Essay Abstract

Wheeler's original "It from Bit" proposal focused not on the digital structure of reality, but on the question-and-answer process through which physical information gets determined by observations. He envisioned the physical world not as a computer, but as a system that defines all its own information interactively, through measurement-processes. This essay pursues that idea, developing an evolutionary concept of measurement based on the fact that every way of measuring things depends on a context of other kinds of measurements. It argues that the foundational structure of a universe like ours, that can make all its own parameters observable, must necessarily be complicated. But this is a special kind of complexity, that we can understand as evolving through random selection.

Author Bio

I have lived mainly in the US. I have a long-standing interest in the conceptual foundations of physics, going back to graduate-school days at the University of California at Santa Cruz, where I earned my degree in History of Consciousness. My essay "An Observable World" was entered in last year's FQXi contest.

Download Essay PDF File

Dear Johnson,

Thank you for presenting your nice essay. I saw the abstract and will post my comments soon. So you can produce material from your 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.

Hi, Conrad,

Your thesis was extremely well argued; both the exposition and the logic (nicely clear of mathematical formalisms to make it readable for the lay person) were very clear, without any glaring gaps. Bravo!

There are, naturally, some points that one can nitpick. For example, you make an interesting case for the inability of a circular and hence infinite backward recursion to be put outside the realm of mathematics. However, there are (often non-standard) mathematical systems which deal precisely with such recursions. As well, invoking complexity also does not invalidate a mathematical treatment, as fields such as Chaos Theory show. Finally, your analogy with the evolutionary process could also be used to point out that, just as evolutionary theory in biology has well-grounded mathematical bases, so too could an evolutionary universe which you envisage be based on mathematics.

(Darwinian evolutionary theory consists of two parts: the mutations, and the natural selection. To see some mathematical details connected to the latter part, one could look at the article (also inspired by Wheeler) "Quantum Darwinism and envariance" by W.H. Zurek in the collection "Science and Ultimate Reality", ed. Barrow, Davies and Harper, Cambridge University Press, 2004.)

Overall, an excellent and enjoyable essay.

Best,

David

    Dear Conrad,

    I noticed you wrote "But in our universe, equations govern on.e on-one interactions between individual entities, and what happens in any situation depends on a non-linear combination of many different kinds of interactions going on at once".

    This sounds quite logical and something that isn't often considered - important point!

    I like that your essay is built around observation plus your abstract is clear and concise. Please take a look at my essay which is also based around observation, but from a different angle.

    Best wishes for the contest,

    Antony

    David - thanks! I find it very difficult to be clear about this theme, so it's lovely to think I might have succeeded, at least for some readers.

    I didn't mean to suggest that a mathematical treatment wouldn't be useful for describing any aspect of the complex of information-defining processes that make up our universe. But there's a difference between using various kinds of mathematics as precise descriptive tools, and imagining the world as "based on mathematics", or as being itself a mathematical entity.

    The point of my last section was to suggest that what the universe can do, as an evolved system, far exceeds what we can expect from any information-processing system based on a deterministic logic. There's a tendency today to assume that mathematics and/or computation can do absolutely anything, and I wanted to point out some reasons for doubting that. But this is really incidental to my theme.

    Thanks again -- Conrad

    You're right that I neglected to answer the question as to which is the more basic, It or Bit. I would say that the existence of physical entities and their properties (It) ultimately depends on the ability of the physical interaction to communicate this information. It's this ability to define information between systems that evolves, just as in biology what evolves is the ability to reproduce information between a system and its offspring. Wheeler and others have argued that this process can be conceived in terms of asking yes/no questions, hence "It from Bit". But I think what's basic about information has more to do with the contexts that define it than with the fact that it can be cast in binary form.

