, provides a very strong argument *against* the relativity of simultaneity (actually, it goes roughly as Giacomo has stated it above). Since the issue has come up here as one that interests you, I'd be interested in any response you might have to my posts there.

Thanks, Daryl

Dear Dr.Giacomo D'Ariano,

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

The egg was long before the chicken:

the chicken is a bird and birds evolved during the Mesozoic Era.

While eggs were laid by reptiles long before this era.

(If instead the question regards "eggs laid by a chicken", then clearly chickens come first.

If instead the question regards "eggs from which a chicken is born", then clearly eggs come first.)

In all cases, the question has simple and unproblematic solution. I never understood what is the issue about eggs and chickens.

Mauro, I find your criticism of the notion of object fully convincing.

Just a point for reflection: if you consider that at some level quantum gravity is relevant, you cannot even rely on a three (or four)-dimensional background over which you qbits can live.

Carlo

    Dear Mauro

    This is an interesting essay, and I continue to be surprised (as you have been) about how similar, and yet different, our lines of thinking have been.

    Your demolition of object is interesting. However, rather than allowing us to talk about existence of an object, an operationalist viewpoint only allows us to define an entity, such as an electron, in terms of what it does to our measurement apparatus. I do not know, nor can I know, what an electron is. I can only discern a pattern of influences that I can choose to call an electron.

    I am confused by your statement . I am not sure what "pure information" is, nor am I sure how to distinguish "kinds" of information. In my way of thinking, information is something that constrains one's beliefs. In this sense, I am not sure how "quantum information" is different than "classical information". Indeed in the paper that Philip Goyal and I wrote, (http://www.mdpi.com/2073-8994/3/2/171 ), we rely on regular old probability theory to derive the Feynman path integral formulation of quantum mechanics. The difference that QM plays is that one uses amplitudes to assign priors.

    It also seems that your quantum elements need to sit in some kind of array or lattice. How does this lattice come about? Can there be dislocations? Or is it perfect? If so, why? In my approach there is no such lattice. In the case where one imagines a special situation where two observer chains may agree on the lengths of each others' intervals one gets a Minkowski metric and so on (as discussed in my essay).

    Now I do like the fact that you come up with a BCC lattice as being important. You may be interested in a paper by Bialnycki-Birula which did not appear in your references (PRD 49(12), 1994, pp 6920-6927). He *reverse engineers* a complex-valued cellular automaton that reproduces the Weyl and Dirac equations. I'd be interested in learning more about your approach to see how similar or different your findings are to his.

    I myself have found BCC lattices to arise naturally when I rely on three pairs of observers. I have not put this in any of my papers yet, but this was presented in my slides from my 2012 APS talk (http://huginn.com/talks/knuth-aps12-final.pdf).

    Another difference here is that your approach relies on a concept of energy and mass (as coupling). In my essay I try to get an understanding of what these quantities represent in terms of what electrons do.

    I continue to be surprised at how our parallel our paths are given that our foundational ideas are so different. Perhaps we are both at a point where we realize that the object we are exploring is a mammal belonging to the genus Proboscidea.

      Dear Professor Giacomo

      So far I have read two very interesting essays from the Italian contingent, yourself and from Carlo. Before all is over, I hope to find more. Good luck to all!

      In my essay "Analogical Engine", I have said somewhat grandly that: (1) "Quantum mechanics is analogical" and (2) "The Planck constant is the Mother of All Dualities and a necessary condition for existence of all thoughts and things", based on the premise "What quantum is to classical" is similar to "What analogy is to rationality." Cognitively, I have back it up with a thought-experiment, while "deriving" a simulacrum of the Planck constant, giving a vivid and metaphorical meaning to what we are discussing here: "It from Bit", or in my book: "The classical from the quantum", which in the framework of my essay is about "The rational from the analogy."

      I am not a physicist and my maths are not to snuff, but I hear resonances (a phrase borrowed from Manuel) in your essay. Can you say the same if you have time to read my essay?

      Than Tin

        Dear Dr. Giacomo D'Ariano,

        I read your, deeply but clearly thought out well written, essay with ease and enthusiasm. In which you have argued why Bit is more important for' us' than It, i.e., out of 'It from Bit or 'Bit from It', you have chosen the former alternative and for which you have given substantial back ground material as to why we have to side with you. In the same essay contest prof. Tejinder Singh and co. also have written an equally absorbing article, in which they have argued why It is more important than Bit with equal clarity and enough substantial back ground material as to why we have to side with them and they have opted for the alternative 'Bit from It'. Both these two articles are equally convincing and after comparing them with my essay (http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1827) I have come to the conclusion that both views conform to a more basic view, in the following way.

