The Correlation of Bit and It in a Cosmic System by john stephane selye

Thanks, Sir

mbasudeba@gmail.com

Dear Sir,

This is our letter to Dr. Wiliam Mc Harris in his thread. We thought it may be of interest to you.

Mathematics is the science of accumulation and reduction of similars or partly similars. The former is linear and the later non-linear. Because of the high degree of interdependence and interconnectedness, it is no surprise that everything in the Universe is mostly non-linear. The left hand sides of all equations depict free will, as we are free to chose or change the parameters. The equality sign depicts the special conditions necessary to start the interaction. The right hand side depicts determinism, as once the parameters and special conditions are determined, the results are always predictable. Hence, irrespective of whether the initial conditions could be precisely known or not, the results are always deterministic. Even the butterfly effect would be deterministic, if we could know the changing parameters at every non-linearity. Our inability to measure does not make it chaotic - "complex, even inexplicable behavior". Statistics only provides the minimal and maximal boundaries of the various classes of reactions, but never solutions to individual interactions or developmental chains. Your example of "the deer population in Northern Michigan", is related to the interdependence and interconnectedness of the eco system. Hence it is non-linear.

Infinities are like one - without similars. But whereas the dimensions of one are fully perceived, the dimensions of infinities are not perceptible. (We have shown in many threads here without contradiction that division by zero is not infinite, but leaves a number unchanged.) We do not know the beginning or end of space (interval of objects) or time (interval of events). Hence all mathematics involving infinities are void. But they co-exist with all others - every object or event exists in space and time. Length contraction is apparent to the observer due to Doppler shift and Time dilation is apparent due to changing velocity of light in mediums with different refractive index like those of our atmosphere and outer space.

Your example of the computation of evolutionary sequence of random numbers omits an important fact. Numbers are the inherent properties of everything by which we differentiate between similars. If there are no similars, then it is one; otherwise many. Many can be 2,3,...n depending upon the sequence of perceptions leading to that number. Often it happens so fast that we do not realize it. But once the perception of many is registered in our mind, it remains as a concept in our memory and we can perceive it even without any objects. When you use "a pseudorandom number generator to generate programs consisting of (almost) random sequences of numbers", you do just that through "comparison and exchange instructions". You develop these by "inserting random minor variations, corresponding to asexual mutations; second, by 'mating' parent programs to create a child program, i.e., by splicing parts of programs together, hoping that useful instructions from each parent occasionally will be inherited and become concentrated" and repeat it "thousands upon thousands of time" till the concept covers the desired number sequences. Danny Hillis missed this reasoning. Hence he erroneously thought "evolution can produce something as simple as a sorting program which is fundamentally incomprehensible". After all, computers are GIGO. Brain and Mind are not redundant.

Much has been talked about sensory perception and memory consolidation as composed of an initial set of feature filters followed by a special class of mathematical transformations which represent the sensory inputs generating interacting wave-fronts over the entire sensory cortical area - the so-called holographic processes. It can explain the almost infinite memory. Since a hologram retains the complete details at every point of its image plane, even if a small portion of it is exposed for reconstruction, we get the entire scene, though the quality is impaired. Yet, unlike an optical hologram, the neural hologram is formed by very low frequency post-synaptic potentials providing a low information processing capacity to the neural system. Further, the distributed memory mechanisms are not recorded randomly over the entire brain matter, as there seems to be preferred locations in the brain for each sensory input.

The impulses from the various sensory apparatus are carried upwards in the dorsal column or in the anterio-lateral spinothalamic tract to the thalamus, which relays it to the cerebral cortex for its perception. At any moment, our sense organs are bombarded by a multitude of stimuli. But only one of them is given a clear channel to go up to the thalamus and then to the cerebral cortex at any instant, so that like photographic frames, we perceive one frame at an instant. Unlike the sensory apparatuses that are subject specific, this happens for all types of impulses. The agency that determines this subject neutral channel, is called mind, which is powered by the heart and lungs. Thus, after the heart stops beating, mind stops its work.

However, both for consolidation and retrieval of sensory information, the holographic model requires a coherent source which literally 'illuminates' the object or the object-projected sensory information. This may be a small source available at the site of sensory repository. For retrieval of the previously consolidated information, the same source again becomes necessary. Since the brain receives enormous information that is present for the whole life, such source should always be illuminating the required area in the brain where the sensory information is stored. Even in dream state, this source must be active, as here also local memory retrieval and experience takes place. This source is the Consciousness.

Regards,

mbasudeba@gmail.com

I hope to have something to say about your essay, before day's end John..