    Dear Conrad,

    Your essay is very interesting. It almost seems you're giving Wheeler the benefit of the doubt. Your words make sense, but Wheelers are over the edge. Reality does NOT arise from the answer to yes and no questions, only our knowledge of reality. One might conclude either that Wheeler simply could not express himself well, or that he was a solipsist, or he was confused. You, on the other hand, express yourself well and do not seem confused. You propose that measurement can [did] evolve through accidental selection. In the 1970s, as part of my dissertation, I analyzed a robot simply randomly kicking three different sized stones, with a number generating visual system, and ask how the robot could use the arbitrary numbers to recognize patterns and derive dynamics to create a theory of physics. In short, how to derive theories from measurement numbers, assuming one initially knows nothing about what the numbers represent. I touch on this in my current essay, which I hope you will read. Obviously the observed trajectories of three different size 'kicked' stones are classical in nature. You start with the more difficult QM case, which I believe should realistically follow the development of the classical theory. You may imply this when you state: "however such a web is constituted, at bottom it's very coarsely woven."

    We seem to use slightly different terminology here, but I think we agree. I particularly like your "correlation of information between systems" as superpositions of possible states and your analysis of when these superpositions "collapse". I agree that this is epistemological, not ontological, i.e., "no reason to think any objective physical collapse occurs."

    I also very much like your discussion of biological processes as analogous to the evolution of measurement and your statement: "the de facto "purpose" of this process is just keep itself going." A beautiful correspondence between life and the institution of physics.

    I'm not sure I understand your question about "account for the fact that there are observable phenomena in the world." If you mean why do things exist, then I agree with you. If you're asking "how do we partition the observed universe into particular phenomenon", then I provide one answer in my essay.

    I agree that this kind of theory is unlikely to explain the fine tuning of physical parameters.

    Your last four paragraphs are excellent, leading up to the question "so if the equations are not running the show, then why are they there?" This may relate to the process I describe elsewhere by which we recognize the patterns, form feature vectors, "tune" the feature representation and deduce dynamical relations. That is, it may all be merely an overlay!

    Thanks for a stimulating essay. I hope you find time to read and comment upon my essay.

    Best regards,

    Edwin Eugene Klingman

      Edwin -

      I very much appreciate your careful reading of my essay, and your many specific comments. I will certainly go back to look at your essay again and post my notes on your thread.

      Wheeler certainly did go over the top and threw out a lot of suggestions - in those days it seems, people were groping for ideas that were "crazy enough" to fit QM. But for purposes of this contest, his wild notion that measurement underlies reality served me well enough as a starting-point.

      I realize I wasn't at all clear at the end of my essay, as to why deterministic principles can't account for the fact that there are observable phenomena. What I had in mind was my argument in Section IV, that "the observed facts themselves have to be able to define all this structure, without depending on any underlying unobservable reality... Only what's observable can contribute to the context-structure of empirical information."

      In other words, the structure of the observable world has to be able to define itself in terms of itself, regardless of any underlying unobservable reality. Therefore, it can't be accounted for on the basis of any such reality. Let's say that there really are certain absolute principles that cause everything to happen just as it does. That could explain particular phenomena - but it wouldn't explain why each of these phenomena happens to have an appropriate context of very different phenomena that makes it measurable.

      This argument may not be unassailable, but I think it's worth thinking about. In classical physics, and in all the other natural sciences, everything we do is an attempt to account for specific phenomena on the basis of some hypothetical underlying reality. And since this works so well - except in fundamental physics - we tend to think this is what science is all about: inventing unobservable facts to explain the observable ones.

      That sort of explanation is undeniably useful, wherever it works. My point is only that it can't work to explain the most obvious feature of our universe, that at least some things about it are observable. This requires a different explanatory strategy, such as the one I'm trying to develop here.

      Thanks again for your comments. I find these ideas very difficult to express, and it's very helpful to know what seems clear to a thoughtful reader.

      - Conrad

      Joe - As a cranky as well as crumpled old realist, it's very good of you to take time off to appreciate some relatively thoughtful codswallop. In any case, I thank you for your generous compliments.

      - Conrad

      Conrad,

      Thanks for the above comment. Indeed these ideas are very difficult, but I now have a much better idea of what you meant. I agree that it's worth thinking about.

      Edwin Eugene Klingman

      Conrad,

      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

      Hi Conrad,

      ''There's no such thing as information without a context that actually defines it.''