        It is the 'observation' and the 'knowledge' acquired due to observation by 'mind', are two things more basic than It and Bit. With respect to observation and knowledge, the priority between It and Bit wouldn't make much difference as mind tries to contact the external world (It) through Bit and hence Bit 'supplies' us the knowledge of It to the mind and there by claims priority, but it is It which is supplying mind Bit at the same time and therefore claims priority over Bit. Now we can understand why both It and Bit are equally important and the question of priority is just the way we look at them. That is why I have concluded in my essay, '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'.

        So, I have argued in prof. Tejinder Singh's thread that both views are 'diametrically opposite'. In prof. Tejinder Singh's article, he moves from past to future as in classical physics and hence give priority to It in QM; where as in your article, you move from future to past and give priority to Bit although both describe the same reality (observation) from opposite ends/ directions.

        Thanking you and best of luck.

        Sreenath

        Mauro,

        I have been reading your essay but found your reply here especially interesting, as my essay also demonstrates that differential topology does not incorporate volume. My view is that if a metric theory can also have quantized volume (using Gunnar Nordstroem's theory) then this could be used as a link between GR and QFT. I will have to re-read your essay a few times but look forward to giving it a high rating.

        Kind Regards,

        JP Baugher

        Dear Carlo

        indeed, I don't rely on any background. The starting point is only relational, and that's where the finitely presented infinite group comes from. The quasi-isometric embedding in R^d is a temporary restriction in seeking all possible automata. On the other hand, I conjecture that there will be no automaton e.g. in hyperbolic spaces. In any case, the relations come first, and the embedding is a property of the group, and space and SR emergence come later.

        The way I expect to get gravity is through a holographic principle from the automaton in an Euclidean space, a la Jacobson-Verlinde, and in such way curved space will be emergent, as a way to describe gravity phenomenologically, as Einstein did.

        Dear Kevin

        thank you very much for reading my essay and for your compliments.

        You are surprised by similarities between our approaches, but indeed there is almost none. The approaches looked similar at the very beginning, more than three years ago, but now we are on another planet. Just few comments. My definition of information, and in particular, of "quantum information", has a precise technical connotation, which is given by the Pavia axiomatics of Quantum Theory. For me an electron is a theoretical notion, not an operational one (see my response to Matthew Leifer). Your work with Philippe is more concerned with the "mechanics", I am interested in the "quantum theory of systems", which can be applied e.g. to quantum fields, my main concern. My relations between systems are homogeneous, and that's why we get a lattice group. Homogeneity corresponds to universality of the physical law, as it is the case for the Maxwell field and the Dirac field. Dislocations would correspond to a random microscopical law, and you need to really recover all symmetries as emergent from randomness: but you need principles for why a kind of randomness or another! The automaton of Bialnycki-Birula is of the same kind of ours. However, what is relevant here is not the reverse engineering of the automaton, but the direct engineering: we start from few simple principles (QT, unitariety, locality, homogeneity, and isotropy) and derive two (not one!) Dirac automata that are connected by CPT, and that have Dirac as emergent in the relativistic limit (not in the continuum limit!) with Lorentz covariance becoming Smolin-Maguejo/Camelia's corresponding to breaking of CPT. We are not mimicking a theory: we derive theory from first principles.

        As I said, at the beginning I was also surprised about the apparent similarity between your arxiv:1005.4172 and my early ideas on foliations arXiv:1001.1088 that later became the work with Tosini "Emergence of space-time from topologically homogeneous causal networks" on SHPMP http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2011.03.031

        However, SR and space-time come out when you seek the construction of the full reference frame a la Einstein. The precision of the reference frame depends on the precision of the clock. Are you willing to use a random clock? I think that one doesn't go far sticking on a classical network: the quantum nature of information is crucial to recover all continuous symmetries from the discrete ones (see my 2012 essay), since continuous symmetries (including Lorentz) are recovered from superposition between paths.

        So, at this point, I think that the only common point between our approach is causality: the first of the six Pavia axioms.

        We are studying a thoroughbred horse, not a flower.

        My best regards

        Mauro

        Dear Sreenath

        thank you very much for your very nice compliments.