Best wishes,

Jonathan

John, Highly speculative but you are one to see the forest then work down to the trees. This was a delight to read in that you offered imaginative solutions to age-old (200,000 years) problems. Thanks for contacting me. -Darrell Poeppelmeyer

Dear John,

You describe an intriguing, speculative view, combining physics with biology and philosophy. It seems that there are some strong relations between these fields, in the problem of it from bit vs bit from it. Good luck with the explorations and the contest!

Best regards,

Cristi Stoica

Hi John!

You may recall that we corresponded at the beginning; I was one of the first people to reach out to you, because when I read your essay, I was struck by the similarity of our thinking on several main points. You kindly responded right away, but mentioned that you had trouble downloading my essay. I wrote back and provided the link, but didn't hear back again. Were you ever able to access it?

Either way, I do hope that we'll stay in touch in the future. I would enjoy sharing thoughts and ideas with some of the like-minded/open-minded people I've met recently.

Best to you!

Ralph

Dear John,

No judgement below although I found Ojo's report extremely attractive.

As a complement to our previous interaction, I copy part of a recent post (to Gordon Watson) that may be relevant to the discussion we had.

******************

Concerning counterfactuality, as soon as a good theory of quantum observability is written, one will be able to check it as others assumpions in science. I claim that Grothendieck's approach with dessins d'enfants is an excellent starting point because it has all attributes of an archetype (read Dickau's essay) or a monad (read Ojo's essay) and other good ontological properties which I don't list here. Topos theory is not too far.

There are important essays here that pushed me to see the dessins d'enfants as "explicate imprints" of a more general (possibly spatio-temporal) algebraic geometry. I have in mind the Hopf fibrations as an excellent tool. For example you can lift S2 (the Riemann sphere) to S3 (the 3-sphere, i.e. the space of a single qubit (Jackson's intelligent qubit?), also the conformally compactified Minkowski space (see Matlock' essay and in relation to Bell's theorem Joy Christian 'realistic' approach).

Local/nonlocal arguments are insufficient, I think, mathematics should help in revealing the hidden machinary of the physical and ontological universe. May be this is Einstein's dream, not contradicting Wheeler, at the end of the day because we are, more or less, their children in knowledge.

************

May be this type of ontological/physical approach may be operational in other contexts such as the mind/body duality, i still do not know.

Kind regards,

Michel

John, as you may be aware, FQXi has just been moved to a new server and many people have found that posts are missing. The post I sent to you on the 1st or 2nd of August is missing, so I am resending the post in case it never gets restored:

Dear John,

I liked the fact that your essay is clearly and beautifully written, with a very natural progression of assertions and arguments.

You build a picture of three types of complex vortices (Inorganic, Organic and Sensory-Cognitive) interacting with a "General Field of Cosmae", with a fourth type likely to form which will allow us to:

"participate ever more intricately in the creation of Information...we will manipulate Bits and alter their nature - transforming them into tools of dimensional exploration that will enable us to peer into those gaps that were our impassable borders till now...this path leading to future generations that will be as divergent from us as we are from animals"

This is a techno-optimist science-fiction-like view of reality.

However there seems to be at least one flaw in your argument: You assert that the Primal Particle in the Organic Vortex is Omni-dimensional, while microorganisms are Intermediary Particles and DNA are Composite Particles. You also assert that the Primal Particles evolve to the more complex Intermediary Particles, which in turn evolve to the more complex Composite Particles. But surely it doesn't make sense to (in effect) assert that microorganisms are less complex than DNA and that DNA evolved from microorganisms?

I can see that we come to several similar conclusions about reality, e.g. that information is subjective experience, and that new categories of information evolve - but it's clear that the underlying mechanisms we propose are very different!

I congratulate you for building a very complex, convincing and original view of the nature of reality.

Cheers,

Lorraine

Dear Jeffrey Michael Schmitz:

I am an old physician and I don't know nothing of mathematics and almost nothing of physics,

Maybe you would be interested in my essay over a subject which after the common people, physic discipline is the one that uses more than any other, the so called "time".

I am sending you a practical summary, so you can easy decide if you read or not my essay "The deep nature of reality".

I am convince you would be interested in reading it. ( most people don't understand it, and is not just because of my bad English).