      Yes: If there would be only a single charged particle among uncharged particles in the universe, then it wouldn't be able to express its charge in interactions. As it in that case it cannot be charged itself, charge, or any property, must be something which is shared by particles, something which only exists, is expressed and preserved within their interactions. If particles, particle properties (its) are both cause and effect of their interactions, of the exchange of bits and particles only exist to each other if and for as long as they interact, exchange information, then you cannot have one without the other nor can one be more fundamental than the other.

      If the information as embodied in particle properties and the associated laws of physics (rules of behavior) must be the product of a trial-and-error evolution, then information only can become actual information if it manages to survive: when molded into particles and particle properties and tested in practice, in interactions between 'its', between actual, physical, material particles. So I agree that

      ''there exists here a self-defining information-structure of a very special kind - one that can define all its own facts, parameters and principles in terms of each other. This sort of system is as remarkable in its own way as a living organism''

      If real particles are virtual particles which by alternately borrowing and lending each other the energy to exist, force each other to reappear again and again after every disappearance (according to the uncertainty principle: the smaller their distance, the higher the frequency they exchange energy at, pop up and disappear to pop up again, the higher their rest energy is), then they create and un-create each other over and over again. As the energy sign of a particle alternates, it is a wave phenomenon. If the energy, the rest frequency of a particle is the superposition of all frequencies it exchanges energy at with all particles within its interaction horizon, a frequency which depends on their mass, distance and motion, then the particle in its properties carries all relevant information about its entire universe, information which is refreshed in every cycle of its oscillation. The inertia of a particle, its opposition to an acceleration (its manifestation as a tangible, material object) is powered by this continuous exchange of energy, of information. If we could cut off this exchange, it would vanish without trace, just like an image on a TV screen vanishes when we pull the plug. Though the universe indeed in many respects is a living 'thing', it is not something which lives, exists as seen from without, something which has particular properties as a whole, something we may imagine to look at from without. If the universe is to obey what to me seems the most fundamental and most obvious law of physics, the conservation law which says that what comes out of nothing must add to nothing, then it doesn't exist, has no physical reality as a whole, as 'seen' from the outside, but only exists as seen from within.

      In the seemingly innocuous assumption that we can regard the universe as an ordinary object which has certain properties and changes, grows older in time, big bang cosmology unwittingly but implicitly asserts that there's something outside the of it the universe interacts with, owes its properties to: that it has been created by something outside of it. Evidently, this attitude can be justified only if particles only are the cause of interactions, not also their product. As big bang cosmology describes the physics of a fictitious universe, it is science fiction, not science.

      ''What role do laws of physics play? And if at a deeper level things aren't fully determinate, if they turn out to obey laws only on average, then why does the world we observe end up looking so precisely factual and deterministic?''

      According to the Uncertainty Principle, the smaller the distance between particles is, the higher the frequency they exchange energy at, pop up and disappear to pop up again, the higher their rest energy is. The farther apart two particles are or the lower their energy is, the less it matters where the other particle is or how it moves, what properties it exactly has, the less definite the properties of one particle are according to the other. The lower the energy of a particle, the weaker its interactions are, the greater its freedom of behavior, the less strictly it obeys laws of physics, rules of behavior. If we may associate a low energy with an early evolutionary phase, then we might say that the laws of physics evolve together with the particles the behavior of which they describe, so are, like the particles, the product of a trial-and-error evolution. It isn't so much that particles and associated laws ''aren't fully determinate'' that laws work ''only on average''; it is because the behavior of particles is less related as their energy is lower and/or they are farther apart, as the energy, the properties of one particle are less definite according to the other. The farther apart they are and/or the smaller their energy is, the less their interaction horizons overlap, coincide, the weaker their interactions are, the less they can force each other behave in a coordinated manner. That the laws particles are observed to obey enable us to predict their behavior to some extent doesn't mean that the world is deterministic, predetermined, that it can be understood in terms of cause-and-effect. If when the mass of particles are both cause and effect of their interactions, then then mass cannot causally precede gravity nor the other way around: as I argued in my essay, causality has nothing to do with science but everything with religion.