        In my essay, I dismounted the "It" with the main motivation of getting more attention to new alternative theoretical frameworks that I consider much more powerful. More than being interested in proving the Bit or the It what matters to me is finding the most efficient way of deriving the largest phenomenological scenario from the minimal set of principles, and I just showed how powerful the Qbit is! Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for the "It" of Tejinder Singh. Bohm's has now more than 60 years, and, honestly, even though it is always suggestive, we didn't get much from it. Singh doesn't even have a unique notion of "It". Is it "the particle"? What is a particle? The hyper-realists Singh and Bassi are trying to save a "mechanical" world, making it look even stranger and weirder than the quantum one. In support of their realism they are even invoking the trace-dynamics by Stephen L. Adler. Why? To rely on authority? A year ago I was curious, and bought the book of Adler (I got it used for a small price), and honestly I found his theory laking any kind of beauty. I later discovered that almost nobody knows it.

        We should seek new physics, based on solid principles, principles based on logical arguments, not on the satisfaction of our imagination. At least, we should give to new physics more opportunities to express their potentialities, which had not been expressed up to now by the realistic approaches.

        Thank you again

        Mauro

        Dear Than

        thank you for your reading and compliments. I had a look ar your essay, and I should say that I do not share many of your assertions and generally the methodology. I do appreciate your interest in physics. Unfortunately, physics is a quite hard job.

        My best regards

        Mauro

        Jim,

        your essay has an attractive narrative, is pleasant to read and well written.

        Regarding my personal opinions on the subjects, I just like to stress that the "It from Bit" that I like of Wheeler is not the act of creation of the universe. Likewise, I'm not very fond of the Antropic principle either.

        But you master to put all subjects in a quite equilibrate way.

        My best regards

        Mauro

        Dr. D'Ariano,

        Hi. It's Roger again. Sorry for another comment. This is only peripherally related to your essay, but your essay and Olaf Dreyer's prompted me to throw it out there. It's an idea I've been thinking about for awhile relating to the superpositioning idea. It's below.

        A. Suppose that there is in existence only one instance of a most fundamental existent entity, named A. A is an existent entity and represents a position. This also means there is only one position in existence. There are no entities or positions outside of A.

        B. Suppose that this most fundamental existent entity, A, has the ability to generate additional existent entities, each named B1, B2, B3, etc., in order to cover its surface. Once created, these new B entities would be new positions. One can't say why these new entities were created in the positions they're in because there were no positions until after they were created.

        C. Now, suppose a human mind looks back on this situation after the B entities were created. Given that it seems natural in our minds to think that space is infinitely divisible (e.g. continuous), we might think that the B entities could have been in any of an infinite number of positions around the A entity. That is, in our minds, there would be a superpositioning of possible locations for B to have been in. This seems reasonable, but it's not correct because there were no positions other than A until after the B entities were created. So, our after-the-fact imposition of a probability distribution for the possible locations of the B entities is incorrect because there were no locations other than A until after the B entities were created.

        I just wanted to throw it out there in case in you might have some feedback. As before, thanks for your replies to all our posts. As an amateur thinker, I appreciate your taking us seriously!

        Roger Granet

          Dear Mauro,

          Am wondering, did you per chance omit to answer my questions of 4th july or did you CHOOSE to ignore them. You did answer every other person's question around it. But I sincerely do need to be educated by you on those issues I raised, if you don't mind.

          All the best

          Chidi

            I read a interesting comment of westy31 on http://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2013/04/10/network-theory-part-28/#comment-31505 that contain a link to an interesting application of the network theory that describe Schrodinger equation, Dirac equation and Klein-Gordon equation (in space that seem curved space, and it is possible to use Clifford algebra); it is all too complex for me to evaluate it.

              Hi Mauro,

              I really enjoyed reading your paper. Your construction seems to be extended to the higher dimensional case. However, you implicitly assume that our world seems to be in four dimension in your essay. Is it right? Or, how to evaluate the dimension on the space-time in your approach?

              Best wishes,

              Yutaka

                Mr D'Ariano,

                the italians in the contest are not more than 5, can I ask kindly

                an opinion about my essay this way i will know why I am the 5th....

                My Best Regards. Giacomo Alessiani.

                http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1903

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                  • Post #100

                  Dear Chidi,

                  I will answer to your post soon. I'm not answering sequentially, and the website has been unavailable lately.

                  Best

                  Mauro