Hawking in "A brief history of time" where he said , "Which is the nature of time?" yes he don't know what time is, and also continue saying............Some day this answer could seem to us "obvious", as much than that the earth rotate around the sun....." In fact the answer is "obvious", but how he could say that, if he didn't know what's time? In fact he is predicting that is going to be an answer, and that this one will be "obvious", I think that with this adjective, he is implying: simple and easy to understand. Maybe he felt it and couldn't explain it with words. We have anthropologic proves that man measure "time" since more than 30.000 years ago, much, much later came science, mathematics and physics that learn to measure "time" from primitive men, adopted the idea and the systems of measurement, but also acquired the incognita of the experimental "time" meaning. Out of common use physics is the science that needs and use more the measurement of what everybody calls "time" and the discipline came to believe it as their own. I always said that to understand the "time" experimental meaning there is not need to know mathematics or physics, as the "time" creators and users didn't. Instead of my opinion I would give Einstein's "Ideas and Opinions" pg. 354 "Space, time, and event, are free creations of human intelligence, tools of thought" he use to call them pre-scientific concepts from which mankind forgot its meanings, he never wrote a whole page about "time" he also use to evade the use of the word, in general relativity when he refer how gravitational force and speed affect "time", he does not use the word "time" instead he would say, speed and gravitational force slows clock movement or "motion", instead of saying that slows "time". FQXi member Andreas Albrecht said that. When asked the question, "What is time?", Einstein gave a pragmatic response: "Time," he said, "is what clocks measure and nothing more." He knew that "time" was a man creation, but he didn't know what man is measuring with the clock.

I insist, that for "measuring motion" we should always and only use a unique: "constant" or "uniform" "motion" to measure "no constant motions" "which integrates and form part of every change and transformation in every physical thing. Why? because is the only kind of "motion" whose characteristics allow it, to be divided in equal parts as Egyptians and Sumerians did it, giving born to "motion fractions", which I call "motion units" as hours, minutes and seconds. "Motion" which is the real thing, was always hide behind time, and covert by its shadow, it was hide in front everybody eyes, during at least two millenniums at hand of almost everybody. Which is the difference in physics between using the so-called time or using "motion"?, time just has been used to measure the "duration" of different phenomena, why only for that? Because it was impossible for physicists to relate a mysterious time with the rest of the physical elements of known characteristics, without knowing what time is and which its physical characteristics were. On the other hand "motion" is not something mysterious, it is a quality or physical property of all things, and can be related with all of them, this is a huge difference especially for theoretical physics I believe. I as a physician with this find I was able to do quite a few things. I imagine a physicist with this can make marvelous things.

With my best whishes

Héctor

Dear john stephan selye:

What I wrote is for you I directed to the wrong person, whos name came from my list of names sorry

Héctor D. Gianni

Dear All

A standard-issue big city all-glass high-rise stands across the street from my usual bus stop. When I look up the high-rise facade, I can see the reflections of the near-by buildings and the white clouds from the sky above. Even when everything else looks pretty much the same, the reflections of the clouds are different, hour to hour and day to day.

After I boarded the bus, I rushed to get a single seat facing four others on a slightly elevated platorm. From my vantage point, I can't help noticing the shoes of the four passengers across from my seat are not the same, by either the make , the design, or the style, and that is true even when the four passengers happen to be members of the same family.

I could change the objects of my fascination from shoes to something else, to buttons on the dresses for example, but I do not think the result would have been any different. Diversity or Uniqueness would still rule the day! (There is a delightful essay on the subject of uniqueness by Joe Fisher in this contest.)

I am pretty sure people are fascinated by the diversity and the uniqueness in the world, when the other side of it is the inevitable boredom of sameness every time.

However, we have a need to know where all this beautiful and enchanting diversity comes from. Borrowing Wheelerian phraseology of "How come the quantum?", I ask "How come the diversity?" A standard physics answer is "Entropy always increases." (I am not a physicist, and I don't know if that is the final answer.)

Whenever I'm out of my depth, I go back to my theory of everything (TOE), which is a mental brew of common sense, intuition, gut, analogy, judgement, etc. etc. , buttressed when I can with a little thought-experiment.

The thought-experiment is simple. Imagine cutting a circle into two precisely, identical, and equal parts. Practically, there is no way we can get the desired result, because one part will be bigger or smaller in some way.

Physics - especially quantum physics - says it don't matter, do the superposition!

But superposition is fictive, an invention like the Macarena dance, and it has given us a cat, alive and dead at the same time.

I have heard that angels can dance on the tip of the needle, and now I'm finding out some of us can too!

Cheers and Good Luck to All,

Than Tin

Hi John,

I found your essay most intriguing especially when you mention "Evolutionary Impulse" which I found to be in keeping with the findings obtained in the 12 year experiment I have recently concluded. Although you have a different approach to the topic than I do, I found your essay truly a joy to read. You made me wonder... what if?

I look forward to reading more of your work and I wish you well in the competition.

Regards,

Manuel

Dear John,

I liked the fact that your essay is clearly and beautifully written, with a very natural progression of assertions and arguments.