      Regards, Anton

        Anton -- thanks for your comments. I'm glad you appreciate this idea that the world is a self-defining information structure -- something that's in a way so obvious, but difficult to describe clearly... since the structure is so complex and involves so many different ways of interacting.

        I think I agree with most of what you say, here and in your essay, but I'm not sure of the meaning of some of the language -- for example, saying particles are "both cause and effect of their interactions". The concept of causality has a clear meaning in specific contexts, though not in quantum physics. So I'm not sure why you say that big bang cosmology implies a prior cause outside the universe... apparently causality has for you a kind of a priori metaphysical sense. It is a problem in physics that so much of our terminology gets its meaning from 18th and 19th century worldviews; our current theories haven't coalesced into a new picture that could generate more appropriate language.

        Looking back over my essay, I think the weakest part is page 7, where I try to sketch how this evolutionary process works. There's a lot here I wish I'd thought through more clearly, though a better presentation might have taken more space than the essay permits.

        I want to point out one major issue -- at times here I'm talking about a process in which "answering questions" -- that is, agreeing on a certain outcome of a measurement -- helps set up another question or measurement-context. This is the process that constitutes the self-defining structure of the world, at a particular stage in evolution. It constantly gives rise to new situations in which new selections become meaningful.

        But at other times I'm talking about a higher-level process in which one self-defining system -- made of countless such Q&A events -- becomes a context within which a new, more complex structure of facts and principles can define itself, by asking and answering new kinds of questions. I failed to distinguish these different processes, which are (very roughly) analogous to the evolution of a given biological species versus the emergence of new species.

        The conclusion of this section IV -- that in the course of evolution, the world could become increasingly determinate -- would apply to the combination of these processes.

        Conrad,

        Well, if the universe creates itself (present tense) out of nothing, without any outside interference, then particles obviously have to create themselves, each other, so in they ultimately must be both the product and source of their interactions, of forces between them. If particles create, cause one another into existence so owe their properties to each other, if by exchanging energy they express and at the same time preserve each other's properties, existence, then a universe similarly only can exist, have particular properties as seen from the outside, if there's something outside of it the universe interacts with, it owes its properties to, so such universe must have been created by some Outside Interference. The 'nix' law according to which what comes out of nothing must add to nothing implies that a universe which creates itself out of nothing is that unique, paradoxical 'thing' which has no physical reality as a whole, as 'seen' from without, but only exist as seen from within, by an observer whose body particles are part of the sum which is to remain nil. That the sum of all debts and credits on Earth by definition is nil doesn't mean that there is no money. Though in this example there are no effects of the existence of money upon an outside observer, this wouldn't matter for the total amount of money on Earth, so here it doesn't matter for the existence of money and its quantity whether or not it can be observed from the outside. This is different for the universe as here everything inside of it, including space and time has to add to nil in a physical sense (think: destructive interference), to cancel as seen from without: if we actually could step outside of it, we would find nothing to observe.

        Only if the particles in the universe would only be the cause but not also the effect, the product of their interactions would it be justified to regard the universe as an object which has particular properties as a whole, as something which evolves in time, in which case the universe would live in a time realm not of its own making. Though it is said that time only begins at the big bang and we might concede that, indeed, as long as nothing happens, changes we cannot speak about the passing of time, a beginning requires something with respect to which it begins, so here big bang cosmology again refers to something outside of it relative to which it exists. In imagining to observe the universe from the outside (as if looking over God's shoulders at His creation), Big bang cosmology represents a religious view on the universe. In contrast, a self-creating universe has no physical reality as a whole, as 'seen' from without, so has no beginning in time, but contains and produces all time within. Whereas in a big bang universe all particles have the same birth date (according to a cosmic calendar outside the universe), in a self-creating universe the uncertainty principle says that a particle of an infinitesimal energy (but > 0) has an infinite lifetime, so it has always has existed and always will, even though the difference between its existence and non-existence also is infinitesimal. If according to the same principle the energy one particle has according to the other is greater as their distance is smaller, as the position of one particle is less indefinite according to the other, then in this universe particle acquire mass as they contract, in contrast to a big bang universe where particles contract because they have been created with a certain mass and gravity is attractive, so here mass would causally precede gravity, which of course is impossible. I am well aware how very hard it is to understand what I propose, so if you are interested in this matter you might have a peek at my blog.