You build a picture of three types of complex vortices (Inorganic, Organic and Sensory-Cognitive) interacting with a "General Field of Cosmae", with a fourth type likely to form which will allow us to:

"participate ever more intricately in the creation of Information...we will manipulate Bits and alter their nature - transforming them into tools of dimensional exploration that will enable us to peer into those gaps that were our impassable borders till now...this path leading to future generations that will be as divergent from us as we are from animals"

This is a techno-optimist science-fiction-like view of reality.

However there seems to be at least one flaw in your argument: You assert that the Primal Particle in the Organic Vortex is Omni-dimensional, while microorganisms are Intermediary Particles and DNA are Composite Particles. You also assert that the Primal Particles evolve to the more complex Intermediary Particles, which in turn evolve to the more complex Composite Particles. But surely it doesn't make sense to (in affect) assert that microorganisms are less complex than DNA and that DNA evolved from microorganisms?

I can see that we come to several similar conclusions about reality, e.g. that information is subjective experience, and that new categories of information evolve - but it's clear that the underlying mechanisms we propose are very different!

I congratulate you for building a very complex, convincing and original view of the nature of reality.

Cheers,

Lorraine

Dear John,

All the posts that went missing because of the FQXi server upgrade now seem to be restored. I have now received the post you sent a day or so ago. I have rated your essay and given it a good score, and although I couldn't see the actual rating you had before and after (seemingly because of the FQXi server upgrade) your rating would definitely have risen. A minute ago I attempted to rate your essay again to make sure that the rating had indeed been recorded, and the message said that I had already rated your essay.

Speaking of ratings, by my calculations I have had a few very good ratings, but I have also had a lot of 1 and/or 2 ratings from people who have left no comments about my essay!

Cheers,

Lorraine

Hello John from Margriet O'Regan

I'm too am in great favour of adding at least one more component to our cosmos - as you will see in my essay that thing is 'knowingness' - not consciousness, nor even thinking, or computing - but raw, undifferentiated 'knowingness' - which, I believe on the evidence my 'geometrical-objects-are-information' hypothesis provides, is not obviously a generalized open-field like phenomenon but most certainly exists at the very heart, core & foundation of all individual increments of macro solid matter.

Of the many other points you make in your essay one I especially like is your 'gear-mesh' phenomenon. I'm not sure if it quite the same thing but I have long espoused the notion - on the best of evidence mind - of our universe's ability to 'ratchet' its existents. Which is one of the reasons why evolution operates as it does. Mathematicians & theoretical physicists - among others - go on & on about the 'irreversibility' of their equations - but in a 'geared' or 'ratcheted' universe it is precisely any of these real, demonstrable 'gears' & 'ratchets' that literally prevent the phenomena in question from 'going backwards' !!! which is the whole point of these particular phenomena. ..

As you will see in my essay my own investigations have led me to conclude that 'information' is NOT digits - no kind nor amount of them (including any that can be extracted from quantum phenomena!), nor how algorithmically-well they may be massaged & shunted through any device that uses them.

Unequivocally they - digits - make for wonderful COUNTING & CALCULATING assistants, witness our own now many & various, most excellent, counting, calculating devices BUT according to my investigations real thinking is an entirely different phenomenon from mere counting, calculating & computing.

For which phenomenon - real thinking - real information is required.

My own investigations led me to discover what I have come to believe real information is & as it so transpires it turns out to be an especially innocuous - not to omit almost entirely overlooked & massively understudied - phenomenon, none other than the sum total of geometrical objects otherwise quite really & quite properly present here in our universe. Not digits.

One grade (the secondary one) of geometrical-cum-informational objects lavishly present here in our cosmos, is comprised of all the countless trillions & trillions of left-over bump-marks still remaining on all previously impacted solid objects here in our universe - that is to say, all of the left-over dents, scratches, scars, vibrations & residues (just the shapes of residues - not their content!) (really) existing here in the universe.

Examples of some real geometrical objects of this secondary class in their native state are all of the craters on the Moon. Note that these craters are - in & of themselves - just shapes - just geometrical objects. And the reason they are, also one & at the same time, informational objects too, can be seen by the fact that each 'tells a story' - each advertises (literally) some items of information on its back - each relates a tale of not only what created it but when, where & how fast & from what angle the impacting object descended onto the Moon's surface. Again, each literally carries some information on its back.

(Note : Not a digit in sight !!)

How we actually think - rather than just count, calculate & compute - with these strictly non-digital entities, specifically these geometrical-cum-informational objects, in precisely the way we do, please see my essay.

I did not make the distinction between computing with digits & real thinking with real information, sufficiently strongly in my essay.

This contest is such a wonderful 'sharing' - Wow - & open to amateurs like myself - Wow. How great is that !!! Thank you Foundational Questions Institute !!! What a great pleasure it has been to participate. What a joy to read, share & discuss with other entrants !!!

Margriet O'Regan