        Regards, Anton

        8 days later

        Hi Conrad,

        Yours is a common sense approach that puts complex matters in perspective in a very helpful way.

        I agree that our information always depends on the web of our measurements - 'There's no such thing as information without a context that actually defines it.'

        And as you point out, information is ultimately based on our evolutionary nature - and its 'tangle of interdependencies'. There is no information stored in the phenomena of the universe - all facts are relevant only to the observer who has evolved in such a way as to perceive them as he does.

        I'm particularly interested by how you closely link the evolution of the cosmos to the evolution of organisms. In my essay I show how organisms are inevitably created from inorganic reality, and as the result of the same force - a gravitational-magnetic force that is inherent to a general field of Cosmae.

        I argue that though natural selection always plays a part, in a Cosmos that results from a General Field, the evolution of both Cosmos and life are similarly impelled. Nothing happens entirely because of natural selection; a determinant force is also at work.

        Furthermore, every species ultimately perceives the underlying reality in its own way, thus spinning a Species Cosmos from the greater energy field over evolutionary time.

        From your description of the interdependency of our parameter systems, I assume you'd agree with my central point - that It and Bit cannot be separated, and that neither ultimately prevails over the other: they must be correlated.

        All and all, an excellent effort - I hope you'll have a look at mine, and let me know what you think.

        Good Luck!

        John.

          Conrad,

          Excellant essay and one I find in keeping with the findings of a recently concluded 12 year experiment which show how deterministic acts of selection evolve to states of matter. Much like what you have suggested in your essay.

          I have some questions to run by you via email and would like to know what your email address is? My email address is msm@physicsofdestiny.com

          I look forward to hearing from you.

          Regards,

          Manuel

            Hi John -- Thanks for your comments, and I'm glad the essay made some sense to you. But the notion that "organisms are inevitably created from inorganic reality" is different from the concept of evolution through random selection that I'm working with here.

            Though your approach sounds unusual, it follows the traditional route in physics of explaining the world by hypothesizing an underlying universal pattern of some kind. My essay tries for a different kind of explanation, in terms of the interaction-patterning that's required to define and communicate information successfully.

            In order for any information to be observable, it has to be able to be defined and communicated in a context of other observables. So I question whether any hypothetical underlying reality is even relevant to explaining the structure of observable information, at a fundamental level.

            When we invent "forces" or other hypotheses behind the scenes, to explain what happens, we're capturing regularities in the observable phenomena that are certainly important to understand. But ultimately I think they need to be explained the way regularities in biology are understood - as arising from and helping to maintain the ongoing evolutionary process. In this case, the evolution of the system of real-time interaction that makes things observable.

            Hi Manuel -

            You and any other readers can contact me at conraddjohnson@gmail.com - note the double "d".

            I read your essay, but haven't commented on it yet, since I'm still puzzling about your basic terms - the meaning of "selection" and its relationship to "destiny". In my context, "natural selection" just refers to whatever randomly occurs, in a given situation. What makes measurement special, I think, is that quite complex situations constantly arise, in our universe, that let these (constrained) random selections contribute to the set-up of other such situations, over and over again.

            Hi Conrad,

            Thank you for sharing your viewpoint regarding (constrained) random selections. Have you ever wondered how do we know if everything is random or not? Uncertainty without certainty makes uncertainty a certainty. So if our world is truly deterministic then there must be a way to establish this and that is what my findings are about.

            Anyway, I truly enjoyed reading your clear and insightful essay and have rated it accordingly. I hope you do well in this competition and I hope more people in the community will read your essay.

            Best wishes,

            Manuel